A decade ago, I was traveling with one of the founders of the company that I worked for at the time, Timm Martin, and we arrived at the discussion of electronic books (ebooks). I said that I thought ebooks were the wave of the future and I wished that I could figure out how to start a company that was a part of that change. Timm, who was the technology visionary of our company, seemed to cautiously agree with me at the time and I think we both worried that the portable platform had yet to be created that made that prediction a certainty, at least in the near term.
I can attest to occasionally experiencing this problem. It is rather intermittent for me and I can mostly control the problem by not moving the phone from my ear during the conversation.
This is a little frustrating. I get the antenna being affected by my hand but this proximity sensor problem is just bad engineering (either software or hardware).
My thoughts on my new iPhone 4. I just received it yesterday from FedEx (it was fun watching the FedEx package being tracked from China through Hong Kong through Anchorage through Indianapolis and then to Loveland, OH where it was routed to me). I received it one day ahead of Apple’s expected revised delivery date.
I say “revised” because AT&T and Apple screwed up and missed my first delivery date. The unit was supposed to ship on July 2 but they updated their date on July 3 to say that it was going to ship a week or so later. I was upset and I called Apple – the very polite and professional rep apologized but couldn’t change the ship date. He did give me a bumper as a consolation gift – good thing too as it turns out.
Apple has recently put out an open letter explaining that they have made a mistake in calculating the signal strength bars on their hit product, the iPhone (all versions up to the latest iPhone 4). I am glad that they Apple code developers have stumbled on this bug and are producing a fix. We all know that there are a few more software bugs in every product, so it is no surprise that Apple has a bug in this portion of their code.
But, is that really the fix? No.
All wireless devices need antennas. If you are as old as I am, there is a chance that your first mobile phone was a “bag phone” or a “car installed phone”. These phones were massive and required a car or, at least, a briefcase to carry them around. The towers were so far dispersed that you needed a BIG antenna that was putting out mega-wattage to reach them. Putting that antenna up to your head would almost certainly turn your brain to scrambled eggs in a couple of weeks or so. These monsters were also analog and all you could do was talk on them (no texting – how in the world did we survive?).
I just upgraded my iPhone 3G to the new OS today. I must admit that the new features (especially the ability to group apps together) is quite nice. I wish I could take advantage of the backgrounds but that doesn’t work for a 3G phone.
The biggest complaint on the entire process is that it took FOREVER to do the upgrade. It took over 4 hours to do the backups, reflash the ROMs, and then re-sync the apps, movies and songs back to my phone
My biggest advice to anyone that is going to do this upgrade soon – take your time. Plug it in, get it started, and then go do something else for several hours.
The FTC has released new guidelines for advertisers. One of those guidelines is that advertisers of diet products cannot have a famous (and formerly fat) person stand there and tell you that they lost 48 pounds in 48 days and you can to if you will just give them $480. Most people understand that they only thing that will lose weight in those schemes is your wallet. It is good for the FTC to demand a bit of realism there.
The FTC also says they will restrict bloggers from talking about products where they received the product or service as a gift in order to elicit the blogger’s review (favorable or unfavorable). There are some services out there that will help you get free products as long as you talk about them on your blog. I think these sites and services will be out of business soon.
With any downturn in the economy, there are always new rules and regulations that are discussed or passed to prevent the previous calamity from occurring again. The same is true for this latest downturn with a variety of efforts and attention being shown to the banking and mortgage industries.
Now attention is also being shown to the venture capitalists. This is not necessary. Nothing in this current downturn can have VC activity pointed to as the cause. In fact, VCs are fairly well self-regulated by the activity of the stock market and they take a sizeable set-back when the tech bubble bursts (most notably in the early part of this decade).
No VC is too big to fail and no VC has a huge majority of the market. It simply doesn’t make sense to overly regulate this industry when so much of what we enjoy on a regular basis is the result of VC activity (nearly the entire IT industry including the technology that makes this blog possible and your ability to read it).
There is an article in the Wall Street Journal that has AT&T whining about the cost of supporting the data plans for the iPhone. Seems that with all of the really cool apps that the iPhone has, they tend to load up on the data! No surprise, the quality of the apps is excellent (check out this site that reviews iPhone apps)
Too bad! The iPhone is by far the coolest product in the mobile world. It has also set the standard for all other phone developers and networks to aspire to. Because of this, there is no way that we are going to roll back time and start to use a less flexible and featured product.
AT&T may not like it but Apple and it’s iPhone have given them first mover advantage in mobile computers. Everyone else is trying to play catch up. If AT&T screws it up, the competition will be all over them.
Is there a brand name that is better than Polaroid?
I am sure that there is but not too many. Coke and Pepsi come to mind. Mac is probably more popular. Perhaps Levi’s and Mercedes. There may be a dozen or two others but to be honest, if someone says Polaroid you instantly know what it is: a camera that takes a picture and spits it out immediately to be enjoyed by you and others. What a perfect idea for the US where we are known for our lack of patience and need for instant gratification.
Today, multimedia dominates the Internet and the computer industry. The ability to interact with and use images and movies drives the sale of most computers. In fact, a recent Apple v. PC discusses the ability of the Mac to manage volumes of digital images.
My 3 teenagers have all purchased the iPod Touch from BestBuy. Actually, the youngest one just received his as a birthday gift and that is what is prompting this rant.
There are a variety of gadget sites that talk about the deals available at BestBuy (see here and here). The forums are split as to buying the warranty (here and here) but Apple doesn’t have a great track record on iPods and the BestBuy warranty has replaced 3 separate iPods for my family over the years so we think it is a good deal.
So when my youngest son wanted a new iPod Touch to replace his nano, it was natural for us to go to BestBuy. He was ecstatic when he opened the gift and it was plugged into the family computer within minutes. Imagine his disappointment when his brand new Touch had pre-2.0 software on it and iTunes wanted him to upgrade for only $9.95! This OS upgrade was announced almost a year ago.
