What To Expect When You’re Expecting Apple To Release A New Product
Category: cell phones
iPhone vs DSLR: Test #1,982,461
I know I’m not the first person to do this — in fact, I’m probably closer to the 2 millionth person — but I thought it’d be a fun experiment nonetheless. On my recent honeymoon to Italy, I took pictures of some locations with both a DSLR and an iPhone 4. Can you tell which is which?
Burano
Venice
Why is Sprint still airing their “first” Evo commercial?
I saw this commercial again just last night. I get that when the HTC Evo came out in June, Sprint wanted to really play up its “first” status among 4G cell phones, which was a great idea back when it was the only 4G phone. But all Sprint’s doing now is reminding people the Evo is the oldest 4G phone out there. Not sure that’s the message they want to be sending.
Side note: Does anyone even remember what the first 3G or 2G phones were? Nope. I don’t, and I actually pay attention to these things. The commercial pretends like being the first 4G phone is as iconic and groundbreaking as being the first rotary phone or the first rocket into space, but as far as I can tell, only three cell phones have officially reached icon status: the first iPhone, the Motorola Razr, and Zack Morris’s grey brick mobile phone. That’s it.
A Midsummer Day’s Update
A follow-up to some some previous posts…
1. Apple released a software update to iMovie for iPhone. Works like a charm now. No more still image issue.
2. Looking forward to trying out Hulu Plus. Between that and ESPN3.com, I figure I can get 60% of my TV watching needs from just two websites, and I can access them from just about any web-connected device I own. Speaking of ESPN3, I have no idea why ESPN and internet service providers aren’t promoting it more. It’s friggin’ great. ESPN3 is basically all the sporting events that ESPN covers made accessible via the web, with many more exclusive to the web. Not all ISP’s offer it though. A list of ESPN3.com compatible ISPs can be found here.
3. Still not regretting returning the EVO.
iPhone 4: the antenna isn’t an issue for me, but this is…
Yesterday I started making my first video using iMovie for iPhone 4. I was giddy. I couldn’t believe I was making a project on my cell phone with the same non-linear ease I used to only expect from a top-of-the-line desktop machine (I’ve been using Final Cut Pro since the day it came out over a decade ago). There were some limitations, of course, but nothing I couldn’t work around. I made a video for my girlfriend, timing pictures and video of her nephews and niece to one of her new favorite songs. I showed it to her on the phone’s high quality screen. She loved it. She wanted to share it with her sister 3000 miles away. And that’s when I had a problem. A big problem. Every time I tried to export the video, the app crashed.
A simple Google search turned up this support document on Apple’s website.
Apparently iMovie currently has a problem with still images: use more than a dozen or so in a project and you could start to have issues exporting. I had close to 40 photos in my project. Playing around with the suggested settings didn’t help. Apple’s final suggestion: Use less photos.
In other words: When all else fails, start over again with lesser ambitions.
That’s not an attitude I’m using to hearing from Apple.
Anyways, I’m not going to do that. I’ll continue to show off the video on the phone while I wait for a bug fix (it’s clearly a bug — the App has no problem processing all those photos on the fly during editing or playback — just when compiling for export). When that will come, no clue. Apple seems a little busy at the moment. But at least while I wait I can listen to some podcasts…
Why I returned my HTC Evo 4G
First up, I didn’t do it because of the iPhone 4. Doubt me if you will (and I know you will), but it’s true.
I also didn’t return it because of the screen. Sure it might not have the highest resolution available, but it’s still pretty darn impressive. In fact, the screen size was the one thing I might’ve kept the phone for, despite my other gripes.
I didn’t do it because of Android. Well, not explicitly because of Android. I don’t mind Android. I love the widgets, I love the way I could customize the home screen. I really liked many of things Andoid does that aren’t even options on the iPhone. I even liked HTC’s custom “Sense” interface.
I didn’t do it because of the battery. Sure, the battery life of the brand new Evo was only marginally better than my two year old iPhone 3G, but it was a lifespan I could deal with, and if it got worse, buying a new battery would be easy and painless.
And I didn’t do it because of the lack of 4G. Guess what? Despite the fact that Los Angeles isn’t yet an officially supported 4G city, I found plenty of places around town with 4G service, including my own neighborhood. That was actually one of the biggest, more pleasant surprises about the phone.
No, I did it because of one word: Podcasts.
Yes, you read that right. Podcasts.
buchnotes 