theBartels.de » iPod

Macworld & Macbook Air

CB — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:13:09 +0000

Yesterday, I went to Macworld in San Francisco. Being in the bay area anyway, I wanted to take the chance to see a keynote of Steve Jobs live. I arrived at the Moscone Center at about 7:30am. At that time, the waiting line for the keynote was already going around half of the block. (approx. 500 meters) Quickly talks with other people in line started about what will come and how it will be, but the line was not moving at all for the first 30 minutes and afterwards only very slowly. The keynote should start at 9am. At this time I was still at least 200 meters away from the entrance of the building. At 9:25am, the keynote was already running for 15 minutes, I finally reached the entrance. At that point, we were told, that the auditorum and the overflow rooms were already fully packed and they would not let anyone in anymore. I was really pissed.

Together with Tony, a guy I got to know in the waiting line, I went to a nearby Starbucks to “watch” the keynote “live” at macrumors.com’s live ticker. :-S

Anyway, I am really impressed by the Macbook Air. Later on that day, I tried it out for a couple of minutes in the Exihibition hall. It is really thin, small and the weight is very low. The multi-touch trackpad works like a charm. (Tried it in iPhoto, Safari, Preview, Finder)
Interesting is the price. In Germany it costs 1699€, in the US 1799$ + tax (~1951$) which results in a final price of 1331€. That is even cheaper than the black Macbook in Germany. Very strange…. Well, the US price finally convinced me, so that I ordered one a couple of minutes ago.

Another new product, which I might buy in the future is Time Capsule. It is a combined wifi router (802.11n) and harddisk, with which it is possible to do automatic, continuous backups of all Macs in your home. As Judith is thinking about buying a Macbook Air as well, Time Capsule could do a good job backup data centrally from all three Macs (the Mac Mini is currently connected to the TV).

BTW…something what surprised me a lot at Macworld was, that there were many different types of attendees. From very young (children) to very old (>70yrs), from looking rather “normal” to looking rather “rich”, from casual mac users to professionals, from users to developers. So it was definitely not only those kinds of geeks I would have expected, but a lot of just “normal” people. For me as a German it was a little bit strange, as in Germany people would not expect to see e.g. many older people using Macbooks or iPods.

Well, now I am waiting for the Macbook Air to arrive (in 2-3 weeks according to Apple.com)…

Dear Apple, your iPhone…

CB — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:55:41 +0000

…is really great! I got one almost four weeks ago and I really like it. But why are there so many annoying issues and missing features?

SIMlock is annoying!*
no support for 3rd party applications* – I would like to see TomTom on my iPhone
no Copy&Paste possible
no synchronization of notes between iPhone and Mac / Windows (expected for next firmware/iTunes update)
no synchronization with two computers possible (sync calendar & contacts with company notebook; music with private PC)*
no possibility to send SMS to multiple senders
no possibility to resend a certain SMS to another recipient
no possibility to get stocks from other countries than USA
no voice dialing / control
no voice recording*
landscape mode only supported by some applications (Safari and iPod, but not e.g. SMS and Mail)
except in Safari, no text input possible in landscape mode – typing with both thumbs is (at least for me) only possible, if I hold the iPhone horizontally
no auto-sync, if something in your calendar or mailbox is changed
podcast can only be updated via iTunes sync – why can the iPhone not load new episodes directly via wifi (or even EDGE?)*
no flash support
no java support
no support for downloading files in Safari
impossible to send pictures in full resolution*, music* or any other files via mail
Mail.app does not support ics files (appointments) created by Calendar on a Mac
no multi-select possible (e.g. for deletion of mails)
camera does not have zoom
no video camera support
EQ no accessible from within the iPod functionality
impossible to send anything (pictures, mp3s, messages, …) via bluetooth to other devices
impossible to set anything from the music library as alarm sound
no remote control support via Mac or PC (I would like to write SMS on my Mac and send them via the iPhone)
no support for stereo bluetooth headsets
no international keyboard layout**
no quick possibility to pause the current track or switch to the next/previous on**
no direct access to iTunes store**
impossible to deactivate GPRS/EDGE* **
no games available*
no stand delivered with the iPhone (as like with the iPod Touch)*

* can be achieved via hacks, (inofficial) 3rd party software or other workarounds – partly not possible for current firmware version 1.1.1 due to missing activation/unlock hack.

** available since firmware 1.1.1

Long list, he? But I am still liking my iPhone very much…Apple what have you done to me?

At least get the stuff fixed quickly please!

Apple’s impact on world politics…or the i-Words…

CB — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:02:48 +0000

Source: taz

iPod Shuffle

CB — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:14:37 +0000

The iPod Shuffle, which I pre-ordered in September, finally arrived today. Damn…it’s small!

Installation was Apple-like: unpack, connect, accept license, iTunes opens and you are ready to transfer music. Sound quality is ok so far. (= sounds good )