Macgasm

One of the wonderful things about OS X Leopard is Spaces. This is a built-in feature that I couldn’t go a day without. I have been surprised at the amount of people not using spaces. Some people just don’t get it, or see a need for it. But once you start using it, you will depend on it.

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In this episode, Grant and Josh discuss the finer points of Activity Monitor.

[01.4 MB] [0:02:50] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]

After picking up my iPhone 3GS on Friday morning, I was listening to some music on the way home from work. I keep my iPhone (or iPod) in the car’s cupholder when it is plugged into the stereo. At some point I had to slam on brakes and suddenly heard a funny beeping noise, and something happened to the music. At first I was a little worried that something was wrong with my new iPhone, but I quickly remembered one of the new “features” of iPhone OS 3.0 – Shake to Shuffle.

Seems like a cool idea. But in practice it can be quite annoying. Jogging with shake to shuffle is certainly going to provide an interesting, if not frustrating mix. Luckily Apple provided a fairly easy way to turn off the feature.

1. From the home screen, go to Settings.
2. Scroll down in settings and select “iPod”                                                             
3. The top option in the iPod settings menu is “Shake to Shuffle.” Tap the slider to turn it off.

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Last week AT&T announced that they were going to allow those early iPhone adopters who purchased an iPhone 3G between the release on July 11th and September an option for the early upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. So, I, being the geek naturally, ordered a 32GB Black iPhone 3GS; thus it has arrived.

While I didn’t get the immediate gratification of getting the new iPhone last Friday, I also didn’t have to wait in the sweltering Chicago temperatures again to get my Phone.

So here are my thoughts of the iPhone 3GS versus the iPhone 3G. There are a few features present in the iPhone 3GS that are not in the iPhone 3G. These include: Compass (hardware-based), Voice Control (Possibly hardware, but not sure), Video Camera (Hardware-based), Faster processor (hardware-based). All of these items appear to be something that software cannot upgrade and would only come with the new handset.

There is one major difference between the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, in terms of what is included in the box, you get the new headphones with remote and microphone with the iPhone 3GS.

As for the handset itself, cosmetically it is exactly the same. The buttons are in the same places, sorry, button is in the same place. All of the iPhone 3G accessories fit perfectly, including my Griffin Wave cases. I think this is one of the smartest moves that Apple made with the iPhone 3GS.

After activating my iPhone 3GS I noticed one major thing immediately. This iPhone is faster; much faster. The response from the processor with just opening up anything is faster. Mobile Safari, Settings, and general application loads are all faster. The processor isn’t nearly as fast as the current Macs (about 66% slower). However, it is plenty fast for the mobile platform. The biggest change has been the addition of the L2 cache, which decreases read and write times.

The next major improvement is the Camera. Below are two of the same pictures taken from the same angle, the first picture is from the iPhone 3G, while the second one is from the iPhone 3GS. Both pictures were taken from the same distance from the keyboard. I used both of my ultra-compact iPhone power adapters along with my old iPod Mini as a stand. These are the results.

The iPhone 3GS picture was auto-focused by the camera. This is probably the biggest reason why I upgraded. The increased size of the pictures from the camera, 3.2 Megapixel on the iPhone 3GS versus 2.0 Megapixel on the iPhone and iPhone 3G, have made quite a difference in the clarity of the pictures. The picture sizes are now around 1.4 Megabytes each instead of 667 Kilobytes.

I haven’t tried the video yet, but this is something I would like to get to in the next few days. Despite all that has been added, there are two negative things I have found.

The first is the iPhone 3GS has a yellow tint to the screen. Now this happened last year as well and eventually cleared itself up after about a week of use. I expect the same thing to occur with this new phone.

The second thing, and something I have not seen reported much, is that Apple has reverted back to the original iPhone’s vibration mechanism. The vibration on the iPhone 3GS is not the same as the iPhone 3G. I’ve already managed to miss a phone call because I did not feel the phone ringing.

Overall the iPhone 3GS is a vast improvement, even if just in speed, over the iPhone 3G and original iPhone. Don’t remind me of how much I’ve spent over the past 2 years on phones. I guess I can’t complain too much since the iPhone is essentially another computer.

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In this episode, Josh talks about FTP clients.

[03.3 MB] [0:07:00] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]

I’m a sucker for cute little trinkets, especially when they have something to do with an iPhone, so there was no doubt I’d fall head over heels for these icon paperclips.

Made from the creative material that is Fimo clay, a complete pack consists of icons for:

- Camera
- iPod
- Weather
- YouTube
- Text

and can be used as a general paperclip or even as a bookmark. Created by Bear Duck Designs, they arrive in a little decorated matchbook and can be bought from the Etsy store for $8.00

With every new piece of news I get about Rogers and telcos, a little bit of my soul dies. Mark my words, in 5 years these cellular networks are going to be the same as the gas cartels. A whole lot of lies, and a whole lot of extremely angry customers later, someone, somewhere will stand up and do something, but by then it’ll be too late.

After taking an hour to explain the iPhone plans to my mother a couple weeks ago, I realized that all the documents they sent her home with were a bunch of crap. They were clearly designed to confuse customers. Some pages had information on packages with the daytime talk time allotment info, other pages highlighted dataplans that were included in a package, but failed to mention anything about the daytime minutes. It took me, a quite tech savvy person, an hour to wrap my head around all the packages.

News today from the iPhone in Canada blog has my head spinning yet again.

To get MMS officially working on a Rogers Wireless iPhone 3G/3GS, you need the following:

• iPhone 3.0 Software
• A Data Plan (which starts at $25/month)
• No Data blocks whatsoever, at all.
• MMS capabilities (Starting at $5/month for just a Messages Bundle or $0.50/MMS on a pay per use basis)

If you do not have a data plan, or you have any data restrictions on your account, you’re out of luck. Apparently you need a data plan to send a MMS. Funny how that works. MMS can’t be covered by your data plan, but it certainly uses the same “data” to send the file. Talk about BS. I’d really like to hear Rogers’ justification for SMS and MMS bundles for an extra $5.00, when I’m already paying a kings ransom to us data already.

Everyone is wondering if the iPhone will be coming to Verizon.  On Monday evening, Verizon chief Ivan Seidenberg told PBS nightly-host Charlie Rose that it was up to Apple.  “œThe decision to put an iPhone on our network is Apple’s.” He states that in the long-run it is Apple to decide if they want to build a 4G iPhone for the Verizon networks.  A 4G phone would allow data to be transferred at a higher rate.  This would help with easier streaming of video and audio. Phone security would be much better on a 4G phone.

There have been ongoing rumors that a 4G iPhone would be coming in 2010, but Seidenberg didn’t comment if there have been any talks between Verizon and Apple.  Seidenberg stated that usually exclusive relationships only last one or two years, and then it opens up to the rest of the phone carriers.

Rose asked about a rumor that Verizon will be coming out with Motorola “œAndroid” phone.  Seidenberg said that he can’t disclose any information about this. From his reaction, I think there is something in the works.

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