Tue - July 3, 2007
iPhone is here!
Apple first announced its iPhone about a half year ago, and now it's here! Here's my take on the device.
July 3,
2007
Now listening and watching in iTunes and on iPhone:
Straight Outta Lynwood (DualDisc [CD on side, DVD other side])
featuring "i'll Sue Ya" and "Don't Download This Song"
by Weird Al Yankovic
APPLE'S iPHONE IS HERE AT LAST!!!!
I have always liked consumer electronics, especially stereo equipment and other sound-producing devices. I thoroughly enjoy my iPod. I like computers, too, although I'm rather lost if something goes wrong with them. But there are two popular consumer gadgets that I've never quite mastered. One is the VCR. Yes, that old simple dinosaur of a thing, and I never did learn how to use one well. The other one is a cellphone. I have found cellphones to be too difficult to master other than the most basic function, placing a phone call. My first cellphone was a Nokia that was so big it would only fit in my bulkiest pockets. After that I got a Motorola flip-phone, which was very nice. (This was a hand-me-down from my wife after she got a new one. Well actually, I originally bought the new phone for me, but she liked it so much, and she uses a cellphone much more than I ever do, so I gave her the new one and took her old phone.) I found this phone much easier to use than the old Nokia. My third phone, which I got free with a 2-year contract, was a Sony Ericsson phone, my first camera phone. I hated that phone so much that within a couple months I went back to my old Motorola. The Sony Ericsson phone was impossible for me to figure out how to use, and also very annoying the way it would randomly beep if bumped in my pocket.
My cellphones. The one on the left is the Motorola, which I like.
The one on the right is the Sony Ericsson, which I hate.
They may look similar, but there's a world of difference in trying to use the things.
In January, after Steve Jobs announced Apple's new phone, I went to Apple's website to see what it would be like. WOW!!!! For the first time EVER, I was mesmerized by a cellphone. What I could tell immediately would make the difference on Apple's phone was that it would run on OS X, the same operating system that Mac computers use.
Steve Jobs holding up the iPhone
I have been a Mac fan since I first started using computers back in 1992. I have always liked Apple's operating systems, but OS X is their best operating system ever. It is beautiful and so easy to use. My first Mac computer was OS 7.5, which I really liked. My second was OS 9, which even though it had more features and was more technologically advanced than OS 7.5, seemed to lack some of the fun 7.5 had. When OS X came out, I was reborn as a new Apple enthusiast, even though I had never turned away from Apple. It's just that all the FUN that 7.5 was had returned in OS X...with much more technological capability and beauty to boot!
So, I'm a huge fan of OS X, and when I found out they were putting it on a telephone, I knew this was one phone I would enjoy having. I knew this was one phone that I could easily operate. I watched the demonstrations on Apple's website and practically drooled, dreaming of having such a beautiful phone.
My wife was doing the same. And she's the one who really needs the phone, since she's a flight attendant and thus away from home more than she is at home. While I have no use for such a fancy phone since I just go to the office and come home, it would be definitely valuable for her. I really wanted her to be able to have the iPhone, as much as she herself wanted to have it, but how could we come up with all that money?
Sign in window of AT&T store on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor
How lucky we were that just as the iPhone came out, we received a one-time special sum of money which enabled us to buy the phone. She got the phone within 48 hours of its release. I guess that's what you call an early adopter.
Although the REAL early adopter in my circle of friends and family is the assistant pastor at our church. He is an even bigger Apple fan than I am. You go into his office and he has an Apple tower computer with two huge monitors side by side, with a laptop set up next to them. He waited in line the first day to get the phone, and on Saturday night at church I got my first glimpse and handholding of Apple's new phone. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Less than 24 hours later, we had our own iPhone. I am so happy for my wife that she can have this while she's on the road, and she has been definitely thrilled with the phone.
It seems weird calling it a phone. People say, "It's crazy to pay $600 for a phone." But it's more like a mini-computer that fits in your pocket. On this phone, you can view REAL web pages (not altered or reduced ones for mobile devices), look at pictures from your iPhoto collection, listen to music from your iTunes collection, watch TV shows and movies from your iTunes collection, do full Mac e-mail as well as text messaging, have your full address book from your computer, AND have a telephone with you! While other phones do some of these things, or perhaps most of them, no phone comes out of the box doing all of them, and no phone can do it all so effortlessly. I saw a web article that showed how you could do all the things an iPhone can do by putting a bunch of third party software together. But you'd have to jury-rig it all together, so it wouldn't have the continuity that iPhone has.
But it's not just what iPhone does, it's also how it does it. What makes the iPhone special is its finger-generated activity that is unlike anything I have seen anywhere else. For example, to look through your photo album, you just move your finger across the screen to go to the next photo, or back to go to the previous one. To enlarge the picture to see part of it up close, just use your finger and thumb, starting close together and spreading them out. To shrink the picture again, make your finger and thumb come closer together. It's like magic. It's beautiful. (Speaking of beautiful, the color on the iPhone screen is dazzlingly brilliant. Truly mesmerizing.) To scroll through your music on your iPhone, you move your finger across the album cover pictures, and they flip through, like those old restaurant booth juke box labels used to do. Once you find the one you want, tap your finger on the picture, and the songs on the album appear, then you choose the song you want to hear by tapping again. It's really something.
As you move your finger across the screen, the album covers flip through.
In order for the iPhone to work with iTunes, an update was needed for iTunes. While I don't use the iPhone, I use iTunes, and I was a bit confused at first that music videos are no longer in their own folder, but are instead mixed in with the music. I couldn't figure out how to get the video part to play. Then, pretty much by accidentally clicking an unknown button, I discovered that the new iTunes fills up your whole computer screen with Cover Flow (the view that makes your album covers like a juke box, as shown in the picture above), and when you choose the music video, it plays right there, with the other album covers on each side of it. (Or you can choose to view the video full screen.) Cover Flow is gorgeous. It's like the albums are sitting on a shiny black marble surface, so shiny that they reflect against the surface. This looks sharp enough on an iPhone screen, but on a full 17" widescreen LCD monitor, it is magnificent. Apple has done it again.
There are a few minor negatives with the iPhone. The main one, which everyone was furious about when it was announced by Apple and AT&T, is that it uses Edge phone technology instead of G3. Edge is significantly slower, so downloading those web pages takes a long time. If you're in a Wi-Fi area, then the phone uses Wi-Fi, so the speed is acceptable then. But outside of Wi-Fi, the device is not for browsing many web pages; it's best to find one you want to stay on awhile. Another drawback of the iPhone is that you can't play games on it, not even the ones Apple sells for iPods! What's up with that? My guess is that they have crammed so much technology in that tiny little phone that they didn't have any more space left. But I'm sure they'll find space eventually. One final drawback is that Apple made a specially sized headphone jack on the iPhone, which means other headsets will not work on it; only theirs will. It appears the reason for that is to preserve their special feature, the little squeeze box: If you are listening to music and a phone call comes in, you press the squeeze box to answer the phone, and the music stops. When you're done with the call, press it again and the music comes back on where it left off. I'm anticipating someone coming up with headphones of their own that will work on the iPhone, unless Apple refuses to license them. I hope they don't do that.
Apple iPhone's backside.
THE iPHONE IS HERE! YAY!!!! It is a consumer electronics work of art and technology. And it is a dream for the Mac fan, since it works seamlessly with Mac computers. No special software or anything else is needed; just take the iPhone out of the box, hook it up to your computer, and all the contacts from your address book, your web bookmarks sync with your phone, as well as all the photos, songs, music videos, TV shows, and movies that you can fit in 8 GB. Beautiful.
iPhone. The first cellphone that's ever appealed to me, and that I can use with ease.
Our Apple iPhone fresh out of the box, July 1, 2007
See all that it can do by going to their demonstration video page. The video lasts about 20 minutes.
Now listening and watching in iTunes and on iPhone:
Straight Outta Lynwood (DualDisc [CD on side, DVD other side])
featuring "i'll Sue Ya" and "Don't Download This Song"
by Weird Al Yankovic
APPLE'S iPHONE IS HERE AT LAST!!!!
I have always liked consumer electronics, especially stereo equipment and other sound-producing devices. I thoroughly enjoy my iPod. I like computers, too, although I'm rather lost if something goes wrong with them. But there are two popular consumer gadgets that I've never quite mastered. One is the VCR. Yes, that old simple dinosaur of a thing, and I never did learn how to use one well. The other one is a cellphone. I have found cellphones to be too difficult to master other than the most basic function, placing a phone call. My first cellphone was a Nokia that was so big it would only fit in my bulkiest pockets. After that I got a Motorola flip-phone, which was very nice. (This was a hand-me-down from my wife after she got a new one. Well actually, I originally bought the new phone for me, but she liked it so much, and she uses a cellphone much more than I ever do, so I gave her the new one and took her old phone.) I found this phone much easier to use than the old Nokia. My third phone, which I got free with a 2-year contract, was a Sony Ericsson phone, my first camera phone. I hated that phone so much that within a couple months I went back to my old Motorola. The Sony Ericsson phone was impossible for me to figure out how to use, and also very annoying the way it would randomly beep if bumped in my pocket.
My cellphones. The one on the left is the Motorola, which I like.
The one on the right is the Sony Ericsson, which I hate.
They may look similar, but there's a world of difference in trying to use the things.
In January, after Steve Jobs announced Apple's new phone, I went to Apple's website to see what it would be like. WOW!!!! For the first time EVER, I was mesmerized by a cellphone. What I could tell immediately would make the difference on Apple's phone was that it would run on OS X, the same operating system that Mac computers use.
Steve Jobs holding up the iPhone
I have been a Mac fan since I first started using computers back in 1992. I have always liked Apple's operating systems, but OS X is their best operating system ever. It is beautiful and so easy to use. My first Mac computer was OS 7.5, which I really liked. My second was OS 9, which even though it had more features and was more technologically advanced than OS 7.5, seemed to lack some of the fun 7.5 had. When OS X came out, I was reborn as a new Apple enthusiast, even though I had never turned away from Apple. It's just that all the FUN that 7.5 was had returned in OS X...with much more technological capability and beauty to boot!
So, I'm a huge fan of OS X, and when I found out they were putting it on a telephone, I knew this was one phone I would enjoy having. I knew this was one phone that I could easily operate. I watched the demonstrations on Apple's website and practically drooled, dreaming of having such a beautiful phone.
My wife was doing the same. And she's the one who really needs the phone, since she's a flight attendant and thus away from home more than she is at home. While I have no use for such a fancy phone since I just go to the office and come home, it would be definitely valuable for her. I really wanted her to be able to have the iPhone, as much as she herself wanted to have it, but how could we come up with all that money?
Sign in window of AT&T store on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor
How lucky we were that just as the iPhone came out, we received a one-time special sum of money which enabled us to buy the phone. She got the phone within 48 hours of its release. I guess that's what you call an early adopter.
Although the REAL early adopter in my circle of friends and family is the assistant pastor at our church. He is an even bigger Apple fan than I am. You go into his office and he has an Apple tower computer with two huge monitors side by side, with a laptop set up next to them. He waited in line the first day to get the phone, and on Saturday night at church I got my first glimpse and handholding of Apple's new phone. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Less than 24 hours later, we had our own iPhone. I am so happy for my wife that she can have this while she's on the road, and she has been definitely thrilled with the phone.
It seems weird calling it a phone. People say, "It's crazy to pay $600 for a phone." But it's more like a mini-computer that fits in your pocket. On this phone, you can view REAL web pages (not altered or reduced ones for mobile devices), look at pictures from your iPhoto collection, listen to music from your iTunes collection, watch TV shows and movies from your iTunes collection, do full Mac e-mail as well as text messaging, have your full address book from your computer, AND have a telephone with you! While other phones do some of these things, or perhaps most of them, no phone comes out of the box doing all of them, and no phone can do it all so effortlessly. I saw a web article that showed how you could do all the things an iPhone can do by putting a bunch of third party software together. But you'd have to jury-rig it all together, so it wouldn't have the continuity that iPhone has.
But it's not just what iPhone does, it's also how it does it. What makes the iPhone special is its finger-generated activity that is unlike anything I have seen anywhere else. For example, to look through your photo album, you just move your finger across the screen to go to the next photo, or back to go to the previous one. To enlarge the picture to see part of it up close, just use your finger and thumb, starting close together and spreading them out. To shrink the picture again, make your finger and thumb come closer together. It's like magic. It's beautiful. (Speaking of beautiful, the color on the iPhone screen is dazzlingly brilliant. Truly mesmerizing.) To scroll through your music on your iPhone, you move your finger across the album cover pictures, and they flip through, like those old restaurant booth juke box labels used to do. Once you find the one you want, tap your finger on the picture, and the songs on the album appear, then you choose the song you want to hear by tapping again. It's really something.
As you move your finger across the screen, the album covers flip through.
In order for the iPhone to work with iTunes, an update was needed for iTunes. While I don't use the iPhone, I use iTunes, and I was a bit confused at first that music videos are no longer in their own folder, but are instead mixed in with the music. I couldn't figure out how to get the video part to play. Then, pretty much by accidentally clicking an unknown button, I discovered that the new iTunes fills up your whole computer screen with Cover Flow (the view that makes your album covers like a juke box, as shown in the picture above), and when you choose the music video, it plays right there, with the other album covers on each side of it. (Or you can choose to view the video full screen.) Cover Flow is gorgeous. It's like the albums are sitting on a shiny black marble surface, so shiny that they reflect against the surface. This looks sharp enough on an iPhone screen, but on a full 17" widescreen LCD monitor, it is magnificent. Apple has done it again.
There are a few minor negatives with the iPhone. The main one, which everyone was furious about when it was announced by Apple and AT&T, is that it uses Edge phone technology instead of G3. Edge is significantly slower, so downloading those web pages takes a long time. If you're in a Wi-Fi area, then the phone uses Wi-Fi, so the speed is acceptable then. But outside of Wi-Fi, the device is not for browsing many web pages; it's best to find one you want to stay on awhile. Another drawback of the iPhone is that you can't play games on it, not even the ones Apple sells for iPods! What's up with that? My guess is that they have crammed so much technology in that tiny little phone that they didn't have any more space left. But I'm sure they'll find space eventually. One final drawback is that Apple made a specially sized headphone jack on the iPhone, which means other headsets will not work on it; only theirs will. It appears the reason for that is to preserve their special feature, the little squeeze box: If you are listening to music and a phone call comes in, you press the squeeze box to answer the phone, and the music stops. When you're done with the call, press it again and the music comes back on where it left off. I'm anticipating someone coming up with headphones of their own that will work on the iPhone, unless Apple refuses to license them. I hope they don't do that.
Apple iPhone's backside.
THE iPHONE IS HERE! YAY!!!! It is a consumer electronics work of art and technology. And it is a dream for the Mac fan, since it works seamlessly with Mac computers. No special software or anything else is needed; just take the iPhone out of the box, hook it up to your computer, and all the contacts from your address book, your web bookmarks sync with your phone, as well as all the photos, songs, music videos, TV shows, and movies that you can fit in 8 GB. Beautiful.
iPhone. The first cellphone that's ever appealed to me, and that I can use with ease.
Our Apple iPhone fresh out of the box, July 1, 2007
See all that it can do by going to their demonstration video page. The video lasts about 20 minutes.
Posted at 09:52 PM
Thu - May 25, 2006
New discovery on my computer
I discovered a totally awesome screensaver that was on my computer and I didn't even know it! I'm using this one from now on!
Thursday, May 25,
2006
Currently listening to:
Casting Pearls
By Casting Pearls
New discovery on my computer!
This morning I discovered something on my computer that I didn't know existed! I was looking to change my screensaver, and I discovered that there is a screensaver selection that takes the artwork from my iTunes collection and turns it into a screensaver! I chose that one and was excited by what I saw. On my widescreen 17" iMac, it displays 40 album covers (8 wide by 5 high), and changes them one at a time by flipping them around; in other words, the picture swings on a vertical axis and a new one appears.
The effect reminds me of that iPod commercial where those album covers come together and make a city skyline. (Since originally writing this post, I've learned in this article that it was Apple's own screensaver that inspired the commercial. I think it's not only the coolest iPod commercial ever, it's one of my favorite commercials of any product.)
(See lots of iPod commercials at http://www.curq.com/page3/page3.html )
I have always liked album artwork (I miss the day of the 12" LP album artwork, sometimes with foldout covers), so I am stoked to be able to see it displayed 40 at a time on my computer screen. Also, I see album covers and think, "Oh wow, I haven't listened to that album in awhile!"
Cool screensaver!
Here's an example of one I found on the web. When I get time, I want to figure out how to get a screenshot of my own.
Currently listening to:
Casting Pearls
By Casting Pearls
New discovery on my computer!
This morning I discovered something on my computer that I didn't know existed! I was looking to change my screensaver, and I discovered that there is a screensaver selection that takes the artwork from my iTunes collection and turns it into a screensaver! I chose that one and was excited by what I saw. On my widescreen 17" iMac, it displays 40 album covers (8 wide by 5 high), and changes them one at a time by flipping them around; in other words, the picture swings on a vertical axis and a new one appears.
The effect reminds me of that iPod commercial where those album covers come together and make a city skyline. (Since originally writing this post, I've learned in this article that it was Apple's own screensaver that inspired the commercial. I think it's not only the coolest iPod commercial ever, it's one of my favorite commercials of any product.)
(See lots of iPod commercials at http://www.curq.com/page3/page3.html )
I have always liked album artwork (I miss the day of the 12" LP album artwork, sometimes with foldout covers), so I am stoked to be able to see it displayed 40 at a time on my computer screen. Also, I see album covers and think, "Oh wow, I haven't listened to that album in awhile!"
Cool screensaver!
Here's an example of one I found on the web. When I get time, I want to figure out how to get a screenshot of my own.
Posted at 03:37 AM
Mon - January 2, 2006
Upgrade Troubles
When we got our computer, it had Jaguar on it, but before we used it, we upgraded to Panther, which went smoothly. Now, over two years later, it was time to upgrade to Tiger. However, the upgrade to Tiger has been very troublesome.
Monday, January 2,
2006
Currently Gaming
We Love Katamari ( Playstation 2 )
By Namco Video Games
I got my first computer, a Macintosh 68040, back in 1995. It used System 7.5. At the time, the 684040 processor was near the end of its life cycle; the Motorola processor-driven PowerMac was the main system. Thus, it didn't take long for our computer to get out of date.
A Mac 68040 computer similar to the one we had
Y2K came, and all the internet browser certificates expired, so we couldn't connect to many websites. To get a new certificate required getting an updated browser version, but those browsers wouldn't work on 68040 processors, so we finally ended up getting a new computer. (Plus, already for several years, no software on the market would work on our computer.)
They came in 5 colors; I got the purple one!
The new computer, a purple iMac, came with OS9. Knowing the features of OS9, I was excited about getting that new operating system. But one thing I love to use the computer for is e-mail, and my favorite e-mail program, Claris E-mailer, wouldn't work on the new computer. It was supposed to be able to work on OS9, but I couldn't get it to work, and Claris had stopped supporting the program years before. That plus some other things about OS9, I didn't enjoy using the computer as much as I did with OS7.5.
In October 2003, the very night Panther came out, we went to the Apple store to register for a free computer sweepstakes. We ended up buying a computer, a beautiful movable, flat-panel screen iMac. We named the computer Snowball because the bottom part looks like half a snowball. (So, when you go to the hard drive on the computer, you go to a location named Snowball.)
This is what our current computer looks like
Immediately, I LOVED PANTHER!!! Using the computer was so much fun again! Panther is beautiful, and all the applications are so fun to use again (except my iPhoto went bad...).
But, Panther's life cycle ended last April with the arrival of Tiger. Even before Tiger came out, I was eager to get it once I learned about all the new features it would have. Finally, I purchased Tiger and put it on my computer last week.
Oh my! What a headache that has been! Things have not worked right ever since I upgraded to Tiger. First we couldn't send e-mail. After an hour on the phone with Apple and another half hour with Earthlink, that finally got resolved.
But there are still more issues. The biggest problem is that all my Apple programs think I have no internet connection, but I do have a connection. For example, I can use the internet with Netscape, but not Safari. iTunes won't connect to the iTunes music store because it thinks there is no internet connection. Software Update won't get software updates because it thinks there is no connection. What's even weirder is that sometimes it does work, and I'll be looking at sites through Safari, when suddenly it will say, "Can't connect to the server" and then it's hosed.
I spent 4 hours (!) on the phone today with Apple. The first person gave up and gave me to a higher level tech, and that person spent the bulk of the time with me. Even after 4 hours, trying all kinds of things, he was stumped, so he said he will consult with engineering and call me back later.
Another issue troublesome to me is that Panther looked shiny, bright, and clear, while my screen in Tiger looks like a dot-matrix printout! It's ugly and it hurts my eyes! The tech had never heard of that and couldn't find any information about it in his knowledge base. He said I'll probably have to take the computer into an Apple dealer to get that fixed.
So all my excitement about getting Tiger is dashed with all these woes. I'm going to persist about getting this stuff fixed, though, because Tiger wasn't cheap and you can't get refunds on software. I just hope they can figure out what's wrong soon!
Tiger devours Panther...I hope I can soon get Tiger to work as well as Panther did
Currently Gaming
We Love Katamari ( Playstation 2 )
By Namco Video Games
I got my first computer, a Macintosh 68040, back in 1995. It used System 7.5. At the time, the 684040 processor was near the end of its life cycle; the Motorola processor-driven PowerMac was the main system. Thus, it didn't take long for our computer to get out of date.
A Mac 68040 computer similar to the one we had
Y2K came, and all the internet browser certificates expired, so we couldn't connect to many websites. To get a new certificate required getting an updated browser version, but those browsers wouldn't work on 68040 processors, so we finally ended up getting a new computer. (Plus, already for several years, no software on the market would work on our computer.)
They came in 5 colors; I got the purple one!
The new computer, a purple iMac, came with OS9. Knowing the features of OS9, I was excited about getting that new operating system. But one thing I love to use the computer for is e-mail, and my favorite e-mail program, Claris E-mailer, wouldn't work on the new computer. It was supposed to be able to work on OS9, but I couldn't get it to work, and Claris had stopped supporting the program years before. That plus some other things about OS9, I didn't enjoy using the computer as much as I did with OS7.5.
In October 2003, the very night Panther came out, we went to the Apple store to register for a free computer sweepstakes. We ended up buying a computer, a beautiful movable, flat-panel screen iMac. We named the computer Snowball because the bottom part looks like half a snowball. (So, when you go to the hard drive on the computer, you go to a location named Snowball.)
This is what our current computer looks like
Immediately, I LOVED PANTHER!!! Using the computer was so much fun again! Panther is beautiful, and all the applications are so fun to use again (except my iPhoto went bad...).
But, Panther's life cycle ended last April with the arrival of Tiger. Even before Tiger came out, I was eager to get it once I learned about all the new features it would have. Finally, I purchased Tiger and put it on my computer last week.
Oh my! What a headache that has been! Things have not worked right ever since I upgraded to Tiger. First we couldn't send e-mail. After an hour on the phone with Apple and another half hour with Earthlink, that finally got resolved.
But there are still more issues. The biggest problem is that all my Apple programs think I have no internet connection, but I do have a connection. For example, I can use the internet with Netscape, but not Safari. iTunes won't connect to the iTunes music store because it thinks there is no internet connection. Software Update won't get software updates because it thinks there is no connection. What's even weirder is that sometimes it does work, and I'll be looking at sites through Safari, when suddenly it will say, "Can't connect to the server" and then it's hosed.
I spent 4 hours (!) on the phone today with Apple. The first person gave up and gave me to a higher level tech, and that person spent the bulk of the time with me. Even after 4 hours, trying all kinds of things, he was stumped, so he said he will consult with engineering and call me back later.
Another issue troublesome to me is that Panther looked shiny, bright, and clear, while my screen in Tiger looks like a dot-matrix printout! It's ugly and it hurts my eyes! The tech had never heard of that and couldn't find any information about it in his knowledge base. He said I'll probably have to take the computer into an Apple dealer to get that fixed.
So all my excitement about getting Tiger is dashed with all these woes. I'm going to persist about getting this stuff fixed, though, because Tiger wasn't cheap and you can't get refunds on software. I just hope they can figure out what's wrong soon!
Tiger devours Panther...I hope I can soon get Tiger to work as well as Panther did
Posted at 01:47 AM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2007 12:25 AM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2007 12:25 AM