My Thoughts on the iPad Announcement Party

Well there it is. The iPad is born and while I’m impressed with the product, it’s still just what I thought it would be, a big iPod Touch. I was really disappointed in that they didn’t really go over anything that I wanted in terms of the iTunes update, AT&T exclusivity, 4.0 update.

They have made a great new product that will be really useful in schools I feel. But I have a hard time thinking that most people with an iPhone or iPod Touch will find it necessary to get an iPad. Seems like one extra thing to carry around and it won’t even fit in a pocket.

I absolutely loved the MLB app as well as the Need for Speed game demo. They both looked solid. The video quality on the MLB app seems like a must have for any baseball fan.

I also liked the iBook app. While I’m not that much of a book reader, I can see that this is Apple’s answer to the Kindle and will probably cause Amazon to make some changes. The book store is really nice.

But I still can’t get over the disappointment of really nothing else coming out. I don’t have iWork so I’m a bit biased there as I don’t care about that. But I guess most of the rumors other than the iPad were just that. Cool stuff but nothing materialized.

Today’s Apple Announcement Including My Rumors

So today is the big Apple announcement of the super, over-hyped Tablet, iSlate, iPad, iHypeMachine… I’m actually less concerned over that as I already have an iPhone and an iPod Touch. What is super interesting to me is the iPhone exclusivity coming to an end. As a iPhone jailbreaker with T-Mobile, I would love to hear that I can’t unjailbreak my iPhone and not have to worry about it bricking anymore.

I am also curious as to the rumors of the iPhone 4.0 software being announced. I’m hoping that it includes the ability for apps to run in the background. That is something huge and I’m okay with taking a hit to the battery if that’s what it takes. I have a charger that I use everyday.

There’s also the tablet. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not really all that interested in it but I am curious as to what it will be other than a huge iPod Touch.

So as to my rumors about the event:

• The tablet of course will be announced. It will essentially be a huge iPod Touch with at data plan and GPS. I agree with the other rumors that it will need a contract with Verizon for 3G connectivity. I don’t think AT&T will be a provider for this.
• Apple will move away from AT&T and open its iPhone to multiple carriers but only announce a partnership with Verizon today for the iPhone and the tablet.
• Announcement of iPhone/iPod 4.0 firmware update. This will include background apps and better memory usage.
• Twitter will go down about 28 minutes into the announcement. Facebook will soon follow.
• New Macbook Pros will be announced using the new Intel i5 and i7 chips. Usual upgrade of features while staying at current prices.
• Updated iTunes.
• Updated Apple TV firmware update.

Those are a few of my ideas/wishes. I guess I’ll find out if I’m right or wrong in an hour or so. What do you think?

Gearing up for WWDC Today

Today is the first day of the WWDC in San Francisco and the web world is all abuzz about what might come out.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to announce as I have recently joined the ranks as a Mac user.  I still have my Blackberry Curve and I love it but the iPhones are just so damn sexy that I want one of them too.

Hopefully today they announce a way for me to get one.  I doubt it but I can dream right?  I just read a rumor that the new iPhones might just be available today after the keynote so that would be pretty cool.  With all the buzz surronding this, I can’t tell what might happen.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what the next 2+ hours brings.

Let me know what you think and I’m surely going to post my thoughts post-keynote as well.

T-Mobile’s G1, the First Google Android Phone

Today T-Mobile announced the long awaited G1 phone. The first one using Google’s Android platform. I’m actually really excited about this because as a lowly T-Mobile customer, I feel that I have missed out on all the cool phones, especially the iPhone. For once, it’s nice to have my company be the big dogs everyone is talking about.

So right around 9:00 this morning, I get the news that the phone is $179 for existing customers. Not a bad price but I just did spend a few dollars on a new Blackberry Curve just 6 months ago. After the site being down all morning, I finally got in and checked out to see this $179 price for myself. Only it wasn’t $179. For me, I was lucky enough to get a price of $299. Not exactly what I had in mind. T-Mobile has a upgrade policy where you get the best rate after you are 22 months or more into your current contract. With me being only 6 months in, I am not a good enough customer. T-Mobile would rather me wait 22 months rather than get a 2 new phones in that span. Seems weird to me but what do I know?

But regardless of my troubles, I am still excited about this phone. It has a very open platform that will allow for users to improve things as they see fit. iPhone frowns upon that with the exception of the App Store. Also, rather than see this as a phone, they see it at an internet experience. Andy Rubin of T-Mobile said today that “This will transform how and where people can use the internet. Thanks and I hope you enjoy it!” I think this is cool because with the iPhone, there is a movement to move the internet outside of just the desktops and laptops to allow internet access anywhere you are.

Also, the G1 will have copy and paste, something will more than likely make iPhone users very jealous. Also, in place of iTunes, the G1 will use Amazon’s music service which offers 89 cent songs so that is nice too. One of the coolest features is the tie in with the Google Maps especially with the street view. You can stand on a street that is in Street View and as you look around, the screen will show where you are facing using it’s internal compass and GPS. Pretty cool indeed. And of course it has all the bells and whistles that we expect from Google with Gmail, Gtalk, Gmaps and the rest of their suite of cool. Oh and it’s going to work on T-Mobile’s new 3G netwok. Wish my new Curve did that.

Overall as I’ve already said, I am excited about this phone and how it takes the mobile phone another step forward. Google and T-Mobile have teamed up to deliver what I think is a step in a great direction. I really like the sound of this quote from the announcement today, “It’s completely open… no one says ‘you can’t do that’.” That’s a big step from the rules of Apple’s SDK.

So basically we’ll see if this is the phone that is the Apple killer. I don’t think it will be but it will be a solid #2 for a while. After that, who know? I’d like to know what you think about it so leave you comments below.

Thanks Apple for Upgrading my iPod Touch to Bricked

Well yesterday Steve Jobs walked out with his black turtleneck and jeans and announced semi-big changes in the iPod line. He announced that iTunes was upgraded to version 8. A lot of new features and some bells and whistles. Along with that, he announced the upgrade of the iPod Touch firmware to version 2.1.

So me being me, I had to have both right then and there. So I open up iTunes and click the Check for Upgrade link and begin the upgrade process. It runs through its usual process and then it got to some section with Quicktime and it stalled. I gave it about 20 more minutes before I shut it down. The Cancel button didn’t work so I had to shut it down via the Task Manager.

Since it had hung so long, I decided to check to see what version of iTunes I actually had at that point. I opened it up and checked: 7.7. But right after doing that, iTunes asked if I wanted to update my iPod’s firmware. Since that was part of my master plan, I said yes. It got mostly through then I got an error message saying that the upgrade could not be completed. I clicked okay and then was told that my iPod Touch was in Restore Mode and was asked if I wanted to restore it. I declined and unplugged my iPod Touch from the computer. I couldn’t go anything with it. It was stuck in restore mode.

I began thinking that I did update it with iTunes 7 instead of 8. So I decided to retry my update to iTunes 8 and this time I was successful. I tried to restore my iPod once again and was told that an unknown error occured. Not good. I now had a $400 paper weight. I tried the restore a couple of more times and was shut down each time. I read some of the support docs that Apple had and tried some things. The last thing I read was to try to restore using a different computer. So I did. And it worked.

Then I went to my regular computer and restored from the backup that was done prior to the bricking my iPod Touch. That took FOREVER but worked. Then I tried the update once again and once again, I bricked it. Thanks Apple.

Today I finally got it all working and upgraded to 2.1 but had to use 2 computers to do it and that just isn’t feasible. I don’t know if I created a weird situation with my upgrade freeze but if you run into this situation, just know that you need to restore to factory settings on a different computer, restore from backup on your computer, and then use that different computer to do the update.

Too much work for an upgrade. So if Apple sees this at all, I might have found a bug in the system that you missed.