Merry Christmas, dear readers.
posts
Moron of the Week: Lee Chul-ho
A 13 year-old iPhone user will be going to court against Apple Korea next month over an iPhone 3G repair dispute. Back in October of this year the 13 year-old’s father asked for $251 in compensation from Apple after they refused to fix his daughter’s iPhone 3G, despite the one year warranty. Apple claimed they could not fix his daughter’s iPhone for free as it apparently had water damage, according to the trivial water sensors, which the family denied causing. After this, an attorney for Apple’s Korean front attempted to settle with the family under the table in exchange for the family keeping quiet and not speaking of the incident to the press.
New Desk: Status Update #2
Well, the desk I have been building with my dad has graduated from the garage. While we are going to finish it — paint the base, stain the top — once it is warm outside in the spring, the glass and trim work is complete.
It makes my 24" iMac look tiny.
On Intel, ARM, Android, Apple and the Newton
Be sure to check out my piece over at Macgasm, in which I discuss Intel, ARM, Android, Apple and the Newton. All at once.
Learn About Festivus
Not sure what my earlier post was about? Don’t fear, everything you need to know about the holiday can be seen in this three minute video:
Androids IN SPACE!!!
Say what you will about Android, but this is just awesome:
In what can only be described as a stellar publicity stunt, Google launched seven Nexus S smartphones into near space. The devices were fixed to weather balloons and sent over 100,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. Luckily the phones had some company on their journey, as can be seen in the image above showing an Android that tagged along for the ride. The Nexus S phones were equipped with various sensors to see how they would perform on the journey, and they were each running different Google apps such as Google Maps, Google Sky Map and Latitude. In case you were curious, the Nexus S GPS unit managed to function up until about 60,000 feet and the phone remained operational to -50° C.
Frank Costanza, on the Festivus Pole
Frank Costanza, when asked by Kramer about there being a tree in the Festivus celebration:
No, instead, there’s a pole. It requires no decoration. I find tinsel distracting. It’s made from aluminum. Very high strength-to-weight ratio.
Happy holidays.
Ripoff Express
‘The Obvious Question’
Patrick Rhone, on the iPad and the 11.6" Air:
The MacBook Air is fundamentally of a different breed and usage. I write. I research. I curate. I edit. Increasingly, I collaborate with others and do video and audio conferencing. While all of these things can be done on the iPad, for me they are more appropriately done on a Mac.
I’m coming to the same conclusion. Also, be sure to check out his mini-review of the mini-laptop. The bit about re-installing OS X sans language packs is genius.
My Next Move: To An 11.6" Air?
I love the iPad. I really do. It’s a fantastic device. It’s fast, capable and sexy. The apps are great.
I love reading on it. Between Kindle, iBooks and Instapaper, I’m never without something to read. If I end up at the end of my queues, there is always Safari. Which is also great.
However, I do a ton of writing. I write here, at Macgasm, for school, for work and for pleasure. While PlainText has totally changed my life and the way I store my words, the iPad isn’t a great writing machine.
Woz, Net Neutrality and the FCC
First off, here’s Steve Wozniak in an open letter to the FCC:
The Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away.
[…]
We have very few government agencies that the populace views as looking out for them, the people. The FCC is one of these agencies that is still wearing a white hat. Not only is current action on Net Neutrality one of the most important times ever for the FCC, it’s probably the most momentous and watched action of any government agency in memorable times in terms of setting our perception of whether the government represents the wealthy powers or the average citizen, of whether the government is good or is bad. This decision is important far beyond the domain of the FCC itself.
‘I Want to Believe’
Jürgen, on the Cultured Code blog:
The final release of cloud sync as part of Things is still off by a few months. But we plan to publish more details about what we are doing (and have been doing) every few weeks.
OTA sync has been a major drawback for Things since day one, but the problem got a lot worse since OmniFocus’ OTA sync has gained serious traction. Hopefully, Cultured Code can make this happen quickly.