iPhone Confessions: Tom Piper (Week One)

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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?

Tom PiperThose 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.

Download/Listen: 12 min MP3

iPhone: The Music Video

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This little ditty –by NYT tech writer David Pogue (and friends)– was posted sometime earlier today and (as I type this) has been viewed 3,772 times. I found it on the digg home page so we can assume it will be seen many more times.

I have to wonder if anyone has felt moved to this kind of hijinx by any previous cell phone? Maybe. I just missed it.

Seth Godin: The Dip: Knowing when to quit, and when to stick

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The Dip

“Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all. And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip — a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt — until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons.

Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip-they get to the moment of truth and then give up — or they never even find the right Dip to conquer.” [Squidoo]

I don’t blame Mr. Godin for wanting to make a buck, but this little “book” (about 70 tiny pages) should have been an eBook. Which I probably would not have bought, so… there you go.

But it brought back some memories.

It only took me about 3 months (in 1970) to decide I did not want to be a lawyer. I quit and I quit early. I then spent about a year as a Postal Inspector before calling it quits. I remember my boss urging me to stick it out.

I’m a Seth fan and found The Dip worth the hour it took to read. A few quotes after the jump.

Continue reading →

Playing with George’s iPhone

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“The iPhone will flop because it doesn’t work with corporate email.” Yep, that’s a problem. For some folks, not for me. I don’t use Outlook outside of the office. If I want to check  my corporate email from home or on the road, I log in to our Exchange server from a web browser. At tonight’s Mac user group, George logged me in from his iPhone and –while you can’t sync– you can check your corporate email from the iPhone.

Should we call it iHD?

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“Apple moved more iPhones in three days than the radio industry has moved HD Radios in three years. Now, strictly speaking it’s not fair to compare a tech phenomenon to the many that are not. Then again, very few tech gadgets have hundreds of millions of dollars of complimentary on-air support and the power of the radio industry behind them.

The consumer is speaking volumes with numbers like these. Are you listening to what he’s telling you? Sure, HD Radio chips will be tiny and efficient enough to slip into mp3 players and mobile phones by 2008. But has anyone asked whether or not consumers will want them there?”

– Mark Ramsey

Ripley: The Princess and the Pea

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I haven’t posted photos of Ripley and Lucy for a while. Lots of reasons, none of them good ones. So here is Ripley in all her majesty. From this position, she can direct low growls and death rays at the squirrels that dare to come into her yard.

Ripley

iPhone goes on sale: Curly Howard alive and well!

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Curly Lives!The local media were on hand for the Big iPhone Event yesterday. I was stunned to learn that one of my childhood idols, Curly Howard, is not only alive… but working as a videographer for one of our local TV stations. AgWired’s Chuck Zimmerman did a touch-and-go and took this photo (which I consider very flattering).

I’m embarrassed that I didn’t introduce myself, but I did watch the voice-over package that aired on the 10 o’clock news. About 40 seconds.

There was a photographer from the local newspaper on hand. A rather stern looking woman who didn’t seem to be having any fun. Her paper ran the iPhone story on page one (above the fold) this morning. With a couple of her photos.

All of which reminds me of the wonderful freedom of blogging. I can post what I want (video, stills), when I want, with no pesky editors looking over my shoulder. I wouldn’t suggest for a second that my amateur efforts are on par with these pros. I would argue that I had more fun than they did and maybe some of that comes through in my posts.

And one more thing. The video that aired on the local TV station and the front page newspaper story –unless posted to their websites– is gone forever. With any luck, in a month or two, a Google search for “iPhone+jefferson city” will get you to smays.com.

MiPhone

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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.”

iPhone Line: 6:00 p.m.

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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.

Embed Google calendar in your blog or website

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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.