Pete Mortensen - page 27

As you might expect, Apple has thrown out tons of iPhone demo units so you can get the full experience in the store. As you might not expect, it’s actually capable of placing calls – and Apple isn’t blocking caller ID. How do I know? Because I accidentally called the Hayes Street Grill in San Francisco and hung up in horror. And then leaped back as a return call came in. I answered, of course. I then called my fiancee to capture the number of the phone. I would think this is a bad idea for Apple to have those numbers readily available, but what the heck? The number is 408-398-9220. Please use it responsibly – this can be the new John Appleseed number.

Well, it turns out there was no need to camp out for an iPhone, at least in San Francisco. When I finally rolled into the Apple Store in Union Square at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night, Apple had plenty of boxes still on hand…not that my T-Mobile-using butt was going home with one. Still, I had a lot of time to play with an iPhone all to myself (and observing my fiancee doing her own experiments), and I have some early thoughts and a few discoveries I haven’t seen anywhere else on the Web yet). Read on for more.

Technorati Tags: iphone

Though Leander and I are stuck inside during the glory that is is iPhone day, have no fear: Friends are here. Our pals over at GeekSugar snapped a bunch of pics from both the Apple Store and AT&T Stores near Market Street in San Francisco. Be sure to check out both sets for pictures of clowns, to go along with the Battleship-playing duo you see above. No word yet on who sank whose aircraft carrier.

Word has it that there are 200 people hanging out in from tof the Apple Store, but only 15 at AT&T – plus, AT&T is passing out bottles of water and folding chairs. At least AT&T knows how lucky they are to ever have someone line up at their stores…

One of the Geeksters also chatted with Amanda and J., the first two folks in line at AT&T. J. broke out a beer (a fine tallboy of Tecate, naturally), and Angela is a professional Craigslist line-sitter – she’s taking home $500 today. Ah, to be young again.

Though San Francisco’s Union Square Apple Store didn’t develop an iPhone waiters line until yesterday evening, the line has grown to quite the monstrosity as of this morning, running from the store’s front door for a good block and then rounding the corner. There are tents, a bizarre pie-throwing booth, and the people look restless.

I didn’t get a shot off before my bus rounded the corner en route to Caltrain. Anyone out there in line already? Who’s got photos? What’s the mood?

We’ve known for months that the iPhone couldn’t possibly live up to its hype in all possible regards. The only question has been just how close Apple would come to living up to the device’s promise. The first reviews are in, and the answer is: Pretty darn close. See for yourself:

The iPhone is Breakthrough Handheld Computer (Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal)

The iPhone Matches Most of its Hype (David Pogue, NY Times)

At Last, the iPhone (Steven Levy, Newsweek)

Apple’s iPhone isn’t perfect, but it’s worthy of the hype (Ed Baig, USA Today)

I have to admit. I’m finally getting excited about it again. I’d gotten tired of all the hype (some of which I’ve fed) and was looking at a Helio Ocean. But now that it’s getting positive real-world reviews…I’m falling for it again.

Via Apple 2.0.

All of us have enjoyed a good laugh at Sprint’s hastily thrown-together competitive response to the impending iPhone launch. What you might not realize is that such devastating tactics as pushing inferior media phones like the two-sided Samsung Upstage with “unlimited storage” on an unsuspecting public represent just the tip of the iceberg.

We at Cult of Mac, through a research technique we can only describe as “a couple of beers with friends” and “making stuff up” have gotten our hands on a list of talking points Sprint will break out in the next few months, as their struggle with Apple escalates. Please enjoy this Top 5 list of top-secret (some would say fictional) anti-iPhone tactics.

5. Phoning it in
Picture this: A  curious but fairly clueless non-techy interested in the iPhone wanders into a Sprint store, and asks about the mystical device. The Sprint team springs into action! After all, Sprint’s strategy of trying to make any phone technically capable of playing music sound like the same thing as a multi-touch driven multiplayer like the iPhone.

Customer: Can I have an Apple Phone (sic), please?
Sprint Rep: Oh, so you’re interested in being able to place a call, eh? The iPhone is an impressive device, but do you really want to spend all that money? What you might not know is that Sprint offers lots of phones that are capable of making phone calls. Apple would have you believe that you need a $500 device to make a phone call. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Customer: I’m going home.
Sprint Rep: You just do that, little man.

(Read on for the rest of the top 4)

One of the biggest knocks on the iPhone (other than its slow mobile data rate and lack of unlimited storage, ala the INCREDIBLE LG Fusic) is that it doesn’t currently support live updating e-mail from corporate networks, the killer app that makes the BlackBerry the CrackBerry people know and snort. The iPhone can sync with Outlook and get push e-mail from Yahoo, it just can’t blend the two.

Well, maybe not for long. According to Mary Jo Foley, Apple might announce tomorrow that it has licensed Microsoft’s Exchange Active Sync software, the only missing piece preventing the iPhone from tapping into Exchange servers wirelessly actively to pull down messages automatically. It’s a very simple system, as seen above. No, I didn’t invent that flow chart. What it seems to mean, though, is that the last barrier to adoption of the iPhone among executives is about to vanish.

Hear that? It’s the sound of Palm and BlackBerry getting sick again.

Technorati Tags: iphone, microsoft, e-mail

Sprint made quite a buzz online today when a list of anti-iPhone talking points it provided to its sales associates got leaked to the web. It’s a mostly futile attempt to make Sprint’s suddenly long-in-the-tooth phones seem sprightly and futuristic. For example, in response to a customer interested in using the iPhone as an iPod, Sprint crafted these gems:

“¢ “We have many handsets that are MP3 players.”¢ “
“¢ “You want to have music with your phone? Let me show you the new Upstage or the Fusic II.”

Whoa, eat it, Apple! Sprint has a phone that’s twice as good as the LG Fusic! I mean, look at the original: It’s almost unimprovable.

Or check this out: Even though most other SmartPhones only come with 64 to 128 MB of storage, compared with the iPhone’s 4 to 8 GB, the former are clearly superior, because they have the ability to accept external memory cards. Check it,G!

• “Did you know that many of our phones offer external storage? Unlike the iPhone, which is only available in 4G or 8G, our phones offer unlimited storage.”

Wow, who knew that the ability to accept storage media was the same as unlimited storage! Under that definition, the original Apple II had unlimited storage – it could record data to as many cassette tapes as you could possibly provide. It’s like Sprint is living in the future!

Via MacDailyNews 

Technorati Tags: iphone, sprint

Normally, I wouldn’t believe any photos of iPhone use this close to launch, but the above picture of three of the devices from 9to5Mac looks too crummy to be fake. Has the first outside blogger wrangled a collection of the mighty phones?

Via MacRumors

Apple always does things its own way, so it’s little surprise that the iPhone presence in AT&T stores will look radically different from the other fixtures in the store. Crunchgear managed to snap off the above shot from a Seattle AT&T of a new iPhone kiosk, which loops through the amazing device’s UI. The site claims the shelf has a variety of docking and charging options for visitors.

Technorati Tags: ad, iphone

An anonymous tipster sent me this screenshot from NBC’s new series Chuck, written by OC creator Josh Schwartz. In the show, premiering this fall, a guy named Chuck receives all of the spy secrets in the world via a friend who steals them from the most powerful computer in the world: A Mac Classic.

Nice.

As you might expect for a major product launching on Friday, the iPhone has arrived stateside. According to AppleInsider, the much anticipated devices touched down over the weekend in a variety of locations. A bit more surprising is that Apple apparently had armed guards on hand to ensure a smooth arrival.

Awaiting the freight at each location on Sunday were armed personnel, who were reportedly hired by Apple through its courier’s ground handling agent and then cleared by the Transportation Security Administration. Armed guards are extremely unusual for freight coming out of the Asian sector, those familiar with the matter explained, and are typically reserved for shipments containing riches such as gold and diamonds.

Once on the ground, the iPhone shipments were to be broken down under the watch of the armed personnel, who would then observe the loading of the freight onto ground vehicles and become party to its transportation outbound.

You hear that? The iPhone is made of gold and diamonds! Will the magical features never cease?

Via Apple 2.0

Been wondering just who is actually camping out to buy the iPhone when it gets released? Wonder no longer. Gizmodo has an interview with the lucky guy out front of the Apple Store in New York, and, let’s just say I don’t think they would hire him to dance in an iPod commercial.

Still, he’s going to have an iPhone on Friday, and I’m not. What’s dignity worth, anyway?

Technorati Tags: genius bar, iphone

Philip Elmer-Dewitt, author of the excellent Apple 2.0 blog, has rounded up the blogosphere’s analyses of Apple’s new guided iPhone tour. Definitely check the list out – it’s really awesome that Apple built in read-only support for PDFs, Word docs and Excel spreadsheets. A friend from Toronto showed me a PowerPoint slideshow on his Motorola Q. Having seen that, I’m desperate for Apple to do the same thing. You listening, Cupertino?

Technorati Tags: iphone, rumor

In case you haven’t heard, this weekend marked the iPhone’s coming out party. Though the iPhone actually goes on sale this Friday, Apple employees decided to take the iPhone out into the world one week early. How do I know? Two personal acquaintances ran into Apple folks breaking out their 3-in-1 revolutionary devices in San Francisco on Saturday.

One works in a retail store and saw the iPhone-bearer pull out the device when he couldn’t remember the name of a book he was looking for. He was very careful not to show the screen. It was a discrete way to show off.

At the other end of the spectrum lies the doofus in the skull t-shirt above. A friend of mine caught him at a party. Check his texts about it:

I’m at this party with a bunch of [company name deleted] people, and this dude from apple is conspicuously busting out his iphone.

After I requested the photo you see above, here’s the note of his reply:

Someone told me not to do it bc he could get in trouble… Well maybe he shouldn’t be flashing it around at a party! I refuse to jock even though it’s a research op.

That’s how brazen Apple folks were with their iPhones these days.

I got my first henna Apple tattoo last night. As you can see, it looks every bit as ill-advised as you might hope. More tragically, it happened at an office party, not even like a MacWorld event.

But I learned some stuff. The job was done by Renda Dabit of Henna Garden, who has done many, many Apple tattoos in her time. It sounds, in fact, like she’s the henna artist of the Bay Area Mac Community. I brought an iPod for her to use as reference, but she didn’t need it. Masterful work, but could you expect less from a henna artist regularly hired to work Bay Area Apple enthusiast events? I thought not.

On a less hopeful note, please see the picture below, taken hours after the original. Such a shame. I also had my fortune told, and I just have to assume that the shattered Apple bodes ill for next week’s iPhone launch…

Technorati Tags: apple, henna, tattoo

Though Apple still hasn’t released a real iPhone SDK, developers continue to create fun and interesting ways to develop for the breakthrough device. The newest tool in the set is iPhoney, a WebKit-based application that looks just like an iPhone on a given screen and renders websites just as they would appear. Sure, it’s a great way to test a site you’re customizing for the iPhone, but it’s also a great way to pretend that you already own one. In fact, it’s the next generation — fully virtual. I’m not broke, I’m ahead of the curve.

Check it out and give the folks behind it feedback. They tell me it will go open-source soon, and I’m dying to see what people can do with it.

Technorati Tags: iphone, safari

You know, I really didn’t think that iPhone hype could reach a level any higher than where it has been since its announcement in January. And then I get out of bed every day, and a national interest magazine does a cover story, and then Apple ups the battery life and even shows how it works in 3D. I have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before the first folks get in line to buy one the day it gets released.

I mean, seriously? Those Apple website 3D demos? So hot.

Technorati Tags: iphone

New Apple hardware platforms are the new favorite home of interesting software development. When the AppleTV launched, the box was immediately hacked to do a lot of things it was never designed for. Now, the iPhone is rapidly filling with Web 2.0 applications, even 10 days before it actually rolls out the door.

You can see ample evidence of this over at iPhone Application List, which is trying to keep track of every new development for the device. While some apps look great — the shopping list one I linked the other day, news reader iActu — others are not quite up to Apple interface standards, to put it mildly.
It’s interesting proof that good apps can be built solely on Web technology. On the other hand, the applications all behave in pretty much the same way. And we’ve also very rapidly reached the ugly phase of iPhone development. One problem with Apple’s deliberately vague non-SDK approach is that iPhone apps look a lot like the Internet. And at this point, it’s safe to say: The Internet ain’t always pretty.

What are you still waiting to see in iPhone app form? Anything you don’t think is possible (other than anything requiring Flash, obviously)?

Technorati Tags: iphone, software

I just finished reading John Heileman’s rather critical profile of Steve Jobs, and I have to say I didn’t think it was too bad. It’s definitely written for an audience that has barely even heard of Steve Jobs, so the rehashing of young Steve’s mean temper and early folly seem a bit over-done to the average Apple observer.

Still, I think a lot of the skepticism in the article is fair, even if I do think Heileman misunderstands what drives Steve to continually enter new businesses. Steve loves to make things that he wants to use — it just so happens that Steve’s tastes are often quite compatible with our tastes. And I guarantee that years ago, he started complaining that there wasn’t a single cell phone he could stand to use. Now we have the iPhone. This isn’t really about legacy — Steve has done everything he ever wanted to and more. Now it’s just the continual drive to make cool stuff that he wants.

But a lot of other people have a problem with the piece, particularly Fake Steve, who publishes the funniest critique I have ever read:

Sorry, John Heilemann, but when you set us up with a big cover calling me iGod and making me look like shit, and when you get half the magazine for your story, we expect you to deliver something new, something interesting, something jarring, something smart. In short, something we didn’t know before. We’d also expect you to maybe find out something bad, or to at least have the balls to say you think the iPhone is going to flop, instead of saying “maybe it will, maybe it won’t.” For that matter you might do your readers the courtesy of admitting that you hate me for arousing such feelings of man-lust in your tiny heart, and that your obsession with El Jobso is a way of masking (and, paradoxically, indulging) the hard-on you have for me. You might also just admit that New York magazine is just trying to cash in on the hype around the iPhone and looking for any excuse to put my face on your cover so you can sell more copies; but you think you can look cool if you dress it up as some kind of cynical, pseudo-psychological deep-think business piece.

Instead, John, you just come off looking like some guy who wishes he still worked at the New Yorker.

Right. As if. Friend, you’re getting an Azzie award.

Ow. I mean, OW.

Technorati Tags: fake steve, Steve Jobs

Most of the time, we like to believe our computers have significantly advanced over the last 20 years. But some things remind us little has changed.

Take the video above. Created by James Leathem on an Apple IIe, it creates 3-D renders too complex for the actual machine. Since the computer couldn’t play the animation itself, Leathem shot each frame individually and pieced them together as a continuous stop-motion animation.

Simply incredible.

Via Boing Boing

Technorati Tags: apple //e, apple IIe

Right after the iPhone was introduced, Rikard Linde posted a pretty brilliant recommendation for upgrades to the device. The brief scenario made the machine much more context-sensitive and integrated the functions to new degrees.

Rikard has revisited the iPhone again, focusing on the media capabilities on the device. The file-sharing strategy he suggests is really interesting. I’d buy a machine built on his model. On the other hand, the suggested name, Clubline, doesn’t do it for me. Still, it’s great to have someone thinking this deeply about where the technology can go for the next generation.

Read “Introducing Clubline, music sharing done right.” [Enklo]

Technorati Tags: iphone, future

The vision of the Apple retail store model is a beautiful thing: Gorgeous fixtures, interactive demos, a theater and even a tech-support Genius Bar that make technology friendly. The reality is often a bit different, particularly in major cities. The Genius Bar is over-run with customers, and even making an appointment doesn’t ensure prompt service.

It’s a victim of its own success. The good news, though, is that the system can work. Take, for example, the case of my fiancee’s 12″ Powerbook.

Technorati Tags: genius bar, applecare, retail, warranty

Lots of iPods have bitten the big one over the last six years. But never before have I seen so many totally trashed “breakthrough digital devices” in one place as at the great Pile of Photos of Broken iPods. Head over. Grab some hankies. Mourn. Reboot.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: ipod, puppy

Kudos to Alec Sutherland, who has put together the best fake ad for a real product I have ever seen in the form of “iPhone New York,” a brilliant, professional spot that shows people of every language and culture raving about the iPhone. I almost teared up, and I’m all West Coast and stuff. Bonus points for use of “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn and John, too.

I think Apple’s very demo-oriented “Here’s what it can actually do” campaign is perfect for the iPhone launch, but a treatment like this one could kill for a second phase. They should call Sutherland when the time comes.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: iphone, new york