Stupid iPhone Complaints
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 09:03 AM
So, not everyone is as excited about the new iPhone as some of us. It’s to be expected - it’s Apple, and some people are going to complain no matter what. Cnet’s Crave has a list of features that they think should be in the new iPhone. Some of them are pretty dubious. Let’s look at these requests, shall we?
- MMS (Multimedia Messaging) - Is this really necessary? Are twelve year olds the target audience for the iPhone? The answer to both is, “No”. Why do you want/need MMS when you have the best email client on any phone? MMS is completely pointless. Email is for grown ups. Text messages are for children.
- Copy and Paste - This I sort of agree with. But, I don’t see how Apple can implement it with the current interface. Maybe Apple’s engineers don’t either. Who knows? But given all of the things you can do without it, I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal. I’m also fairly certain that it will come eventually.
- Video recording - Quote from the article: “Yes the quality wouldn’t be that great, but it should be an option anyway.” You really don’t understand Apple, do you? Apple is about quality. They are not about to put a feature that sucks on the iPhone. Have you ever seen any phone with decent video quality? Why would Apple put in a feature that they know is going to suck? If you want video, go buy a camcorder.
- Voice command - Again, this goes back to a matter of quality. I’ve never used the voice command feature on any phone that worked well. Voice command on phones, as it is now, is a poor feature. Could Apple do it better? Probably. But the technology isn’t really there yet to make it a killer, “must have” feature. Apple isn’t going to include a feature that is going to be sub-standard. Voice command is sub-standard.
- Bluetooth flexibility - This is the one point that I agree with 100%. I don’t know why they haven’t done this yet. Given that OSX is the only operating system that allows you to flawlessly integrate Bluetooth phones for syncing and file transfer*, you would think that they would do it with their own damn phone. On top of that, being able to stream music via Bluetooth, as the author states, would be a great feature. (I don’t really see the need to use it as a modem via Bluetooth, as you’ve got web browsing and email on the phone itself. But, I’ll concede that some people may find this useful.)
People are going to cry that the iPhone doesn’t have this feature or that. Most of the time it’s just BS. Yes, Copy/Paste would be great, and Bluetooth connectivity would be awesome. But the iPhone kills the need for MMS. Video recording and voice command are non-features to begin with. I think Apple knows what they are doing with the iPhone.
* Have you ever tried to set up a Bluetooth phone in Windows for these things? I have, and I’ve never gotten it to actually work! Every time I’ve tried, either Windows refuses to connect to the phone, or it connects, and everything looks like it should work, but none of the features actually work. It’s horrid. It takes about 30 seconds to connect to a Bluetooth phone on a Mac.
WWDC News
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 07:54 AM
Okay, so I’ve got nothing to report that you haven’t already read elsewhere, or didn’t already know before the keynote for that matter.
- New iPhone with 3G and GPS? Check.
- Great new iPhone apps? Check.
- Subsidized iPhone pricing? Check.
- MobileMe replacing .Mac? Check.
- Snow Leopard announced? Check.
I do have a couple of things to say, however. First off, my purchase of an iPhone is inevitable now. All of the new features combined with MobileMe make it pretty much a no-brainer now. And even though there were no real surprises with anything announced yesterday, Apple (and Steve) still managed to make everyone say “Wow!” Think about that. Everyone already knew everything that was announced, but they still managed to exceed our expectations. We knew what was coming, yet it still was beyond what we had hoped for. That’s pretty impressive.
On MobileMe. One thing that I think kind of flew under the radar was just how impressive the web app portion of MobileMe is. Put MobileMe next to Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and they look silly and amateurish in comparison. MobileMe is a web app that feels like an application. Gmail (all of the Google Apps, really) and Yahoo! Mail are web pages that have application-like functionality. They feel like web pages. They act like web pages. MobileMe acts like an application. Not only that, it acts like an Apple application.
People thought the iPod was going to have a “halo effect” of bringing Windows users to the Mac. And that was just an MP3 player. This will blow Windows users away. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for an iPhone owning Windows user, one who has never used a Mac, using their MobileMe account. Eventually it’ll click with them: “Why can’t my entire computer-using experience be like this?” Eventually, they’ll buy a Mac.
MobileMe was the real Trojan Horse in yesterday’s announcements. The iPhone will bring them in, but MobileMe will make them stay.
Belgian Ale
Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 03:42 PM
Last weekend I brewed a Belgian Ale. This is the first belgian I’ve tried, but I’ve been doing a lot of kits lately, so I wanted to do something a little more challenging/interesting. I put together the recipe based on a combination of a couple of different recipes in the BYO 150 Classic Clone Recipes special issue. I then substituted based on my whims at the time and what the homebrew store had in stock.
Here’s the recipe:
Belgian Ale
1/2 lb. Munton’s Extra Light DME
6.6 lbs. Munton’s Light LME - late addition
1 lb. Corn sugar
2 lbs. Belgian Pilsen
1 lb. Belgian Pale
2 tsp. Caradamon @ 15 min.
2 tsp. Bitter orange peel @ 15 min.
2 tsp. Coriander @ 15 min.
2 oz Willamette 4.9% @ 60 min.
1 oz Czech Saaz 3.6% @ 2 min.
1 tsp. yeast nutrient @ 15 min.
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale Yeast
Heat 1.5 gallon of water to 150º and add crushed grains. Let steep for 45 minutes. Rinse grains with 1 gallon of 170º water. Add 1/2 gallon of water to bring to 3 gallons. Add DME and sugar, bring to a boil. Add LME with about 20 minutes left (you may need to crank up the heat to keep your boil going while adding the LME). Add hops and spices according to schedule.
Concert Tickets - Part Four
Friday, June 06, 2008 - 11:39 AM
Part One - Part Two - Part Three
Well, hopefully this will be the last post on this.
After not hearing back from Live Nation by late afternoon yesterday, I decided to call back (again). I explained to the man that answered everything up to this point about the billing issue (as briefly as possible). He was extremely understanding and said that he wouldn’t get off the phone with me until the problem was resolved. He put me on hold to talk to his supervisor and came back on the line a couple of times just to update me and let me know he was still working on it.
It didn’t take too long before he came back and said that the supervisor was able to identify that there had been an error on their part, and they did bill me twice. He was going to credit my account back and I should see the credit in a couple of days. If I didn’t, just call back and ask for him directly.
This call did not take that long, and I really don’t understand why it required me calling three times to get this resolved (not to mention filling out the web form - which I never did get any kind of response from). I understand that the people answering the phones can’t fix every problem and might need to escalate things. But, if they tell you somebody will call you back, they should follow up to ensure that someone calls. It’s basic customer service.
In the end I did ask if there was anything they could do for me to make up for all I had been through. Unfortunately, he said there wasn’t. So, in the end, the problem was resolved, but they did nothing to try to make me a happy customer.
I know that in the future if I can drive to the venue to buy the tickets I will.
How (not) to Purchase Tickets - Part Three
Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 09:38 AM
If you need to get caught up:
So, after never receiving any sort of response to my initial help request, sent through Live Nation’s online form, (apart from the “Your Question has been Submitted” confirmation email), I tried the 800 number again. Incredibly, someone actually answered this time. (It was interesting that this time while I was on hold a message would occasionally come on saying “Somebody will be with you shortly.” That never happened the first time I called - just straight hold music the whole time.) I spoke to a pleasant young woman and explained my situation, including the fact that I never got a response to the help request submitted on line. She looked at my order and the history for my credit card number, which only showed that one order. According to what she saw, there was only one order, ergo, they only billed me once. I assured her that there were two transactions on my account. She said she would have to check into it and somebody would call me back.
That was yesterday. Guess what never happened?
After I got off the phone with her I called my bank. I wanted to make absolutely sure that there wasn’t any kind of error on the bank’s part, but I also wanted to gather more information for when Live Nation called me back (which never happened). It wasn’t an error on the bank’s end. They saw two separate transactions occurring at two different times (twelve minutes apart), each with its own trace number. Clearly, Live Nation billed me twice.
Today, after not hearing back from Live Nation, I decided to call again. I got straight through this time. I spoke to another young woman to whom I had to explain the situation, including the fact that I had called yesterday and never received a response (on top of never receiving a response from their on line form). Of course, I went through the same things with her that I did with the other woman - checking the order and credit card number, seeing that there is only one order, explaining that even though there’s only one order they did, in fact, charge me twice, etc. She said told me that she couldn’t help, and that both of her supervisors were in a meeting. She could take my information and have somebody call me back. It was very hard to keep my patience and remain polite at this point. (I did, however. People are always more willing to help you if you are polite. No matter what, always try to keep your cool when you are in these situations.)
So, now I’m waiting for another call back. I’m not optimistic.