Yesterday Apple revealed its new iPhone 3.0 software. I have to say that as a user, I'm not super excited about any of the new features, but I always do appreciate a software update. People have been asking (very loudly) for all of these new features, but personally they aren't too big of a deal for me. The features are: Copy and Paste In the 2 or so years I've owned an iPhone, there has only been one time I've actually thought "I wish I had copy/paste right now," however I'd bet when it's available I'll be finding a lot more reasons to use it. Hopefully it doesn't get in the way when I am not using it. Landscape Views in Default Apps I've had friends (JL) who have been craving this in the SMS app and others in the mail app, but I have to say, I have got so used to using the portrait mode keyboard that when I try and use the landscape keyboard (like in Safari) it slows me down. The keys seem too far apart. I prefer the portrait keyboard. Push Notifications This is referring to webservices (like AIM and Facebook) being able to push notifications and badges to your phone, like "bobby841 says: You there?" or "Brett Grubbins added you as a friend on Facebook", etc. I love the idea but my big problem is I always keep my phone on vibrate and there is only one vibrate style. This means I will have to pull my phone out of my pocket every time it vibrates just to see if I got a text message or if someone commented on my photo. Hopefully they will add more vibrate patterns in the future and let you customize the heck out of the notifications. Spotlight Spotlight is a way to search for your whole phone (search across music, photos, email, text messages, calendars, contacts, etc all at the same time). This looks pretty cool but we'll see how much I end up using it. Overall I am most looking forward to whatever small tweaks make it into the new software more than any specific feature, but I think the features will make a lot of others happy.
Last week I convinced myself I should buy iLife '09 which includes a new version of iPhoto. Apple added a new feature to iPhoto called Faces, which auto-detects faces in photos and lets you name them. I have to say, the feature is great, it's easy to add names to faces with keyboard shortcuts and it even auto suggests names for faces. After the first hour and a half, I commented via twitter that "going through the face-detection in iPhoto '09 and naming/confirming faces in photos is actually surprisingly fun and kind of addicting." But now, I am in hour 4 of face tagging and I have to say the joy and novelty is gone. And I'm only half way through my photos. I can see this having been a great tool if I used it from the beginning, but at the moment it feels like a chore. I suppose it will be worth it when I'm done when I can type a name in and see all the pictures that have that person's face in them. In closing, here's the funniest thing that's happened:  Labels: apple, photography, software
Last week, after holding out for many months with having a full hard drive and deleting things I did not want to delete, I was able to use some money I made doing side projects to help me buy a new MacBook Pro, the ones that were just announced last week. My old computer had an 80 GB hard drive. The new one is 250 GB. So far I completely love it. Everything is incredibly fast. Let me see how long it takes to launch Photoshop again... literally 2 seconds. Most of my favorite things about this computer are very small things. The sound the superdrive makes when I open the lid from sleep is so much more quiet and shorter than the old sound- love that. I have been really enjoying the MagSafe connector on Sara's Macbook and now I have one- I don't feel like I am breaking my computer when the plug presses against my leg like on the old PowerBook or when the dog trips on the cord. Also, the transfer to my new computer went really well. I didn't want to fully transfer my home directory over whole-sale and bring all the junk with it, so I hand copied over files. Then I copied over my Music/iTunes folder and iPhoto app, and everything transferred perfectly, retaining all my metadata (ratings, album art, titles, events) as well as actual data. I haven't even had a need for my fancy new graphics card and I'm still considering if I really do need to put Windows (VMWare Fusion) on this machine. The screen and the buttonless trackpad are both great. I'm looking forward to having this machine for a long time. Labels: apple
Being an iPhone 1.0 owner (thanks again, Nick) and hearing today's iPhone announcement I have to say I think I am coming out ahead in this deal. I will get every single feature of the new iPhone. The only difference is that my "over the network" internet speeds won't be as fast and my location (GPS) information won't be quite as accurate. The nice thing is that I rarely use my internet connection "over the network" as I am almost always on a wi-fi network and the location-based look-up in the current iPhone is amazingly fast and accurate. It's funny how we'll be able to do over the air iPhone updates, music and video downloads, and software purchases, but not over the air podcast updates. That's the feature I want. For all the people that waited for a 3G iPhone, I'll bet they're glad they waited, they are getting an awesome device at an amazing price (it is a third the price of the original iPhone at launch), but to those who already have one I think we are getting all of the benifits with none of the obseletion regret.
It looks like Apple is dropping the price of it's DRM-free mp3's on iTunes (called "iTunes Plus" tracks) from $1.29 to 99 cents. When the iTunes plus tracks came out, I was pretty excited about them. I ended up "upgrading" a track I own and buying 6 more. Yes, I know I was an early adopter of the iTunes Plus tracks, but come on, I bought those tracks only a little over 4 months ago. I didn't think that they would lower the price by nearly 25%. That is ridiculous. If Apple doesn't give me a $2.10 store credit, I might just file a class-action law suit. That will teach them to lower their prices. Assholes.
I want to post, but I don't have anything to say and I only have 4 minutes left on my battery, so here is your 4 minutes worth of posting. I didn't want to post anything about the iPhone, but I will (because, like I say, I don't have anything to write about). The hype is ridiculous, but that's all it is, hype. Remember the PS3? Yeah, and the Wii had nearly no hype at all before it came out. Take that for what you will. I would love to have one but don't think I will get one. I am constantly justifying *not* buying one. I think that's a bad sign. Even tho I claim I don't want one I can't shut up about it or stop asking other people if they are going to get one. Alright, battery's dead, plugging in. That was short. I am trying to get back into the habit of writing on this blog and I think that means that you will get some posts on here that are pretty uninteresting like this, but hopefully things will get better and pretty soon you won't be able to live without knowing what I did on a Tuesday night because even my mundane posts will be unbearably hilarious and remarkably poignant.
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