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I have never been as disappointed in Apple as I am with the new iPad.

Here’s why:

AT&T as the only carrier
AT&T SUCKS!  Need I say more?  Those Verizon commercials about AT&T are all 100% correct.  AT&T’s 3G coverage is sad, Verizon’s is amazing.  Until AT&T is gone, the only version I’ll ever get is the WiFi only and use my MiFi 2200 on Verizon for data on the move.

No front-facing camera
ALL of Apple’s computers and monitors come with webcams these days, even the iPhone has a camera in the back.  Why did they not do this? AT&T probably had some say in it, because they SUCK so badly, and wouldn’t be able to handle video conference over 3G.

No Multitasking
They touted this device as something “better” than a netbook, yet it cannot even multitask like a netbook.  ANY netbook is better than this device for this one simple feature.  This feature is “crucial” for a multi-function device like this for it to have any kind of usability outside of basic apps.

The iPhone’ish Operating System
I would’ve preferred something more of a hybrid between the iPhone OS and Mac OS X, I know that would’ve probably required more power and therefore shortened the battery life, but add only 1-2mm thickness and a lot more battery could fit in if shaped correctly.  Having a “fuller” OS probably would’ve solved the multitasking issue and would allow people to run more apps therefore making it that much more of a “usable” device.  Even with this robustness, it would most likely NOT cut into the Laptop market since it doesn’t have a mouse and sometimes you just need a mouse.

No Removable Memory Options
Apple should have simply created 2 versions, a WiFi Only and a WiFi+3G, have some onboard memory, maybe 16 or 32GB, then allow us to expand with it SD cards.  SD Cards are getting bigger all the time and would allow much greater flexibility for expansion.   Of course that would cut into Apple’s profit margins when they want everyone to buy the 128GB version coming out next year.

More Codecs
As much of a “media company” as Apple is, they still need to support the needs of the public as a whole.  Everyone, or at least most, has DiVX AVI or MKV movies that they’ve downloaded or gotten from friends.  It would be really nice if these videos could be natively viewed on this device.

Overall, complaints aside, it is still a nice device.  For the price, it’s still, in my opinion, a much better value than the Amazon Kindle line.  The Kindle is too “plain jane” and black and white while the iPad is the Kindle’s hot younger sister that still has some growing up to do. :-)

I will watch the iPad over the next year or so and if they do make some of these improvements, especially the carrier, multitasking and front-facing camera, I’ll buy 2-3 for me, the kids, and around the house.

Apple, Gadgets, General, Review, Software, Technical, Technology, iPad 1st gen, 3G, Amazon, Apple, AT&T sucks, AVI, complaints, ipad, iPhone, Kindle, Mac, MiFi 2200, MKV, Review, SD, Verizon, webcam, WiFi

Finally Apple’s tablet device has been officially announced. Steve Jobs just now got done with the presentation finished.

Here are some basic specs…
1/2 inch thin, 1.5 pounds, ~9.7 inch high rez display, 1ghz Apple A4 chip… New Apple chip that contain all the controllers. Accelerometer & compass, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, speaker/mic and 30pin (standard) connector, 10 hours of battery life, 16 to 64gb Flash storage…

IPhone App compatible and can be scaled up to new screensize (pixel doubling)

More to come.

Apple, Cloud Computing, Gadgets, General, Software, Technical, Technology, Web Accelerometer, Apple, Apple A4 Chip, Bluetooth, compass, ipad, iPhone, islate, itablet, slate, steroids, tablet, WiFi

Later today Google is expected to release a new web browser based on Webkit (what Safari uses) and Firefox.   I feel that it will be a welcome addition to the browser wars.

I used Firefox, but have notice a lot more browser crashes with 3.x than previous versions and it feels quite laggy sometimes even on a Quad processor machine with 3gb RAM.  It gets to the point sometimes where I just load up Safari or Opera to surf sometimes.

IE just sucks.  I ONLY use IE for site testing during web development and for the “best” experience accessing my day job’s Outlook Web Access (OWA) for email.  Other than that, IE is not a part of my day to day browser use.

If this Google takes the best of Webkit and Firefox and makes it “better, faster, stronger”, then I will use it.  Of course I will be frank on my review of it and will do my best not to be biased since I use Google almost exclusive for my search needs, Email (Google Apps for Domains), Analytics for stats, etc.

I will post up a review once I get my hands on it and can put it through it’s paces.

I think Google will have more downloads of this browser in the first 24 hours than Firefox did on it’s 3.0 launch day if it posts up something on the front page of Google.  This could be huge.

Apple, Cool Stuff, General, Review, Software, Technical, Technology 3.0, Analytics, Apple, browser, Chrome, engine, Firefox, Google, Google Apps for Domains, IE, Laggy, Microsoft, Outlook web access, OWA, RAM, Safari, search, war, Webkit

What a complainer… Sure, there are going to be bugs, lots of them sometimes in the case of a new product of this type… People should almost expect them.

We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint. Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith filed the complaint yesterday against the iPhone maker, alleging that the new iPhone’s 3G performance and reliability has been subpar, despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign. Considering that a true fix has yet to be issued for users’ 3G problems, this could just be the tip of the iPhone lawsuit iceberg. More >>

But now, this woman wants to file a class action lawsuit against Apple due to 3G not living up to her expectations.  Even though the Infineon 3G chipset may be a bit flawed, it’s still not completely Apple’s fault.  AT&T is the provider and that can cause the dropcalls, coverage (or lack of) issues and so on.

I live in Kentucky and don’t even have 3G where I live, so I cannot really vouche for the quality, but I did get a chance to travel to Lexington KY this past week and had NO problems whatsoever… Actually my 3G was much faster on my phone that one of my friend’s tethered BlackBerry.  I brought up pages much faster on my phone than he did on his laptop.

Some people just don’t have anything better to do… Just ask for a refund and get a different phone… geesh.

Asinine, Cell Phones, Gadgets, Review, Technical, iPhone 3G, Apple, Blackberry, Class action, coverage, Defective, dropped calls, Infineon, iPhone, Jessica Alena Smith, Kentucky, KY, Lawsuit, Lexington

I got my new 3G today after waiting for two weeks for Apple to get more in.  Went down to the AT&T Store and sat there and waited while the silly customer service reps sat there and explained EVERY little feature of the phones to the customers… Geeesh.  Took about 25 minutes for just one person ahead of me in at each of the 3 reps… Amazing.

Finally, I got to the desk and the girl went back and got it for me and started chatting up a storm about it… I told her I already had the 2G and already knew everything about it, if I don’t, I’ll read the manual.  I also voiced my disappointment with having to pay $10 more for 3G in an area that doesn’t even have 3G service.  Isn’t that “illegal” to charge more for a service that isn’t even offered?   They tried saying, and it must be the official AT&T stance, that the higher price was to be “more competitive with the other data plans”, not because of the faster 3G speeds.  Competitive?  By raising the price higher towards the crackberry plan?  COME ON!  I’ll admit that I knew I would have to pay $10 more a month, so I didn’t make that big of a stink.

THEN, she asked if I wanted SMS messaging…  Prior to ordering, I didn’t realize they stripped out the 200 SMS messages that came with the 2G plan… This is getting silly.  Apple and AT&T are really letting this iPhone thing go to their heads. So I had to pay $5/mo for just 200 SMS messages.

So basically, due to the lack of my area’s 3G coverage, I am paying $15/mo more just to have the same level of service that I had on my 2G.  They better be investing on getting 3G in my area and loosen up on the SMS.  SMS is probably the most efficient use of the network and they charge the MOST for it!  COME ON!

I ended up calling and making a stink about the SMS and got 5 free months of SMS + 1000 extra rollover, which I’ll never use.

They activated it in the store and synced up my contacts with MobileME via WiFi before leaving.  Once I got home, this is where the waiting started…

Syncing with iTunes took about 60 minutes.

It had to:

1. Restore from yesterday’s backup of my 2G. (20 minutes)
2. Backup the new 3G config. (20 minutes)
3. Then it did some iTune maintenance (5 minutes)
4. Then proceeded to sync up my measly 3.5gb of music and apps. (15 minutes)

The backup thing runs like ALL the time now instead of being manual and although I appreciate the backups, I don’t feel like I need it EVERY time I add or change something.  Especially when it takes as long as it does.  The other day, after not syncing for a week or so, it took 30 minutes or so to just do the backup.

THEN, I couldn’t use any of the 3 cradles that I have for my phone due to the physical differences between 2G and 3G… A Dremel tool easily solved this, but again… This is a negative for Apple.  At least they didn’t decide to change the actual connection layout of the plug.

Overall, the audio is much better in the earpiece, the external speaker is louder… Some things seem a bit zippier and the keyboard seems a bit “tappier” and faster to type on.  Maybe it’s the more comfortable feel, I dunno.

I am going to do my best to get this “$15/mo more for nothing” thing remedied, but most likely, I’ll just have to eat it.

I’m actually what you could consider a recent Apple “fanboy” but I am starting to feel the euphoria I felt about Apple for the last few years starting to fade.  If they get any worse, they are going to lose me and my evangelism about Apple and surely, I am not alone in these feelings.

Apple, Cell Phones, Review, Technology 2G, 3G, Apple, Cradle, Dremel, iPhone, iTunes, MobileME, Syncing, WiFi

The new Apple iPhone 3G was announced today (6/9/2009) at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. The new price is only $199 (8gb) and $299 (16gb) due to carrier subsidies. It has tons of new features built into it, notably GPS and 3G (of course) and will definitely make inroads not only into the corporate market with the new MS Exchange functionality, but also into the more frugal consumer market. $199 makes this phone very competitive with the higher end blackberries and cheaper than most of the Microsoft Smartphones.

Most of the base features are the same, like the flash storage capacity, but Apple did take suggestions from the community and improve the design, such as making the headphone jack flush as to not require a special adaptor to use non-Apple headphones.

The 16GB model also has a white backed version as well as the new Black backed and the front of the phone is wholly unchanged…

Included accessories, everything is pretty much the same:

• iPhone 3G
• Stereo Headset with mic
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• SB Power Adapter (A bit smaller now)
• Documentation
• Cleaning/polishing cloth
• SIM ejector tool (a paperclip!)

Look for the new iPhone to reach stores around July 11th. Hopefully supply will be able to hit the demand that I anticipate. I plan on getting ahold of one for myself.

Apple, Cell Phones, Cool Stuff, Gadgets, Software, Technical, Technology 16gb, 199, 2008, 299, 3G, 8gb, Apple, Black iPhone, Exchange, iPhone, me.com, Mobile ME, San Francisco, White iPhone, WWDC

The new Microsoft Surface technology looks pretty slick, albeit a bit expensive.  Perhaps someday, after I make a bunch of $$ on my Apple Stock (AAPL), I’ll be able to afford one. :-)

Check out this video below with a “new” voiceover.  Funny Stuff…

Humor, Microsoft, Technology, YouTube AAPL, Apple, Microsoft, Stock, Surface

I got home this evening and docked my iPhone to get the 1.1.4 update… The docking started up iTunes and notified me that the update was available, so I went ahead and started it.

The normal upgrade procedure started and I went about my browsing during the install.  It seemed to take a bit longer (probably adding the framework for the SDK) and it rebooted as usual.

I noticed the signal was low when I unlocked the keypad and the signal didn’t get better (I usually have 3 bars or so).   So I went ahead and rebooted the phone again and it came up to this screen…

I went ahead and connected it, it synced successfully, but STILL came back to this screen every time.  Then I took out and reseated the SIM card…………… Nothing.

CONCLUSION:

I was getting ready to call Apple Support, then I realized that before I started the update,  the Apple Update asked me to update iTunes and a Leopard Graphics fix… After updating iTunes, rebooting, then syncing the phone with the NEW version, it kicked right in and activated it.

MAKE SURE YOU UPDATE iTUNES TO THE LATEST BEFORE UPDATING TO 1.1.4!

Disclaimer:  I did originally have a Jailbroken 1.1.1 then went to 1.1.3, before reverting back to 1.1.2 (Jailbroken) and then back to 1.1.3 full to get the new features.  So, I’m not sure if this could have caused any of this.  Since it is fixed now, I figured it was NOT the cause. 

Apple, Cell Phones, Software, Technical, Technology 1.1.4 update, Apple, iPhone, iTunes, JailBreak, SDK, Upgrade

Blackberries have been out since approximately 3:30pm Monday. All carriers are affected since all Blackberry email is dependent upon RIM’s servers being operational for email to be received.

The whole model is a bit silly in my opinion and since this isn’t the first time this has happened, RIM should rethink their architecture a bit to allow fallback of some kind or at least have multiple redundant locations to allow service continuity.

I am glad I went with an iPhone instead of a Blackberry since iPhones aren’t tied to the manufacturer like the Blackberry is. Believe it or not, iPhone owners are on a much longer leash. There is not a single service on the iPhone that would become “Unavailable” if Apple were to have a network issue. Apple was smart enough to simply put a standard POP3/IMAP client on the phone that accesses the user’s mail server directly via WiFi or EDGE.

Companies, instead of investing HUGE (and I mean HUGE) amounts of money into the Blackberry Enterprise Server, should simply open up a secure IMAP port and allow users to retrieve their email from iPhones. Eventually Apple will probably update the mail.app to allow direct MAPI or RPC over HTTPS type connections to interface with corporate Microsoft Exchange Servers.

This is as simple as configuring a few services and opening/securing some ports whereas BlackBerry Enterprise Servers licenses cost as much as $60,000 for 1000 users and many tens of thousands for additional CALs. For a large company, the cost JUST for the licenses could cost > $100,000. That’s not including the cost of the administrators to install it, maintain it, and additional hardware to support it and lost productivity due to outages of the manufacturer’s infrastructure.

Just configure IMAP/MAPI, open some ports and buy an iPhone! :-)

Cell Phones, Technology Apple, Blackberry, IMAP, iPhones, MAPI, outage, POP3, RIM