Tag Archives: iPad

Molasses…

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I don’t expect alot from my tech, but when I do tend to expect is that it runs quickly when I hit the on switch. Up until a few weeks ago, my laptop delivered as much zip and performance as it did the day I took it out of the box. Now it’s gotten so laggy that I can barely stand to use it. I’ve tinkered around with some of the settings, cleaned things up as best I can without making a major effort, and have pretty much been met with more chop and even less vim and vigor. I’ve got plenty of hard drive space left, sufficient RAM, and a machine that’s acting like it’s severely underpowered. Spending your off hours trying to diagnose a sick laptop isn’t the way you want to spend your time when you’re pretending to moonlight as a real life struggling writer. I need my laptop that just works, to just work and not give me a crap ton of problems right now. I’m going to try to nurse it through the next few days and the dedicate as much time as necessary this weekend to put right. Failing this weekend’s heroic efforts to make a repair, it might be time to bite the bullet and spend some of that tax refund on something shiny and new with some plussed up processing power.

With the impending launch of the 3rd gen iPad, it might be time to consider going back to an overpowered desktop for home using the iPad for all my mobile needs. Sure, it’s another one of those fancy first world problems, but it’s the one that’s in my face giving me fits right now, and that’s the one that always gets tackled first.

A look over my shoulder…

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Despite the impressions that I might give here, I usually go out of my way to be at least civil to random people I meet during the course of the day. For the most part, they’re the ones just trying to get through whatever’s on their plate and they want to be left alone just as much as I do. Of course on the other hand you sometimes encounter someone who couldn’t get a clue if they were being handed out for free. That was the kind I ran into this morning while I was waiting to get my oil changed.

I like to use the kind of enforced down time you only get in a waiting room to catch up reading, writing, or some other activity I can do quietly. Occasionally I’ve had people stop to ask questions about the iPad. I do my best to answer their questions without getting sucked into anything resembling an actual conversation. I dispense the requested information and stick my nose immediately back into whatever it was I was working on before they came by. Sometimes, like this morning, it’s just not that simple.

The old battle axe sitting next to me this morning apparently has a tough time taking hints or reading body language. Just because I’m typing away on the screen doesn’t mean that I don’t see you trying to read what I’m writing. It gets a little more obvious when you start leaning further and further in my direction as I move my iPad further and further away from you. I didn’t particularly want to cause a scene and yelling at old ladies isn’t really my style. That left me with only one option: a Google search for BDSM images. Since she was so intrigued with what I was up to, I even offered to let her check out the first page of results with me. As it turns out, she apparently wasn’t as interested in what I was up to as she thought she was. Hopefully next time she’s tempted to mind someone else’s business, she’ll give some thought to how much she really wants to know about the stranger sitting next to her.

Dear Lord, please don’t let them screw this up…

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Today is the first iPhone launch that doesn’t find me standing in line somewhere. The first iteration was the local AT&T store, but after that I discovered the grownup candyland that is the Apple Store. As much as I don’t particularly like hanging around large groups of people, launch day crowds are something a little different. We’re all geekily obsessed in more or less the same way. Plus there’s always a smattering of hot nerdy chicks in line and really, who doesn’t like that?

This time around, in the absence of confirmed in-store reservations, the better course of action seemed to be ordering direct and waiting for my shiny new precious in the comfort of my own home. Judging by a look around at the weather, that’s probably for the best. There’s still a part of me that feels a little bad about missing the lineup. Not needing to get up at 2AM and having fresh hot coffee, my fuzzy slippers, and an actual chair to sit in temper that feeling just a little bit.

If the internet is to be believed, my phone is now out for delivery. I’m still more than a little concerned that UPS will jack something up at the last minute, but in an effort to maintain some semblance of reasonableness I’m working under the assumption that I’ll have a tasty new treat in my hot little hands by around noon. Then I’ll need to find something else to look forward to (i.e. obsess over)…. Sooooooo when did they say iPad 3 was coming out?

Tracker…

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There’s been alot of press this week about the iPhone “tracker” file. Sure, if you didn’t know about it, you might be tempted to think of it in terms of an invasion of privacy. But since it’s right there in the Terms of Service, I’m not sure what the fuss is about. If you’re spending alot of time in places where you’d rather not be seen, I’ve got bad news for you… there are already cameras everywhere and your cute mid-twentieth century notion of “privacy” is quaint. How much of your information have you willing posted on Flickr, WordPress, or Facebook? More than you’d think… and generally done with a time and location stamp built right there into the electrons.

Sure, you can keep some things private if you try hard enough. Stop using social media, or really just stop using the internet all together. Hand over your GPS and your cell phone. Cut up your credit cards and your ATM card – although you’ll find it hard to withdraw money from the bank without showing up at a branch and getting yourself on film. Stop going to public places – Big Brother loves watching crowds at places like airports, city centers, and shopping malls. Turn off your TV and maybe even your car with the fancy OnStar system.

The internet is alight with people decrying companies that are trying to “steal” our private information… but they’re not trying to steal anything. We sold it to them bit by bit. We did it for convenience. And maybe some of us did it without even knowing. That’s the price we pay for living in our brave new world. If you think we can roll it back now, you’re deluded – always-on, technology that’s fully integrated into our lives has seen to that. The best any of us can do is embrace the public nature of our private lives, learn the new rules, and make sure that we are the best advocate for our online selves.

Apple Care…

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For the most part, I’ve had good experiences with Apple Care. There’s something to be said for an operation where you can make an appointment, walk in and generally get a repair or replacement within a couple of minutes.

After a few weeks of struggling with a glitchy iPhone, I finally decided to make my appointment before I was too tempted to send my phone hurtling towards the fireplace. I’m pretty sure blunt force trauma isn’t something that’s covered as warrantee work. After meeting with my “Genius,” the official diagnosis was “home button intermittent.” The cause, officially listed as “You have too many apps running in the background.” The exchange went a little like this:

Genius: If you shut those down once a day you shouldn’t have a problem.

Me: Yeah, I do that already. I’ve even done the half dozen other “fixes” recommended in the forums.

Genius: Ok, I’ll shut them down and you should be good to go

Me: Uhhh… yeah.

This is the point in the day where we spent five minutes trying to get the home key to respond in any way.

Genius: Well, we’ve managed to reproduce the problem.

Me: Yep.

Genius: Uhhh… Why don’t we just get you a replacement…

Me: Perfect

I had also hoped to look at the possibility of swapping out my iPad because of a stuck pixel. One very annoying bight blue stuck pixel. Apparently, though, some degree of “stickage” is considered to be within performance standard. On an $800 consumer electronic product, zero defects should be the performance standard, but arguing with the genius wasn’t going to get me anywhere. In fairness, she did offer to swap it out using my one-time warrantee replacement for accidental damage, but being this early in the life cycle, and given that I’m tapping this post out one handed, balancing my iPad on my knee over a concrete floor while holding a steaming cup of coffee with my left hand, I decided the better part of valour was probably holding the freebie in reserve until something apocalyptic happens.

But for the record that one dead pixel is super annoying.

Taking a test drive…

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I promised an unboxing, but was a little too quick getting things unwrapped to keep much of a record. For the moment you’ll have to be satisfied with riding along as I take the new toy out for a test drive. The first thing you notice out of the box is just how good it feels in the hand. The tapered edges are much more comfortable than the vertical edges on version one. It’s definitely a slimmer form factor. I didn’t expect it to be as noticeable as it is, but it makes quite a difference.

After the mandatory registration with iTunes and really getting a chance to put iPad 2 through it’s paces, I’ve got to say that it handles remarkably well. Web browsing is very, very quick and switching apps doesn’t lag at all. I haven’t thrown too much stress at it yet, but I’m expecting great things based on first impressions.

For an afternoon launch, the line wasn’t bad – assuming you got there early enough. I ended up waiting just over three hours from getting in line to walking out of the store… Which brings up the only negative experience of the day. Stockage of the 18 different versions was a bit of an issue. By the time I made it into the store, the AT&T 16 and 32 GB models in black and white were sold out, leaving the only AT&T option as the 64GB version. Since the card I got while in line guaranteed only an AT&T enabled version, it was either hand over an extra $200 and take delivery of four times more storage than I planned on or walk out empty handed. Since I had an AT&T card, I couldn’t just switch off to one of the Verizon versions that were still in stock. This is an issue Apple could have prevented if they would have taken online reservations as they have for previous product launches. Of course it’s not necessarily in Apple’s interest to do that. I forked over an extra $200. I wonder how many others did too. I can’t image many who sat in line for hours were going to be thwarted by another two bills. Now if I were one of the people who was still several hundred people deep in the line when I left, I might be feeling a little different about how things turned out.

All things being equal, I’m well pleased. There are still plenty of things I need to put through their paces, but I’m pretty sure our friends from Cupertino hit another home run.

Live from Saddle Creek…

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11:30 CST – A ground level reconnaissance pass reveals approximately 20 holding a place in line. Holding fast on the plan to arrive at 2:00 for my own spot. Regular updates will follow.

2:15 – it’s a line, but not the worst I’ve seen for a product launch. Lots of milling around for the next few hours. Check back!

2:25 – Thanks for the free Starbucks, Apple. Well played.

2:36 – according to the nice Apple store guy who just came by, I’m #74 in line. It’s a pretty stringy line, but very surprised I’m under the 100 mark.

3:35 – Hour and a half to go! It’s, ah, warmed up out here quite a bit. And concrete is not comfortable for sitting. You’d think that’s something I’d remember from year to year. Fortunately there are two very attractive, yet sadly very married, young ladies in line in front of me for good conversation. It doesn’t make the concrete any softer, but it certainly passes the time.

4:20 – Quite a line behind me at this point. Actually more of a clump.

4:40 – counting down now. 20 minutes till go time. Reports from the east coast sound positive for the device and a quick sales process.

4:50 – Obligatory cheering Apple employees.

5:00 – open for business!

5:10 – official ticket passing out. Size not specified, but guaranteed not to be out of stock completely. This is a good, good thing.

5:15 – made it to the velvet rope. I feel very VIP.

5:20 – front of the line. Check back for the unboxing results.

Stand to the right…

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Since there were no pre-orders or reservations for the iPad 2, there’s really no difference between standing on the right or left this time around. All the early adopters and true believers are going to be lumped together with the casual buyers tomorrow. Probably a good move if your goal is to generate nice lines at 5:00 in time zones across America… conveniently scheduled to coincide with the evening local and network news cycles. Needless publicity stunt or not, I’ll be there tomorrow – in one of those rare moments when my desire for new and shiny overcomes my natural aversion to large groups of people.

I’ve got my product all picked out – 16GB, wifi, 3G over AT&T (seriously, they’re good for data… actual phone calls, of course, still suck). A spur of the moment panic about “what if” storage needs could bump that up to 32GB at the moment of truth, though. I mean who wants to be caught without enough storage for a crapload of TV episodes, songs, and apps, and the occasional movie, right? Although the new ability to stream media around the house may make the larger sizes redundant for all but the most serious power users.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow I’ll be home fondling my newest piece of kit. If you want the scoop, check back here in around 2:00 CST tomorrow when I’ll be blogging live and in person from the Apple Store in Memphis. Geeky? You bet. Fortunately, I’m pretty OK with that. See you in line!

Taking the long way around…

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I’m not sure I’m happy with my relationship with the new doctor. I liked my old doc. I told her what the problem was and what I wanted to happen and then *poof* it happened. This new guy and I seem to be talking past one another. I’m telling him what the problem is and then he wants to figure out what the root cause is before treating the symptoms. That’s great and all, but really, all I wanted out of today was to improve my life through chemistry and get an actual full night’s sleep. No such luck from Dr. Let’s-run-some-tests. Instead of something to make me sleep, all I have to show for today is a $23 co-pay, what seemed to be an awful lot of drawn blood being sent off for testing, and a possible diagnosis of a syndrome whose only appreciable symptom seems to be extreme dry mouth. So as far as I can tell, the logic here is: Dry mouth triggers increased drinking, which causes increased kidney function, which triggers frequent nighttime visits to the water closet, which means waking up at all times of the night and results in a very, very sleepy Jeff. Sure, all this is possible, but really all I’m interested in is getting to sleep. The rest is in the nice-to-fix category, but not really my big issue at the moment. If someone want’s to sneak up behind me and hit me in the head with something hard and knock me out for a few hours, I’d consider it a huge favor and an early Christmas present.

On the up side, while the doc was trying to look up drug interactions on his medical palm pilot, I beat him to it with my iPad. I don’t think he was as impressed as he probably should have been. I mean, I wasn’t even able to use their wifi and I still beat him to it. With the rest of the visit being what it was, I’m going to take that as a small victory. That’s probably why he’s not going to do anything other than look at test results until after we meet again after the first of the year. Pyrrhic victory, much?

Reader…

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I’ve liked books since I was a kid. In 5th grade when the other kids wanted to play kickball, I had my nose buried in a biography of Douglas MacArthur. Seems I could never walk by a book store without at least popping in for a look and I would never have dreamt of leaving the house without a least one book stashed somewhere. Unfortunately, stashed is usually where they would end up staying. It would take me months to read a book carving out five or ten minutes at a time to focus on it.

I’ve been hesitant, even hostile, to the idea of using an e-reader. In fact, I blasted the concept pretty roundly right here not so very long ago. The historian in me couldn’t quite come to terms with the idea that books could be anything other than words printed on paper and bound. It seems that, at least in this case, I may have been misinformed.

I’ve bene regularly using the Kindle app on my iPad for the last few months and my book consumption has been way up. As much as I hate to admit it, it just makes reading more convenient. Since the Kindle app crosses devices, I can start a page on my iPad and then finish the same page on my iPhone without missing a word. The app records where I stopped and picks up there regardless of what device I happen have in my hand. Add in over-the-air downloads from Amazon and it’s pure convenience… and we all know how I feel about that.

The e-reader has basically replaced the printed book for me. I don’t anticipate that the books filling shelves in the office will ever go anywhere, but I definitely won’t be adding to their number nearly as often. Of course some titles aren’t electronic and some may never be, so I suspect that there will always be room in my heart for both print and electronic books, but for sheer ease of use, I’m officially leaning way into the electronic camp. If you’re a reader and haven’t given it a chance yet, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.