Rest in Peace, Steve October 5, 2011
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Business, History, Information Technology, Mac, News, Technology.add a comment
Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) passed away today. The co-founder and long time CEO of Apple Computer succumbed to illness after a two year battle with cancer.
iPhone OS 4 (aka iOS 4) June 21, 2010
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Information Technology, Software, Technology.1 comment so far
Well, I did it. I drank the Apple Cool Aid. Today Apple released their new iPhone (and iPod Touch) software known as iOS 4. It took about 40 minutes to download and another 25 minutes to install. So, just about an hour for the entire process.
How did it turn out? Better than I expected. It installed without a problem and I’m writing this blog post from my iPhone using the updated WordPress app. So, it passed the most — a successful installation.
Now that I’m running iPhone 4 software do I see any difference? Well, I am using a 32Gb iPhone 3Gs, so it’s relatively new. And, it doesn’t seem any faster (or slower) than the version 3 iPhone operating system. So, no penalty or benefit, in terms of speed, as far as I can tell. Hopefully, it will not drain the battery any faster. In fact, it would be nice if the battery lasted a little longer.
As for the new features like the ability to create folders and the new multi-tasking (background) processing, they are okay. I’ve been able to significantly reduce the number of screens for my apps, which is nice since now it’s better organized (I’ve downloaded and installed way too many apps). And, the ability to quickly jump between apps (by double-tapping the home button) works well enough. It will make it easier to look up something when I’m in the middle of writing an e-mail, but I could do that before and it always returned to the same place where I left the half-written e-mail, so it’s not a huge difference to me.
What is of great value is the ability to run streaming radio apps or other audio apps and be able to continue hearing the audio (and not having it cut off) when switching to read e-mail (or post to WordPress). That’s actually a great feature, especially when it comes to using apps like Pandora or Skype. In fact, for me that is the main reason to upgrade to iOS 4.
Well, those are my first impressions. If you have an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3Gs or iPod Touch, you should definitely upgrade. You’ll be glad you did.
Now, I’m off to upgrade my iPod Touch then my iPad. Can’t wait to see if performance improves on the iPad. I’ll post a review if there here once I get some experience. (Hey, I just used the new spell-checker built into iOS 4).
MacWorld without Apple? December 16, 2008
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Business, Information Technology, Mac, Technology.2 comments
Yes, it’s a little strange to think of it, but Apple announced that the MacWorld Conference in January 2009 will be their last one.
What will this mean for the must anticipated and often exploited (by Apple) product announcements each year at MacWorld? Is this also the end of the Steve Jobs show and big product announcements? Or, will he just perform them for a closed audience of invited guests and media as he needs to roll out new products in the future? Probably so.
What affect will Apple’s absence have on the MacWorld conference? It will most likely kill it. If not immediately, it will die in less than two years. How can I say that? Do you remember that there used to be a MacWorld conference on the East coast? Do you remember what happened when Apple had a disagreement with the conference organizers and so Apple pulled out? Well, that conference quickly died. So will the West coast MacWorld conference.
Here’s what Cnet wrote about that event:
IDG and Apple have had a rocky relationship in the past. Apple used to participate in far more Macworld events than the San Francisco event, and a rift developed between the companies when IDG made the decision to move the Macworld event in New York to Boston, near the company’s Framingham, Mass., headquarters. Apple promptly pulled out of that event, and the East Coast Macworld was canceled in 2005 due to lack of interest without the star attraction.
Gone are the days of Apple trade shows and announcements for the rest of us.
Running out of cell phone numbers September 27, 2008
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Business, Humor, Information Technology, Technology, Web.Tags: AT&T, cell phone, iPhone
2 comments
Seeing this article about the upcoming IP number shortage reminded me of a recent experience I had with cell phones and cell phone numbers.
A couple of weeks ago I (with the help of my wonderful assistant) ordered about eight iPhones for a department where I work. Two of the phones were just upgrades to existing plans, but the other six were new service, so we were expanding the number of corporate cell phones on our account. That would seem to be a normal not-so-exciting routine process. Well, you’d be surprised at what a chore it was to get the vendor (AT&T) to ship the new phones.
Right away, after ordering the new phones through AT&T’s corporate customer website, we received e-mail confirmation of the phone order. Then, in about 24 hours we received several e-mail notices as the first of the eight phones were shipped. About two days after the order, all but three iPhones were on their way to me. But, three days later, we still had not received notice that the last three phones were shipped. When we called AT&T they told us those last three iPhone orders were “stuck” in the website. WHAT does that mean? They said to just wait and see if they will get “unstuck” on their own. I had a very tight deadline to roll out these phones and didn’t have time to wait for sticky websites. So, after much pressure on our AT&T account rep. and after many calls to the AT&T corporate support call center, they finally got the idea that we couldn’t wait any longer. After all, the rest of the cell phones part of the same order had already been received so it wasn’t a problem with the way we ordered the phones.
Finally, one of the people we spoke to shed some light on the problem — AT&T has run out of phone numbers, so the new iPhones that were added to our account had no phone number and couldn’t ship until AT&T could go wherever they go to ask for additional phone numbers for this part of the country. Isn’t that the wackiest thing you ever heard? I was really surprised that they had not seen this problem coming as they use up and assigned phone numbers to new phones every day. Surely, they have systems in place to monitor things like the amount of spare (unassigned) phone numbers left in their pool of numbers. It should not have caught them off guard the way it did.
So, the next time you are told by AT&T that your cell phone order is “stuck” in the website, know that they really mean they are stuck without any phone numbers and are scrambling to get more telephone numbers to assign their new cell phone customers.
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The following YouTube video has nothing to do with this post, other than the fact that I just purchased eight iPhone 3G phones from AT&T. The “will it blend” series cracks me up and I thought I’d share the video where they guy puts a new iPhone 3G into the blender to see what happens.
Apple website outage August 1, 2008
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Web.1 comment so far
This afternoon I was in a meeting when I needed to look something up on the Internet. I launched my Safari web browser, which defaults to Apple’s website, and got the above error. I immediately thought it was my laptop or the wireless network I was using, but all of the other websites (Amazon, Google, MSN, etc.) loaded just fine. I went back to the Apple webiste and it sitll wouldn’t load. The person I was meeting with is a database programmer and he was so currious he went and tried his computer, and his computer was unable to reach Apple.
So, my question is, did anyone else notice that Apple’s website was down for 15 or 20 minutes this afternoon?
Where did July go? July 31, 2008
Posted by Matsu in Apple, Information Technology, Random, Technology.add a comment
One of my three new years resolutions is to post to this blog an average of once a week. I don’t think I’m quite there, but I’ve still got five months to catch up and improve my average. This month I only posted twice and I’m posting this just so I have a third post in July. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it? Well, I’ve been busy!
On a totally different note, I continue to be amazed with and dependent on the new iPod Touch 2.0 system. It is more natural for me to reach for it to check my e-mail or schedule than it is to either use my laptop or my PDA/smart phone. Weird, isn’t it?
Now, there is an iPod Touch application for posting to WordPress. I didn’t use it to post this entry, but I will be trying it out this weekend. Fun!
Matsu's World: The One Less Traveled 