Focus Focus Focus!

I did the seemingly unthinkable yesterday. I bought a new phone. And not a new iPhone. I hooked my wagon to the newest iPhone competitor, the Windows 7 phone.

I know what you're thinking. "Dude, how can you not get the new iPhone? Are you a commie?" To that I say, because I didn't wanna, and yes.

Honestly, ever since I finally got my 3G updated to the (gimped) iOS4 update, I was thinking about changing. Being able to put apps into folders made me realize that I never used 90% of the apps on my iPhone. Once they were put into folders, that was it. I kept the apps that I used on a regular basis out of folders, which added up to roughly 1 screen of apps.

I use my phone for a handful of things. Phone calls, the camera, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and music. I use it for some gaming as well, but there are only a handful of games that are worthwhile on the platform. Flight Control. Real Racing. The Spiderman game. Cut the Rope. That's it. And Game Center is a big bag of fail.

When they announced that Phone 7 would have Xbox Live support, that sealed the deal for me. Actual games with achievements supported by Microsoft. Not a bunch of 3rd party crap that is designed to get your cash in exchange for 10 minutes of tilting your phone.

Some of the great things that I've found so far in Phone 7 are the integration with my Gmail and Facebook accounts. I was worried it would be a nightmare getting my contacts updated on the phone. Fortunately, it took little more than me logging into each account for Phone 7 to have my address book populated and ready to go. The iPhone can't even reconcile your Gmail contacts between what you've sent on your phone vs what you've sent via the internet.

The Xbox Live application is amazing. I've played ilomilo and The Harvest so far. ilomilo was free and it's adorable. The Harvest looks awesome and plays very well. I plan on getting a few more of the launch titles like The Sims 3 and Need for Speed pretty soon.

Basically, change is good I think. After 2 years with the iPhone, I feel like I've seen everything there is to see on the platform. Not only that, but the performance was suffering.

I'm not saying this phone won't have issues. I started out with one right off the bat because it downloaded an update as soon as I got it and I finally had to hold the power button down to make it reset itself. Also, the memory is expandable via a microSD card, but once you put in the card, you can't take it out. It becomes part of the memory and can't be swapped out like most other phones. This is a small thing and something I can deal with.

iPhone Commercials Make Me Cry

Do these iPhone 4 commercials get anybody else all misty-eyed whenever they see them?

By the way, why does she say "Do you got a minute"?

iPhone 3G Fail

This is how laggy my phone is. And I haven't even updated to iOS4 since the backup process takes so long. I've seriously left my phone overnight and the backup looked like this...

Don't know if it's because I have over 3500 pictures on it or what, but I don't have DAYS to leave my phone connected to iTunes while it does its thing.

Photo Apps

My current obsession is with photo apps on my iPhone. I got the Quad Camera app a couple weeks ago and really love it. Then I purchased the Color Splash app and pissed my pants due to its awesomeness. Then I downloaded the ezimba app for free this morning. It's almost more than my Flickr can handle!

The Color Splash app is genius! It takes all the color out of a picture, then you can paint the color back into it wherever you want. Totally worth the $1.99!



Then I discovered this! The quad animator lets you make .gif files out of your quad shots. How cool is that!?

Quad Camera App

I won this application from 148apps on Twitter. It's a pretty slick little app. I like how the settings let you set different time intervals, contrasts, and picture layouts. All in all I recommend it. Especially if you win it for free!

Twittelating Apps

I've been test driving a few of the Twitter apps that were recommended to me and I think I've picked my favorite.

I started out with Twitterific, which isn't that terrific. Nothing bad about it, but it just didn't stand out to me as the defacto app.

So, I loaded Twittelator, Twinkle, and TwitterFon. Twinkle was the early front runner because you could see people near you and what they were saying. The deal breaker was when I tried on multiple occaisions to send a picture with the app and was either kicked back to the "desktop" or given a server error. FAIL.

TwitterFon was good, but it doesn't have the added features like location and pictures. That leaves me with Twittelator which only has one issue. It only shows me so many tweets and won't load anymore. I'm sure this would be fixed by paying for the Pro version, and I might do that soon. Otherwise, everything works just as promised. Even pictures!

Whiter Is Better!

I know what you're thinking, and no, this is not another racist tirade. I'll do one of those tomorrow.

We went on Friday to the Apple store and got our iPhones set up. I made an appointment online. We went in and they looked at us like we had feet for hands. They didn't know what form I filled out, but they were able to look it up. Once the kid started setting us up, that's when the fun really started.

We told him that we wanted a white 16Gig and a black 8Gig. Now, this would tell me that we each want a different iPhone. We're porting our numbers over, so therefore you might want to ask which number is going to which phone. Well, this is obviously not a question a Genius should ask, and we ended up with our numbers being on the wrong phones. Fail.

We also asked about the discount for Postal employees. Genius-boy said they can't do that there at the Apple store, and referred us to the AT&T store. Of course, he was able to take our money without a problem, which I'm sure is the most important part of the transaction. My satisfaction is secondary.

So, we ran by the AT&T store and they fixed us up quick. Got the SIM cards switched and the discount applied to our account without a hitch. We should have gone there in the first place, but I called at least 5 stores and couldn't find one with the 8Gig in stock. Of course, the AT&T store we ended up at had them in stock, but whatever!

One of the things I'm really excited about is getting back to scrobbling on Last.FM. It's so much better than the Zune Social. And it works! I feel bad for selling the Zune, but it's just not as good of a device. Even with the inclusion of Hexic.

We've been adding apps all weekend. The best ones so far are the Lightsaber, Cowbell, and Pour1Out apps. Totally worth buying a $300 iPhone!

The Hits Keep On Coming

We discovered yesterday that our dogs have fleas. Fortunately, they don't seem to be of the mutant, flesh eating variety. It's a pretty big deal nonetheless. We had to run to Wal-Mart and buy killer in spray, carpet powder, and shampoo variety. There is now a pile of laundry that needs to be done in hopes of killing the little bastards. The fleas, not the dogs. Yet.

When we're leaving to go buy all the flea destroyer, Rhea notices that some asshole has hit my truck. There's a nice dent in the passenger side where it looks like someone pulled in next to me and misjudged it completely.

We called the police and they came out and gave me a case number for my insurance. Now I get to deal with that. Wonderful!

On the joy side of things, we have an appointment with the Apple store today. I called around to all the AT&T stores looking for 8Gig iPhones, but they were out. The Apple store has "a handfull", so hopefully there's not a big run on them before we get there.

Twitterific!

You just never know what's going to blow up and what isn't. Most comments that are made on Twitter just float on by without so much as a second thought. Then, on rare occasions, a topic explodes and we're all posting 140 characters as fast as we can type them. It's one reason out of 100 that I love Twitter.

Other reasons would be the constant flow of tweets, the ability to send SMS from your phone, and the immediacy of it. Honestly, I don't think there are 100 reasons. Can I change that to 5?

Anyway, tomorrow is the day we're planning on going to the AT&T store and get our iPhones. Yes, even with the announcement of the G1, we are still going to make the switch. Honestly, the G1 doesn't look like anything more than a phone running Windows Mobile. It'll be open source, sure, but I'm not sure that will be able to compete with the app store.

Stay At Home Week?

Far from it. This week is gonna be pretty busy. At least I think it will be. Hell, who knows?

So, Friday we're planning on getting our iPhones. I really can't wait. I've been using my Dash for 2 years now and it's really showing its age. I have to delete text messages every few days because the memory is full. Drives me crazy!

Of course, as soon as we are planning on going to the AT&T store, the rumor starts that a 32GB iPhone might be coming. That's fucking awesome! So, do we wait? I'm thinking no. I've suffered long enough!

I really can't complain too much about my Dash. It's been a pretty solid little phone. I've had to replace the battery, but that's really it. I'm impressed with myself that I was able to use it for two years without getting the itch for a new phone (up until the 3G iPhone came out, that is).

I'm still wanting to get a new Xbox, but I'm going to put that off for a while. iPhone comes first! I snuck in some Rock Band 2 on Saturday and played The Club last night. I even downloaded the bike patch for Burnout Paradise. Fun was had. And beer.

Good times.

I've been listening to the new Metallica album. It's pretty good. I'm impressed. Doesn't make me want to buy it, but I will recommend it to anyone that wants a good, illegal download.

Speaking of good downloads, I listened to episode 34 of GameHounds this morning. They were giving away Spore, and I won! I'm so excited to get that game. I really hope it plays on my PC. The creature creator ran ok, so I'm hoping I have just power to give it a go. Thanks to Edie and Hawkes for giving it away. I'll make something with really big balls just for them.

Brightkite

So, somebody sent me an invite to Brightkite.com yesterday. I'm not sure who it was, but whoever you are, thanks!

I signed up and started playing around. It took me a while to get my settings tweaked in order to get my posts and check ins to go to twitter, but thanks to a really helpful Brightkite guy, I got it worked out.

I just question the value of location-based blogging. It's an interesting idea, but it just feels like something I'm tacking on to Twitter.

Brightkite might grab me more when we eventually get our iPhones. Yes, that's right. Rhea and I have pretty much decided that we're going to get iPhones when our T-Mobile contract runs out in October. I still have to find out how the data plan works and how much it will cost us per month, and I'm also hoping they patch in MMS messaging by then also. That's really the only sticking point I have right now. It's almost a deal breaker. I wish I could test one out before I buy it and see what the difference is.