Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Winnepausakee


View and download a larger version here

Friday, July 16, 2010

The Genius of Steve Jobs

On Monday Consumer Reports (influenced by an overzealous media and after giving it their highest rating) said that they "could not recommend the Iphone 4 due to the Signal Attenuation issue"

Throughout this entire process I felt like Annie Wilkes in Misery...."Has everyone gone mad? What's wrong with you people! Don't you understand? This is the greatest Cockadoodee consumer electronic product in the history of the world!"

I knew what was going on here from the beginning, it is a case of overblown media hype. In Apple you have a company that has basically revolutionized the world in the last ten years and has put out products that are so far superior to the competition that it is laughable. They have overtaken Microsoft in terms market valuation, Their stock price has risen from about 50/share to 260/share. They changed the way we acquire and listen to music, they revolutionized the smart phone with touch screen technology, they made the personal computer fun and into something beautiful. With the exception of Apple TV, pretty much every single product since Jobs returned in 1997 has been phenomenally successful.

It is against this backdrop that we started to see youtube videos that displayed signal drop when you hold your phone in a certain way. It wasn't until last night that I was able to replicate this issue, and I was trying every day. But the issue is minor and it is not unique to the Iphone. So why is the Iphone singled out? Again it is because this "perceived" chip in apples armor comes against an amazing track record.

So today Steve Jobs comes out and says a couple things. And I am paraphrasing his lordship.....

"Guess what folks, every smartphone has antenna issues, and then he proved it by demoing the exact same issues on the Droid, Storm, Samsung, etc" ----I felt like saying Haleleuia! take that Consumer Reports!

"Just over 1 half of one percent of our Apple care calls have had to do with Antenna issues, based on what you have been hearing you would have expected it was at least over half!"

"Compared to the 3gs the Iphone 4 has reported about 1 percent more dropped calls....again based on what you have been hearing you would have expected it to be a lot more!...but even this is unacceptable to us and we are not satisfied"

"Everyone gets a free bumper case"

"If you don't like the phone return it for a full refund"

And my favorite quote......

"We love making products that surprise and delight our customers"

Nothing could be truer steve

Long live Apple!!!!

P.S. Oh yeah I almost forgot, Steve said today that in the three weeks since they've been shipping IPhone 4...they've sold 3 million of them (:

The Iphone 4 Antenna Song

Sorry this is in a bad format...but click through to the 16/9 version.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

My review of the Iphone 4

"This is the biggest advance to the Iphone since the original Iphone"
====Steve Jobs (Grandmaster of all things and bringer of light)


With the competition of the "Android" phone which is the second best phone on the market (a distant second in my opinion) Apple had to fill in a couple holes where the android had caught up. And folks, they did this and more, I got everything I asked for. HD video, a 5 MP camera with a flash, and a second camera. But to me the killer part of this new iphone is the "retina display" which is an amazing feature that really makes reading on your iphone like reading on paper. It is a serious competitor to "e ink" and even is superior to the Ipad display which I had raved about when I got it. To appreciate the display, you really have to see it for yourself..I still am not used to how pretty it looks, amazingly sharp, and yes I have not seen any pixelation!

In terms of the phone design itself, in a word it is beautiful, elegant metal with glass on the front and back. (There is never a need for 3rd party scratch resistant cover on your iphone guys...it's glass! Unless you carry sharp diamonds in your pocket, I think you'll be OK) The phone is very thin, making the 3g and 3gs look bulky by comparison. I purchased the bumper case from Apple and it is a great addition to the phone, making it easier to grip and protecting it to a degree from any accidental drops.

If I could only have one gadget in the world I would choose the Iphone 4 over everything else.

Luckily I can have all of them though (:

And finally here is my take on the antenna thing....it is a made up fake bogus story that the media glommed onto and is total BS

====Garrett the Apple geek

P.S. My only disappointment was that they did not double the storage to 64 GB

Iphone 4 32 GB
Iphone 3GS 32 GB (Tasha's Iphone)
Imac 2.0 GHZ
Mac Book Pro 2.2 GHZ
Ipad 64 GB Wifi only
Ipod Classic 160 GB
Ipod shuffle 4 GB