Still on hold with iPhone
Regular readers of this blog know I’ve been coveting an iPhone since last spring, but am awaiting three improvements:
- A larger hard drive
- pressure-sensitive touch
- adoption of 3G network
#1 has in essence already happened (hence the closeout sale of the lower-grade iPhone).
As a daily user of a Treo, I knew #2 would be important: The Treo has a pressure-sensitive mini keyboard that helps me feel when I’ve actually clicked a key; being without that would seem odd. The iPhone has no keyboard — it has a smooth screen. This clarified why a highly intelligent colleague of mine has been sending emails and text messages that look like she’s developed a head injury. Most of her emails read like a variation of “Glx sptzl glaah!!” I did know that the technology exists to send a small electrical feedback to the finger, creating the sensation of touching a key. Some smartphones in the Asian market have adopted this technology, so I’ve been sure it’s coming for the iPhone and wanted to wait for it.
Finally, the iPhone’s web interface is, by all reports, slow. Adoption of 3G standards will take care of much of that as well as increase the phone’s capability. (If anything, I’m shocked that Apple has remained on 2.5G.)
So I’ve put off buying an iPhone until these issues are addressed. It looks like my wait is coming to a close, perhaps by March. (And just in time, because my Treo is truly falling apart from heavy use.) Fast Company reports on four recent Apple patents, including one for “Force Imaging Input Device and System” (i.e., pressure-sensitive keying); and AT&T’s CEO recently let it slip that the 3G iPhone is coming. That next-model phone is the one I anticipate buying.
In the meantime, here’s my first prediction for 2008: The people who buy an iPhone now for the holidays, whether for themselves or as a gift, are going to be pissed.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Like those who have bought an iPhone and will be upset with Apple when the new model comes out, I am a little miffed with Apple.
I purchased an iPod mini several years ago and have enjoyed listening to the music on it. It has worked very well until recently. It has worked a bit strangely. On one playlist I have set up it has skipped songs and has played songs not on the playlist. I have reset the iPod and that has helped. But I thought I’d look into one of the new iPod nanos.
I checked on line and at the Apple store in Atlantic City and discovered that the new iPods will not work with my iBook G4 running operating system 10.3.9. The requirements for the new iPods are operating system 10.4.8.
My choices to get a new iPod are try to upgrade my iBook G4 to a new operating system.
The current new system requires a G4 with 512MB of memory. Mine has 256 MB of memory. Also the DVD player on the new operating system requires a 1.6GHz processor, mine is a 1GHz. So the upgrade is out.
That means I’d have yo buy a new Macbook just to get a new iPod.
That sucks.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
The thing I liked best about this blog was the garbled text message from your friend: “Glx sptzl glaah!!” and the fact that it’s a hyperlink to the Sugar and Spike website. It’s too much to believe that’s a coincidence, so somehow Lee must be a visitor to the Sugar and Spike website. On the other hand, if it IS a coincidence, how totally wonderful!
I have a cel phone. I have what I think is the first model iPod. My cel phone doesn’t have a camera. I don’t know how to text message (damn, where are my wooden shoes?). I used to put my list of things to do on an index card. Now I use WordPerfect and print out a sheet each day. But heck, I remember dial phones.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I’d prefer the profits from the pissed off people to keep sending my $3.52/share AAPL purchase further into the stratosphere and then boost it even further when they come back to RE-purchase the NEW and IMPROVED i-Phone in June as they surely, most predictably will. Don’t tell any of my druid friends that I invest in the stock market, they’ll hit me over the head with a tree.
As for me, I’m using a refurbished Motorola Razor that some dude at Verizon Wireless handed me when my old phone took a dump….just to get my castigating
100db stage-whisper out of his store! It works.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I am delighted to introduce Mark and others to the joy that is “Sugar and Spike.” I have been a reader of these malevolent tots since I was a 9-year-old boy who had already bought and read every other comic on display at the sole business in Mullica Township where I grew up, a grimy gas station with convenience outlet and a few dusty comic books. Finding myself in the position of being able to get a comic book, I took the last one I didn’t already have even though it was transparently a “kids’ comic” and not a superhero comic. Even then I thought there was something so inventive about the writing that I read it over and over. Now I can say things like this: that there is some Swiftian about Sheldon Mayer’s deconstruction of adult lives and mores as seen and misunderstood by mischievous toddlers. At the time I just thought it was cool and savored that issue and the lone other issue I could find. Now, 35 years later, I add another “Sugar and Spike” comic courtesy eBay whenever I think to, and just last week three more of them arrived at my office. Glx sptzl glaah indeed!!!
January 5th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
p.s. Re printing out the to-do sheet: You might consider a PDA. Ultimately easier if you don’t get distracted by all the abilities you don’t need, and the trees will thank you. Signed, Lorax.