So they like to claim that they are pretty green, and it’s true that they’ve done some good stuff with reducing the size of their packaging and the materials they use in their computers. I like that you can buy stuff at the store and just have the receipt emailed to you. And they are certainly much better than those jackasses in Redmond with their packaging (PLASTIC, and a puzzle just to open, they totally played into their stereotype with that one… unbelievable). But anyway, back to Apple, something irked me not too long ago.
I wanted to upgrade my iLife to the new version. I was ready to buy it and download it, you know, like as if I lived in the 21st century. Guess what, you can’t. You have to either order it online, or go to the store and pick it up. Now, don’t give me any file size bullshit. If I can buy and download the entire 9GB Adobe CS, then Apple, the much richer company, can handle offering an iLife download.
I had called them to verify that I can’t buy/download it online, and the lady on the phone indeed said that this was not an option. I asked her why not, because then lots of people will have to waste gas going to the store to get it and it’s a waste of packaging. Her response was that I can order it online and have it shipped to me. To which I did a “arrgghhh, but that’s even more of a waste because there’s gonna be an extra box around it, plus shipping it all over the country.” To which she giggled(!), agreed, and said that hopefully they’ll have a download option in the future. WTF Apple!?
Overall pretty great. Obviously twice as fast, very snappy/responsive. It loads websites much faster, etc. Me and my friend Arun did some side-by-side-by-side tests at work yesterday between all three iPhones that have been relesed. Here are the results for loading macrumors.com:
iPhone 3G S: 10 seconds
iPhone 3G: 17 seconds
iPhone: 4 minutes, 24 seconds
The original iPhone only had access to a low-bar EDGE connection (Both of these tests were over cell networks, not wifi). We also tried a few other sites which the 3G S similarly dominated, but I remember also clocking Google News (Classic/Desktop version) at:
iPhone 3G S: 7 seconds
iPhone 3G: 14 seconds
iPhone: didn’t bother due to battery complaints from owner =D
Now, I didn’t have my iPhone 3G OS updated to 3.0 for these tests, and I honestly feel that the upgrade has shaved off about 2 seconds of website loading time. But the 3G S is definitely much faster, and also when scrolling around web pages while zoomed in - you don’t that checkerboard background while part of the page loads into memory like you do with the 3G/original. Launching apps/doing other things on the 3G S is also much faster.
The compass feature is cool especially in Google Maps, and I really like the new camera/auto-focus/exposure/macro system - that is one of the coolest parts, along with the very smooth video recording/playback, with upload to YouTube direct. The only thing I’m not really sure I like is the slight change of screen hue. It’s a close call, but I think that my iPhone 3G screen does look slightly better. But yeah, the iPhone 3G S is pretty damn nice!
I found two features in iPhone OS 3.0 that I haven’t seen mentioned in the various “what’s new” guides I’ve been reading, and they are both pretty big deals for me.
Apple has taken out the auto-correct for “fuck/fucking”. I can’t tell you how many text messages I’ve sent that accidentally say things like “It’s about ducking time!” or “Duck that”, etc.
There is finally an option to turn off repeat alerts for text messages. You know, that annoying thing where you’d be sleeping and someone would text you, and your phone would make the notification sound, but you’d just moan a bit and go back to sleep without moving, and then the phone will make the text alert sound again a few minutes later, and then once more a few more minutes later, waking you up repeatedly, ALL FOR THE SAME ONE MESSAGE. Duck that! Luckily they came to their senses and made this an option, which caused me to do the arms raised in celebratory victory.
It’s quite a nice OS upgrade. A lot of new and great features, some new effects, and a slight speed increase. I think my iPhone is about 13% faster now. There are however, still a few obvious features missing. Why can’t I make my alarm be a song or playlist? But overall, the greatest piece of technology just got even greater. And this is not to even mention all the new features/extras that the iPhone 3G S has! 3G S mini review? Ok sure. [splitting, see next post]
Now granted I do have a number of garbage albums on there that I was checking out and don’t intend to keep (I don’t mean the band, though I do have those tambien), but still, it’s not like there’s gonna be that many extra gigs of free space once they’re cleared out, maybe two or three gigs? 32gb iPhone idea is starting to seem like it’ll be v.cramped :/
On a road trip last year we stopped by Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. We took one picture with my iPhone and some others with our normal Canon camera. iPhoto ‘09 has the cool Places feature where it’ll read geotags in your photos and find out where pictures were taken. The picture I took at Apple with my iPhone (which has geotagging) shows that they got the proper location identification for those GPS coordinates:
So of course I want to add that same location to the rest of my photos taken with my Canon (non-geotagging) camera, but oddly enough, they don’t have “Apple Inc” as an option!! They have tons of Apple Stores, a sales office in Ireland, but not Apple Inc, the name that iPhoto gave for my geotagged picture.
How strange of an oversight is that!? Damn, just noticed the address of that Apple Store in the screen shot there too. Anyway, I figured out that you can get “Apple Inc” to show up as the location if you add a new place (at the bottom up there), and do a Google search for Apple. Crazy omission though. I pity all the fools taking pictures inside the Apple offices. Actually they probably can’t do that, hah!
Why, oh why do the Japanese insist on taking us there?
I’m very curious to know how much of this development is done by sad men wondering what blowjobs feel like. I mean seriously, we’re going to have to fight a war against machines because of you guys!?
What do you mean “OSX MP3 Player”, iTunes DUH. Well… yeah, but I haven’t moved my mp3 collection over to iTunes yet, still wanna go through and sort out newer stuff I haven’t ever organized on the windows side, create like a final up to date folder structure version before handing off power to iTunes. (Yes, I am planning on doing it! :X)
So, I just wanted to share with any of my Mac friends who are interested and might not know that there is a pretty cool MP3 player called Vox.
I used to think plastic was like one of the coolest things ever when I was a teenager. Now I find myself really not liking it. Reasons:
The environmental hazard of it. It’s half-life is like 20,000 years or something.
The human hazard of it. Recently they’ve been finding that a lot of plastic bottles leak bullshit into your drinks. A lot of bottle makers are even like “don’t be re-using this bottle oooohhh!”
The cheapness of it. It’s just like, a cheap fucking replacement for solid dope shit. I know there are a lot of places where it’s beneficial to use it, but you know what I’m talking about. Plastic cookware and shit like that, I don’t like that.
Riding off #3, it just like represents to me a crapping down of society. Like we used to make shit that lasted, now we’ve got this designed for obsolete 90% plastic bullshit that is only respectable enough to piss on.
It’s made out of fucking OIL, dogg.
It’s not real enough. Like, it’s made out of such a chemical process. It’s too fake. I like the real motherfuckin glass, motherfuckin metal SHIT!
is really good! Works really well. Super easy to share photos, and works very well with two way syncing of changes. Great job Apple & Flickr, thanks for simplifying life!
