All Gadgets Aside...

So anyone that knows me and knows my technology preferences knows that I am a big fan of two technology companies, Apple and Nokia. Lately I have taken up issues with all this iPhone business. Being that I am a mac admin and everyone knows that I love to use macs and Apple related products there hasn't been a day since the original iPhone release that someone hasn't asked me where my iPhone is. I generally politely reach into my pocket and retrieve my Nokia N85 and say, "It's right here, only this iPhone does more". They usually respond by saying, "but, that's not an iPhone". To which I reply, "you are correct, but this phone still does a whole lot more".

Let's face it, even with the third rendition of the iPhone almost out, Apple is still playing catch up especially in the hardware realm. I would agree that Apple has done a marvelous job marketing the iPhone and I know better than most that if you slap an Apple logo on it you may as well just fire up the money printing press at the mint and drop the money off at Apple. The deal with the iPhone is that Apple has drummed up a pretty insane level of fanaticism. I would agree that I am a fanatic of Nokia and it would be tough to pry the Nokia from my hands even if I were dead but I can safely say that if someone came out with a phone that had:
A. The build quality of a Nokia
B. Software that is as tried and true as Symbian/S60
C. Features that best the feature set of a Nokia
Then I would give said phone the time of day and consider switching to it.

It is nice to see that I will finally be able to send pictures to my iPhone disabled friends, a first for those that have upgraded their handsets or paid the ridiculous amount to upgrade. I am also glad that those that purchase the 3Gs can get lost in the woods and find their way out (as long as their battery doesn't die first) with the incredibly useful compass app.

I get it people. The iPhone is a sexy little piece of hardware, not going to deny that. But really? I mean, before the iPhone came out most of these people couldn't give a crap what phone they had in their hand. Remember the RAZR? Remember how everyone jumped on that one and Motorola road it out until they couldn't even give the things away? The RAZR had a horrible camera, a lack of any extra functionality. But hey, everyone else had a RAZR and it looked good when you had it up to your head. At the time I was rocking a Nokia with a 3 megapixel camera. So fast forward a bit. All those people that had phones that didn't have any functionality beyond a phone that made a decent call all of a sudden care about a quasi smart phone? Is it that or is it that they really like to download an app that lets you pop bubble wrap on the screen of your phone?

A person that sits near me at work was asking another co-worker if he was going to upgrade his iPhone to the 3Gs because she was thinking about doing it. I had to interject and say "hey, if you are going to pay $300 while on contract to upgrade your phone then why not avoid the additional time on your contract and buy a Nokia 5800" I explained how it's been out for a little while, costs a bit over $300, offers up the same functionality as the iPhone and then some, can be used with Ovi for free (as opposed to $99/year for MobileMe), and a whole multitude of other reasons why it would make sense. 10 minutes later she says over the cube wall to me, "but there is no app store" to which I reply, "store.ovi.com, accessible both from the phone and the web". I think that even with all the positive things I laid out that Apple's marketing team did a better job selling their product to this individual even though they can't up with one reason why it would make more sense to buy their product. I tried, I usually do, but people in America are stuck in the "I need to buy what my carrier sells me" mentality.

The interesting thing is that AT&T, as of late, has even seen the light and realized that not everyone wants a subsidized phone. They offer up the ability to walk in and purchase a SIM card and a month to month plan, if you ask. People, listen to me when I tell you this. Cellular carriers are not doing you a favor by selling you a subsidized phone. Instead they are selling you products that they dumb down according to their wants and needs and essentially selling you a broken product. *Cough*iPhone tethering*Cough*

Ok let me sum things up as it seems I have gotten off on a much bigger tangent that I can go into at another time.

The iPhone:
-sexy
-sleek
-marketed very well
-extremely trendy
-behind in terms of technology
-even the 3Gs needs a hardware upgrade
-MobileMe should be free
-Useless free apps are just that, useless
-Compass on an iPhone won't save your life unless you know how to use a compass and the battery doesn't die

Today marks a great day in the world of Java as Apple has just released the public version of Java 6 for Mac OS X Leopard. This is a beautiful thing for the future of web based computing on a mac and offers up Java developers the chance to be right on par with all the latest and greatest java code. I am happy to see this release myself as the company I am working for has a lot of Java based stuff on it's website and the future is looking towards more Java.

So why the bleak title? As it turns out the release of Java 6 is only compatible with 64 bit, Intel Based macs. Although my outlook may be a little ahead of itself but I think this recent release is enough to scare most PowerPC mac users. Will Apple continue to develop for and offer support for PowerPC based macs? Does this mean that we are now legacy users? My issue is that by not including PowerPC based macs in the update equation Apple will be making a lot of perfectly speedy and capable computers obsolete. Sure this is easier for their programmers, cost Apple a few dollars less and probably bring more computer sales from people that need the latest and greatest updates but it cerainly doesn't promote the continued use of a computer.

I personally own two macs and have one on my desk at my workplace and not a single one is an Intel mac. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy having one but it's that I am working on machines that I feel are completely up to speed with everything I do, upgrading would only be money spent. I only hope that this major update doesn't spell doom for Mac updates to come.

So the release of the iPhone has come and gone. All in all the near immediate sell out of iPhones across the country would definitely make the initial launch a success. As most people that know me will tell you, I am a fan of just about everything Apple related. So why don't I have an iPhone in my pocket? Before I get into why let me give a quick review of the iPhone itself and what I have seen from it.

So the iPhone is a great device. Aesthetically pleasing, well designed (thanks to the infamous Jonathan Ives), has great battery life, a decent camera, and a very beautiful OS with complimenting applications. The device makes a great iPod, works very well with google maps, the safari browser is right at home on the device as well. One of the greatest assets the iPhone has is it's multi-point touch screen in which allows you expans pictures and web pages by simply stretching them out. I have had sometime to play with the device and I think it does everything it's intended to do very well. On the downside, I have also seen a couple things that make me wonder what Apple was thinking. First off, where is the MMS support. When I have sent MMS messages to my co-worker who proudly owns an iPhone he gets a standard SMS message with a link to the location of where the image is stored on the internet. This is hardly an MMS solution, it will take you substantially longer to view your message than if it would have gone straight to your device. The second downfall is the lack of a development platform beyond web apps. Web apps will work but this doesn't seem the way to go to get a dedicated program that will work wherever you are and perform as snappy as it should. The rest of my complaints about it are more specific, which brings me to why I don't own an iPhone.

First and foremost, one of the biggest things for me when it comes to a phone is freedom. The freedom to use your phone as you please, install what you want and turn around and sell it for what it's worth rather than be stuck with a device locked to one network. So it goes without saying that this shoudl be an unlocked device. Unfortunately here in the US the top GSM providers will not sell you a phone unless you buy a contract thus making it difficult for Apple to justify selling it unlocked and free to be used on whatever network you please. This doesn't mean that people aren't willing to dive into a contract to own a device that is free from being locked. Second, the iPhone does what it's intended to well. What about everything else? My current Nokia can do everything the iPhone can plus about a million things more that the iPhone can't do. My Nokia N73 cost me $350 and it has a 3.2mp Camera, takes decent quality video, surfs the internet with the best of them using Nokia's browser, or in my case Opera. On top of that the Series 60 platform has a multitude of applications that have been developed and more constantly being developed.

Basically what it boils down to is that Apple will have to kick up it's game to compete in the game of a making a full featured phone with heavyweights like Nokia. Even mobile manufacturers like Sony Ericsson and LG have mobiles with feature sets that vastly outweigh what the iPhone can offer. Apple, you wil have to do more to impress even your most seasoned customers.

Upon the Apple Store coming back up, Apple has introduced a new Aiport Extreme sporting 802.11n. In addition to bumping up to 802.11n they have also increased the number of LAN ports to 3 and then revamped the entire look of the device. You can also now plug in an external HD to the USB 2 port and share it amongst the people on your network.

Check out full specs and details here: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=1B3CD69&nplm=MA073LL%2FA

Just Moments ago at the annual Macworld conference in San Francisco, Apple introduced the "iPhone". Yes, the rumored iPhone is a reality and even better yet it one ups the competition by running OS X. Amazing as it sounds, it is true and here are some of the spec:

-Touch Screen controlled by your fingers
-2mp Camera
-Quad Band GSM with EDGE and Wifi
-Full blown, full featured OS X OS
-Safari built in just like OS X
-Google Maps comes with it
-Standard OS X mail app
-Beautiful slim white and black design with large screen
-Runs both iTunes and iPhoto
-8gb of Storage
-Priced at $499 for 4gb model and $599 for 8gb Model
-Shipping in June

If you have been reading my blog you would, by now, know that I am a fan of Apple products and you are probably wondering why it too me so long to write about the new Macbook. Well the simple answer for that is that I have been trying to get to know the computer better before I respond to it's release. Some things were confusing me and many other people, like "Glossy Screen" and "Integrated Graphics" as well as the pricing differential in the models. I have taken a good long look into these issues and more and come up with a good response to the Macbooks release.

First of all I would like to say that I was overjoyed to see the new Macbook. I had been wondering about it since Apple released the Macbook Pro and I wasn't sure what was to come of it. Upon first glance the new 13.3" display based computer that comes in at a quaint $1099 for the base model is a refreshing sigh of relief considering they could have charged so much more. The $1099 model comes in at less than just about any other PC manufacturer offering a similarily equipped Core Duo laptop. I will spare the specs and just send you to visit the Macbook Website One thing to note is that the $1499 black model Macbook has only one real difference from its $1299 white sibling, 20 more gigs of HDD space. Surely Apple tacked on the extra $200 bucks because of the popularity they have seen with the black iPod models.

The glossy screen that everyone is wondering about has recently had mixed reviews. Some like it, some dislike it, but most agree that in about 50% of situations glare is annoying but the screen looks great most of the time. The integrated Intel graphics also have mixed reviews in that they do what they need to do but will in no way satisfy the power hungry gamer. One interesting new feature to note is the ability to perform a right click by having 2 fingers on the touch pad and clicking, this is something that will probably intrigue those that are infatuated with not having to use ctrl-click. Overall the Macbooks price and power derived from it's new Intel processor ad up to a great value, I would highly recommend this computer to any user unless you are a gamer looking to play the latest games.

So I decided to take a step back in technology recently. I am sitting here typing this out on a 6-7 year old Clamshell iBook that I just purchased. A lot of people my simply ask, why? My response to them is, Why not? When you take a look at this machine in particular you realize that although it may only have a 300mhz processor and 12gb hard drive(upgraded from 3gb), that a computer like this still has alot of life in it. For example take a look at all those tablet style internet devices that are on the market today. What do those devices really do? This old laptop that many people would have thrown by the wayside can do much more than a device that costs anywhere between 300-1000 dollars, and I paid $230 for this. Frankly the computer suprised me really, its as zippy as ever and yes it is running OS X, 10.3.9 in fact. But the whole point of my blogging this is to show people that there is alot of technology out there that may not be the top of heap stuff, that truly still has a lot of miles still left in it. This post in particularily is rather contridictary to my previous one but I want to thank brunobear for his comment to my last past, it helped me think. So going along with both this post and my previous one I bring you a message, no matter how fast you upgrade or how often, make sure to always re-use and re-cycle your old stuff.