Infinity and Beyond

So, Engadget posted their invitation deets to the October 14th event being held by Apple to announce something about notebooks.  From what I can tell it’s unclear (well they never leak details before so this is all from rumors) if they’re doing an accross-the-board product refresh, if there will be redesigns of the MacBooks and/or MacBook Pros, or if they’ll unveil an entirely new form factor.

Engadget has a link with some images of a supposed new Air-like form factor.

MacRumors has an image of the supposed “brick” casing.  Rumors have gone back and forth on whether or not “brick” would be an entirely new product line, or if it was a new manufacturing process that would carve cases out of single pieces of aluminium.

You may remember when Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, in an unusual move for Apple, hinted that earnings this quarter would be lower due to an undisclosed “product transition”.  Since then everyone has wondered what exactly he was hinting at.  Looks like next week we’ll finally find out.

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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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Amidst the thrashing that the broader market took today, Nvidia shares closed down 13% today because an analyst at Pacific Crest downgraded the stock because he believes the company will sell its chipset division.  This is in rather stark contrast to the swirling rumors that Apple will forgoe Intel chipsets (not processors) in their upcomming MacBook revisions.  According to that MacRumors article, that could be as early as next week.  Now, don’t get me wrong–Apple has been known to hang on to bad technology longer than needed.  But it seems unlikely that they’d go through all the work to switch over to Nvidia chipsets for only one hardware revision cycle.  It’s also true that Nvidia takes a lot of heat despite not really having much competition at all–their stock seems to follow the “good news, stock declines/bad news, stock declines” policy that plagues Apple.  I suppose even if Nvida were to sell off the chipset division, there’s no reason Apple couldn’t continue purchasing the line from whomever buys the division.

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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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Sorry for the off-topic post, but I gotta complain today about Apple’s stock. Sure, sure, the world is going to hell and the market is down. But it seems like iPods are becoming an elastic good just like my cigarettes. So why, ohh why, did AAPL close down $22.98 today?  That is apparently a “pounding” according to MarketWatch.

I mean, Apple’s not a bank. Apple doesn’t have bad home mortgages. Gah! The company is fundamentally strong, despite some recent issues with the 3G iPhone (which is still selling like crazy). It’s so frustrating owning this stock and watching it move in stupidly unpredictable ways and reacting to news that has nothing to do with the company. OK, so sure, an awful economy means less PC sales…but Apple’s one of the only tech players that is improving EVERY quarter for the last 6 years or something like that. I mean, srsly, lay off AAPL people…for my everyone’s sake.  It’s a good thing my retirement is a long way off…

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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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Apple (AAPL) blocked another application [via MacRumors.com] from the App Store because it duplicated functionality of their built-in apps.  But again it sounds like it’s more the case that the developer’s app was better than what Apple has released.  Specifically this guy’s application, MailWrangler, allows you to more easily check multiple Gmail accounts and also do things like use the stars, Google contacts, and what I’d love to have–threaded email.  I love how Gmail on the web–even the mobile web version–conveniently threads your messages.  Hopefully they’ll either integrate this functionality in themselves or let this application through.

I’m starting to consider looking into jailbreaking my iPhone 3G.  This practice of blocking applications that improve on built-in apps seems very Microsoftesque, and is kind of crappy.

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If you bought your iPhone 3G in the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and several Latin American countries, you need to exchange your ultracompact USB power adapter for a new one.  Apple (AAPL) said they’ve had reports of the prongs coming out and getting stuck in sockets, which can cause a showck if you try an dremove them.

 

The full details can be found here:

http://www.apple.com/support/usbadapter/exchangeprogram/

There’s no cost to you–simply order a replacement via the web or exchange in-store at your local Apple Retail Store starting on October 10th.  You will need to bring in your old adapter in order to receive a new one(s).  This applies to both the adapter included in the box with the phone as well as any additional ones you may have purchased.

Check the bottom of your adapater though–if it has a green dot (pictured below) you’ve already got the redesigned adapter and do not need to replace it.  Also note:

 

We’ll need to collect your iPhone 3G’s serial number as part of the exchange process.

If you apply via the web, you will also need to provide your name and address so that we can send you a new adapter along with a shipment box so that you can return the affected adapter to Apple.  

If you visit an Apple Retail Store, you need to bring your affected adapter(s) and your iPhone 3G(s) with you to complete the exchange process.       

I hope they’ll give me a replacement for the adapter I’ve still got from my first iPhone 3G that got stolen.  I’ve got the serial number…maybe I’ll have to order that one online.

 

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