book review: steve jobs

i'll get this over with quickly: don't buy the book.

at best, it offers a handful of interesting insights into some of the history of apple and the tech industry at large during steve's lifetime.

at worst, it is painfully redundant and starkly lacking any narrative quality. this book DESPERATELY needs some hardcore editing and a sober round of new input from all contributors now that el jobso has gone up the great glass staircase in the sky.

i wish you could return kindle editions...

RIP, steve jobs

no kidding, my mom just called to see how i was doing about steve's death. the funny thing is, i think i'm a lot more upset than i'm willing to admit...

the new ipad hotness

still hate AT&T?

...me too!

fail

UPDATE: in fairness to apple and at&t, i think i can pin the failed-sync blame squarely on nikeplus.com, as they are in the middle of rolling out an updated website and service. the feature set is more compelling and the design is far better, so i'll take a couple lost miles in the name of progress.

UPDATE 2: well, it appears apple and nike may be culpable after all. my latest (and longest with the 3GS) run just failed to upload to nikeplus.com AND THEN somehow managed to disappear out of the history list on my iphone... of course, angry emails have been sent and snarky forum posts have been made, but they need to fix this fast. why on earth can't a device as advanced as the latest iphone pull off a feat that is constantly accomplished by my three-year-old ipod nano? and if i'm FORCED to pay for UNLIMITED DATA by at&t, why can't i upload my run history directly from the phone? ridiculous...

redemption song

steph and i popped over to the apple store in emeryville at 8am yesterday to see about acquiring a couple of those newfangled iPhones 3G. now that we've had them for a day, some quick impressions:

3G destroys EDGE, the fact that they didn't launch the dumb thing on the 3G network is mind-bottling.

size matters; i find it somewhat easier to grip the larger form factor.

the flush headphone jack means i can finally use my good headphones on-the-go again. here is another case of "WHY WASN'T THIS ON THE FIRST ONE?!" i feel strongly that jonathan ive's design awards for the first iPhone should be revoked. or at least asterisked.



MobileMe redeemed itself. i didn't have time to go home and sync before work, so i simply entered my account info on the phone and WHAM! CONTACTS! EMAIL! BOOKMARKS! no work calendars however, since you can't sync calendars you subscribe to over the air. for unexplained reasons. jerks.

GPS is really neat, now i get why GPS nerds are always trying to show off their devices. steph tried out "current location" while we drove over the bay bridge and as it zoomed in and actively tracked our movement on the map she began laughing maniacally. that is not hyperbole, i dearly wish i had a video clip of that moment to share.

the app store is a little weird if you have a shared iTunes library with multiple iTunes accounts, some apps have to be revalidated for each phone and some don't. i *really* wish they'd just ditch the DRM, at least on free apps.

still no MMS? really, Apple? this thing does almost everything else, why the heck can't i send and receive picture messages?

well, there you have them, a few brief thoughts regarding iPhone 3G, aren't you glad you read them all? now be a good american and go buy one.

failPhone

i love my iphone to pieces, but man this MobileMe thing just isn't working out. first i had NOTHING AT ALL on my phone after "upgrading." that was resolved by restoring the phone later that night but then i had everything on the phone and NO CONTACTS AT ALL on MobileMe. just last night i finally got my mac at home to sync all my contacts up to MobileMe but, of course, this morning i had DUPLICATES OF ALL MY CONTACTS on the phone.

yeesh.

i figured out i could kill the dupes on the phone by editing something online (added "keep" to everyone's first name) but that meant going back through and deleting all those edits when i was done.

triple yeesh.

oh well, that's the price you pay for being the dumb jerk that wants to have neat stuff first - you basically pay to be their bug tester. the good news is, steve jobs still works for apple, so the beatings will continue until it works perfectly, down in the mythical lands of Cupertino. for now, though, i have to agree with these guys:


failmeismorelikeit.com

workin' late

that's right, stuck in the ol' cubicle well past quittin' time, yee haw. waiting for someone else to finish something before you can finish something certainly puts the "this sucks" in "teamwork."

the annual stevenote was today and i certainly was impressed by the MacBook Air and am enjoying the updated iPhone software, but i think i am most intrigued by Time Capsule. that is an absolutely fantastic way to get some backup and a little home server at a reasonable price. we'll know shortly if one of these is in my future...

and remember: a picture of a hot chick will always get twice as many views as any of your other photos on flickr.

mac vs. dell

i've been saying this ever since apple switched to intel chips:


"Apple came out with their 8 core Mac Pro yesterday. I wanted to see how it stacked up against a comparable Dell. Remember when Macs cost way more than PCs? Those days appear to be over."



read more | digg story

it's official

as of june, 2007, i will cease interaction with the physical world entirely:


(click image to see why palm, blackberry and zune are doomed.)