Macgasm

The whole tech blogosphere has been in a massive kerfuffle for the past week because of the alleged rumors of an iPhone-lite device coming to Verizon, or an enlarged media iPhone/Mac tablet, depends on which blogs are saying what, depending on the time of the day and other astrological alignments fill the sky.

As both a Mac and iPhone user, the prospects of having a portable MacBook like device with a touch screen, or a scaled down MacBook that isn’t a MacBook Air, or a mind reading device with a dedicated connection to Cupertino’s iMind Control Center would be awesome. But, ultimately, these rumors add up to just that: rumors. Here, now, is a list of reasons of why any sort of Apple device would not end up on Verizon anytime in the near future:

1) Apple and Verizon have a history together. Sort of. If ancient Internet legends are to believed (which, of course, they always should be, since there is never any hard evidence to disprove them), Verizon was actually the first telecom Apple came to with their holy device known now as the iPhone. Legend goes that Verizon was putt of, and perhaps even scoffed at the concept of allowing a phone manufacturer to have the sort of point-to-point control Apple was requesting/demanding without even seeing a device, and walked away.

Of course, the rest is history, as Cingular, now AT&T, let Apple do whatever they pleased in order to have the device on their network. So history is already working against the rumor from the beginning.

2) Apple devotees would be forced to have two separate contracts on two different carriers. This, to me, is the biggest problem with the entire rumor. If there is any truth that Apple is bringing a device to Verizon, then it has to be considered that existing iPhone customers will have to set up a new account with Verizon, and enter into a whole new two year contract in order to have the new device Apple is supposedly bringing to Verizon.

In the case of an iPhone-lite, this is less of a concern, but the media tablet scenario creates the biggest problem. There are countless numbers of iPhone users who have trouble using the on-screen keypad for large amounts of text entry, where a larger screen would be a boon. Putting such a device on a different carrier creates a host of problems, especially in these trying economic times (drink!) where having an additional cell phone/mobile Internet contract is an expense most people cannot afford. Even in the case of an iPhone-lite device, interested consumers will be forced to contend with porting numbers, exiting contracts, and dealing with a host of issues Apple is simply to intelligent about as a company to fall into.

3) Verizon is supposedly in talks with Microsoft for developing a device. If this doesn’t set of alarms, nothing will. Far be it for me to add anything to the rivalry between these two tech companies, but Verizon speaking to Apple while in concurrent negotiations with Microsoft simply doesn’t fall into the realm of possibility. Even if it were true up until this point, if Apple leadership was just cruising the blogs and stumbled upon this nugget of information, it would result in the immediate breakdown of talks between Apple and Verizon. How would that breakdown go? I imagine it would be something like this…

[Steve Jobs calls Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam]
Lowell McAdam: Hello?
Steve Jobs: Lowell, hey, hi, Steve Jobs here.
LMcA: Oh, Steve, hi, how are you?
SJ: Great, fine, perfect, soaking in the sun. Oh, Lowell, by the way, can you hear me now?
LMcA: What? Yeah, sure, Steve, I can hear you just fine.
SJ: Oh, that’s great. I was just checking the PERFECT, CRYSTAL CLEAR call quality of my iPhone on AT&T. Did you know the iPhone is on AT&T, Lowell?
LMcA: Why…yes, Steve I did know that. But I also know we were talking about bringing the [insert whatever product you think is coming to Verizon here] real soon.
SJ: Yeah, about that. I was taking a break from destroying Tim Cook in some beach volleyball just now, and on the blazing fast 3G of AT&T, I came across this little rumor that you guys were talking to Microsoft about developing some stuff.
LMcA: Well…
SJ: Is this true, Lowell?
LMcA: Now, Steve, Microsoft is a very big player in the phone business. They’re a platform on many of the phones we carry at Verizon Wireless.
SJ: You don’t say.
LMcA: Yes. So it shouldn’t be so shocking that we were discussing some ideas with them.
SJ: Well, you’re absolutely right Lowell. My mistake. But, you know what’s really funny?
LMcA: What’s that, Steve?
SJ: We’re just not going to be able to bring [insert whatever product you think is coming to Verizon here] to Verizon Wireless anymore.
LMcA: Bu-but Steve…I have to say I’m shocked.
SJ: Shocked, Lowell? I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear you. Did that network of yours just break up?
LMcA: No, I don’t think so. Wait, let me…can you hear me now?
SJ: Yeah, Lowell, I can hear you, just fine. And you can hear this – we are DONE. Professionally, you and me are DONE. I like you, you’re a nice guy, but we are DONE.
[Steve Jobs slams his iPhone into the ground; an Apple peon hurriedly brings him a new phone and collects the shards of the previous device; Jobs makes a phone call to Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Wireless]
SJ: Ralph? Yeah, Steve Jobs here. We’re bring a new device, the [insert whatever product you think is coming to Verizon here] to you guys. Brand new. You’ll love it. It’s amazing. I’ll show it to you later today. Swing by my place. And bring over that new John Mayer album.

OK, maybe I went a bit hyperbolas there. But it might be like that.

4) The legacy network of Verizon Wireless is a CDMA network. This is perhaps a shaky argument, but still a reasonable one. Though Verizon Wireless is moving toward developing an LTE network, the same GSM standard which AT&T and several carriers across the world will be developing, the legacy network Verizon Wireless will be using will still be the existing CDMA 3G infrastructure they have in place today. As many iPhone 3G users, myself included, will tell you, the iPhone 3G frequently switches back and forth between 3G and EDGE networks, depending on AT&T’s coverage. While having an iPhone that could handle CDMA is simply a matter of swapping out a little radio, it’s enough of an issue to prevent Apple from going through with a partnership with Verizon Wireless.

5) Who does Apple give previews of their products to? Think back to any of the major products Apple has released in the last two years, and consider when Apple has ever previewed a major device prior to an announcement for the public. Certainly, there have been leaked shots, rumors and other leaks from within Apple, but even during the negotiations with AT&T for the iPhone, an actual device wasn’t revealed to the mobile services company until only a few weeks prior to MacWorld Expo, after several of the contract details had been hammered out between the two companies. To think Apple would give exclusive previews to Verizon Wireless just to solidify their standing seems kind of ludicrous, when compared to Apple’s previous efforts with other partners.

These are only a few ideas as to why the recent rumors regarding Apple and Verizon Wireless are bunk. There are more which I could dive into with greater detail, but honestly, my fingers are cramping up a little bit. The basic takeaway is this: everything is a rumor until Apple or Verizon Wireless says otherwise, and there isn’t any reason to believe either company will change their tune any time soon.

It’s about time!

The guys from Iconfactory have submitted version 2 of Twitterrific to the iTunes App Store and is expected to be approved next week.

For me, Twitterrific was one of the first apps I installed after getting my iPhone, but it soon grew old and featureless with the way Twitter was being used. No search, trends and re-tweet features made me move over to Twitterfon, even after I paid for it.

The new version boasts lots of new features like:

• Multiple account support
• Filters for mentions
• DMs
• Favorites
• Trends
• Search by keyword, person, or location
• Saved searches
• Notes on users
• Retweet
• Conversations
• Custom shortcuts
• The ability to follow/unfollow/block
• Expanded and condensed views
• Shrinkable text
• Complete Twitter bios

Here’s a 9.15 minute video you can watch explaining all the new features in version 2.0.

I just hope they update the desktop version too, as i paid for that as well and have since moved over too Tweetie for the same featureless reasons.

Over the last week, my backups have been failing. Granted, I didn’t really have the time to look at what the major issue was with my Super Duper backups to my backup drive. However I found some time a couple of days ago to fix it. Here’s how I went about it.

A little bit about my backup strategy first. I have 3 separate backup locations: A local hard drive for a cloned backup, .Mac syncing with iDisk and Amazon S3 with JungleDisk. On the even hours of the day, I sync to my iDisk, while on the odd days I do a ‘Smart Update’ to my cloned drive. JungleDisk runs every 6 hours to backup my important documents and purchased music.

The one aspect of my backup strategy was the cloned backup to my local hard drive. It would fail after verifying that 91404 files were up to date. The following snippet was what appeared when I did a ‘show log’ from SuperDuper!.

| 03:09:37 AM | Error | SDCopy: Error deleting /Volumes/FullBackup/Users/waynedixon/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Downloads/Podcasts/7. Navigation Controllers (April 22, 2009) _ iPhone Application Programming – Video.tmp/download.m4v\n: Operation not permitted

Now, to most this would seem like a bunch of gibberish, but let’s take a look at it piece by piece.

The first part, states the time, the type of message, the path of the message, and what the resulting error means. Therefore, This error occurred at 3:09:37 AM, and it could not delete the temporary m4v (podcast) file.

The fix for this type of error is quite simple and goes as follows.

1. Open Finder
2. Click on the volume from the left sidebar
3. Drill down to the folder above the file. In my case it was /Volumes/FullBackup/Users/waynedixon/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Downloads/Podcasts
4. Right mouse, or ctrl-click, on the item.
5. Select Move to Trash
6. You might get a dialog asking you to authenticate to delete the file
7. Authenticate as an administrative user
8. The file should disappear, and your backups should work again.

You can also navigate to the same place in Terminal and do a sudo rm /path/to/file to remove the file.

There are a couple of tips with this quick walkthrough. First, if you’re doing a backup, remove temporary directories, like /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Downloads and other temporary directories.

The second is to use the log files that are provided with the application in order to determine what the error generated actually means. SuperDuper! has a button right on the front that says ‘Show Log’, for each scheduled task that will show you exactly what occurred during the backup. If there are any questions, either e-mail me, or leave a comment.

Looking to bring instant messaging (IM) to your iPhone? You have most likely come across Beejive IM by now. You will have also likely suffered from a bit of a shock when you saw the price and wondered if it is really worth it or not. Ultimately you will have to make that decision for yourself but in this brief review we will show you what you get and that Beejive IM is more of a service than just an
application.

Beejive IM offers a rich array of settings which can be found under the Settings application on the iPhone (see screenshots below). Some of the nicer features include the ability to use groups, hide offline contacts and alter most aspects of how the interface will look. At the bottom of the settings you will find a section  labelled “œNetwork and Push” which is where Beejive IM truly starts to shine.

Due to limitations Apple has placed on the iPhone applications cannot run in the background. This has been a bit of a killer for instant messenger applications that really only work if they are always running. To overcome this Beejive IM keeps you logged in via their servers (up to 24 hours) and sends you email alerts when you get new messages. If you couple this with push email you will know immediately when you have new messages. The messages that arrive also have a
convenient button allowing you to open Beejive IM immediately from the email. When you factor in the this ability to always appear online and never miss a message you quickly realize Beejive is offering quite a service which helps justify some of the cost.

As far as the actual chat interface goes it could not be slicker. This application is well thought out and makes optimal use of all the iPhone has to offer. Adding new accounts is straightforward and you quickly become unaware of which chat protocol you are using to talk to your different contacts. Chat clients often fall apart when you start chatting with multiple people as it becomes a bit of a burden switching between chat sessions. Beejive beat this by coming up with a simple chat switcher (almost like CMD-TAB in OSX or ALT-TAB in Windows). You can even optionally set Beejive IM to switch chats based on a gentle shake.

The one time I had to contact Beejive (Apple replaced my iPhone and Beejive IM detected something fishy) they responded quickly and helped me resolve the issue.

In summary if you are an instant messaging addict we fully recommend Beejive IM even at full price. For people who are more casual users of instant messaging you may want to wait until the next promotion. Until Apple actually packages some form of iChat into the iPhone Beejive IM will likely be kind of the hill.

Beejive Fact Sheet

• Price: $15.99 (has been on sale as low as $9.99)
• Competition: IM+ ($7.99)
• Protocols Supported:
• AIM/MobileMe
• GoogleTalk
• ICQ
• Jabber
• MSN / Windows Live
• Myspace IM
• Yahoo! Messenger
• Facebook IM

Key Features:

• Stays connected 24/7!
• Uses your iPhone data-plan (no per message charges)
• Email notifications (new messages)
• Drawbacks
• No Skype support (IM+ offers this)

I would like to petition our loyal readers.  We know you’re there (we see the stats), so drop us some quick insights into the comments.  If you have a Touch or an iPhone, I would really like to find out if you loathe the iPhone keyboard or not.  I’ve read a couple of articles and watched a video this week that argue the merits of tactile feedback, but I’m not 100 percent sure that I agree.  CNET has even posted an interesting video competition between an iPhone and a Netbook.

I think the problem with the iPhone steams from the occasional slowdown in response time that occurs on occasion.  With a tactile keyboard you know you’ve hit the appropriate button when the operating system slows down and needs to catch up a little. This doesn’t happen with the iPhone, typo’s are harder to realize.  I type the best on the device when I’m not worrying about my typing and trust my fingers.  If i’m going slow, I tend to make a lot more mistakes.

So what do you think, is the iPhone keyboard as bad as the haters say it is?

[Download] [00.9 MB] [0:02:00]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant talks about using UPSs on your Macs.