Iphone updates…and perhaps a network suprise as well? June 29, 2007
Posted by jumpingship in AT&T, Apple, iPhone.add a comment
Well, it’s been all of four hours since the iPhone’s release, and someone has already taken one apart to see what makes it tick. I was pretty impressed at just how much they managed to cram into one of these phones, especially the four or five layers of film they used for the multi-touch interface.
In other news, it appears that there might be some rumblings about a bump in EDGE speeds, possibly coupled with the release of the iPhone. Knowing engadget, this could be a temporary thing blown out of proportion, but the consistency of the reports is somewhat interesting. The decision to implement the EDGE network for the iPhone was one of its greatest shortcomings, making internet access less spectacular than it could be on one of AT&Ts faster networks.
Which leads me to what I was going to briefly mention earier: my beef with Cingular AT&T wireless. With AT&Ts somewhat recent acquisition of Cingular, I believe that we are seeing a trend similar to what many cable companies are doing: attempting to be a one-stop-bundle-everything-you-can-with-us-so-we-can-set-up-a-monopoly provider. The cable companies are already starting to do this by allowing you to enlist your TV, internet, and now phone service with them, in attempt to save money for you, the (profit margin dependent) consumer. I feel that AT&T is doing the same thing, making small and silent grabs and local telecoms, and are expanding their influence over ISP services through their DSL offerings. It’s where cable and telecom meet, at the ISP level, that has me concerned: where juggarnaunts clash, plans become tiered, and net neutrality becomes an issue (for a insightful explanation of net neutrality I would recommend consulting with a master of stealth).
What does this have to do with the iPhone? Well, now that I look at it, maybe not a whole lot. But the fact that Apple signed an exclusive multi-year deal with AT&T to supply the iPhone solely to them makes me wonder why they would limit themselves to this single market. Sure, this single market has over 62 million subscribers, but it’s not like they’re all going to buy the iPhone, and there are plenty of other GSM-equipt networks with customers hungry for a piece of cutting-edge tech. Whatever decisions are being made behind the scene, I am interested to see how this network deal pans out a few years down the road, and if Apple’s business model stays the same.
So…iPhone. June 29, 2007
Posted by jumpingship in Apple, iPhone.add a comment
I figured with the launch of the iPhone today, it would only be appropriate to talk about this new device, and its relevance to Apple’s growing diversification in not only the computing market, but in consumer electronics in general. While I personally won’t be picking one up, (I’m a Verizon customer…that, and I really don’t need one) I am interested to see how the public reacts to its actual release. The iPhone has been one of the most-hyped devices in recent memory, and it has been heralded by some as the catalyst for a new era of cell phones. But recent reviews from Walter Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal, and David Pogue at The New York Times have been somewhat inconclusive, the reviewers torn between the product’s shortcomings and the sheer cool of the concept. In addition, the hype has pushed the expectations for the device to an almost unreasonable level, an attribute I see reflected in some of the critical initial reviews.
So you want my take on it?
The two biggest advancements that I think the iPhone has brought to the field (and which will most likely be emulated by other companies in the weeks and months to follow) are Visual Voicemail and the new browser interface. Visual voicemail in particular is a relatively simple solution to a common problem, checking multiple voicemails on your phone without having to listen to all of them. I also think that Apple is on to something with the real web page rendering features bundled in its Safari build for the iPhone. The rendering of web pages has been one of the biggest headaches for smartphones, having to rely on special phone-formatted versions for the smaller screens, often sacrificing links or other useful information in the process. But with the iPhone, it appears exactly as it would at your desktop, albeit on a smaller screen. Overall, I think it will be the smaller, less-ranted about features of the iPhone that make it the revolution that everyone says it is.
Well, that’s all for now…I’ll try to go more in depth on the release of the iPhone after it hits the mainstream market tonight at 6pm, and perhaps discuss in a little more detail why I think the issues with the iPhone may be more with the network, rather than the phone itself.
First Post June 21, 2007
Posted by jumpingship in Uncategorized.add a comment
Greetings, and welcome to Jumping Ship! I decided to start this blog as a sort of personal log of my transition from a Windows-based environment to a Mac-based one. I originally came up with the idea for starting after I read another blog that performed a similar function, and ultimately helped make up my mind that it was time to switch. My hope is that after reading and following my account, you will be compelled to switch as well, or at least be compelled to look further into OSX. In addition, I hope that those readers out there who are long-time Mac users will contribute to the knowledge base I hope to build here, through their comments and feedback to jumpingshipblogATgmailDOTcom. With that in mind, I thought I’d kick things off with some of the reasons I decided that a Mac was right for my next computer purchase.
My current setup is a custom desktop build I designed three years ago this fall, running Windows XP Pro SP2, and it’s starting to get a little long of tooth (for those interested, it’s based around an Athlon 3200XP+ and an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Mobo) . Nevertheless, it has served me fairly faithfully, and up until recently, has done all I have needed it to do. But this past spring I began to do some photography work for one of the newspapers at my school, and it was then I realized that I was going to need something mobile. The entire newspaper office runs OSX, and my editor encouraged me to take a look at what he felt was the OS for content creation. With powerful photo apps such as CS3 and Aperture being the software standard at the paper, I knew it was worth considering.
Unlike many people who make the switch to OSX, I have been satisfied with my Windows experience, especially under XP Pro. It is the most stable version of Windows I’ve ever used (perhaps with the exception of 2000 pro), and the problems I have encountered have been few and far between. The issue stability-wise for me, however, is that those few problems I have had have come in the form of complete OS failure, rootkits, and faulty drivers. And although I am a diligent updater and backup-archivist (some might even say a bit paranoid), I still find myself losing data now and again. The appeal of a less virus-laden and more controlled hardware standard present in Mac system design has also won points with me in that regard.
But more than anything, the one thing that has convinced me that Macs are the way to go for me is the recent switch by Apple to an Intel-based processor architecture. This in my opinion is one of the most important improvements Apple has made in recent years, making it easier to not only write software cross-platform for developers, but also to compare benchmarks between PCs and Macs, and also to run Windows side by side with OSX. The dual-booting options presented by Apple in the form of Boot Camp, and the third party virtualization offering in Parallels sealed the deal for me; now I could have all of the great features and stability of OSX, while still being able to fall back on Windows should a program not come with Mac support.
Simplicity, thoughtful design, and compatibility: three facets of the Mac interface that I have found in both first-party hardware and third-party applications for Mac, and I hope that as you read this blog you will find, as I have, that Macs have come a long way from the Apple II, and they are here to stay.
