I have touched an iPhone

I went to the mall this morning with the intention of buying some clothing. (Yes, nerds shop for clothing.) So after we stopped at Tim Hortons, which is the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin’ Donuts, we walked over towards Sears. On our way, we walked past a Rogers Wireless store.

And there it was, the iPhone, in all its glory, sitting on the counter, practically begging to be handled. (It was protected from theivery, though, by a cable attached to it and by the guy behind the counter who watched my every move.) I only had a few minutes to play around with it, but from what I could tell, the thing is great. A few small observations:

• The device feels great in your hands. Really great.
• Furthermore, it is incredibly thin.
• The screen is amazingly bright, with no glare or reflection whatsoever, and absolutely amazing resolution.
• Multi-touch is cool.
• The GPS works perfectly.
• The camera stinks. The resolution is terrible, and the camera itself is right where you want to put your finger.
• The accelerometer, for some reason, was disabled on the display devices. And no, it was not just broken, because I stopped at a Wireless Wave store later in the same mall and had the same experience.
• The keyboard is really not as bad as you might think. I, however, had a very hard time hitting the “s” key. Because the accelerometer wasn’t working, I couldn’t try the landscape mode.
• The store device came preloaded with a bunch of stock images. (And while I’m on the topic, pinching to zoom is very, very cool. If you haven’t used a multi-touch display before, you should really go down to your nearest iPhone retailer and try the thing out.)
• The lack of physical buttons is not a problem.
• The UI has lots of cool animations and such. For example, the glow on the “Slide to Unlock” text slides from left to right. Also, when you press the home button, the icons zoom into place from the sides.
• The way the icons jiggle when you want to move them is positively nauseating.

I got back in the car with my brother, Arie (who plays Scrabble at a professional level) and had this irritating discussion with him:

ME: The 3G iPhone is so cool.
ARIE: What’s so much better about the new iPhone?
ME: It has, um, welll… it has, uh, three G’s.
ARIE: So? The word gagger has three G’s too. Gagging has four.
ME: Uh…. well…

Another Record by Apple

Every Tuesday so far this year, Apple has released a product. Some Tuesdays, more than one. There’s been the new Mac Pros, the MacBook Air, Time Machine, iTunes Movie Rentals, the new Apple TV software, new iPod Touch and new iPhones, and now Aperture 2.

This is a record on the part of Apple; 8 new products in only 7 Tuesdays. If they keep this up, they’ll have introduced more than 60 new products by the end of the year. How long do you think they’ll be able to hold out?

Apple will charge $20 for existing iPod Touch users to upgrade!

I still can’t get over this. I mean, this is a new thing for Apple. Twenty Dollars! (Well, Nineteen Dollars and Ninety Nine Cents.) Apple is going to charge $20 for existing iPod touch users to upgrade to the new firmware, of all things. Please.

Apple’s creatively named “Time Capsule” to complement Airport and Time Machine

Wow! Steve Jobs released a NAS, Wi-Fi, 500GB (or 1TB) backup hard disk called Time Machine at Macworld Expo ‘08. I still don’t believe it. I mean, Wi-Fi? Who needs Wi-Fi in a backup disk, of all places? Oh well, maybe the Apple Logo makes it worth the money.

Apple releases Macbook Air!

Apple released the highly rumored MacBook Air yesterday at the Stevenote at Macworld Conference and Expo 2008! The MacBook Air is a new, ultra-thin, void-of-optical-drive sub-notebook that will ship in two weeks. Whether it’s worth the $1799.99, of course, is still up in the air.

The 2008 Software Company Number-Of-Products Showdown

Maybe this will become an annual event. Maybe it won’t. Whatever. The point is, many software companies have too many products. This year’s contenders are Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Which will win?

New Samsung Printers will be offered only through…

…Apple stores.

That’s right. The stylish new Samsung ML-163, and it’s multifunction twin, the SCX-4500, will be offered exclusively through Apple stores, until January 2008.

Both printers are black-and-white laser only; 17ppm print and copy; 600×600dpi prints; USB connection only. They might be good looking, but their specs aren’t all that great.

New iPods

Sorry for not blogging in a while. I just came back from vacation and was amazed to see all the hype about the new iPod Nano with video, the iPod Classic with 160 gig!, and the iPod Touch (that deserves italic: iPod Touch!). What they’re doing over at Apple with the iPhone, iPod, and the mac is simply amazing.

(Apple links are really easy to insert, I just noticed. Instead of, say, apple.com/ipod/classic/, it’s just apple.com/ipodclassic.)