Friday, September 28, 2007

iPhone Update...

As some of you already know, I bought an iPhone after the price drop to $399. I had originally planned on buying the AppleTV this month since I had to use a $50 certificate that I received from the iPod Battery Issue Class Action from a couple of years ago by October 7th or it would expire.

Once Steve made the announcement that the price was dropping $200 after only 2 months since its debut, after being absolutely shocked for a while, I knew this was a sign so I decided to use my $50 cert on the iPhone instead. We were already AT&T customers so replacing my Motorola L2 with the iPhone couldn't have been easier.

The iPhone absolutely kicks ass but is by no means a perfect device. It IS better than anything else I've used, including the the Palms & the Blackberry Curve.

I've compiled a list of improvements I (and MANY other iPhone owners) want... All of the following can be improved via a firmware update or support from other software companies... (In a loose order of importance to me)

  • Open up the system so users can use their OWN ringtones (from MP3, CDs they own etc.)
  • Safari needs to run FLASH and JAVA
  • 3rd Party App Support
  • Gmail Push
  • .Mac Push (why this wasn't already included in the first place, I will never understand)
  • SlingBox app
  • COPY/CUT/PASTE
  • "Reply to" in e-mail so I can reply to a pushed yahoo message and reply with a gmail reply address
  • Sync "Notes" back to iTunes or something to save them off phone (cause it's completely worthless to me otherwise)
  • Ability to "Mark all as read" in E-Mail
  • Ability to "Delete All" in E-Mail
  • Turn keyboard sideways in any mode that requires a lot of typing... (E-MAIL)
  • Ability to save pics in e-mail to my "Photos"
  • MMS messages
  • Ability to change the "alert" sounds for incoming E-Mail
  • Ability to place a point anywhere on the google maps
  • "Attach" option in the New Message window
  • Ability to send pics from camera at FULL res!
  • Ability to tether as a modem via bluetooth and/or USB
  • PDF viewer needs bookmarks + searching
  • Contacts to use "Categories" in Outlook 2003
  • Keyboard search in contacts
  • IM Clients (iChat?)
  • Mail count indicator for multiple email accounts
  • Voice dialing
  • To Do list/task display
  • Added after 1.1.1 update: Allow iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store use via EDGE
And a couple of things for version 2 of the iPhone...
  • LARGER STORAGE
  • 3G support
  • Memory card support (SD?)
  • User-replaceable battery
  • Video recording (I don't know if this can be done via firmware update)
Right after buying it, thanks to many of the hackers out there, I found a hack (not really a hack at all) that allowed me to trick iTunes into thinking that any ringtone I wanted to add was a "purchased ringtone" so I had over 30 extra ringtones added to my phone. I'm a big fan of custom ringtones for individual contacts. When I updated to the new firmware yesterday I lost that "loophole" and the ability to add all of my custom ringtones.

There is good with the bad though... Not that I've had a lot of time to test it in the last 20 hours but Safari & Google Maps haven't crashed on me once and the Wi-Fi Music store is cool and super easy to use.

In closing... after 12 days of use... I gotta say that this phone absolutely kicks ass! This is the product I've been waiting for for years! This is coming from someone who paid $399 for the Palm i705 + $36 a month for the data connectivity to be able to e-mail and surf the WAP 4-5 years ago. While this is my first "Smart Phone" it's my 4th "PDA". Even after I lost my ringtones (I'm confident a hack will be available at some point) it's still a $349 well spent.

Come on Apple... get working on my wish list!

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

And So It Begins...


DirecTV FINALLY launched some more HD! We've got 21 more to choose from...

1. A&E (Channel 265)
2. Animal Planet (Channel 282)
3. Big Ten Network (Channel 220)
4. CNN (Channel 202)
5. The Discovery Channel (Channel 278)
6. The History Channel (Channel 269)
7. The Movie Channel East (Channel 544)
8. NFL Network (Channel 212)
9. Showtime West (Channel 540)
10. Showtime too (Channel 538)
11. The Smithsonian Channel (Channel 267)
12. The Science Channel (Channel 284)
13. Starz Comedy (Channel 519)
14. Starz East (Channel 522)
15. Starz West (Channel 540)
16. Starz Edge (Channel 520)
17. Starz Kids and Family (Channel 518)
18. TBS (Channel 247)
19. TLC (Channel 280)
20. Versus / The Golf Channel (Channel 604)
21. The Weather Channel (Channel 362)

Though I was really hoping for National Geographic HD, this is an excellent start and according to DirecTV we should have about 70 HD Channels to choose from by the end of October and up to 100 by the end of the year!

I think we had around 9 HD Nationals before so that brings the total to 30. That doesn't include my locals in HD.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Friday, September 21, 2007

Yummy!




Sent from my iPhone

Friday, September 14, 2007

Getting closer to more HD goodness!



Soon, DirecTV will flip a switch and subscribers will get access to all of the new HD channels they've been testing since the "DirecTV 10" satellite was launched.

Rumors suggest we'll have 57 national HD channels THIS WEEKEND! That will be a nice addition to the 10 or so nationals we have now.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Like a message from God himself....


... Apple lowered the price of the 8GB iPhone today from $599 to $399 even though it's only been on the market for a touch over 2 months!! This is EXCELLENT news for me... but the people who just paid $600 for one in the last 66 or so days must be PISSED!

They dumped the 4GB version all together.

They also refreshed the iPod line but I'll post more on that later.


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