Ben got a personal call from the office of Steve Jobs called today.
A personal representative from the office of Steve Jobs called me today on my cell phone (I put my cell phone number as contact information in the email I sent Steve two days ago).
The representative offered him “compensation” for his bad experience. He’s picking out an iPod over the weekend.
Unreal. ✓
Apple’s released what they’re calling the “September ‘07” update to the iPhone software. Included in the update is the iTunes WiFi Music Store, and the option to set a home-button, double-tap, to a function.
There are obvious speed and performance enhancements (especially with the SMS application launching), and perhaps some bug and security fixes, but I’m really disappointed there is little attention paid to the “glaring omissions” or quirks. For instance, there’s still no way to send an SMS message to multiple recipients.
Some of my other observations:
- New calculator icon matches the iPod Touch’s. Yuck.
- Hooray for double-tap spacebar to add “.”.
- SMS app is faster to launch, but still slow.
- Camera still loves green.
- Marker Felt is still used in MobileNotes.
- Haven’t been able to connect to the iTunes WiFi Music Store yet. It keeps giving me an error: “Could not connect to iTunes Store”
- How come this page isn’t linked to from apple.com/iphone? (I got to it by manually trying “apple.com/iphone/wifistore”)
Overall, the update feels more solid than 1.0.2, but lacks the new features/apps I was expecting. I mean, I sort of assumed the 4th row on the home screen would be filled, rather than having the iTunes Store icon just sort of sticking out there (they could have at least put it on the left). I guess it’s only a point update, so I shouldn’t have set my expectations so high.
Update: MacRumors.com has a comprehensive list of the new features:
- iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
- Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
- Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
- Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
- Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
- Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
- Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
- Support for TV Out
- Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
- New Passcode lock time intervals
- Adjustable alert volume
I bolded those items which were probably highly requested. Notice I didn’t bold much.
Jeff Croft on “The new layers of web development”:
In short, I’m suggesting that the (X)HTML templates used for a website in today’s modern world are much more closely related to presentation than they are to content.
Lots of goodgreat discussion in the comments. I smell a book coming. ✓
Ryan Masuga emailed me with a great question about my spam-free email setup:
if I wanted to change my private email address a couple months down the line […] what would happen to any mailboxes I made for the private1234@ address?
I didn’t have a good answer for him since I don’t store my email in boxes or the inbox; instead, I use Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero methodology, plus a folder in my home directory where I save all archived emails.
Ryan did some research and found his answer:
I found that reducing the number of folders I have made things pretty easy, but isn’t really necessary either. All you need to do is ftp into your site to be able to see the ‘home/{youracct}/mail/{yourdomain}/’ directory (I think…) and within that directory are your mail accounts. Copy mailboxes (I’m on Apache) from old private email directory to the new private email directory and voila - you’ve just moved all the mailboxes. You could probably scp these as well, but I’m not that technically savvy and just copying via Transmit seemed to work OK.
Easy enough — if you have access to your server mail directories.
10 ways to spot a flash designer, including the all-time worst:
Resizes your window automatically “for the best possible experience.”
I cannot believe there are still “designers” who do this. Great list, Eli. ✓
iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage?
The core of Apple users has supported Apple for years — we were there when Apple was hurting, we stuck with it, we nursed her back to health. It’s our money she has now, and she’s turning on us now that she’s rich off it.
This article is so good it should be read twice. Shipley articulates perfectly the thoughts that have been subtly, but regularly popping into my head for the past year as I’ve watched Apple flirt and appease the music and entertainment industry. ✓
Weird, rude and buggy, says Gruber of the new ringtone support in iTunes. I had the same experience with trying to determine which songs were eligible as ringtones. ✓
Faruk Ates, via Twitter:
iPhone flicking is the opposite direction of two-finger scrolling on MacBook trackpads, and as such I’m now constantly confused
I’ve had the same experience. ✓
Web Design 101: Floats
Floats are not the only choice when it comes to creating layouts, but they are popular because they survive the unpredictability of designing for various screen sizes, resolutions, and browsers as well—or better—than some of the other choices.
Excellent summary of what floats are and how they work. ✓
I was going to take the weekend off from posting, but this article from TJ is too good to not link to. It’s a lengthy read, but worth it if you’ve got an opinion about the iPhone price drop; either way. ✓
I posted a satire “translation from PR-speak” article tonight, but couldn’t sleep knowing I’d just mocked one of the greatest letters I’d ever read. I had referenced the letter Steve Jobs wrote to all the early customers of the iPhone, and attempted to humanize his words even more than they already were — which in of itself proved quite difficult. I couldn’t sleep on it though, and removed the post just minutes ago.
After laying in bed thinking about it, I realized how unique the really letter was. First, that a CEO of any company would write with such candor and humility is amazing. Jobs has done it before, with his thoughts on DRM, but this was different. He was apologizing; and not privately, but in front of the whole world.
What made the letter even more special was the offer that accompanied it. Consider the statement he made during the music event on Wednesday, that Apple is on track to sell their one-millionth iPhone this month. Now consider multiplying that number by 100. Let’s just say, for example, that Apple will be giving away 600,000 store credits in the amount of $100 each. That’s $60M worth of “sorry”, and plenty of “we owe you one”.
Think about that. What other company has ever come close to voluntarily giving that kind of money back to its customers? Apple truly is one of a kind.
(By the way, I’d just like to mention that I wrote this entire post on my iPhone.)
Why we need standards support in HTML email.
This much is clear - arguing about HTML vs plain text or complaining about standards support in email isn’t going to get us anywhere. It’s time to get off our butts and actually help email client manufacturers to introduce better standards support. ✓
Some random stories of why Apple is still great, and why the momentary questioning of said greatness I had yesterday was premature at best:
I had a friend bring his older iBook to me last week. The hard drive had died and I wasn’t able to recover it or any of the data. The machine was out of warranty, he told me, but I suggested he take it to the local Apple Store and get their opinion.
When he showed up the Genius recognized him from church and told him they’d take care of it. Turns out the machine was just a few weeks past its Apple Care coverage expiration, and the Genius was able to “work something out”.
A co-worker brought his iPod nano to me — it had a broken screen, and looked like it’d been sat on. The co-worker swore he didn’t drop it or sit on it, so I (again) suggested he take it to Apple.
He returned the next day with a smile on his face. Apple had replaced the nano, no questions asked.
Dave Shea, who lives in Vancouver, Canada, visited Seattle last week and bought an iPhone at a local Apple Store. Yesterday he was — ahem — surprised to find out the iPhone’s price had dropped. Since he was still within the 14 day period, he only needed to return and buy back the iPhone for a $200 credit … but he lives 4 hours away.
Today he Twittered: “Hi, Apple Store Seattle? Can’t make it back in, I can haz refund?” “Sure, over the phone we can get you back $200”. “Yay!”
So, now that we’ve got all that nasty “does Apple really care about us, or do they just want to make money?” garbage out of the way, let’s get back to those awesome product announcements from yesterday …
