I've only got one more week left of summer research. This time next week, I'll be back on the East Coast. I've already sent my desktop off to a cozy garage, and am posting this from my laptop. It was a pretty involved process - I needed to move all of my RSS feeds from Liferea to Google Reader, copy over my .vimrc and .emacs files, get a list of all of my webcomics... But all of that's done now. So, yeah, now I'm even less likely to post to this blog. Woo hoo.
I've now had my iPhone 3G for four days, and I've had a chance to use it in some real-world scenarios.
The App Store is, unequivocally, the most important feature of iPhone OS 2.0. Exchange support is nice, yes, and there are lots of little tweaks. But the App Store is what makes the iPhone attractive to me, more of a computer instead of a silly smartphone. I've been using a few apps pretty solidly for the past few days: Twitterific (a Twitter client), Exposure (a Flickr client), and the official Facebook client. All of these are well-written, and leverage the iPhone's interface and featureset. Twitterific is particularly enjoyable to use (although I'm not sure if I'm entirely sold on the concept of microblogging yet). As time goes on, I can see myself using these apps even more, and there are a few apps that I'm still waiting for (for example, where's my blogger client? The post interface is pretty terrible in the browser).
I haven't really been a big user of iPods per se. It's true, I do have an iPod Color. But it has rockbox on it, and mostly serves to keep me from listening to the engines on plane rides. The iPhone is the first iPod that I've actually wanted to use as such. The sound is pretty good (using 256 kbit/s AAC files), and the interface is nice. I'm not sure if I'll be able to use mobile players where I can't pause by pressing on the headphone cable again.
Where the iPhone really shines, though, is as a portable video player. Dr. Horrible is a comedy-musical-superhero webshow written by Joss Whedon, and it's available from iTunes. Watching it on my iPhone has been a joy — quality is immensely better than through Hulu, and the iPhone's screen really shines for this sort of use.
Incidentally, "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" is a really funny little show. It apparently will consist of 3 ~15 minute acts, and so far seems to have a lot of the wacky humor that I'd associate with Joss Whedon. That, and Nathan Fillon.
As I mentioned in my previous iPhone 3G post, 3G reception in my dorm (and workplace) is pretty shoddy. This isn't really a problem, because I've got Wifi of on sort or another all over campus (and even at the Starbucks across the street). Off-campus, it's another story. 3G reception in Claremont is pretty good, and data is noticably faster than over EDGE. However, I did not notice a significant improvement in call quality over 3G than 2.5G, which might be important considering the power demands associated with 3G technologies.
One of the other things that I didn't get to test before was GPS. As expected, going outside made the GPS signal pop right up. It's actually sort of neat — we start with a location circle whose diameter is about a mile, then it zooms in and the circle's diameter goes to about 200 feet, then the GPS signal kicks in, and the circle turns into a dot at my exact position. I guess it was sort of fun to watch my dot-self walking down the line-street equivalent of the street that my real self was walking down. I certainly don't see Google Maps + iPhone GPS replacing standalone GPS units (the requirement of network service for map data is a deal-killer alone), but it's a nice improvement of my previous way of navigating (print out a Google Maps map before I left). It also sucks up battery even faster than the 3G, so make sure to bring a car charger when you're off on your great adventure with your iPhone 3G.
So far, the iPhone itself is holding up very well. It's a veritable fingerprint magnet, but no scratches, despite being in my pocket with some change and such. The battery life is also fairly impressive — a couple of days of medium use, and it's still at more than half charged.
Well, I suppose that's about it for my review today. Ciao.
I've posted a few pictures of the unboxing of my iPhone 3G. As usual for an Apple product, the packaging was excellently done. The box was surprisingly small, but contained everything necessary:
SIM Card Removal ToolOnce I got done with my activation mess (see previous post), the iPhone was a dream. The first thing I noticed was call quality: it was excellent. I don't have 3G reception indoors (curse you, foot-thick concrete walls), but even over 2.5G, it was an amazing upgrade from my Motorola L2, and significantly improved over first-gen iPhones I've used. People on the other end of the call also reported excellent sound quality.
The OS and bundled software is much the same as in the original iPhone. I haven't really had a chance to try the App Store yet (waiting for CIS to turn on 802.11b for this MAC ID, and GSM is a bit too slow for that sort of thing), but it looks like the real game-changer in this 2.0 software. I'm thinking Twitterific and Exposure will be my first stops, but we'll see.
GPS, another of the touted features, also doesn't work indoors. However, Skyhook managed to get my location pretty much straight away, so whatever. I'll post again on GPS when I get out of the dungeon and into the real world some time, I suppose.
All of my PIM stuff transferred straight away. This is far and away the best contact management on a cell phone, say, ever. This is blasphemy coming from me, but I think it's even better than Palm's. Yes, the guy who used to run a Palm OS blog before the word blog existed and who has had every generation of Palm OS device ever released says that this PIM is better than Palm's. Put it down in the record books. Multiple phone numbers are handled sanel, personal ringtones and pictures just work, and calendaring is excellent. I'm a happy man.
E-mail is also good. Gmail just worked. Woot IMAP. I haven't tried to set up any other accounts yet, but I'll probably put something at roguelazer.com, also over IMAP. Mail management is quick, and I think I'm already getting used to the keyboard.
I went ahead and got the 200 SMS plan, even though I'd be surprised if I used 50 a month. It's cheaper to spend $5/mo and get 200 than to spend $10/mo on 50. The interface is pretty straightforward. I'm a little disappointed with speed (why does it still take 5 seconds to send an SMS? I can send an e-mail in less time than that!), but whatever. Incidentally, the new screenshot feature? Pure genius.
I also played with the iPod features a bit. CoverFlow is embarrassingly cool on this screen. So much so that I actually reimported a bunch of my CDs into iTunes (yes, I could have just ripped the FLAC files into AAC or MP3 files, but I had the originals, so what the hell) and copied them on. Sound quality is pretty good. Next up will be video, I suppose. Hopefully, NBC and Apple will clear up their little spat, and I'll be able to watch all the good Sci-Fi channel shows from my iPhone. *crosses fingers*.
Well, that's it for now. I'll get back to y'all once I've got some more time with the thing, and can report on 3G, GPS, and App Store performance.
Activation is the scary part of the iPhone process. Tales abound of yesterday's long waits and crushing failures. Unfortunately, my story is no different.
I got my iPhone home at about 12:30 P.M. today. When I connected it to my MacBook (named Caladan for reasons that anybody familiar with my computer naming scheme should understand), iTunes started right up and registered it. Alas, the phone made a little "sad tweet" and informed me that it had no service and the service was required for activation. Hm.
Well, even though my crappy Motorola L2 has 5 bars everywhere in my dorm, maybe the iPhone just isn't that strong. So let's try taking it outside, where every cell provider in the universe has 5 bars. Nope. Still no service. <google />It looks like some iPhones were shipped with inactive SIM cards. Well, that's a bummer. Let's call AT&T customer service...
I called AT&T (on my Motorola) and talked to a representative named Keasa Arnold. She walked me through some basic troubleshooting steps (try the SIM card on my other phone, try my other phone's SIM card on the iPhone, etc.) and told me she was just leaving for her lunch break, but would call me back in a few minutes any way. I went through the rigamarole, but no luck. Ms. Arnold called me back and we jointly concluded that the SIM card must not be set up correctly. A couple of minutes of typing on her end and I had 5 bars on my iPhone. Kudos to Ms. Arnold and AT&T wireless; yet again, they've impressed me.
Next up: first impressions
My iPhone 3G experience started this morning at about 5:50 AM, when I left my dorm to get an iPhone 3G. I hiked over to the Montclair Transcenter and picked up the 6:30 OmniTrans Route 66 bus heading Eastward. At about 7:05, I stepped off the bus, thinking I was there. Unfortunately, I was at another bus stop in front of a Best Buy with a gas station next to it — about a mile and a half shy of the Victoria Gardens Mall, where the Apple and AT&T stores were. A half-hour of hiking later, and I was there.
I passed by the AT&T store, which had about 20 people in line in front of it. However, I have a terrible history with AT&T customer service, so I figured I'd go to the Apple store. I was #45 in line at the Victoria Gardens Apple Store, next to a nice guy named Matt who was reading Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". It was 7:43 A.M. now, and the Apple store was set to open at 9:00.
At about 8:25, an Apple store employee came out to ask us if we had any questions. Now, some background. I am on a Family Talk plan, with my Mum as the primary. I called AT&T last week to see what I would have to do to get an iPhone, and they instructed me to have my mother add me as an "Authorized User" on our account, then it would be smooth sailing. I did this. Now, I tend to be an unsure fellow, so I asked the Apple store employee whether I had done the right thing. I had, apparently, not. According to this employee, Apple would not activate any phones purchased without the account primary present. Seeing as how my mum is about 3000 miles away right now, that's not really feasible. I got a bit huffed, as you might imagine. He said that I should try the AT&T store, although he wasn't sure whether they actually had any iPhones in stock.
So, frustrated, I headed over to the AT&T store, where the line had grown to about 45 people. I begrudgingly stepped to the back of the line, where I chatted with a nice woman named Angel who, apparently, works Customer Service at a casino. After a couple of minutes, the store manager came out to see if anybody had any questions. I flagged him down and explained my situation. After a moment's thought, he told me that it'd be no problem, and I could purchase my iPhone. Score one for AT&T.
At almost exactly 9:00, the AT&T store opened up its doors and started taking people four at a time (there were only four non-managerial employees, from what I could see). I was a bit worried that they wouldn't have any in stock when I got there, but the friendly manager assured me that they would. As I crept up the line (enjoying complimentary ice water, score another for AT&T), the manager kept taking head counts and assuring us that he still had iPhones in stock.
Finally, I reached the front of the line. Lo, they still had iPhones in stock! Admittedly, they were out of 16G models, but that's okay with me. A four minute transaction later, and I had my new iPhone 3G. Contrary to popular opinion, AT&T did an excellent job of customer service, and Apple sucked royally.
Next up: Activation
I've just purchased an iPhone 3G. I'll now make a few posts about my ordering experience.
Relying on the numbers of my friend Martin Pyne, the 2008 Democratic Primary is over and Barack Obama is the winner. Woo!
So, I got bored this weekend and installed Firefox 3 (beta 5, if it matters to you). It works pretty well — it's certainly faster than Firefox 2. However, there are a couple of annoying bugs that I'd like to post the solutions to for posterity:
If you use a dark theme (like I do), then many textarea and input form
elements will be unusable because they will have a dark foreground color
and a light background color. The solution to this is to add a
userContent.css to ~/.mozilla/firefox/ /chrome. There are lots of
guides on the Internet for this file, so I won't go into it. However,
the difference from Firefox 2 is that now any sections that you want to
actually be interpreted for reskinning "native" controls (like form
input boxes) need to have a -moz-appearance: none !important; rule.
There should, however, not be any @namespace directive.
The other annoying thing is that the Awesomebar thinks links should be
green. Don't get me wrong, I like the awesomebar, and I like links, and
I like the color green. But green really doesn't work with my theme. So
I reskinned them, using the userChrome.css file in the same directory
as userContent.css. Copying the example will get you the @namespace
directive, which is important in this file. Then, the following lines
will get you some nice blue-ish links (this color looks good on a dark
background):
.ac-url-text {
color : #8888cc !important;
}
You can thank grep for the relevant style class. Anyhow, I'd be
interested to hear any of your opinions on Firefox 3. Otherwise, have a
nice week-end.
I've mentioned sudo in these tips before. It's a neat little utility for executing commands as somebody else. Well, today I bring you a handy guide I found on using sudo. I already knew most of the stuff, but some of it was new, and it looks pretty good as a starter for new users. So enjoy this article on sudo basics by A.P. Lawrence.
Sorry readers, no *nix Tip of the Day today. Just a brief word about the recent Debian OpenSSL vulnerability.
I'm sure you've heard about Debian's OpenSSL "Disaster". The short of it is that while fixing a questionable line in the OpenSSL/OpenSSH key generator, the Debian maintainer accidentally removed most of its entropy generation ability. Debian users with OpenSSL and/or OpenSSH keys should go regenerate them now. I'll wait.
Anyhow, the other interesting thing I wanted to post about was this. It's some interesting math showing why you shouldn't be using DSA keys anyway.
Oh yeah, and I'm done with classes and finals now. :-)