My rationale for wanting an iPhone

Posted on July 9, 2008

Over in the comments section of Beerorkid.com Mr. T had asked “What was your thought process behind your decision to buy one? I am always interested in hearing about the rationale behind consumer choices for big investments, particularly things like iPhones which are expensive investments, albeit nice ones.

I had started typing up a response, but it quickly became a short essay, so I decided it would be easier (and give me some content, woohoo!) to respond here. ‘Cuz that’s what blogs are for. My answer begins below:

The iPhone is awesome. But I suppose that’s not enough detail, so I’ll go on. Before I had got an iPhone, before there was even an announcement of making an iPhone, I had been wanting a PDA. Something that I can carry with me, that I can check email, take notes, and browse the internet on. I have had a laptop since 2004, but a laptop isn’t always convenient or practical to carry around, so I wanted something portable enough to fit in my pocket. But between an iPod, a cell phone, and a PDA, that’s a lot of pocket space. Then the iPhone came along. And you know what? It made me a fan of convergent tech.

The big seller for me on the phone isn’t the iPod functionality. I rarely use it, to be honest. When I’m driving in my car or working, I normally listen to my 80 gigabyte iPod, just because it contains my entire collection. The only time I listen to music in phone is if I’m doing some shopping, I might occasionally pocket my earbuds and listen off the phone, just to kind of tune out the rest of the world while I shop. For me, the high point of the iPhone is that it is both a phone and a portable internet browser and email device. I love that.

I can check email pretty much where ever I am, so I’m up to date on what’s going on with work, with blogs, or whatever else I may be into. Let’s say I’m with some friends at a bar or whatever, and someone says, hey guys, let’s go to a movie. Perfect, I pull out my phone, check the local theater chain’s website for movies and times and boom, we’re ready. Need to find somewhere? I can check google maps and get directions from my current local. I can even search for nearby businesses, if I want to find, say, the closest Chinese restaurant. Want to make tentative plans for next week? I can check iCal and pencil you in. It’s perfect for everything I want in a portable device.

There are some caveats though. The internet isn’t as fast as I would like. But to be honest, I’m just happy to have internet where ever I go. The camera isn’t that great. If you’ve got plenty of bright light it works awesome. But anything less than perfect lighting and it’s pretty subpar. I end up throwing away a lot of pictures I take. And every now and then (but not too often) I have to reboot my phone. Which is still an alien concept to a lot of people, but let’s face it, this isn’t a phone, it’s a very compact computer which just happens to have cellular capabilities.

And you know what, nearly a year later, I still love my phone. It fits into my life wonderfully. And even though the phone has been available for just over a year, chicks still dig it

Those Wily Portuguese!

Posted on July 8, 2008

*shakes fists at Portugal*

iPhone Portugal forums‘ user Coimbra claims to have unboxed an iPhone 3G, and has posted pics to prove it:

Now, since none of yous can read Portuguese, and I can, I’ll help. Coimbra says that the 3G speed is “really good”, but most of the good stuff requires the (as of yet) unreleased iTunes 7.7, so he can’t use a lot of the new features yet, including the app store. When asked where he bought it, he said that it’s “not boughten”, and how he acquired it is a “secret”. And that’s about all he says. The thread is only three pages long, mostly posts of “good job” and “can I have one”. The photos, at a glance, look real. And being as the new iPhone goes on sale in a few days, it would seem likely that someone would have gotten a hold of one some how (most likely means used by the criminal classes). Good on ya, I guess, Coimbra.

Macworld Keynote

Posted on January 15, 2008

Welp, another Steve Jobs Macworld address has come and gone. Naturally, every boy and his blog is going to have a post up on their thoughts; I may as well throw my share in. This may have been the fastest they’ve gotten the video online yet, I’m watching it now.

Time Capsule

Time Capsule, the new backup solution to be paired with Time Machine, is intriguing. I’ve been sorely tempted to get an Airport base station, but had a hard time justifying spending $179 on a router, even if it is pre-N. But the 500 Gb Time Capsule is awful tempting. If I can use the drive as a shared network drive for files instead of for backup, I may just get this. Heck, even if I can’t and I have to plug in a MyBook for file serving, I may just get one. I got drives lying around. My only complaint? USB-only for plugging in ext. HDs. Really? In this day and age when we’ve got superior technologies like FireWire and eSATA, I have to use a USB cord? Hecka lame. But still, one of these might be in my future.

iPhone 1.1.3

I’m actually installing this as I type this. I love that whenever Steve mentions web clips, people in the audience laugh. Webclips was a pretty jokey update in Safari 3. The new Maps is an awesome update to the app, and I know there have been a few occasions where I could have used GPS’s half-retarded little cellular-triangulation brother. I’m pretty excited about it.

SMS-ing to different people is neat, although really only useful every now and then. But this gives me a chance to vent my biggest gripe about the SMS feature. Is it Copy and Paste? No. Lack of MMS? Meh who cares. It’s the interface. “But Joshua, the interface is just like iChat, who wouldn’t love that?” That’s the problem. I start to think of text messages as iChat messages, which don’t cost me any money on the computer, instead of text messages, that do cost me money on the phone. It used to be that I’d never get anywhere near my 200-a-month allotment, but with the iPhone I’ve done it twice. Ack. Gotta reign that in, or pay the extra 5 bucks for more messages. But I digress.

Interface customization will hopefully be as good as I’m expecting. I honestly don’t need Stocks on my phone’s main screen, or YouTube for that matter. Watching the keynote, it looks like I can’t remove them completely, relegating them to a menu, but if I can push them off to a second screen where I never have to see them, I’ll be content.

I don’t use my phone for watching movies outside of the occasional Diggnation, so I’m not fussed over the new video features. Oh, and the $20 upgrade cost for the iPod Touch is definitely lame, but I don’t own one so I don’t care. I’ll ask Tyler, who has a Touch, if he plans on upgrading. I’m wondering though, if one chooses not to upgrade, will they be excluded from future point-release software updates, or will there be two versions of the Touch’s updates, one for paid-upgraders and one for the old school Touches.

iTunes and TV

Movie Rentals? Not the most exciting thing in the world, as I’m a Netflix subscriber. But I can see myself being in a situation where I just feel like watching a movie right now, so I may be renting. If anything, now I’ll finally get around to seeing the Simpsons movie and Ratatouille. Funny that Blockbuster’s stock dropped %15 today though.

TV’s update and price drop are pretty meh to me. I still can’t watch my .avi movies on the device without hacking it, so I don’t care. It seems like the price drop is proof that they’re disappointed in the lagging sales of the TV. I wonder if there will be a big outcry the way there was with the iPhone

The MacBook Air

I’m not gonna lie. I’m impressed they got it so thin, and if I’m honest, a little jealous. The 3/4″ thick chassis makes my 1″ thick MacBook Pro look like a fatty. And It is a sexy machine, pushing us even closer to devices that look like something on Star Trek. I’ll cop to saying that it was too soon, they wouldn’t ditch optical drives right away. But I think they’ve managed to do it right. I think. If you have another Mac, the remote optical drive sharing is brilliant. But if you don’t have another computer, you’re kind of left high and dry. It really seems like they’re pushing for buying from iTMS instead of buying physical discs with this. The gestures feature is great too, and something I wish I had on my MBP.

All the sexiness and awesomeness aside though, spec-wise The MBa is incredibly disappointing. For $1800, what I paid for my MacBook Pro, you get a laptop that is spec’d slightly more less on par with a regular $1,100 MacBook. The 1.6 GHz proc is a paltry speed, considering the MB ships with a 2.0 GHz chip in the base model. Once again, they’re using the crappy integrated graphics chip. You get one USB port. Which means you’ll need a hub. No FireWire (once again, why oh why are they abandoning FireWire so?), no ethernet (there’s a USB adapter available for those who need to plug in, but that’ll take up your one USB port…) Nothing is user-servicable. The 2 gigs of memory is onboard memory, meaning you can’t change or upgrade it. I’m assuming the HD isn’t replaceable. Even the battery isn’t user-replaceable.

Oh, and if you want that sweet 64Gb solid state drive? $3,100. That’s fucking expensive for such a low-spec machine, it’s ridiculous. That’s more than I paid for the first three cars I owned. And really, I was surprised they couldn’t squeeze more than five hours of battery life out of the thing. But still, it is a step towards the future, and in a few years, this will be the next generation MacBook. But for now, I’m not buying it. I’m saving my pennies for a Time Capsule instead.

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