In Search Of

I get to Apple Store North County at 10 o'clock sharp. No iPhones. I go out to my car and start calling every Apple Store within a 50 mile radius. Hold times are bad, and it takes a fair amount of time. Again, no iPhones.

When I finally leave, I hit a long red light for the onramp to the freeway. While waiting, I see a Fedex truck in my rearview mirror getting off the freeway, seemingly heading to the mall. I have a strong hunch about this.

I make an illegal u-turn, and tail the Fedex truck. My hopes are lifting. 

The truck parks next to the loading dock located right behind the Apple store. I approach the driver and inquirer who the delivery is for. He says that it's for Apple. Jackpot.

I quickly walk back into the Apple Store and tell the same employee that I had spoken with earlier that I realize they told me they were out of stock, but there was a shipment being received as we speak. The employee understands what I am saying, but gets a manager to confirm the contents of the shipment and whether or not they will be able to sell them today.

Bad news. He doesn't confirm nor deny that those were pallets of iPhones being unloaded outside, but says that even if they were, he cannot sell them at this time due to the fact that new stock is being reserved for the 10 PM preorders every night. Very bad news.

I get back to my car and call the North County Apple Store again, blocking my number and altering my voice, just to confirm that this wasn't some cruel trick that they were playing. Once again: out of stock, try the 10 PM preorder.

While driving away, I decide to visit the nearest AT&T store to check inventory, seeing that I was unable to get through to a human being while calling them earlier. Sold out. While I am there, I decide to check on plan options for my future iPhone. A bad customer experience was had here. 

Leaving the AT&T store, I make sure not to venture too far, as I will be using their Wi-Fi to search other store's phone numbers in order to check their iPhone 5 stock. AT&T stores county wide were out, and were not afraid to be terse about it. I dislike AT&T. 

I walk to the Best Buy in the same shopping center to make sure if they even carried it or not. They did, however (I hope you're seeing the recurring theme here) they too were out of stock. Instead of calling the remaining Best Buy stores, an employee does a search through the computer. In regards to Best Buy's availability, the whole county is dry.

I am back in my car in the AT&T parking lot. I remember one last effort that I had used to great effect in the past. Radio Shack.

I start calling. And calling. And calling. One would be surprised how many locations a failing electronics chain still has in this region. Half way through my telephone inquiries I hit a flicker of hope. They had one, the exact one I wanted, but it was being held on reserve for someone else. They said they would call that person to see if they could get it taken off of reserves for me. They will call me back. 

I keep calling until I've reached the end of this particular list. I wait. Radio Shack calls back. They have it, and I can pick it up. I drive to Oceanside.

I get there. I buy it.

We open it up to activate it. Devastating... I notice that on my beautifully crafted, brilliantly designed, new iPhone, there is an imperfection. A non-trivial one. It looks as if someone had lightly taken a Dremel tool to the aluminum chamfer on the left hand side of my iPhone. Super bad news.

I am anal retentive, and a perfectionist, however I would like to think that a normal person would see this as a situation that results in only one possible resolution: Ask for a replacement. 

I wish I was afforded that luxury. There were no replacements. It was this or nothing. I made a very hard decision. After holding my new phone for only a few seconds, I put it back in the box and did not accept it. The employee was sympathetic and did not fight this. 

My options were exhausted. I was defeated. I write this now without my new phone. 

And They're Here

Another Apple announcement ended a while ago, and with it I come away feeling underwhelmed. I hate to be “that guy”, but that’s what I’m feeling right now. Yes, the iPhone 5 has a lot of cool new stuff in it and I will buy one, but today felt old hat. I posted something on Twitter while the event was going on, and at least a few people agree: Nothing was a surprise, nothing was new. 

I don’t know whether this has gotten worse, because I’m pretty subjective due to the time frame, but numerous leaks and the iOS 6 Beta took all the wind out of it for me. I was hoping for at least one big surprise software wise, but that didn’t come to fruition. The new iPods were the only real news, however they were so far off my radar that I didn’t even include them in my post yesterday. 

What did I expect? I don’t know. I’m being the kind of ass who is disappointed, and then can’t even explain what I wouldn’t be disappointed by. Nevertheless, the new iPhone is a cool gadget, and I did make some (rather cautious) predictions about it. Let’s see how I stack up with the news:

Things I got right:

- New design and larger screen. (I know, please don’t applaud my foresight until after the article...)

- Same internal storage specifications.

- Better rear facing camera? (There’s some software and engineering aspects that Apple said will make the camera better, but it looks pretty damn similar to the 4S. I’ll wait to see what the reviews say about the camera before removing that question mark.)

- No more VGA quality front facing camera.

- LTE

- No NFC

- Smaller dock connector and moved headphone jack. (I know, I know, amazing foresight.)

Things I got wrong:

-A5X system on a chip.

-Same battery life? (Apple says it’s better, but... I’ll again wait for the real world reviews.)

-At least one big surprise in iOS 6.

Yeah, somethings are right, some wrong, but nothing out of left field. It’s a great phone, and in my opinion the best phone that will be on the market, however let’s face it, almost everything I predicted had been reported earlier as a rumor. I can’t help feel a little let down about everything today. Hell, even the TWiT puppet show was a bust:

Jeff Jarvis, who, well, sometimes can be a little (very) prickly with anything Apple, sent out a tweet during the last part of the event: “Even without the leaks, there would have been no news in that Apple announcement. Incremental improvements. That’s fine but boring.” While it’s a very bullheaded thing to say, I can see where the sentiment came from. I feel the same way towards him as I did myself: “What the hell do you expect?” I don’t know and I’m guessing he doesn’t either. 

Leo Laporte on the other hand, made the same point with a little better phrasing on Twit.tv this morning, “It’s hard to be revolutionary this far in the product cycle.” This is absolutely the case and in all honesty, it shouldn’t be expected of Apple to blow your socks off at every single new iPhone event. 

Yes, after today’s unsurprising big reveal, the tech press probably will step up their “iPhone [insert model here] a bust” rhetoric, but that was always a given. Apple will sell a lot of iPhones and a lot of people will be extremely happy with them. That’s all.

The New iPhones are Almost Here

Photo by Mike Deerkoski

I always get excited for big Apple events like the one that will be held tomorrow. It gives me a small feeling of excitement and wonder that I really don’t receive from the rest of the tech industry. Blame that on Apple’s wonderfully oiled PR persona or just from the fact that they make truly delightful things, but I feel the way I do. Because of this I thought I’d jump in with every other tech enthusiast with a blog and talk about the new product that they will be releasing. It is a little late to start musing about what the new iPhone will be like, but only now have I started to get really excited about what will be going on this Wednesday; excited enough to open up BBEdit and jot down a few words about it. Anyways, on with the show.

Apple has now firmly cemented IBM’s release style, the Tick-Tock model, into it’s own line of products. From the completely redesigned 3G and 4, and their internally upgraded yet physically similar successors the 3GS and 4S, it is clear that both the guts and the case will be drastically updated. Rumor sites and lone wolfs have been very successful at producing evidence that this is so here and here. It’s also been 27 months since the iPhone was superficially changed, and no matter how nice the industrial design of it is, I for one could use a refreshed look.

The new case, and most noticeably, the larger screen, are practically guaranteed. Apple may have tried to lay down some false leads with all these leaks, but I don’t buy it. Whether it will be the iPhone shown in the leaks, or something else, what will be announced tomorrow will be a different looking iPhone than the one now. 

The event itself? Expect to see an iPhone event, and only an iPhone event. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, and in trademark subtleness, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, both hint at a singular iPhone event, with the rumored smaller iPad event happening at a time sometime later in the Fall. While it’s not a very bold move (a smart one though), I agree with both of them. Apple is able to garner any amount of press they want, and at any time as well. Why have one Apple event when you can have two with twice the press? They’ll also want to brand this mythical iPad Mini in a very special way and don’t want it to take a side note to the more interest piquing iPhone 5.

Speaking of branding, I was surprised to see the shadow of a “5” on the official Apple invitations. If you look at Apple’s previous methods of naming, particularly the “new iPad” (read iPad 3), it seemed fairly obvious that the numbers attached to product names were going out of style. As many people remarked on Twitter when the new iPad came out, and I’m paraphrasing here: “How did everyone expect this to turn out, the iPad 14?” It seemed logical, and seeing that all of the rest of Apple’s products no longer have numeric labeling on them, why not the iPhone too? This may be a little piece of misdirection, but just like the hypothesis that Apple purposely leaked fake prototypes, I don’t see this happening either. I don’t think that’s Apple’s MO. Regardless, just like everyone else, I still call it the iPad 3, and whether Apple does go with iPhone 5 or not, I’ll be calling it that. 

Now a little less of the long form, and a little more rapid paced predictions. I’ve never done this publicly, and I think it would be fun to post something tomorrow to see how I did. Yes, I’m taking a little of the pressure off of myself since this is last minute forecasting, and maybe some of these predictions have become more of a certainty, but what the hell.

What it will have:

- A design and larger screen almost exactly similar to the leaked iPhone prototypes linked above.

- An A5X system-on-a-chip. (Apple always saves the newest for their new iPads.)

-The exact same internal storage specifications.

-Slightly better rear facing camera. (That’s a given, but they won’t go crazy like Nokia’s monster.)

-No more VGA quality FaceTime camera. (Something at least above 1.5 mega-pixels.)

-LTE, if they know what’s good for them.

-No NFC.

-The exact same battery life or maybe even slightly worse. 

-Smaller dock connector and moved headphone jack.

-At least one big surprise in iOS 6 that has been saved for the announcement. 

In regards to any other stuff that may be presented at this event, I’m a little more wary. I would really like to see a rebuilt iTunes, as the one now has snowballed out of control in regards to the job it was hired to do. Slow and unintuitive it has become.

Along with iOS 6 and an iTunes update (there will be one, however perhaps not a complete rewrite), I think Apple will fill the rest of the announcement with more software, as they seem unlikely to announce any other hardware. Besides the feasibility problems of Retina Displays on iMacs and Cinema Displays, they made their shift to high pixel densities and lack of optical drives known at WWDC this year. 

Any other update that mirrors the new 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro will only consist of an update to the website. Also, when they do move to Retina Displays (and it looks like they will, soon) on the more doable Airs and 13-inch MacBook Pro it will be even less of a leap when compared to a Retina iMac, thus making it more likely to not appear at this iPhone-centric event. Don’t completely throw away the idea that these products won’t have an onstage unveiling however, just not at this one. After all, the announcement of a 8-inch iPad can only be stretched so long without some nifty other things to finish up with at the end...

Whatever the product is like there are a few things certain: Apple will sell a gazillion, a lot of tech press will be disappointed, and I will be buying one. Something else that is certain is, that like a lot of people tomorrow morning, I’ll be planted next to my computer, coffee in hand, live blogs refreshing, and Twit.tv streaming (I hear Leo’s doing an Apple puppet show).

Net Gain

My oh my, what have I been doing these last few months? Not a lot of constructive stuff, that’s for sure. No, I’ve instead been doing a lot of destructive stuff, filled in with a lot of neutral time wasting. I want to change this.

I miss writing in my diary and writing for my blog. I miss writing and creating things in general. I wish I’ve been taking more photos, and perhaps playing the piano. I wish I were still running. I like doing these things. These things are constructive and I find great value doing them. 

I feel better about myself because I know that I’m working all of the creative and corporeal muscles of my being. When I do these things I know, in even the smallest of ways, that I am creating a net gain within my own life. I like knowing that I’m taking steps forward, instead of standing still, or at times sprinting in reverse. 

I just had an intense urge to delete this short spurt of text above here. I do that sometimes. I wasn’t quite happy with it; I think I can do better. I’m still not happy with it. However after I post this, I will have done a tiny part in keeping myself creeping forward. As they say too: Perfect is the enemy of the good. 

So momentum might be gained after this. I certainly hope so. I haven’t quite picked a great time to do it, but perhaps what pressure there is will make this output all the more valued. 

The Crazy Case Made For Paying For Software

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about her iPhone. She was a recent Android transplant, and I wanted to get her take on iOS and the entire iPhone experience. She talked about the hardware, the operating system -she had her pros and cons about all of it, but then she made a critique about the App Store: “All of the apps cost money.”

I didn’t catch it then, but then I thought about it later that day, and it really forced me to a stark realization. People are becoming more and more acclimatized to free software and services, and balking at the idea that those things should indeed cost money.

I though about it more, and I really was puzzled about her negative observation. No, not all apps in the iOS app store are paid, but a lot of them are. Certainly more than the Android Market, where even extremely successful paid apps on Apple’s platform are forced to give themselves away, i.e. Angry Birds. Regardless, yes, a lot of applications cost money. Why does that surprise people?

You are getting a product or a service when you download an app. It is not unreasonable to expect that you pay for something in a grocery store, so why not in an app store? 

Some apps by their very nature are free, those put out by non-profits or educational institutions. There are also the free apps that benefit and strive on the network effect, so it is vital that they get their applications installed on every single phone that is available. Other than that, games, utilities, anything else, I expect will cost money, and am surprised if they don’t. 

These applications that we all enjoy, well, these are made by developers, people who in fact do need to pay their rent and eat. It is a novel concept, but for those people to take their workdays to produce the next version of everyone’s favorite app, they need to be compensated for that time. If they are not, they will not be able to continue to produce it. Simple as that. 

This feeling has seeped into a lot of other areas of the market. Companies that use software as service, such as Instagram or Twitter, realize how anathema it has now become to the general populace to charge for what they provide. We’ve all heard of Twitter’s morass that resulted into trying to monetize their company. Instagram has taken huge amounts of venture capital funding, and still haven't found a single way to make a cent. Companies are bending over backwards to find a way to make money. Yet, nobody dares of charging for anything.

Is it so damn unreasonable to everybody if Twitter started to charge per month? I know this would never happen and would most definitely kill that wonderful network effect they have created, but think about it for a second. This is something that all of us get so much utility and importance out of. Something that has become an almost central part of our day. Is that really not worth five or ten dollars a month? Some companies have become very adept at profiting off a free service, but others are not so lucky. Is charging not a legitimate choice in that case?

That example up above is merely hypothetical. Of course it is too late for Twitter and Instagram. Jason Fried of 37signals, a web application company, explains quite well why this is the case. “Trying to charge for something that was previously free can undermine the product’s value, causing potential customers to ask why the service is suddenly worth more than it was in the past. My feeling is that you should begin charging right from the start... The longer something is free, the less it’s worth.” 

Don’t complain to me that the apps that you find so very useful and entertaining cost money. And don’t be surprised that one day the hot new website that everyone is talking about is subscription priced. We don’t have a problem paying for things, we just have a problem paying for things on the internet. Get used to it. We all are going to be doing a hell of a lot more in the coming years with our respective technological platforms, so if you don’t want to be relegated to the crappy freeware so commonly found when there isn’t a robust software economy, start forking over the cash.