In a day or two it will have been 30 days since the iPhone went on sale (CNN reports sales have been disappointing). I popped off an email to Tom Piper, George Kopp and Dave Morris to see if they were still as pleased with their iPhones as they (Tom, George, Dave) were when they first got them. I haven’t heard back from Dave yet, but Tom and George filed reports… after the jump.
I’ve often wondered why my video doesn’t look as good as other clips I watch on YouTube. I chalked it up to equipment but learned this week that I have not been properly encoding my video before uploading to Google Video or YouTube. I’m hoping that will improve my stuff.
But today I decided to shoot a few minutes (3.5) with my Sony Handycam (DCR-TRV740) for comparison with the little Casio I’ve been using. I really expected to see a noticeable difference and while the sound was certainly better, I can’t say the video was that much improved.
It’s quite possible I still don’t have my video shit together in terms of encoding but I’ll eventually get that figured out. And I guess I’m pleased the the little pocket Casio stacks up so well against the larger Sony camcorder. All of which brings me back to my original fondness for the Casio: it fits in your pocket so it’s always with me.
But I’m going to make greater use of the Sony (with tripod and good mic). And if you know how to tweak video for YouTube, I’d love to talk.
“You made a smart choice in choosing an iPod. And now you can protect it from theft and still enjoy using it in public with the new Hide-a-Pod anti-theft case.
It’s really very simple. Just tell us what iPod model you want to protect and we provide a gutted and hinged Zune with our custom molded iPod casing adapter.”
And they “only use brown Zunes for the maximum anti-theft protection.” Ouch.
George is a serious Techno Boy. He has a geek job with the state for his day job (all Windows) and moonlights on Macs (and some PC’s) for love (and a little money).
George knew he’d eventually own an iPhone but thought he could wait awhile. He made the mistake of stopping by the AT&T store (Day Two) for a look-see and wound up springing for the 8 gig model.
George’s love-of-all-things-Mac is tempered by his no-bullshit-geek-o-rocity. By that I mean, he expects much from his techno-toys. But once he got the iPhone in his sweaty little hands, it was prom night. I got caught up in that as we talked and had to edit our chat more than I intended. Sorry, George.
Dave Morris is the voice of great radio stations and television stations, film studios, syndicated shows and more. World wide. I know this because it says so on his website. He’s also a blogger (a good one). And a gadget junkie.
He was one of those crazies standing in line the day the iPhone went on sale, so we called him up for a report on Week One.
Unlike some of the others we’ve chatted with for this series, Dave is not a Mac guy. Windows all the way. But he’s only slightly less “gushy” about Apple’s latest creation.
If the hype surrounding the iPhone hasn’t subsided yet, it will soon. Then what? Once the new has worn off this Next New Thing, will users still love ’em, or will they –like your mom’s cooking– be taken for granted. Or, worse yet, will the shortcomings (so well chronicled) become annoying and tiresome?
Those are some of the questions I hope to answer with a series of interviews I’m calling The iPhone Confessions. Brief visits with a few friends who took the iPhone plunge. Are they still gushing at the end of Week One? Or grumbling?
We’ll start with a visit with Tom Piper, a looonnnggg time Mac enthusiast and Early Adopter (LTMEEA). He was there when the iPhone was announced and in line to buy one of the first batch. The interview runs about 12 minutes.
Headed back to the local AT&T store after work to catch the final hour of hype. At it’s longest, I’d estimate the line at 50 or 60. The AT&T staff all had that deer-in-the-headlight look. Nobody had ever stood in line for anything they were selling.
My favorite moments (my battery was low so I didn’t capture these) were cell phone customers who kept showing up to pay their bill and were pissed (and totally mystified) they couldn’t get in. I shit you not… 9 out of 10 had never heard of the iPhone. Or the iPod. Or Apple.
One can only assume they don’t have TV’s or radios (forget newspapers). And to a man (or woman)… they had waited to the very last moment to pay their cell phone bill (“They’ll cut my off tonight if you don’t let me in to pay!”).
I can’t recall (in my lifetime) this much (buzz/hype/interest) in a product launch. There were men, women and children waiting in line. I saw a couple of families.
AppleJAC’er Tom Piper waited in line to get an iPhone. Learfielder, Paul Roberts, M.D. insisted he was “just looking,” but I didn’t wait around to see if he took the plunge. The video runs about 3 1/2 minutes.
I’ve been steering clients to Google Calendars for some time but never bothered see if I could embed the calendar in a blog post. You can. In most applications, it probably makes more sense to just link them out to the full size calendar but I can imagine situations where I might want to display the calendar like this. Nifty.
I stopped by the Jefferson City (MO) AT&T store to see if anyone was waiting in line for the new iPhone. James Whitehead was first in line. He says he’s been on-site since Wednesday but was staying in his truck until this morning. James –from Lake Ozark, Missouri– describes himself as a “technology whore,” and is buying the iPhone mostly for the cool factor. He’s not even a Mac user (yet).
There were four hardy (geeky) souls in line and I left them my umbrella since it looks like it could pour at any moment. I’ll post some more video this evening, once James has his prize.
"Apple today announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV.
Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in
software update feature, and then navigate through YouTube’s familiar
video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube
members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view
and save their favorite videos." [Podcasting News]
Haven’t tried this yet, but I will. Stay tuned. Related story.