iDude.org

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.

Today, Steve Jobs announced at an Apple Event that the iPhone will, by summertime, get a full version update to 2.x… The 2.0 update will provide ActivSync Microsoft Exchange capabilities including full PUSH email, calendar and contact syncing… The new 2.0 will also provide the framework for the next level of iPhone/Touch apps. Click the image above to see more.

This is very exciting news and is going to usher in the next stage of smartphone domination by the Apple iPhone.

My next main hope is at the release date, Apple will release an 3G iPhone as well as additional improvements, perhaps even a slightly larger screened enhanced phone/PDA more geared towards Fanboy/Power Users that will be more multimedia oriented and perhaps even be able to stream video and interface with the movie element of iTunes, but I’m just dreaming here.

I still think a tablet type Mac that is small, very portable, priced competitively and powerful enough to provide a desktop level experience would be really cool. Then add a docking station that can hook it up to a mouse/monitor/keyboard. If I could have something like this that could be everything for me, I would get one in a heartbeat. PC, Cellphone, VoIP phone, PDA, mobile computing platform, etc.

The Axiotron Mac OSX unofficial Mac Tablet is good, but still a bit larger and more expensive than what I describe above.

Apple has filed patents for something of this sort (the docking station concept), perhaps someday it will leave the vaporware stage.

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.