Infinity and Beyond

So I have two “WTF” factors for this post.  One is Fred, the other is the ZipIt.  There is this YouTube dude called Fred (his YouTube page) (or his home page).  I just don’t get it.  I don’t get it at all.  I stumbled upon his blog post from Videogum, which talks about how Fred is now advertising for some bullshit my-first-Blackberry device called the ZipIt.  Which he now uses in his craptastic videos.

If you haven’t watched anything from Fred, you can try watching Fred talk about his attempt to run for class president:

Now, I don’t usually swear online (hahah), but I really have to classify this in the What The Fuck category.  I just…don’t….get it.  Are 2.5 MILLION other people also viewing this video just for the What The Fuck factor?  Judging by the comments, there are a ton of people who are either lying through their teeth, or genuinely think this kid is funny.

And i very much agree with the author of the Vidoegum post, Gabe, who says:

I think there are definitely a few things that I would totally buy after watching a Fred video, like noise-canceling headphones, or an industrial grade eye-shower, or a gun with one bullet in it.

I’m trying to think back to childhood…I know many of the things I liked growing up were probably stupid and lame and awful and unbearable if I were to watch them now (Pete will tell you that’s SeaQuest but I still stand by it)…but Fred?  Really?  Huh?  Barney is forgivable because 3-year olds just don’t actually know what’s going on.  But 14 year olds should have started to develop some kind of taste for the non-shittastic.

I wonder if Fred will really drive sales of the ZipIt.  It has some “interesting” features.  It’s an “All-in-one WiFi Messenger” which only costs $49.99, plus a $9.99/month service contract.  You can chat with up to 99 friends at the same time. 99?  Damn.  It does “let u chat, control ur IM accounts, and set IM options.”  What is good about it is that they let you send and receive text messages to other cell phones, and your parents will “luv” that there’s never any (why not “ne”??) overage charges or surprise fees.   Built-in mini-SD card for showing off “ur favorite pics” (again, why not “ur fav pics”??).  Interestingly you can listen to music and also stream live internet radio from “ur favorite stations.”  ”How much do you <3 that?”  I <3 that a lot.

So…this is almsot like a glorified pager.  For $50 that’s really not that bad, and I suppose I’d much rather see parents buy this for their kids than an overpriced smartphone.  I don’t really see this taking much market share away from mobile phones though.  Kids are going to want to have gigabytes worth of songs.  They’re going to want to surf the web.  They’re going to want to make phone calls.  They’re going to want to take pictures and send them via MMS.  So while parents will be stuck with a heftier monthly bill, I don’t really see this product taking off, unless it’s with kids who aren’t quite at the point in their social lives where they’re wanting to talk on the phone all the time.  And honestly I don’t think a 12 year old needs a) one of these, b) a mobile phone, or c) anything more than an iPod Shuffle.  

Plus this device looks huge…definitely not hip and trendy at all.  That being said, I almost want to buy stock in the company, because if even a fraction of Fred’s fans go out and buy this silly device, there’s big money to be made.  Sadly, Fred is probably getting a decent chunk of money for this.  Which is annoying.  Just like the Kev Blaze video featuring Fred.  Who the hell is Kev Blaze?  And more importantly, how did “Fred” manage to get the username “Fred”.  I suppose that means he should get some kind of “props”.  But not from me.

Update:  CNN gives a glimpse of who is behind Fred.  Ending with “it’s really incredible…”  I consider this to be…incredible yes…but I’m glad I haven’t rocketed to stardom this way.

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So today my co-worker brought in her new “iTouch” which she’s purchased for her upcomming extended travels.  She was talking about how she downloaded PacMan, and I was trying to show her some of the games I’ve downloaded.

I thought I’d tell her about Enigmo, which is, according to creator Pangeasoft:

Enigmo is the most unique game that you’ll find for the iPhone or iPod Touch. It is a 3D puzzle game where you manipulate slides, bumpers, and other pieces to control streams of flowing liquid. Liquids (water, oil, and lava) fall from “droppers” and will bounce around the walls of a puzzle. You move and rotate the various puzzle pieces in order to divert the flow of the falling droplets so that they can reach their target. The faster you complete each level, the more bonus you will receive.

It looks somthing like this:

 

Now, I think this game is pretty fun. But her reply was this:

I don’t know.  It looks kind of like a boy’s game.  Like playing with your peeper.

No joke.  It was hilarious.  Because of this, I’m giving Enigmo my “Game of the Week” rating.  Because it’s almost as much fun as playing with your peeper.

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We’ve installed a new feature here at I and B. Now you’ll be able to follow along with two frustrated Apple iPhone users (2nd generation even) as we drop calls, have apps crash, and have to do hard resets like we are running Windows 95. Speaking of which, check out what Jonathan Golob of ‘The Stranger’ had to say:

The iPhone crashes. A lot.

Calls drop all the time. Safari, the Apple web browser, crashes continually. Woe on you if you navigate a partially-loaded page (fed up with the abysmally slow AT&T network). The mail app creaks when opening, often leaving you with a blank white unresponsive screen. The SMS program occasionally refuses to open.

Owning an iPhone–even the second-generation iPhone–is much like fighting through Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape 3.0 on Windows ‘95. When it works, you get a clear sense that this is the new way of doing things. Through the grime of incompetent implementation can be seen glances of what could, and likely will, be.

Apple maintains control over most every aspect of their hardware and they currently have the luxury of telling the unruly kids who don’t want to play by their rules to take a hike. Now, I’m not the Apple expert between the two Jason’s, but I know when a product isn’t living up to the hype, expectations, and reputation the company set for it. Maybe it was the public that brought on this unobtainable level of perfection, but for whatever reason it exists it might be time for Apple to try to fix the problem.

In the time being we’ve put up a new widget that we’ll update for every hard reset we have to do as well as what I call ‘the black screen of death’. Windows users might be familiar with ‘the blue screen of death’. Well, to all those Windows diehards who like to mock Mac users, here you go. When an app fails on the iPhone the first thing that happens is your screen goes black, then anywhere from 1 second to a minute or two your main icons re-appear like an annoying magic trick you can’t avoid.

I, like Jason T, and Jonathan Golob see the great potential in this phone. When the phone works as a phone, and when applications don’t crash it’s pretty much the greatest device out there. However, given the fact that it does crash so much and it drops calls like its going out of style the idea of waiting until the iPhone ‘98 platform comes out might not be the worst idea ever. I’m not saying don’t get the iPhone if you want it, but know that you are getting the latest and greatest and there are going to be pitfalls and practical issues that come with it. Now, if Apple, or from what I hear AT&T, could get its act together and focus on fixing these issues we can feel like we are using OS X and not Windows ‘95.

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So Arik Hesseldahl may be a bit late to the party of how sweet gaming on the iPhone is.  But in his BusinessWeek article he talks about how the iPhone/iPod Touch is starting to impact the gaming industry.  He talks positively about his experiences playing a variety of games on Apple’s mobile platform, and how well they compare to the Nintendo’s DS.  Furthermore, Apple has a pre-built online distribution channel for new games in the form of the iTunes store.  Not only can I download a game as soon as it is released, I can download it directly to my device while on the go.  And that allows me to pick from more than 1500 games, with more being released daily.  Sure some of them are simple or crappy, but there’s still a vast catalog of games available.  Also in looking at the numbers, the combination of iPhones and iPod Touch devices being sold each year is starting to rival DS sales.  So while it’s not completely an apples to apples (no pun intended) comparison, Apple is able to reach nearly the same size audience as Nintendo. 

It’s unlikely that Apple would be able to unseat Nintendo or Sony purely on the gaming front.  But they’re definitely making an impact with their sales and distribution method, which should spurn the other two into continuing to release new innovative products.

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Short post ’cause it’s late and dinner is ready.  Jason D. is in Cali this week but if he wasn’t I know for sure he’d be posting about the fact that Google released Google Earth today for the iPhone.  I just downloaded it so I’ll give first impressions later.  Pull up the App Store and enjoy!

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<rant>I’m getting a little fed up with AT&T.  I’ve had more and more dropped calls with my iPhone these days.  It seems especially troublesome when the phone has to switch from 3G down to Edge.  There are two spots on my commute home where I am guaranteed to drop a call.  And one of them is near downtown out in the open, where there shouldn’t be any problem getting a signal.  I’ve taken to disabling 3G whever I have an “important” call to make, in the hopes that I won’t drop it.  But that’s a pain in the ass.  

That being said, it sounds like my friends who are using AT&T on non-iPhones are having nearly as much trouble with connectivity as I am.  Thusly I’m comfortable assigning most of the blame to AT&T.  And we all know how much I think AT&T sucks.  </end rant>

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So say you had your first iPhone 3G stolen lost your first iPhone 3G, but you had it backed up.  Now when you get your second iPhone as a replacement, it’s still running 2.0 software, not the 2.1 software which you had your first phone running.  Hence your backup won’t work.  So you upgrade your new phone to 2.1, and find out as you start using it that the earpiece doesn’t work–that’s right, no sound coming out of it.  Back to the Apple Store you go (despite it being less than 24 hours old–gotta go to Apple, as AT&T will tell you you’re SOL).  You exchange your phone.  Now you’ve got your new phone, but of course it’s back on 2.0, and your backup won’t work.  I’m sure once you’ve upgraded to 2.1 you could then restore, but all the apps and such are backed up anyway, so what’s the point as they’ll auto-reload.  Perhaps it’s quicker and I’m dumb.  

Either way, a few weeks later you go to install 10.5.5 and find out you’ve got not enough free space on your aging hard drive.  But you think, “Hrm, do I have a bunch of worthless backups?”  And the answer is, “Yes!”.

From this Apple KB article, here’s how to delete them and free up some precious space on your disk:

1. Open iTunes Preferences (Windows: Edit->Preferences; Mac: iTunes->Preferences)
2. Click Syncing (iTunes 7.x) or Devices (iTunes 8.x)
3. Click the backup you want to remove
4. Click Remove Backup (iTunes 7.x) or Delete Backup (iTunes 8.x)
5. Confirm you want to delte the selcted backup
6. Click Ok and close your way out

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Head over to the iPhone App Store or the fring website to check and download the new fring app.  You get:

• Skype
• MSN Messenger
• ICQ
• Google Talk
• SIP
• Twitter
• AIM 
• Yahoo!

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ExtremeTech’s got a great post by Lance Ulanoff (The T-Mobile G1 [Google Android] is No iPhone) of PCMag doing essentially a nice, clean, side-by-side comparison of Google/T-Mobile’s G1 versus the Apple/AT&T iPhone.  He took the lenghty articles and boiled them down into a nice bulleted list comparing the features of each phone–what they both have, and where they differ.

 

G1 vs iPhone

What jumped out at me was the fact that the G1, while sporting a 3 megapixel camera, doesn’t capture video.  This has been a built-in feature on HTC for a really long time, so I don’t have any idea why they wouldn’t include video with the G1, which is very much a sought-after feature missing on the iPhone.  Also interesting is that the built-in browser on the G1 is based on WebKit–which is also what Chrome is built on top of, and has it’s roots in Apple’s Safari browser.  But that aside…no video??  Does anyone have any idea why they would cut this feature?  I thought AT&T was the stingy one when it came to cutting features from phones (i.e. my 8525 was supposed to have a camera on the front for video conferencing…which is supported everywhere else in the world…but AT&T cut it out).

And Lance’s ultimate conclusion was that, while he loves the G1, it simply lacks the sex appeal of the iPhone.  Hence my image…Which I think I did a pretty good job on, if I do say so myself.  And, I do.

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Today Google announced the first phone running on the Android platform.  It’s the G1, made by HTC (makers of many popular Windows Mobile devices).  The G1 will be available exclusively from T-Mobile stores in U.S. cities where they’ve depolyed their 3G data network.  You’ll be able to order the phone online and it will work in the non-3G areas, but at slower speeds (or you can switch to the built-in WiFi).  

The phone has drawn many comparisons to Apple’s iPhone.  At first glance, it’s pretty similar, with large and bright touch screen (full features, and more detailed features from Fortune).  But unlike the iPhone, the G1 features a full QWERTY keyboard beneath the screen.  It will also have a cheaper data plan than AT&T’s iPhone plan.  The phone itself can be had for $179 which is $20 less than the cheapest iPhone.  

 

 

 

That being said, the G1 doesn’t yet support Exchange push, which the iPhone does with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software.   There will be an applications store where users can download new apps.  G1 users will be able to download music from a special Amazon.com store–directly to the device and DRM-free.

That’s all good, but it appears to only come with a 1GB memory card–I wasn’t able to find the specs on the built-in memory.  While it may be $20 cheaper than an iPhone, but they come in 8GB and 16GB versions, so you’re going to spend a lot more than that buying 7GB worth of memory cards to store the other part of your music library.  While their website says “With the 1GB memory card, youll never be without your favorite tunes,” I’m willing to bet many will feel differently.  Also, is it me, or do all the home screen flick interactions seem very iPhone-esque?

Either way, I’m sure there will be a lot of people who will be eager to get their hands on the device.  It will be interesting to see if and when lines start forming.

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