Posts Tagged "reviews"

So, I've been mulling over this post for a couple of weeks, ever since I bought the new Decemberists album, “The Hazards of Love”. I suppose you could label it something of an "indie rock opera". But, after a couple of weeks with it, I personally would label it "The Best Album of 2009". The plot is a bit bizarre, about a woman Margaret, her forest-spirit lover William, the Queen of the forest, and a murderous rake, and it's a bit of a far-out story. The idea of having an album that isn't just a collection of singles is bit …

So, I picked up a copy of Andrew Bird's new album Noble Beast today. Yes, I know that today is January 18th and it's not released until January 20th. That's why this post isn't going to be published for two days.

Anyhow, the album is excellent. Everything you know and love from Bird's previous releases is here, but more polished. Some things that I thought particularly stood out:

• The instrumental beginning of Effigy. And the double-stopping soloing in the middle. Really, the whole song.
• Unfolding Fans. Makes me think of Brian Wilson, but in a more minor key

Yeah …

I've now had my iPhone 3G for four days, and I've had a chance to use it in some real-world scenarios.

Apps

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 …

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:

• Docking Connector -> USB cable
• Tiny, tiny power adapter
• Iconic white headphones (with microphone… somewhere…)
• SIM Card Removal Tool
• Cleaning cloth

Once 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 …

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 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 …