“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.
Dave Morris took the plunge and writes an excellent review of his new iPhone:
“How many phones do you have, and am I too late?” It was 5:55 pm, a full FIVE MINUTES before the doors opened. He gave me this little wink that was simultaneously geeky and cocky… and one of those dorky tongue clicks. The only thing missing was the finger-as-pistol “Shooter McGee” motion. He fished around in his pocket. This was his moment to shine!
“Here ya go.” He handed me a voucher that guaranteed me the right to purchase a phone. A little quiver passed through my body… much the same feeling as when you find out your application for auto financing has been approved.”
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.
Dave Winer bought a new scanner recently. He didn’t say much about it… just that it had arrived. My scanner was two or three years old, so –with hardly a thought– I clicked the link (to Amazon) Dave provided and purchased the same scanner.
I had a high level of confidence that Dave knows more about scanners than I do and I couldn’t go wrong following his lead. And I was right.
The CanoScan is fast and produces sharp scans. My favorite feature, however, is the software that enables me to scan four or five photos at once and wind up with individual files. I hate to think of the hours I spent chopping out individual images in Photoshop. And I’m sure I’ll discover many more wonderful features.
I’m sure Canon spends millions in marketing and advertising. But none of those efforts could ever be as effective (for me) as knowing it’s the scanner Dave Winer is using. I have no way of knowing, but I’ll bet he didn’t get a nickel (or a free scanner) from Canon for mentioning their product on his blog. I guess my point has something to do with blogs and trust.
I’ve made a couple of imaging purchases in the last week or two. As I scan more (old) prints and take more digital photos, I need to be sure these images are as good as I can (practically) make them.
Let’s say I took 1,000 photos over the next two years and they weren’t quite as good as they might have been. There’s no way to fix that. I can’t re-take those photos.
At the same time, I’m willing to accept far less than "perfect" images. That’s where Henry works and lives. I make some practical trade-offs.
But the scanning is going much faster now and iPhoto makes it easier to tweak the images and get them on flickr.