I’ve finally replaced my severely broken iPhone with a refurbished unit through my phone plan. I’m in the US, and have ATT. Yes, I know; I’m sorry as well. I literally had to wait for my contract to be up, so I could “upgrade” my phone with the exact same phone. There is no insurance, and there’s no allowance for simply replacing a broken unit without renewing your contract for another two years (at least, if you want a discount).

So, I finally can see the entire screen again, after three or four months of dealing with the phone that you are looking at below…

The phone met with an accident. It hit the pavement face-first from about five feet in the air. I was walking through a door while trying to access the phone, and something went terribly wrong. Dealing with it while I was waiting was a major pain: Amazingly, the phone worked and I could use it, but if you really want to have some fun, try using something like this with the Google Map application. Here’s what would happen if I tried to read a book (my photo is out of focus, but you get the idea):

So, needless to say – I’ve been a much happier fellow, this week. I’ve often sat down, turned on the new iphone, and simply gazed at it’s un-shattered glory. And yes, I’m one of those genetic weirdos that has no trouble reading a book on my iPhone.

I have learned a few things with this experience, and I’ll impart them, since I’m typing away:

• Get yourself a practically bullet-proof case for your iPhone, or any of the cool front-faced smart phones. It’s worth the extra bulk and the cost, if it spares you from having to deal with the cell-phone from hell. I have met more than one person who is suffering from the same predicament.
• If you DO manage to crack the glass – IMMEDIATELY run out and buy a screen protector for your phone model, and carefully put it on the screen. It will help keep it together until you can fix it or replace it. Also, a cracked glass screen is cracked GLASS, and can cut your fingers just like any broken glass. The screen will act as a safety barrier.
• Say what you want about Apple, Steve Jobs and the Mac Fanboys like myself, but the stinking thing kept working. I had NO dead zones on the touch screen, and could still play a game. I got a headache, but I could play. If that’s not a testament to the quality of an Apple product, I don’t know what is. I cracked the screen of a Palm PDA once – It was a paperweight in six point five seconds.

Lastly, the cracked iPhone is still in use! It’s sitting on my night stand and acting as my alarm clock. I’ve now learned about battery consumption on these things. With the phone in airplane mode and the Wifi off, it’s been going for almost two weeks now with no need of a charge. All that communication that we need in this modern society of ours really takes a toll on batteries.

I think I might jailbreak the thing just for fun. After all, I’m still completely legit with my new phone, so I don’t think I’ll be hurting the big “A.” Besides, I can’t help myself: I love to tinker…

Us tech geeks and the more computer savvy are complaining about what the iPad doesn’t have – but we are failing to look at Apple’s entire lineup – both computer and phone.

For those of you who follow the doings of Mr. Jobs with great interest, and all things Apple as a hobby, you know there is a Pro version of just about everything – it’s the two main markets that Apple gears themselves to – the basic line, and the pro line:

• There’s the iMac, and the Mac Pro.
• There’s the MacBook, and the MacBook Pro
• There’s the iPod Touch and the iPhone

Yes, the iPod Touch is technically the top of the iPod line, but it’s really the iPhone light.

• There’s the iPod shuffle and the Nano.

I know, I left out the iPod Classic, the Mac Mini and the MacBook Air – because these are niche products, outside of Apple’s primary focus, Basic and Pro. iPod classic for mass storage, Mac Mini for space saving, and MacBook air for travel (frankly, Jobs created the MacBook Air because he could. He was showing off. It happened to fit a need, but I don’t think that’s why it was created.)

I believe the new iPad will eventually be the iPad light. It won’t stay in the niche marketing plan for long. It doesn’t have the camera, nor the connectivity of a basic computer, but we’ve already learned that there is a space for the camera and the current programmer’s SDK operating system has options for the camera. There IS more to come – I believe the next major announcement will be an iPad Pro – with camera, more connectivity and probably more storage capacity. Probably at the same time as they bring out the second generation of the regular iPad line, with the non-sellers of the current line-up weeded out. I’ll bet that’s also how Apple gets back to the focus and pricing that they prefer – Basic and Pro, with the Pro price starting around $1200. And by that time, they’ll have the manufacturing kinks worked out to allow the Pro line to be about the same amount of money to produce as the ipad. That’s good business, And that’s usually Apple’s slant on things.

It’s just a thought, but I think it’s a pretty plausible thought. What do you think?

Unfortunately, I was not wowed by the iPad presentation. I was expecting, I don’t know, an extra special something. That feeling I had when he introduced the iPhone.

But that’s silly. He’s already introduced the iPhone. The new technology, and the new approach are already here. This is the natural progression. The iPad is not, as some would call it, a big iPod touch, but a bridge.

Not a bridge between a smart phone and a laptop (sorry, Steve), but a bridge between the computer users and the non-computer users. The internet for the computer-phobic. The people that think the Kindle looks too complicated. And trust me, they are out there in droves.

Statistics can be misleading: “households with computers” does not mean that everyone in the house uses the computer. Even in a house with a geek, there are the people the geek tends to: the mothers, fathers, grandparents (And the geek resents it – but that’s the subject of a different blog post).

They’ll want one of these. Despite it’s shortcomings. They don’t even understand the shortcomings. They haven’t yet thought of video conferencing. They don’t know what Flash is. They will marvel at what it can do, not what is missing. Steve shouldn’t have held the event for the press and the gamers and the Mac fans – he should have brought in a few elder care centers, and people who have never purchased a computer. He shouldn’t have crafted his careful explanation of filling in the missing product line, but just said flat out, “it’s a computer for everyone else.” The computer for people who don’t know who Steve Jobs is, or the difference between MacOS, Windows and Linux. They want to enjoy the stuff we keep telling them is amazing, but can’t get over the computer learning curve to experience.

Case in point: my mother-in-law. She went nuts when she saw the news reports after the announcement. She gushed about it. She saw Steve turning book pages on the iPad and using the iBooks store, and said flat out, “I want one of those!” She doesn’t touch a computer. She lets “Dad” (her husband) do it, while she sits just behind him, back seat driving. They purchase books on Amazon.com together, look up insurance information together, and still insist on using an actual paper phone book to find a local barber, because they think Google Maps is some kind of ungodly magic.

She wants one.

I said to her, “You know, the Kindle DX is about the same price.”

She replied, “But this one does so much more.”

How many people just like her are in the US? How many on the planet? We, the computer literate, are not the majority, or else people would never need to call the Geek Squad.

I am the minority, and I was wrong. The iPad is not a lackluster device – it’s just not my device. If Steve just said so in the first place, If we could have looked at if from that perspective, while he was sitting there in his chair surfing the internet, then we could have seen it.

Looking from that perspective, suddenly it is spectacular. People who have yet to join the computer masses will be just as amazed as I was when he introduced the iPhone. What is no longer a leap for me will be an amazing leap for others.

GET THAT STINKING MAC VERSION OF KINDLE OUT!

That would help me stem the cravings for that newest Apple product, and perhaps keep me from spending my hard earned iCash over at Barnes & Noble, who came right out of the gate with a Mac version of their ebook reader. Yes it’s a bit pricier for a book – but, oooh, that instant gratification cannot be denied…

And face it, there are no rumors about how cool the Kindle for Mac application is going to be – especially with the fake mock-up screens on your web site that aren’t even actual Mac screens. So holding out on us will do nothing to build anticipation – it will just get us closer to the iThingy launch, and give us more time to get used to the B&N reader.

You don’t want that, do you?

But, like many ‘folks around the world, I was listening to whatever bootleg feed I could find from “the announcement.” My hopes were high, and many of them were met.

In retrospect, however, I was left feeling that something was missing.

If this device sits, as Mr. Jobs pointed out, between a phone and a laptop – where is the ability to truly communicate?

Any computer person worth their salt uses not only text and email – but video. With all the thoughts of putting the “internet in your hands,” where is the camera? There’s one built into every laptop Apple makes. Don’t tell me grandma wouldn’t love to see and talk with her grand kids on her new iPad, after putting away the latest Sue Grafton novel.

And, of course, FLASH. I don’t understand why I have to see a missing flash app right on the screen during the presentation. Did Apple and Adobe have a falling out? You can shout HTML5 from the rooftops, but Flash is one of the main toys on the web today, from animations to games to videos; despite Apple’s deal with YouTube. Does flash mean games on the web that would hurt the App Store? I doubt it – so I’m just left to ponder…

I think I’ll have to wait for the next generation of iPad before we see it be a more complete in-between product. That usually happens with Apple, anyway – First things first: get it out the door, then immediately start to finesse the product.

I can be patient…

In fact, I think it will actually slice bread. One of the many functions of this amazing, possibly forthcoming product that hasn’t been announced yet and may or may not be real. I’ve heard all the rumors: It will play audio and video, compute with the best of the laptop progeny, play amazing games, read literature, and I hear Jobs is working on a deal to actually pull Stephen King’s thoughts from out of his head right onto the screen as he thinks them.

I mean, how can it fail? Even if it doesn’t live up to expectations – it will sell billions of units across the planet – just like the iPhone. After all, the iPhone is far from perfect, but none of us fan-boys will admit it. We buy it, anyway. When you love someone, you overlook that mole… We choose to talk about it’s form over function, how it integrates perfectly with our computers and iTunes, and tell people we don’t need stinking flash in the first place.  Stop pestering us about how your phone has flash. Who needs flash on our web browser when we have the App Store? I’ll take TWO iPhones, please.

Heck, if Jobs says we don’t need flash, then we don’t need it! After all, he told us we don’t need buttons, right? The iPhone is the worlds best gaming platform without buttons.

Go ahead – prove me wrong on that!

No one else thought to have a gaming platform without buttons – completely forward thinking. Look at the Mac line over the years – First he got rid of the floppy, said we only need CD’s. Now he says we don’t need CD’s – but you can get a $50 drive for your Macbook Air if you really want to look like a portable computing loser. And now, we don’t need buttons – they just get in the way of the form and function. All that stuff is superfluous; you need to get your stuff from “the cloud,” like the rest of us.

We Mac fan-boys ALL live in the cloud. It’s Job’s cloud, and we all like it there, thank you very much please, may I have another?

So, the iAll-Consuming-Thing-With-No-Buttons-And-No-Flash (name may be different at time of presentation) will rock! It will be everything we want it to be, even if it isn’t.

I AM a fan-boy, after all…

Yes, I can admit that, now. I used to think I could control it – but now, I know better. I’ve faced myself in the mirror, and I can put my phone down when I do it.

It started off so simply… After all, the basic cost of an app was only ninety-nine cents. I mean, heck, a dollar? The 99 Cent store has utter crap for that price. I could get stuff that was really helpful for one cent under a buck with my shiny new iPhone.

I wanted to be healthy – I mean what person doesn’t, right? – so I downloaded a weight monitor. It was cute, looked like a little robot. I put in my weight, and it automatically charted it. Wow! I suddenly knew where I stood in the world and, frankly, it wasn’t pretty. So I downloaded an app that let me input the caloric value of all the food I ate, and helped me keep my goals. But what happened when I went out to eat? Well, I found an app that constantly updates the nutritional information for restaurants and fast food joints – what could be the harm in that? I needed this info, right? That’s what the information age is all about, knowing stuff, right? Being informed.

But friend, that information comes at a price. In fact, a whole bunch of little prices, one after another.

Then the games started coming. Lots of them. I thought, “hey, I can get rid of that old Nintendo thing I have in a drawer and never use – that’s good, right? And heck, so many games have a free version – what could be the harm?”

Everyone here knows how that works, right? They give you a little taste: “Go ahead, friend, have a freebie on me. You’ve worked hard, you need a little – entertainment. What’s the harm in that?”

That’s how they hook you. I needed more than the first level. One platform out of one hundred wasn’t doing it for me – I needed more and more to fill the craving. I needed apps. I needed platform games, sports games, puzzle games. I kept telling myself it was ok. I was fine – I needed this stuff. What happens if I’m waiting in line? I need something to do, right? Something to bide my time. And it’s all so cheap! What’s the harm in that?

As you need more and more, the price starts going up. Want that hand-made game from the guy in Iowa? Sure that’s ninety-nine cents – but if you want something from a reputable game company my friend, that’s gonna cost you. It may only be $2.99 today, but it will go up, my friend, ’cause you’ll need more.

And the App store is just sitting there. Right on my computer – right on my phone. It calls to me – “Vince, check out the new apps at the App Store! You know you need them…”

Finally, I realized that I was an appoholic. I had to wade through twenty-seven pages of apps to find Google Maps. Backing up my iPhone took an hour and twenty-five minutes. I’d sit down for dinner, and my food would get cold while I looked up the nutritional value because I needed to know – and I needed my iPhone to tell me. Was it safe to eat? Only my iPhone could tell me. Only with an App from the App Store. Steve says it’s good.

And I kept looking. Is there an app to tell me if my friends are safe? I need to know! Do they like me – or do they just want my iPhone? That’s it, they want my Apps! Well, they can’t have them! They’re mine! Mine, I tell you! And I’ll stay in my house, if I have to – watching just the shows my iPhone tells me are good quality entertainment that are worth my time…

So that’s why I’m here with you today. Thanks to my sponsor, I’ve been clean for thirty days. Haven’t bought one app. And now, I can actually leave my phone in the other room without getting the shakes. Next week, I’m going to forget my iPhone at home on purpose. I’ll go out into the world app free, decide what movie I want to see, and pay for it at the box office, just like I used to do before I became an appoholic.

It’s good to say that. Freeing. I’m an appoholic.

No, no (sniffle), I’m fine. Just a little something in my eye…

There I was in Canada, visiting from the US – and the thing was practically a brick. You know when AT&T actually warns you that traveling can cost you and your iPhone bunch of money, it must be expensive. Obviously, AT&T would love you to spend your hard-earned dollars – so I would take heed.

Let’s skip the .79 cent per minute rate for international travel, and the fact that by paying an extra 5 bucks for the month I could only knock it down to .59 cents per minute, let’s talk about data.

AT&T forces you to have an unlimited data plan for your iPhone – probably because without data – you’re iPhone is an iDoorstop. The visual voice mail doesn’t work, you can’t get the map function to work – forget any thing like Pandora, and kiss your email goodbye. All the coolness that is my iPhone is dependent on data.

Apparently in the international cell phone circles, Data is an expensive commodity. People are hungry for data, and cell phone companies will gladly hold your wallet hostage for you to get some. And if you don’t know a kilobit from a kilobyte from an overbyte – you best turn off all the fancy bells and whistles – lest you learn why the love of money is the root of all evil.

On the iPhone there are two basic things that have to render useless:

• Head for the Settings icon, click on General, then Network, and turn off data roaming. This stops the data hungry apps from reaching out to touch someone without your knowledge. It’s like Cell roaming – when your phone automatically links with a compatible provider to handle your calls while traveling.
• Head back up to the main settings, and this time click the mail options, Turn off Push, so your email won’t automatically send you to the poor house by checking for mail every fifteen minutes.

This problem is not reserved for the iPhone – any “smart” phone can give you this trouble, consult your carrier and maker to make traveling better for your wallet, but, unfortunately, worse for all your cool features. Take advantage of wifi whenever you can – the hotel, a restaurant, a friend’s house, an unlucky local who hasn’t password protected their server – after all, we’re talking your hard-earned cash…

I don’t know if it’s like this on all phones with turn-by-turn maps – but the basic Maps function in the iPhone uses the satellite to pinpoint your position, and the data plan to load the maps. I found that out then we got lost and I tried to use the feature to get us un-lost – I received a warning that I had turned off the data function, then a blank map with our position on it. After I restored the data function – and the local area loaded in – I turned it off again.

Perhaps I sound a bit data-paranoid, but this iThing is already not cheap (the bane of all iPhone users is AT&T’s current plan cost), and you don’t want to be caught with your pants down, and your wallet empty.

Heck – no one wants be caught with their pants down, but I’ll leave that for another time and topic.

Oh, and in case you are steaming and ready to defend Canada to your last breath – it’s where I was at the moment. If I went to Europe – I would have titled this “France Makes My iPhone Suck.” So be nice, will ‘ya? I had a hard trip…

Today’s Coach-Tech Minute centers around a product that technically doesn’t give Microsoft Office a run for it’s money – because it doesn’t actually cost anything – and, as Martha Stewart would say, that’s a good thing.

The term ‘open source software’ always gives me shivers of joy – people getting together to make a computer program, then not charging a plug nickel for it – how in the world can that happen in America, retail capital of the world?

Actually, it happens all the time. Colleges, companies, programmers with time to kill, they write stuff up, and feel that your using it makes it all worthwhile. Although a donation here and there wouldn’t hurt… You can actually get much more involved with the process than a regular software product; reporting bugs, making suggestions. Some program for the sport of it, to see if they can create a certain product, others make a point of noting that they can create something that others charge an arm and a leg for, others just want to contribute to the computing field in general. Whatever the programmer’s reasoning for working on the project, you reap the main reward: using the software.

Sun Microsystems actually funds most of the work on the Open Office.org project – and I don’t want to know all the reasons behind it – but they are open about it and all is explained at the open office web site. My goal is using the thing. And using it, I do – I haven’t touched Big M’s “Office” for over a year. And I’ve made the suggestion of Open Office to those who were looking for an alternative, or looking to save money, and it has never disappointed.

Open Office is all the basics: word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation software and drawing program, and performs each task in an efficient manner. There are more than enough options, and, thankfully, very little of the infamous Microsoft bloat. I don’t think I’ve ever used all the supposed “bells and whistles” in office. I usually just want to type a letter, or put together a quick spreadsheet. I want to get in, get my stuff done, and get out. Open office allows just that.

Will it work on your computer? If you are running Windows, Linux, Solaris or Mac OSX, the answer is yes. And, since that covers all the major players, just about anyone with a computer can run a copy of Open Office – that actually tops Microsoft’s compatibility and availability.

Yes, but what about the business world – isn’t everyone playing with Microsoft? The answer there is an obvious yes. But, depending on your level of interactivity with major businesses and corporations – it is possible to use Open Office fairly seamlessly. As an example, Dave (a coaching maven that you may know) has a nifty new laptop running Windows Vista and the newest version of office. I can open everything he sends me, both from Word and from Excel. I have no troubles, whatsoever, and can actually save back into a Microsoft compatible format after I’ve made my edits, and send it back into his Microsoft world. Neither of us go crazy with extremely special features, so I’ve never yet run into a problem.

True, there’s no Outlook. For e-mail, you will need another solution. This may be the deal-breaker, but I can assure you that there are alternatives out there. All the teenagers around the world use them every day. I’ll get a run down up here on the blog – feel free to post alternatives in the comments section, if you have a favorite.

Open Office is truly a professional piece of software, put together with care, well thought out, and updated regularly. Giving it a test drive is really a no-brainer: it’s a free download. Why not check it out? Click here and take it for a spin.

Special note to Mac users: There is another group of programmers who take the basic Mac version of the Open Office program, and completely Macify it, adding all the bells and whistles of OSX. Their version is called Neo Office, and is available here.

• Links:
• Open Office – Available for Mac, Windows, Linux and Solaris
• Neo Office – Mac only

My world is a Mac world. It turns around Macs. That big glowy thing up in the sky that you’re not supposed to stare at too long or you’ll go blind? Run by a Mac. The Mac user shall inherit the earth. In fact, we already have. Your stinking, decrepit PC has simply not caught up with the news yet – it’s that slow.

You say your Vaio beats my MacBook Pro? Obviously, your Vaio has a lithium dispenser – because only the severely medicated could ever believe that Japanese compact could ever hold a candle to my American designed roadster. When I open the top, people notice. I’ve got the muscle machine; the big guns. My sleek hot piece of computational hot rod makes that Vaio limp over into the slow lane. My Mac makes me look good at any table, any time, anywhere. If someone dumps a coffee at the local Starbucks, the liquid purposely turns away from my Mac – it wouldn’t dare mar the finish.

And Dell? Dull. Put them in as many different colored covers as you can find – and they’re still out of the race. Washed up. Has-beens. There’s no inspiration in that Inspiron. In fact, when that coffee turns away from my Mac, it rains all over your lowly Dell.

Hewlett-Packard? Nice printer. Don’t bother with the rest. Take your Pavilion to Pavillions, and feed it something to bulk it up a bit. Try the vitamin isle, or, better yet, order it some Viagra on-line – and if it can sustain itself for four hours or more, don’t call a doctor – give it some applause, because it can finally be successful at something.

What? You say you’re phone is better than an iPhone? You haven’t a clue. Go ahead, keep using your clunky, “ooh, the keyboard flips out” peice of junk, with its weak selection of ringers and teeny tiny one-inch “screen,” its lowly game selection and the ability to drop a call at a moment’s notice: go use a pay phone. You’ll get better reception that way. And have your mommy pick you up, while you’re at it, ’cause your insight and wisdom are still back at home in your childhood bunk bed. Please grow up before attempting to live in the real world. The Mac world.

You say my iPod is overpriced? Do you think I really care? It’s freaking awesome. It’s the best .mp3 player on the planet. Apple owns this market. iPods made .mp3 players household appliances, right next to the toaster and the dishwasher. If it weren’t for Jobs whipping up one of these babies, you would still be trying to play music with your stinking, outdated, gasping for breath Palm. That’s right, you’d play a little Bejeweled, then listen to the six songs that fit on your rinky-dink SD card. Don’t bother turning on the optional equalizer – it kills the battery before the first song is over.

You see, Steve Jobs is the ultimate creator. We’ll leave God out of the equation for the moment. Jobs is a lowercase god. He’s a technogod. If the Greeks had electricity when they were creating their gods, Steve would have been one of them. He would have given Adonis an iPhone. There would have been songs written about him. Venus would have wanted to shack up with him.

Don’t tell me Steve doesn’t make great stuff. That’s a lie. He beats those designers with lead pipes and sends them back into the dungeon until they get it right. And they like it. It’s in their contract. Nothing leaves that place until its all shiny, pretty and full of performance. Why bother if it isn’t? Why make something that looks like all other manufacturer’s garbage? Why did tens of thousands of people buy the black MacBook for fifty extra dollars, when it had the exact same specs as the white one? ‘Cause it was pretty, baby. We all knew it was a ruse, but couldn’t help ourselves. It looked sweet. Steve got his extra fifty bucks and we thanked him for it. That’s why that big, ugly brown Zune thing had to go back to the drawing board: They could have gotten Jesus to promote it, and it still wouldn’t have sold.

My Mac is the best because Steve says it is. And he should know. He knows plenty of smart people who back him up on that claim. He’s got Al Gore on the board of directors at Apple. Why? Because Gore knows that Macs are an inconvenient truth. He knows everyone should have one, but there is a great cloud of misinformation belched out of that Bill Gates guy like some sort of toxic waste. Windows is the reason for global warming. Al knows. That’s why he’s on Steve’s team. The winning team. The Mac team.

And you may say, “Vince, this is a load of crap. You’ve made no valid points, cited no corroborating facts. you’ve got nothing here but your opinion, and it’s ridiculously biased.”

Well, you would be absolutely right. Ask the faithful of any belief, any persuasion, and they’ll tell you: They just know. They know they’re right. They feel it in their bones. Beat them until they bleed, but you won’t change their minds. Once they have experienced the epiphany, there’s no going back.

Yes, my Mac stomps on your ugly, slow, clunky, foul-smelling, horribly outdated sorry excuse for a computer. I know for a fact that you are lucky your sad, computationally-challenged instrument managed to bring this page up at all – because I know it barely has the horse-power to turn itself on, let alone actually surf the web. And I know that you are really sad, deep down inside, because you actually know it’s true. You’ve backed the losing horse. The also-ran. You are lost and unfulfilled in ways that you can barely imagine. Your existence is lessened with your sad choice in computer hardware. You should have got a Mac. You walk by the Apple store and turn your head in shame. Your children glare at you and ask, “why? Why must I be so embarrassed by you?” They know the truth. And no matter what you do – what story you tell – they’re going to want an iPod. And an iPhone. And finally, an iMac. It’s inevitable. There’s nothing that you can do about it. It’s Steve’s plan.

Give up.