Kevin's Tech Ramblings

iPad 3 Predictions

2012-02-18T12:27:00.002-05:00

Oh how the time flies. It seems like just yesterday I was being yelled at by Target security guards for photographing the goings on of iPad 2 release day. Nearly a year has passed and it's time for that device I gleefully paid $700 for to become an outdated piece of crap that I'm embarrassed to be seen in public with.

If you're in the market for a tablet - don't buy one right now! The third generation iPad is expected to be announced in the first week of March with availability later in the month. The date has further been narrowed down to March 7th, but all we need to know is that the announcement is expected in just a few weeks. It's almost upon us so let's round-up the rumors that have been tossed around. If we add up all these rumors, the new iPad will have...

a retina display twice the resolution of iPad 2 at 2048x1536 (that's 4x the pixel density!),

This has been rumored from numerous sources, and recently 'confirmed' when MacRumors landed a 9.7" panel with this exact resolution.

a version that supports Verizon and AT&T LTE
a quad-core processor with better graphics dubbed the A6
one or two improved cameras as evidenced by the new camera hole in the case iLab got ahold of
and maybe a smaller 8" version

The only thing that everyone can agree on is that the new iPad will have a retina display. The resolution is easy enough to figure out; they'll quadruple the current resolution, just like they did from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4. Why is this the case? Simple: Apps trivially scale to this new resolution when each pixel becomes 4 new pixels. For example:

On a 4x resolution display (twice the number of pixels horizontally and vertically), apps designed for the original display will look exactly the same, as is shown in the left two pictures. When app designers get around to increasing the resolution of their graphics, they have 4x the amount of pixels to work with, making for much smoother and crisper graphics, like the rightmost picture. Compare an iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4; the difference is astounding. The 3GS looks like a piece of junk.

I believe that the new iPad will have this new retina display for the following reasons:

No other feature is compelling enough to make this new iPad significantly better than the current generation. A faster processor, LTE, fancier cameras, etc - they don't amount to much, and Apple doesn't compete on specs. They already did a minor spec bump from the original iPad to iPad 2; now it's time for something revolutionary.
Folks have gotten a hold of the parts; 9.7" displays of this nature exist. However, this question remains: Will they be able to be produced in the massive quantities required by Apple and at low cost? I'm sure that they've been working on this since before iPad 2 came out, so I think we can say yes.

Here are my predictions on the other stuff and why:

A version that supports Verizon and AT&T LTE

Yes. The battery life of iPad 2 is incredible, so there's room to burn some more with a reasonably power hungry LTE chipset. LTE / CDMA / GSM chipsets exist that can handle LTE and fallback to Verizon and AT&T's slower networks when LTE isn't available. Since this device is mostly a big slab of battery (and may have a larger battery in the new version), it could handle the additional power requirements of LTE that have kept this feature from the iPhone. The new iPad would also serve as a great testbed for LTE when it comes to iPhone in the 6th iteration of that device.

A quad-core processor with better graphics dubbed the A6

Yes and no. I believe that there will be an A6 processor on-board, but doubt they'll bump it up to quad core. Various sources have reported on a quad-core A6, but some disagree and say it will stay dual core but with improved graphics processing. I think that significantly improved graphics processing will be included to handle the new high resolution display, but that it will remain dual core for cost and power reasons. Just because the market is being flooded with quad core Android devices doesn't mean Apple will follow suit, which is where this rumor likely originated from. The A5 is plenty fast (ever hear someone complain about an iPad 2 being slow?) and the cost and power trade-offs of moving to a larger and likely more power hungry quad core processor are not worth this spec bump... yet.

One or two improved cameras as evidenced by the new camera hole in the case iLab got ahold of

Sure, why not. I'd like to see cameras that can handle HD video chat with the great sensor of the iPhone 4S, but not much has been said about it. Some reports say that the new iPad will have a thicker case, which means they'd be able to put in a thicker, and better camera. I don't have any idea what the specs will be, but I suspect it will handle HD video chat.

A smaller 8" version

No. I don't think they need another size. I suspect rumors about this are simply because people think that they need to compete with the smaller Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, but in reality, they aren't really on the same playing field. Get those rumors out of my face.

Lastly, what are they going to call this thing? It's widely speculated that it will be dubbed the iPad 3, and occasionally you hear the term iPad HD tossed around. I believe that they won't ever use the HD moniker since HD implies one of two widescreen resolutions (720p or 1080p). I suspect it will be called iPad 3.

We'll find out in just a few weeks what the actual story will be. Until then, try not to get nauseous looking at that chincy 1024 x 768 display.

Selling some electronics!

2012-02-15T21:19:00.001-05:00

40" Samsung LN40A550 1080p LCD HDTV - $400

I've had this TV for 3-4 years, purchased new from Best Buy for $1100. For over the past 2 years It's been turned on only once every month or two, it's in flawless physical condition, and has no dead pixels. It's a beautiful panel and a really good mid-range size. In addition to the TV, I'm including a wall mount (already installed), an HDMI cable if you need it, and the original remote.

These are going for $600 or more used on Amazon, not including shipping, a wall mount, or cable.

Shots of the wall mount - You'll need to buy some heavy duty screws / wall anchors.

Rear and side connectors

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - $100

OEM copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Retails for $140. Wiped out from my media center, so the product key is legitimate. $100 is a really good deal as Win7 is rarely discounted.

~~Media Center PC With All The Fixin's - $200~~ Sold!

Externals

Glossy black media center case (looks like an A/V receiver)
Media center remote & USB receiver
Gyration mouse (a mouse you wave around in the air to control the pointer, i.e. you can mouse from your couch or bed without needing a surface to put it on)
Wireless keyboard

Internals

Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 GHz
Asus P5N-EM HDMI MicroATX Motherboard
1TB Western Digital HDD
Multifunction card reader (SD, CF, etc)
Trendnet Wireless N WiFi adapter
ATI Radeon HD 5450 w/ 512MB On-board memory. VGA, DVI, and HDMI out.
Hauppage WinTV-HVR-1800
DVD R/W with Lightscribe

No operating system installed. Put Linux on it (be wary of driver support), buy a copy of Windows 7 x64 for about $100, or buy my copy of 32-bit Vista for $40. I'll be happy to install the OS for you.

Mild annoyance: When booting, you have to hit F1 to bypass an erroneous BIOS warning message. Otherwise, this machine is in great shape, and plenty fast for a media file server, Netflix machine, etc. I used it primarily for watching Hulu and Netflix on a TV and backing up files from another machine.

Front close-up (sexy eh?)

Back close-up

All the other stuff you get

~~Various Internal Hard Drives~~ All Sold!

640GB 7200rpm SATA Western Digital (2 available) - $30 each
320GB 7200rpm SATA Western Digital - $20
320GB 7200rpm SATA Seagate - $20
36.7GB 10000rpm SATA Western Digital Raptor (2 available) - $15

Facebook Privacy - Am I wearing pants?

2011-10-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

Facebook has never been good at privacy. They've always had the correct hooks in there, to some degree, but it was never really straight forward enough for people to understand. That was fine for them, because none of us knew any better. Then Google+ showed up and fundamentally changed the way we think about sharing. Before this, the privacy of the content you share was always an afterthought; something you'd have to dig deep into menus on the website to modify. Google+ turned that on its head with it's in-your-face-privacy settings called Circles. You pick who you want to be in each circle, and voila, share with whichever circles you deem appropriate. Facebook was terrible at this, since you had to build exclusion lists instead of inclusion lists. Recently, Facebook adopted sweeping changes to its privacy settings to catch up with Google+. So this privacy confusion is all in the past now, right?

In a really great This Is My Next Podcast, Joshua Toploski and Nilay Patel were discussing the new Facebook timeline and the issue of privacy came up. Here are a couple great quotes from this exchange.

"Facebook is like, 'Did I put clothes on before I left the house?' I don't know. I don't know if i put clothes on. And now I'm out!"

- Joshua Topolski

[From Facebook's perspective] "It's hard to figure this out, so here's all these granular tools for those of you who care about whether or not you're wearing pants. Everybody else, to get the most value out of Facebook, you've gotta take your pants off. Get used to it, because that's how Facebook works now."

- Nilay Patel, speaking from Facebook's perspective.

I do happen to care whether or not I'm wearing pants, and I was always confident that I was indeed wearing pants. Then I went to the Vegas, and noticed I was accidentally posting tons of content publicly. Keeping with the 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' mantra, most of this was not meant to be shared publicly. I'm a prolific share-er, so I think it's very important to control gets to see certain content. Let's talk about that, and what you need to understand.

Controlling whether or not you're wearing pants (and exactly how much ass is showing)...

Post privacy is set by clicking on the button directly to the left of the 'Post' button, below.

I choose Custom since I have divided my friends into two groups: 'Limited Profile' and everybody else. For most personal posts, excluding public things like announcements of new blog posts, I share with friends except for those in the Limited Profile list. You can set this up when you click on Custom in the post privacy settings.

"Limited Profile' is really a leftover from when Facebook's privacy settings were even more lame; now that Limited Profile list should probably be 'Acquaintances', which is one of the built in lists. That way, I can easily share with 'Friends except Acquaintances' instead of using Custom. If you haven't kept privacy lists, I advise you start now, and use Acquaintances for folks that don't need to see those sloppy pictures of you from Saturday night but you're still friends with. Putting someone in a list is easy, just go to their profile and click on the Friends button up top:

Setting someone to 'Close Friends' can be a bit annoying, since it notifies you of every single thing they do. But setting someone as an Acquaintance, like your boss for example, is quick and easy to do, and allows you to easily exclude them from certain posts.

The main privacy settings menu lives up by your name in the top right hand corner of the page (click on the down arrow to get there). There's quite a few important settings buried in the subsequent menus, and I'd advise that you go check them out. There was one setting in particular that I found confusing, and I wanted to share that so you don't make the same mistake. In this main menu, there is an extremely prominent area entitled "Control Your Default Privacy". Sounds great right?! I saw that, adjusted the options (Custom - Friends only, except for 'Limited Profile'), and assumed that my posts would always default to this unless I said otherwise. WRONG. It's actually a very specific setting that only applies to Facebook apps so terrible that they do not have inline privacy controls. That means this doesn't apply to Facebook in a web browser, iPhone, iPad, or Android. And that covers just about everything you'd want to post from, so this setting isn't all that meaningful.

As it turns out, Facebook simply defaults to whatever setting you chose last. Apps and Facebook in the browser behave this way. I think this is a terrible idea - it really should let you choose a default. Very rarely I will choose to post something as Public, and when I do, I don't want it defaulting back to that the next time I post. I'm going to forget! And that's how I screwed myself up with all my Vegas postings; I made one Public then never changed it back. Remembering that I've forgotten this once before gives me that accidental-no-pants feeling when posting things now, and that paranoia is no fun.

It's really important to check that inline privacy setting each time you post! Ultimately, all of your privacy settings are controlled on a per-post basis, so pay attention. One more time since this is important: If you post something to Public once, and you never change the setting back, it will keep posting to Public and everyone on the net can see it! This goes for Friends, Custom, and the others too but Public is the most risky one for your privacy.

Seeing if you're wearing pants from someone else's perspective...

This is critical, but many people don't know about it. For starters, you want to see what the internet at large can see of your profile. You can also see what particular people or friend lists can view, and make privacy adjustments accordingly. To view your profile as someone else, click 'View As...' under the gear icon at the top of your timeline.

Right under your banner image, 'View As...' is located in a menu accessed via the gear icon

I think they should dedicate a whole button for this instead of hiding it behind that little icon, but at least you don't have to dig more than one menu deep to find it.

I would advise you to view your profile as Public ASAP, especially if you've switched to the new Timeline, to see what people can dig up on you without even being friends with you. I spent a long time adjusting privacy settings on posts and photo albums after doing this the first time, and now I check regularly.

Locking down your Facebook privacy can seem like a big mess, which it is to some degree, but it's nothing that a little elbow grease can't take care of.

Go forth and put on your proverbial internet pants.

iOS 5: The delight of that first wireless sync.

2011-10-13T02:05:00.000-04:00

iOS 5 is freshly installed on my iPhone 4, so now comes the part where it has to load up the 25GB+ of music and apps. Well, I happened to check on the network utilization while doing this initial sync and was pleasantly surprised to see this going on.

Even though the phone is physically tethered to the computer, it's sucking the music files off of the disk and blasting them out the WiFi. iTunes has a very steady network output of about 13MBps to the device. Now, I'm not sure why they don't just use the direct USB connection that happens to be available, but hey, it's working and the thing isn't a brick yet.

What's even more interesting is that the phone is completely unlocked and usable while this is going on. Previously, during a sync you could not use the device since unlocking it would cancel the sync. Now it's just sitting there, ready to go, like nothing is happening. However, if I unplug it right now it stops the sync and iTunes gets upset. This makes sense, since wireless syncing only works when the device is plugged into a power source.

Next, apps started flowing back to the device. Annoyingly, they added some new apps, like Newstand, that pushed all my icons around. It also used WiFi for this, again ignoring the hard wired connection (I guess they were really serious about wireless syncing). Presumably it will do everything wirelessly from now on, which is interesting. There is a new icon, a rotating sync symbol just to the right of the WiFi icon on the device that shows when the device is syncing.

Playing around with it more, I noticed that it won't sync when I have it plugged into just a power brick and not directly into my computer. In Settings -> General -> iTunes Wi-Fi Sync the option to sync is greyed out, and is only active when I plug directly into my computer. I restarted both the phone and iTunes to no avail.

Aside from that little glitch, everything looks good. Looking forward to the new notifications and the quick access to the camera, among other things. I say go download it if you haven't, it's fun.

Turn off hibernation and save a ton of disk space!

2011-10-13T00:44:00.002-04:00

While trying to install iOS 5 on my devices tonight, I got a surprise error - Ran out of disk space! Not the iPhone storage, but my actual OS HDD had filled up. I've been running with this 80GB SSD for a few years now and only use it for the OS and installed programs. Music, pictures, and all other data goes on a RAID 1 array. The largest things on the OS disk are the various iOS backups that iTunes creates. So what gives?

After uninstalling a ton of relatively small programs, I noticed this guy hanging out in the root of that drive.

Ah ha! A nearly 12GB hidden file named 'hiberfil.sys'. Needless to say, this was clearly a giant cache that the system can use to get in and out of hibernation quickly. Well, I don't hibernate, so get that outta my face bro. A quick ping of the Google machine yielded the answer to how to turn hibernation off, and just like that, I got a bunch of space back. 11.9GB to be exact. Didn't even need to reboot.

Another way to free up a couple GB is to blow out any extraneous iOS backups from iTunes.

I blew out the two updates from 9/8 (it's 10/13 as I write this), freeing up about 1GB. I could have also blown away the other backup for the 3GS i'm using as an alarm clock because, come on, it's an alarm clock. It's unfortunate you can't point these backups to another location, say a giant data drive, but for most people it shouldn't be a big deal.

It's a little sad to be running out of HDD space in 2011, but hey, I'm using an SSD and am carefully partitioning the OS stuff and the bulk storage stuff between drives. I suppose it's time to upgrade to a larger OS drive soon though.

The Experiment: Android for a Month.

2011-10-08T11:25:00.002-04:00

October 7, 2011: iPhone 4S pre-orders started. I gleefully began the ordering process, only to have my heart broken by a pseudo-subsidized price a full $250 above the fully subsidized price. As you can see in the graphic above, the fully subsidized price kicks in for me about a month and a half from release day on my birthday (!). Faced with this $250 penalty, I called AT&T to see what they could do about adjusting this date, giving me a statement credit, etc, and got nowhere. Even with the threat of defecting to Sprint, I was basically told to pound sand - they were quite comfortable transferring me to the cancellation department.

Reluctantly, I made peace with not having the latest piece of hardware on release day. That lasted about 5 minutes. Then came the five stages of grief. At acceptance, I had a vision. A grand vision. A way to keep my early adopter juices flowing in the month and a half I'd be sans a 4S. The vision: Go Android until 11/25.

Here's the idea: I borrow an AT&T Android device from a friend and give up iOS from late October until I can get a fully subsidized 4S. I can speak intelligently about Android devices, since I follow all the new devices and software updates pretty closely, but I've never lived Android. This is a great opportunity to do so, and I'm all pumped up to do it.

Now it's time to track down a device. Who wants to let me borrow their Android phone? I'm going to blog the shit out of that experience.

On Steve Jobs and the Future

2011-10-06T00:16:00.002-04:00

Tonight I got home from a long day at work, still a little befuddled about the news of Steve Job's passing, put some music on and started writing this post. Let me explain why this is significant. To begin writing, I picked up a MacBook Air off the couch, opened it up, and within about 5 seconds I was clicking around in Blogger. 5 seconds and it's ready to go! To put on music, I slipped my iPad out of my bag and fired up some tunes. The album was purchased from an iPhone via the iTunes store, the largest music store in the world. iCloud pushed these purchased songs to my PC and added them to my iTunes library without any intervention on my part. This iPad controls iTunes on the PC, pushing the music to various Airport Expresses and an Apple TV. For the simple act of relaxing at the end of the day to do some writing and kick back to some tunes, Steve managed to make this complicated scenario happen so easily I didn't even need to think about it. This may not seem like a big deal, but the enabling technologies for this have had a profound impact on our daily lives, and not just for music.

I never was an Apple guy. I've been building and over clocking my own PCs for about 7 years and have never even owned an iPod. Now look at me, nearly my entire personal digital life is run by Apple devices. Is this because of rabid fanboyism? Nope. I liken my rabid adoption of Apple products to the reason I drive a Prius. I don't think I'm saving the environment; far from it, that thing has a super nasty battery that's going to need disposing of. I drive it because that's the way I think a car should be designed. It looks like it does primarily for low drag and has nearly the lowest drag coefficient on the road. Regenerative braking makes sense; why are you other morons just throwing all that kinetic energy away?! Turning the engine off when stopped makes sense. All these other cars are boring (well, at least the ones that I can afford); I prefer to have one that is interesting from an engineering standpoint. That said, I don't like Apple products blindly, I like them because they're extremely innovative. They define and create markets for things we didn't even know we wanted. They simplify and greatly enrich many aspects of my life. And as an electronics engineer, I can't get enough of that kind of technology. This is why most everyone else loves these things; they improve the quality of your life by making things simpler and more enjoyable.

Famously, Steve was presented with the enabling technologies for for a touchscreen display with their ubiquitous scrolling features.

"I thought, 'My God we can build a phone out of this'"

- Steve Jobs

They did, and it changed everything. You can thank the original iPhone for the slew of Android smartphones on the market today. Smartphones existed before iPhone, but nobody cared. They were bulky, hot, and had crappy UIs. Apple's new phone was minimalistic and focused on the most important aspect of these devices that is frustratingly still overlooked today by their competitors: the user experience. Until this device, everyone else had gotten it wrong. The original iPhone looked good, the graphics were buttery smooth, it was shockingly responsive to touch in a way no other device was, and it was stupid simple to use. It completely redefined the smartphone market and spurred tons of innovation in the marketplace as other manufacturers scrambled to compete. Without Steve's vision for the iPhone, where the heck would we be? What would have made these other companies finally stop making Razr's and try to make something awesome? Where else would this innovation spark have come from? Who knows.

Then there was the iPad. Today, over a year and a half after it launched, people don't want tablets; They want iPads. Here is a market that was completely dead. Before the original iPad, manufacturer after manufacturer would try to cram a desktop OS on a big, bulky tablet with a horrible resistive touch screen. They were terrible, luckily the irritating experience was cut short by battery life of only a few hours. And just like what happened in the smartphone market, suddenly the rest of the industry starts getting 'innovative'. The first CES after the iPad was announced was LOADED with new tablets. And guess what, nobody has been able to touch the iPad in either user experience or hardware. The only one that comes close is by Samsung, but it's already too late. Over 70% of the market is swallowed up by iPad sales, the rest get to play catch-up in that remaining 30%. The market is now flooded with tablets, but nobody can differentiate themselves from the iPad. It'll be interesting to see how the newly announced Amazon Kindle Fire will do, due to it's extreme price differentiation (only $199!) and brand reputation. But even that device can only compete on price, nobody else can touch Apple's hardware and user experience.

Two year ago people didn't even know why they wanted a tablet. Even the tech community was skeptical when the original iPad was announced. Steve made this case for needing a third device between your smartphone and your computer. Nobody got it, why would you need that? The answer: Instant on, portability, and usability. Nobody understood the convenience of having this little slate that's always on and ready to go. And now, you can reach over, pull this thing out of the couch cushions and browse the web, watch a movie, or video chat with someone all in the blink of an eye. It's really quite amazing when you think about it. Apple saw that. Steve saw that. Nobody else saw that.

Although right now this appears a little under the radar, the MacBook Air is changing the laptop market. Several years ago, people stopped buying desktops and started buying laptops instead. Then there was this horrible race to the bottom where they became cheap piece of junk. Netbooks popped up then, as a laptop alternative for just a couple hundred bucks. Sounds good right? Well netbooks died out because as it turns out, people don't want a slow, tiny, piece of junk. The MacBook Air hits a $999 sweet spot in the market, right in between where the super cheap netbooks were at and where the $1500 mainstream laptops of a couple years ago live. They're super light, super fast, and easily the nicest pieces of laptop hardware I've ever used. Take a look at all the laptops that will be released soon by other manufacturers. They're all 'ultra books', aka super light and fast laptops. Intel is pushing new chips for them as well. Just like iPhone and iPad, here come the flood of MacBook air wannabes.

Now think about how smartphones have affected our lives. In my particular demographic, most everyone has a smartphone and they're on these things all the time. It's to the point where folk's dumbphones become novelties and topics of conversation. Through these devices we stay extremely connected via direct communications and via social networks. Check-ins, photo uploads, status updates - They all enrich our social lives. How many times have you checked in somewhere only to be notified that another friend happens to be down the street? It happens to me all the time, and it's great. These technologies allow us to passively keep up with far more people than we could actively, and I think that's very valuable. They let us share much our lives in an extremely fast and convenient way and keep us connected.

So where does this leave us? It's not just the products that have been developed, it's the way that they've affected our lives that's important. We need more new things like this to keep marching forward. Apple, under Steve's vision and guidance, has been dropping game changer after game changer into the consumer electronics industry. All the other manufacturers seem to be playing catch up. While still important, all these competing products still aren't getting us closer to the game changers, they're just more of the same trying desperately to differentiate themselves.

Who leads us from here? There are so many companies out there that make beautiful hardware, and many that can write great software, but which company or individual is going to be able to point the entire industry down the path of progress and innovation? Who's going to see past trying to cram more RAM in a smartphone and come up with something that truly improves our day to day lives? It's tiring to watch the continuous parade of Android phones being released every week. They're all basically the same. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the future. That's the present, and Apple brought us here.

Thanks for taking us here Steve, you truly changed everything. You once said,

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

...Who's going to show us now?

iPhone 5 Predictions

2011-10-03T20:43:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, three very important things are happening: First, MuteMath is releasing their third album, Odd Soul. Next, Jack's Mannequin is releasing an amazing new album, People and Things. And lastly, Apple is going to announce a couple new phones. Before I start wildly speculating on what these phones will be, let's have a listen to one of the tracks off People in Things.

Now that you're all jazzed up by emo piano rock, let's talk rumors. The rumors and speculation for Apple's next iPhone have been the most varied and confusing of all the releases. They range from boring (barely an upgrade from iPhone 4) to crazy-go-nuts riduclous (being exclusive to Sprint). Go read any 2 random tech news sites - they'll all report different crazy rumors. John Gruber described this the best:

"Bottom line on iPhone rumors: Apple has effectively kept everyone in the dark." @gruber 9/21

So what do we know for sure? Well, nothing really, we've only got a big pile of rumors. Going through them all, there are a few things that stick out as all but certain:

The 5MP camera is getting bumped up to 8MP.
The processor is is getting bumped up to a dual core A5 (same as iPad 2) from the single core A4 that resides in the iPhone 4.
A new system-wide voice control feature will be unveiled, called Assistant.

There are conflicting reports that there will be an iPhone 4S device that looks very similar to the iPhone 4 but with upgraded internals, an iPhone 5 with a drastically different hardware design, both, or a cheaper iPhone 4 released alongside a fancy iPhone 5. I have some thoughts on this...

Right now, the two choices you have for iPhones are the 4 for $199 or $299 on contract, or the iPhone 3GS for $49.99. Although iPhone 4 is extremely popular (it seems like everyone I meet has one), they are actually selling a ton of 3GS devices as well due to their super low price point. It makes sense for Apple to keep pushing back last years model, or one similar to it, down to this price point as sort of a gateway drug into the ecosystem. For that reason alone, I'm confident that they will be releasing not only a new flagship device in the $199-$299 range, but a lower end sub-$100 device along side of it.

The name iPhone 4S seems all but confirmed, but it's unclear if that will be the name of the device we're expecting as the iPhone 5. I think it very well could be. It doesn't make sense to me for the 4S to be the lower end device, not if it's going to have the upgraded processor, RAM, etc that is expected. It makes more sense for them to make the lower end device either the iPhone 4 as it is, or a slightly cheaper version of it. If they loaded it up with all the new goodies, there wouldn't be enough differentiation between it and the flagship model. Plus a 4S would likely cost more to manufacture than the 4, making it even more difficult to hit that sub $100 sweet spot.

If the 5th iPhone will indeed be called the iPhone 4S, then it will likely incur all the internal upgrades that have been rumored, but it is unlikely that there would be much of an external upgrade. The 3G and 3GS are indistinguishable, and I would expect that the 4S branding would imply something similar. The external design changes rumored included it being much thinner, maybe even a teardrop shape, and having a larger display with the same resolution and > 300ppi. Making the device thinner sounds great, and it's possible that they could do this without affecting the size of the battery. Making the screen larger would also be a good move, as Android phones in particular have been getting larger and larger with each generation. And as long as they maintain > 300ppi, they can still call it a 'retina display' because you still can't see the pixels. Sounds good to me.

Rumors about the new iPhone looking just like a 4 could be valid, but they also could just be because iPhone 5 internals could fit in an iPhone 4 housing, and when a hammered software engineer accidentally leaves a test one in a puddle of tequila, nobody will know it's the new one. I think that the iPhone 5 or 4S or whatever they call it could look very similar to the 4. I don't believe they'd keep the 4S branding if they made the phone look much different, so if it does get a facelift, it'll be called 5 instead of 4S.

Instead of saying it's impossible to tell what's going to happen tomorrow, I'm going out on a limb and and venture a practical guess, and then a sexier one.

Practical Guess

Apple will unveil a new iPhone that looks similar to the iPhone 4 called the iPhone 4S.

It will run the A5 processor and have an 8MP camera.
It will be available with 32GB and 64GB on-board storage options. 64GB should now be feasible since single chip 64GB NAND flash has been ready for mass production since the beginning of the year. They skipped the storage bump from 3GS to iPhone 4 and I don't think there are any technical reasons for them to skip it this time.
It will NOT be 4G LTE equipped, but will be both CDMA and GSM capable (e.g. the same hardware will run on all carriers). Instead, it will have HSPA+, which that hot yet misinformed T-Mobile chick will call 4G anyway. It's still 3X the data rate of the current generation hardware; I'll take it.

The current generation iPhone 4 will become the entry level phone, cost below $100, and may have its design changed slightly to make it cheaper.

Sexy, Hopeful Guess

Apple unveils iPhone5, which has a screen that takes up nearly the entirety of the front bezel and a slick, thin design. It will have all the spec bumps listed in my iPhone 4S guess above.
Then they unveil the iPhone 4S, which is a faster version of the iPhone 4 that runs on both GSM & CDMA networks and comes in at the sub $100 price point.

Back in January I correctly predicted that they'd bump the summer refresh to a later date to avoid releasing a new device so close to their Verizon debut. Maybe I'll get it right again! Who knows. Actually, we will, tomorrow. You can laugh in my face then. And if I'm wrong, I really hope it's because of a dramatic and awesome redesign like this. The folks at This Is My Next / The Verge are the best in the business; I hope they're right again, but I'm not so sure.

Per usual, I'll be watching the liveblog on both Ars Technica and This Is My Next. I'd suggest you do the same.

Addendum (10/4/11) - I forgot to mention that the reason Apple won't be moving to LTE for these new phones is two fold. 1) LTE isn't quite done rolling out across the country, and like 3G, they will likely wait until it is commonplace. This may also have to do with reducing idiot customer complaints about not getting LTE service on their phone when they simply don't live in an area with it. 2) LTE radios chew up batteries. Take a gander at all those Android phones, desperately differentiating themselves from the iPhone with LTE. They have awful battery life. Combine this with relatively poor LTE coverage (the radios will work harder and thus chew through batteries even quicker) and you have a sad battery life situation. This simply isn't a tradeoff Apple will make until the radios get better. Super excited for today's announcement!

Guide: Replacing the iPhone 4 Lock & Power Button

2011-08-25T19:12:00.002-04:00

Although I've captured the replacement of the power/lock button on my iPhone 4 across a number of posts, I want to condense it all here. It's not a terribly difficult repair, just a bit of a pain.

The Problem

The power & lock button on the top of your iPhone 4 appears to be stuck or does not click. In some cases, it may still register a button press if you push on it hard enough, as was the case with mine, but there is no more clicking action. Most of the threads I've found on the 'tubes regarding this issue diagnose it as being 'stuck'. It's not stuck, in fact there really isn't a way to get it stuck. The mechanical button that lives under the metal button cap is broken, and no longer provides any clicking action.

If you have this issue, the first thing to do is march into the nearest Apple store with big, glistening puppy-dog eyes and ask them to swap the phone out for you. If you've already done repairs on this phone, or otherwise voided your warranty, you'll be out of luck. It never hurts to ask though.

What You Need

The button lives on a flex cable assembly that must be completely replaced. The part is cheap, about $20, and can be purchased from iFixit for the AT&T device here and the Verizon device here. The repair I did was on a GSM (AT&T) iPhone 4 so I can't say how the process varies for the CDMA (Verizon) device.

What you most likely don't need (something I figured out when I first tried to fix this problem) is the button cover. The description just says 'button', and although it's true that this is the thing you push, it doesn't actually have the electrical contact inside. It's just a metal cover, doesn't really break, and is really just in the way of your finger and the actual button underneath.

This thing on the left, you don't need it. This thing on the right, buy it here. Photo credits: iFixit

The actual button lives on the top right part of the flex assembly (it's on the underside in the photo, since it has to fold up to mount to the top of the phone). This piece also contains the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and a secondary microphone (used for ambient noise canceling). I really don't see how the button cap could break, the thing is pretty sturdy. There is that little metal bar that you can see in the photograph, which swivels around, but you'd be hard pressed to break it. If you want to be safe, since it really is a huge pain in the ass to take the phone apart, pick up both pieces since the total cost is still only $25.

How to do it

Here are my detailed instructions: Go ask iFixit. They have excruciatingly detailed instructions and high res photos to guide you along. I've used their guides and parts exclusively with great success. Also, see my other posts on my shot glass strategy for organizing screws.

Related Posts

Lock Button Replacement Failure

Fun With iPhone 4 Button Replacements

Network Upgrade - So many spatial streams!

2011-07-25T23:53:00.000-04:00

Way back in February, I freaked out and decided my network was due for an upgrade. Really jumped right on that research, eh? I've been living with this network since then, in all of it's 2MBps glory. After further investigation, it looks like it's a combination of these chincy Trendnet N adapters and the WRT54GL getting old. Whatever the case may be, I'm ready for an upgrade in a big way.

Taking a look at what's out there right now for simultaneous dual-band routers with guest networks, the Linksys E4200 by Cisco sticks out like a sore thumb. With the exception of 450Mbps G (300Mbps on G, 450Mbps on N), it has all the features and performance I could ask for. A quick search on DD-WRT support found that 'Support for the E4200 is still very much a work in progress,' so it looks like stock firmware is the only way to go. I've always had great luck with Linksys products, particularly the WRT54GL which I've recommended and installed for numerous people, including myself.

Putting in my due dilligence, I checked out offerings from the other big players in the router space.

TRENDnet: These guys put out the TEW-692GR, which can do 450Mbps on both 2.4 and 5.0 GHz but there was very little user experience out there on the 'tubes. I couldn't find enough reviews by legitimate, trusted sites to even think about it.
D-Link: First of all, D-Link's website really sucks. Also, they also make way too many different routers. They should take a hint from Linksys and have a half dozen-ish clearly differentiated pieces of hardware. I've had bad luck with these guys in the past, so I'm going to stay away this time too.
Asus: I hadn't even thought about a router from these guys (they're into everything these days!) until I saw them pimping DD-WRT support on a banner ad. Their flagship product is the RT-N56U, which also happens to be, if I may, the absolute sexiest router I've ever seen. Look at this thing! I digress. None of Asus' offerings support 450Mbps N, nor do they have guest networks. Next.

RT-N56U - It's like a space ship landed to beam the internets into your head.

Netgear: The only real contender against the E4200 is Netgear's WNDR4000-100NAS N750. It has all the same features with equally sketchy DD-WRT support. What I like about this particular piece of harware is that it stands up vertically instead of laying flat. The E4200 looks like a dinner plate and takes up all sorts of space. Amazon and Newegg reviews were basically the same, as were the regular reviews strewn about the 'net. An interesting point: This guy supports IPV6 tunneling and the E4200 does not. This is a bummer, but not anything decisive.

The real differentiator came with the adapters. With all this 450Mbps talk, you'd think there would be a plethora of choices for the wireless adapters on the PC side. Well, you'd be (and I was) wrong. 450 Mbps wireless N requires three spatial streams, and for whatever reason that additional 150Mbps stream is just too much for the majority of adapters. Turns out that only Trendnet sells 450Mbps adapters; one USB 2.0 and one ethernet. The only other way to achieve these data rates is with a mini PCI-express card from Intel. So with a grand total of one adapter to choose from (who want's ethernet? My MacBook Air doesn't even have ethernet.), which of these two routers has the best compatibility with Trendnet's USB offering, the TEW-648UB?

The best I information I could gather regarding compatibility with these two routers was in, of all places, Amazon reviews. There were numerous success stories with the E4200, and nothing mentioning the N750. In Newegg's user reviews I found no mention of the E4200, but a negative comment about compatibility with a similar Netgear router. Now, I don't put much stake in user reviews unless there are hundreds of them in agreement, but this choice was really a coin toss. I'm going with the handful of commenters who had good luck.

Final answer: Cisco E4200 with Trendnet TEW-648UB adapters. Ordered. Boom. Let's see what happens.

Disaster: Home button replacement results in tragedy.

2011-07-24T00:14:00.000-04:00

[Click to enlarge]

See that little guy in the middle, all alone? The connector with a short piece of flex connecting to nowhere? That's what happens when you accidentally pinch an iPhone 4 screen's digitizer cable between the screen and phone body then try yanking on it. Without this little guy, the phone won't register touches on the screen. Sadly, this is non-reparable; the entire screen needs to be replaced... AGAIN! The upside to this is that non-defective screen assemblies with white bezels exist now, so at least I'll have a working proximity sensor while maintaining the sexy white & black iPhone look that makes the ladies go wild. The new screen should arrive later in this coming week.

In the mean time I'm slumming it with my old 3GS. I've only been using it for a half a day and I'm already disgusted with the quality of the display and the pixel density. I have a whole new appreciation for the 4's screen which is still, over 1 year later, the best display on the market.

I did manage to replace the home button, which was a breeze (provided we ignore the fact that I ruined the phone in the process). The disassembly process goes really quickly now, since this is the fourth time I've had to do it. Since I still haven't verified that the new button works (it clicks, that's a good sign), I can't tear apart the defective one to see what happened to it in case I need it. However, I do have the broken one that iFixit replaced for me, so I took it apart.

Home button upside-down and disassembled along with another one right side up.

It's a really simple thing. Two wires pass through a thin flex cable onto the back side of the button. One wire connects to a printed metal ring, the other passes underneath to a concentric, printed metal circle. The part that does the clicking is a dome shaped piece of metal glued to a flexible piece of clear plastic. The outer edge of this dome makes contact with the metal ring on the back of the button and the clear plastic holds it in place. When you push the button, the dome presses against the mounting surface behind it, warps inward (click!) to short the two printed metal circles together.

Since the moisture sensor near the home button of my phone is lit up red, it's likely that some moisture got in between the button and the dome and corroded it, making it a crappy contact. That would explain the intermittent nature of the problem. If it's anything else, this replacement will have been useless. Womp.

Here's to iPhone 5 surviving a whole year without my intervention.

Fun with iPhone 4 Button Replacements

2011-06-29T23:36:00.001-04:00

[Click to enlarge]

The third adventure into the bowels of this phone was for very good reason: Both the home and lock buttons were barely working. The first one that went was the lock button, and this happened months ago. One day it decided that it was no longer interested in clicking, barely moved, and was clearly sitting lower in its socket. Given enough force, it would do its duty, but I had to press extremely hard. Asking the Google machine what to do, I didn't find a single reasonable answer for a fix besides walking into an Apple store with puppy-dog eyes hoping for an exchange for a refurb. I rummaged around iFixit's teardowns and finally decided that I'd order a replacement button. That didn't go so well, as explained here in detail, since this part is actually just the cover of the actual button. The next logical part to replace was the cable assembly and contact that interface with this button cover, which I describe below. I also ordered a new home button assembly. When the parts arrived it was time to completely tear down the device, and according to the picture below, also do some heavy drinking?

[Click to enlarge]

What they don't tell you in the how-to's and teardowns, is that you're going to lose these dozens of tiny screws that hold all these components together, get them all mixed up, accidentally inhale them, etc. Solution: Line up a bunch of shot glasses, as shown above. Each set of screws goes in a shot glass, and line them up in the order that they came out in. This makes putting the phone back together much easier and with much lower risk of losing something. And in the event things go terribly wrong, you can drown your sorrows in some top shelf booze; you're already set up for it.

Once I had everything apart and reviewed the teardowns online again, it was very clear that the issue was the little button hidden underneath the metal button cover. It lives on a small, funny looking flex board along with the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and noise cancelling mic. The lock button section wraps around a metal bracket that screws to the top of the case, butting up against the metal button cover. The replacement part comes with a mild adhesive already applied and protected by peel-away pink plastic sheets. iFixit has fantastic step-by step tutorials on how to pull this thing apart; if it's your first time, definitely check this out.

[Click to enlarge]

The image above shows the replacement flex assembly (right) next to the freshly removed faulty one (left). Unfortunately, the foam ring on the original flex is where the earpiece speaker sits and it gets completely destroyed when you remove the speaker. The remnants are also nearly impossible to peel off intact, so the earpiece speaker will no longer be sitting on anything unless you fashion a replacement out of some similar material. The same is true for the black plastic piece right above this foam ring in the photo, still stuck to the flex. It covers a few resistors and a cap behind the sensors, but I didn't have any adhesive on hand to attach it to the replacement. Had I done a thorough job instead of half-assing it, I would have transferred this piece over to the new part.

Moving on, the replacement of the flex assembly went quickly once the phone was disassembled. Everything tucked into its correct spot rather easily, and the adhesive that was already applied to it helped quite a bit with keeping it in its place. I've never been more excited to click a button. Once the bracket that holds it in place was fastened to the case, I pressed and released to the beautiful, almost sexy, tune of a button click. Works like a charm now - just like new.

Now on to the home button...

[Click to enlarge]

There are two problems with my home button: It takes significant force to get it to register a click, and when it registers, sometimes it registers multiple clicks. This can get really irritating, and makes flipping between apps (a double click) difficult. Luckily, the entire button assembly is just one part. Unluckily, you need to take the display off of the phone, which requires the most extensive teardown.

To replace the home button, you have to go a step further and pop the screen off (reference). The home button has a metal dome underneath it that does the clicking and the entire assembly sits on a circular metal disc. A little flex connector sneaks out from underneath, passes through a hole in the front of the phone, and locks into a very tiny connector on the back side. I tested the new button out a few times before putting it in, and it seemed to be clicking fine. However, when I was ready to put it in, it no longer clicked. Womp womp, must have been defective. The original button still had some clickeyness to it, so I put it back in after cleaning off the contacts with a little alcohol. After reassembling the phone, I found the issue to persist, so cleaning the contacts may not have helped. It's also possible that the metal disc under the home button isn't an electrical contact. This is likely since the metal disc clicks as part of the button appears to be covered with a thin layer of plastic. I should have checked if it was indeed exposed metal with a multimeter; this button could be completely self contained. I suppose I'll know once I have another go at replacing it with a new button.

The next day I got an email from iFixit checking to see if I was happy with my order. I explained what went down with the replacement home button and they immediately shipped me out a replacement at no charge. Fantastic service, I'm very impressed. I've yet to have another go at it, but will soon enough.

I also noticed this:

[Click to enlarge]

The moisture indicator right behind the docking connector, well, indicated moisture. At some point some liquid got in that connector, and that's never good. It very well could be why this button failed if it got all the way into the tiny home button connector nearby.

Even though I still have this issue with the home button, it's fantastic to have a working lock button again. It's taken a few days to get used to not smashing it down to get it to work, but I'm learning, slowly.

iPad 2 Release Day in Nashua, NH

2011-03-11T19:14:00.000-05:00

It's another one of those days again. A very exciting day for those who love to bask in the warm glow of Apple's latest piece of hardware. I had told everyone that I wasn't going to upgrade, instead waiting for the release of HP's WebOS tablet this summer, but the thought of having last years hardware was just too hard to bear. After collapsing under the unstoppable and overwhelming mental forces of early adopter syndrome, I quickly made my decision: a 64GB white WiFi iPad 2 with a black leather smart cover was in my future. Boom.

What was unique about this particular product's launch was both the availability and the timing. For the original iPad, you could place your order online and receive the product on release day. Also, it was only available from Apple. With iPad 2 there were no pre-orders for release day delivery. Instead of a morning launch, it was a 5PM launch, and instead of just Apple stores carrying it, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Verizon, and AT&T stores had them as well. I would have preferred to have it delivered rather than wait in line, but that wasn't a release day option. Lame.

I rolled into the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua a little after 1PM to check out the state of things. In Target, a few employees were milling around the electronics section cutting up little strips of paper with various iPad models written on them. They were allowing a line to form starting at 2, handing out the papers first-come-first-serve so everyone was guaranteed a particular model to purchase at 5PM. They were all hush hush on how many of each model they had in stock, but did concede that they had one of every SKU, including the 64GB white WiFi model. So then I wandered down to the Apple store, only to find a ridiculous line 100+ deep.

Front of the line at ~1:30PM, 3/11/11 at the Nashua Apple store.

Approximately 100 people deep. Check out the guy first in line, chillaxing bro.

Well, that's not going to happen. As a risk reduction strategy, I hopped back into my car and took off to the Target in a much less accessible location - Amherst Street. See, the Apple store and Target in the mall are super close to the border, so you get a huge influx of Massachusetts folk looking to escape taxation. By going to a store further away, I figured I would have a much better chance of them still having the model I want once in line. Welp, I was wrong. They had a total of 10 in stock, 5 of the 16GB WiFi devices in black and another 5 of the 32GB WiFi devices in white. By the time I got back to the original Target, a line had formed. It was all of 5 people deep, and I received my very official looking reservation slip. #winning

I immediately got in trouble with Target security for taking pictures, but only with my very obvious T2i. In line I met a gent who was buying the first of many iPads for use at his company to help technicians with the assembly of medical cables. He was all pumped up about these folks FaceTime-ing with their counterparts in China to work through issues on the floor. It sounded like a great idea; this is going to be a really great device for enterprise use. I also met (er, re-met) @Tu13es in line, while we passed the next 3 hours making Galaxy Tab jokes and trying to figure out how we were going to get smart covers (this Target had none in stock). This particular store received a mix of 30 devices and had a line significantly longer than 30 people. The last ones to go, ironically enough, were the 64GB white WiFi devices.

At about 10 of 5, a security guard appeared rolling out a giant cage with a few stacks of iPads secured inside. Watching them open that thing was like watching the opening scene in Jurassic Park.

SECURE IPAD CAGE

No more than 5 minutes after 5PM, it was my turn at the register. Upon surrendering my super official ticket, I was presented with a delightful new toy and a significantly less delightful bill. And during my purchase, I snagged a sneaky photo of the cage.

During checkout, the cashier asked me if I was an Apple employee. Apparently all the Target staff thought I was, and were all very confused with why I was there. I thought it was hilariously ridiculous, but then I realized that I was dressed exactly like an Apple store employee (complete with an Apple shirt from Cupertino), was on an iPhone the whole time, and had a hefty DSLR strapped to my body. I don't mind being a super fanboy for these types of events though; apparently I'm playing the part well.

All in all it was very successful. The wait was reasonable, I had the device 5 minutes after it was publicly launched, I didn't get robbed in the parking lot, and I got to tell the cashier that I was here to pick up my Samsung Galaxy Tab.

As I was driving home, the clouds parted, ending the dreary, rainy day. I then did what any reasonable person would do in that situatino; I had a sexy sunset iPad photo shoot. First impressions on the device itself to come later.

Lock Button Replacement Failure for iPhone 4 - Sadface

2011-02-27T23:46:00.003-05:00

-- Update: I finally fixed this thing and wrote a guide. --

Mysteriously, a few weeks ago the lock button on my iPhone 4 decided not to move any more. It's not really stuck, it just lost it's "popping" ability. This is a tremendous annoyance. Fortunately, given enough force in the right direction it will still lock the screen and I can still power down as necessary. I went off and scoured the intartubes looking for quick fixes and came up with nothing other than an iFixit step-by-step guide to replacing the button. The replacement parts from Direct Fix, along with a bag of spare screws and a few extra prying tools, arrived this week.

It's difficult to tell that there's something wrong with the button by looking at it, but it appears to be more recessed than usual.

There's not much to the replacement 'button'. In fact, it's just the part you touch; the actual electrical contact is not included. It has this little hinged bar attached to it that moves freely 90 degrees.

Should you want to operate on your phone as well, note that iFixit left out a critical set of tools that you need for any iPhone 4 disassembly: A bunch of shot glasses. These serve two purposes.

As you take the phone apart you can separate each set of screws and chunk of electronics in an orderly row of shot glasses. When you finish and begin reassembling the phone, work your way backwards through them. The screws are super small and easy to lose, plus they're all different sizes. If you don't stay organized you'll mix the screws up, lose them, or both.
If you end up ruining your phone and realize that a new one will set you back about $700 off contract, you can use these same shot glasses to get blackout drunk very quickly.

Here's the setup:

I ended up using 9 or so shot glasses in this process (a screen replacement will require several more), so I had a few extra. When replacing my screen a while ago, I found doing the work on a white work surface helped with keeping track of the tiny screws that you sometimes have to shake out of the phone.

I'll spare you the details of tearing this thing apart because the steps are meticulously detailed here, but it wasn't hard to extract the 'broken' button. I was expecting to see something wrong with the button when I removed it, but it was identical to the replacement part I purchased. Upon closer inspection, I found that the replacement part was missing a circular metal shim that looks necessary to touch the electrical contact inside the phone. In the pictures below, the left button is the replacement part and the right one is what was removed from the phone.

So that's no good. Digging around the intartubes was no further help, until in an act of sheer desperation I "Binged" my question and got some new results that the Google machine hadn't found for me. Bravo Microsoft, bravo. Turns out that SW-Box sells a replacement button that comes with a "Power Switch Button Sticker", which could very well be the piece of metal that goes in that depression. Without this shim, it looks unlikely that this button will be able to touch the contact that sits below it. I tried removing it, in case it was a piece that broke off of the contact, but it appears to be glued in there.

In the interest of due diligence, I inspected all the involved parts of the phone, tried out the new button, tried out the old one, and got nowhere. Everything looks fine inside. The button contact assembly mounts flush up against screw posts and nothing is lose. It is possible that the aluminum bracket the contact is mounted on is slightly bent, but it appears unlikely. What really drives me nuts is that I have no idea where the clicking action should happen! The mechanism that does this is the part that is broken and needs to be replaced. After a quick search I didn't find a replacement button contact assembly, which is likely where the clicking mechanism lives, but I'm sure they're available. Once I get that, I'll pull the thing apart and try again. If you have any suggestions or ideas, hit up the comments below this post.

This is the second time I've disassembled this entire device, and I'm getting nervous to continue doing it. I don't imagine that the various connectors in there are designed for more than a handful of make/breaks...

Update: I finally fixed this thing and wrote a guide.

WiFi Upgrade Time at the Mountain Compound

2011-02-09T00:26:00.002-05:00

There's quite a bit going on in my home network: Main workstation PC, a media server PC, a couple of iDevices, an AT&T microcell, several Apple Airport Expresses, an Apple TV, PS3, Wii... you get the picture. All of these devices are on a single 2.4GHz network, except for the PS3, Apple TV, and Wii, which are on the wired LAN. The most important thing I use my wireless network for is for whole-house music streaming. Using an iPhone or iPad as the remote for iTunes running on my media PC, music is streamed to three Airport Expresses and an Apple TV connected to powered speakers. Musical delight ensues. Second to this are file transfers from my main PC to my media PC that also performs local back-up duties. Lastly, all of these devices need to get on the internet to download files, browse the web, stream Netflix, or push files to Mozy for backup. Lately there have been some problems cropping up. I can't complain about the data rates between the non-PCs, but things aren't going so well on the PC to PC and PC to intertubes fronts.

I've been using a Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT firmware for several years and it's been great. This open source firmware is a drastic improvement over Linksys' build and I strongly suggest flashing your router firmware to this if it's compatible. For a several months I ran a D-Link DIR-655 Draft N router with gigabit LAN, but that guy started having all sorts of issues and I switched back to the Linksys. It's been that way ever since. Sadly, I think she's on her last legs and it's time she's replaced by a much younger, sexier, and bandwidthier gal.

Here are the issues currently plaguing my network:

PC to intartubes connection has started acting up. For minutes at a time the PC connection will stall and I can't even get out a ping. While this is happening, I can sometimes browse the web on the same network from another device. This has been happening much more recently and is due to Windows, the WiFi card, or the router. This is EXTREMELY frustrating.
Most of my Airport Expresses think they're not on the network anymore, but will play music anyway. Super weird; they blink yellow demanding a network connection but have no problem connecting to iTunes and blasting The Graduate throughout the house. This could be due to the devices themselves or the router.
These same Airport Expresses will decide they're no longer connected to the network and the only fix is to power cycle the router; sometimes twice before they're recognized again.
File transfers between PCs max out at about 1MBps, and occasionally 3. This is embarrassingly slow, and something I like to keep secret.
Microwaving delicious treats jams my streaming music. Thanks to the FCC for making sure my microwave isn't blasting me with 2.4GHz cancer rays. EMI fail. This is a 2.4GHz WiFi problem that can be eliminated by moving everything up to 5GHz N.

This is all very annoying. Since the router is pretty old and I'm tired of debugging it's time to upgrade. The non-negotiable requirements for the new device are as follows:

Simultaneous dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios. I want all my 5 GHz N capable devices on this network, while maintaining the 2.4GHz network for things that aren't. Getting both PCs on 5GHz N will significantly increase transfer rates between machines.
Gigabit LAN ports. For goodness' sake it's 2011, get that 10/100 stuff out of my face.

When I started taking a gander on Newegg for what was available, I was shocked and delighted by the additional features that are being included in the higher end models. I love the idea of 'Guest networks' that keep your buds' phones and laptops sandboxed in their own network, keeping your own completely separate and secure. Built in USB NAS is also pretty slick; makes network backups much easier. So far, I'm looking at the following models. They're all simultaneous dual-band and have gigabit LAN, as I've demanded.

Linksys E3000

Guest networks, USB port for external storage, UPnP media server, 4 GbE ports

Netgear WNDR3700-100NAS

Guest networks, USB port for external storage, DLNA server, 4 GbE ports

D-Link DIR-825

USB port for external storage, 4 GbE ports

Apple Airport Extreme

Guest networks, USB port for external storage, 3 GbE ports, familiar pretentious white Apple shine

I also plan on replacing the 802.11N cards in these PCs with new ones made by the same manufacturer as the router, and preferably ones that were tested with the router in the reviews. It's going to take a few days to figure out which one to get. This research is all about finding thorough reviews and sifting through as much user feedback as possible. I'll be blogging my findings. Game on.

Woz on the white iPhone 4

2011-02-03T00:22:00.000-05:00

Step 1: Watch this video. Wozniak is quite the character.

Step 2: Forget about the camera issues for a second and note that issue he brings up with the proximity sensor. I've got the same proximity sensor issue with my white replacement screen. These screens were clearly defective, were supposed to be thrown out, and ended up on the 'tubes for sale.

Step 3: Richard Lai had a great post today on Engadget about searching for real white iPhone parts abroad. Unfortunately, it's clear that there are quite a few knock-off parts floating around in the channel. The issues I am seeing could be because this is a knock-off, or because it was a defective Apple part. My money is on a defect, as my screen looks just like Rich's original which came directly from Apple.

Now that you've completed all these steps, you still don't know all that much more about the white iPhone. Hey, it's still interesting.

Backing up your iTunes / iPhone / iPad universe on Windows 7

2011-01-31T00:46:00.000-05:00

Although I've never owned a Mac, I'm about as deep into the iUniverse as one can get. My entire life is crammed into this iPhone and has been for nearing 4 years now. I'm not the only one in this situation. Losing the device isn't that big of a deal since you can go buy another one, plug it into iTunes and drop the last backup of your life on it without skipping a beat. But what happens when your computer goes up in flames? Or what if you switch computers? You want to be able to get iTunes back up and running exactly as you left it, complete with all the apps, iPhone & iPad backups, playlists, and music libraries. Unfortunately, Apple has chosen to make the back-end happenings quite complicated. The following is what I've figured out from snooping around my machine and from the intarwebs and how to automate the process of backing all of this up.

Before we get started, note that this post applies to Windows 7 and iTunes 10.1.1.4. Future versions of iTunes may not be organized the same way, and could ruin Christmas. Previous versions of iTunes and Windows may have the same difficulties. I'll try to keep up with changes to iTunes in future posts.

Couldn't care less about what these files are and just want the backup script? Fine, here it is. Your browser may interpret it as just a text file (Chrome did). Save it as such, then change the extension to .bat to make it executable. Replace 'Kevin' with your Windows 7 user name and 'Z:\iTunes_Backup' with a backup directory of your choice. I do recommended you read on though...

Backing up the iTunes folder in your user directory

There are two important files located here: C:\Users\UserName\Music\iTunes\

Apple explains what they do here, but I'll regurgitate it here as well. (Interesting note: That knowledge base page I linked to shows the files as 'iTunes Library' but mine are named 'iTunes Music Library'.)

iTunes Music Library.xml. - This file is pretty long (mine was 104,373 lines long!) and contains all sorts of information about the tracks, like where they live, play counts, etc. Other applications use this file, but it looks like only iLife-related ones care. This is more important on Mac OS.

iTunes Music Library.itl - This is the important one! It's a database that contains song-specific data like ratings and comments. Most importantly, it contains your playlists. Sadly, it's not something that's human readable. We want to hang on to this one.

If you've never changed your iTunes media folder, it lives here and is aptly named 'iTunes Media'. We'll discuss that folder later.

What else is in this folder? In my installation, it looks like the rest of the stuff here is a graveyard of old files and apps from iTunes-es of yesteryear. It's better to be safe than sorry, so I back up the entire business.

Backing up iTunes local application data

The next folder we want to hang on to is: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes

iPodDevices.xml looks like it keeps track of what devices iTunes has found in the past.

Not going to lie to you, I have no idea what the rest of these files are for. The only reason I recommend hanging on to them is because the timestamp is always recent on them, so iTunes is actively using them.

Backing up iTunes roaming application data

Hang on to this guy: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes

There are several more files and folders in this directory, but again I'm not too sure what they're for. We'll keep them though.

Also, this guy: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync

This is where your iPhone and iPad backups live. They're named incoherently, but these are the backups you choose from in iTunes when restoring from an old image of your device. There should be a few gigs of data here.

Let's also hang on to these other folders since they seem to also be related:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\SyncServices

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Preferences

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Logs

Backing up Music, Video, Books, Apps, and everything else

Find your iTunes media folder location by opening up iTunes, then selecting 'Edit' - 'Preferences' - 'Advanced' (tab). iTunes defaults to C:\Users\UserName\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

This is where iTunes keeps your apps, downloaded music, videos, podcasts, movies, TV shows, books, etc. That said, this is a pretty important directory. I don't recommend keeping it in the default location; instead I'd rather see it on a separate hard drive so it's not tied into your user account and with the rest of the OS. As a rule I always keep data separate from the operating system drive in case it goes down. Since we're backing this stuff up, it may be a moot point, but a good practice nonetheless.

Backing up pictures and videos taken on your iPhone

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to automate this part yet. When Windows finds your phone after you've plugged it in, it shows up in Windows Explorer and you can manually copy those files out of it.

Automating this process with a script

I use a script to back up my data, and you can download it here. Unless you happen to be me, you'll need to change it slightly.

Change all instances of 'Kevin' to whatever your Windows 7 user name is. If you're name is Kevin, you just saved yourself nearly 8 seconds of work.
Change all instances of 'Y:\iTunes_Backup' to the path where you want to back all this stuff up to.
Change 'J:\iTunes' to your iTunes media directory. If you keep it in the default location, C:\Users\UserName\Music\iTunes\, you can comment this line out since it will be included in the first robocopy command. Add two colons '::' to the beginning of the line to comment it out.
Don't be alarmed when launching this script opens a command prompt; people get scared of DOS-looking things. Nothing shady is going on, with the exception of sending your bank account and credit card information to Wikileaks.

Every time I sync my phone, download music, or do anything else iTunes related, I always launch the script after I close the application. It just takes a second to kick off, then you can walk away and let it do its thing. Just make sure you close iTunes before you run it. Putting an icon on your desktop helps too.

Recovering from a disaster with your backup

Simply install the latest version of iTunes, copy your backup files to their original locations, and pray that this version of iTunes hasn't changed where it wants to see these things. Since we kept the folder structure the same in the backup as it is in your user directory, you can simply copy all of the backup data from its safe haven into your user directory once you get your computer fixed/installed/revived/etc. If you are able to maintain the same paths that you had before, when you open up iTunes after restoring all of these files, everything will be exactly as you left it. If the path to your iTunes media folder has changed, you'll have to create a new library and the associated playlists, comments, ratings, etc will be wiped out. Bummer aye? That's iTunes for ya. Hey, at least you've got your iPhone backups, right?

Hit up the comments below this post if you have any questions or corrections.

Verizon iPhone 4: Follow-up

2011-01-13T21:17:00.003-05:00

Avid reader Ryan S. pointed out that although I listed out a series of scenarios for what people might want to do regarding Verizon's iPhone 4 in my last post, I never really explained my personal plan. To get right to the point, I will not be pre-ordering a Verizon iPhone 4 on February 3rd. Let's talk about why.

Way back in 2007, I had never even heard of an iPhone on the day Apple released it into the market, single handedly changing the entire direction of the mobile market. Actually, I wasn't even aware of the hype surrounding it. Being more interested in overclocking my PC to the point where it was about to catch on fire than on how pretty a bright white case looked, Apple wasn't even on my radar. Plus, $600 was (is?) an insane amount of money to pay for a phone back then, especially when we didn't know how dependent on these things we were going to be. That said, the moment I read this article I literally leaped out of my cube and bolted to the local AT&T store. I got there so quick they didn't even know the price had dropped, but quickly figured it out. I haven't missed an iPhone release day since. I am unsure how this story was relevant, but there you go.

In a post several months ago, I described the pain of having a pseudo-mountain in between my home and the closest AT&T tower. This problem was remedied in the summer of 2010 with the release of a $150 microcell... for the most part. It is very common for a call to immediately fail 2-3 times when placed and it occasionally drops active calls even when close by. The thing is buggy, that's for sure, but for all intents and purposes it gets the job done. Combine this buggy microcell with the fact that my shiny new white screen has a faulty proximity sensor (resulting in such comical mid-call-ear-dials as a three way call with a cab company in Lake Tahoe), you'd think I'd be jumping at a chance to replace the phone with a new one on a new carrier. Frankly, I really don't care. Of all the features I use this device for, the phone is one of the least used parts of it. It's really a car & work music playing, home audio controlling, web surfing, Comcast DVR programming, Twittering, run tracking, weather checking, and text messaging machine. I make frequent calls on it too, but all these other functions are used far more heavily and the experience is fantastic. And when I do make a phone call, aside from being up on a mountain somewhere or out in the boonies, I have no major problems with AT&T's service. I've been having dropped calls for seemingly forever; it's something I've learned to live with. I think most AT&T folks have learned to live with this too. So, I'm in no rush to jump ship.

Jumping to Verizon now would result in an early termination fee (ETF), likely in the hundreds of dollars as the two year contract I signed for the on-contract price for iPhone 4 ends in June of 2013. Normally I'll pay anything for the latest and greatest, but this is really just the same phone. It's on a better network, but that's not all that important to me. This might be a different story if they bumped up the maximum storage available to 64GB, as I've been running out since the 32GB 3GS. I've been removing things regularly to keep a reasonable buffer for something hefty, like navigation with off-line maps and 720p video capture. PLEASE DELIVER A 64GB IPHONE SOON, I'M CONCERNED I WON'T BE ABLE TO FIT LADY GAGA'S NEW ALBUM.

The next question is, when the fifth generation phone comes out, which carrier do I choose? If they forgo LTE in the next round and being locked to a carrier remains necessary, everything else being equal I will jump ship to Verizon. It's kind of a no-brainer, unless the ETF is hundreds of dollars. In that case, I don't mind hanging around another year on AT&T's network. Should this next model be LTE, I'll review where both networks stand regarding LTE deployment and pick whomever looks like they'll get to my area first. The carrier most likely to have their act together will be Verizon, but full deployment won't occur until 2012. Really the only thing keeping me from moving to Verizon is the ETF.

Either way, it looks like I'm about to get gouged on the next generation iPhone. I'll get the on-contract pricing with Verizon but I'll have to pay a hefty ETF to get out of my AT&T contract. To buy the AT&T device, I'll have to pay some special pseudo-off-contract price per this text message from AT&T below. Who knows how much that will be.

On a nearly unrelated note, AT&T's system for telling you your upgrade eligibility is hilariously awkward. Logging into your account, and clicking 'Check Upgrade Options' gives you the instructions below.

You call this 3 digit number wrapped in special characters, the result of which is AT&T sending you a text message with the answer. Well, at least I thought it was entertaining.

That's all for now on the Verizon iPhone. If possible, I'm going to try to write about something non-iPhone related soon. To be honest, my next post is probably going to be about backing up iTunes data. Fail.

Verizon iPhone 4

2011-01-11T22:01:00.005-05:00

Well folks, it finally happened. Today Apple dropped an iPhone on Verizon after years of speculation. They're about to sell millions of them to the unwashed masses, so should you AT&T non-believers run out and get one? First, some deets on Verizon's particular model:

It's CDMA only, unlike the GSM only AT&T iPhone. For the non-mobile-standard-savvy, CDMA is one method for a phone to chat with cell towers. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, which is incompatible with CDMA, hence the iPhone being only available on AT&T until now. This is important for a few reasons, because CDMA and GSM are very different technologies (just ask Wikipedia).

CDMA doesn't support simultaneous voice and data. If you're yapping on the phone, you can't surf the web. If you're surfing the web, streaming video, having a naked Chat Roulette session, or doing some other internet activity, an incoming call will disrupt it.
It won't work in Europe. CDMA is not prevalent in Europe (it is in China, but you'll have to look to see where else), but GSM is. You can wander across the pond with an AT&T iPhone, pay reasonable international data and voice fees, and hop on their networks no problem.
Verizon's CDMA network, at least in the pre-iPhone 4 world, is more prevalent and robust than AT&T's network. Everyone's always whining about their AT&T service, including myself, so it's great to see an alternative network. You have to trade this off with the disadvantages above.

Since the frequencies the phone uses to communicate with the network are different, the antennas have been changed slightly. Ars Technica reports that the antenna issue of yesteryear may be gone, at least within their limited time playing with it. You may finally be able to hold your phone in any way of your choosing; a right that was once taken away from us.
The ability to use the phone as a wireless hotspot has been added, but there is no word on pricing yet.
The remainder of the hardware is the same, and she's just as purdy and snappy as ever.

Before I get in to whether or not I think you should run out and get one, it's worth thinking about what the next generation iPhone is going to be and when it is going to come out. In the past, I did not believe that Apple would release an iPhone on Verizon's network in January simply because it would be out of sync with the June iPhone refresh that has been occurring every year. Releasing this device in February puts the Verizon iPhone 4 only four months away from the nearly certain launch of iPhone 5, or whatever they'll call it, for AT&T this summer.

What has always made the most sense to me was for Apple to launch Verizon and AT&T devices simultaneously. Whelp, they were about 8 months late on iPhone 4 for Verizon. So the question is, do they sync up the releases with the next version? I can't imagine that either wireless behemoth would be particularly thrilled that the other carrier received the new hardware first, and at this point there is no reason for Apple to play favorites.

If Apple is going to synchronize iPhone releases, they could do it in June like they have been with AT&T. This would make for some seriously pissed off owners of 4 month old, freshly outdated iPhones on Verizon. Hopefully Apple learned their lesson after the consumer backlash of dropping the original iPhone price $200 not too long after it was released, resulting lots of free iTunes gift cards to angry full-price-payers. So maybe a June release doesn't make much sense either...

What about skipping the AT&T refresh entirely and syncing up with Verizon in February 2012? That's a long wait for us AT&T folks, but one that might be worth it. Think about this: What's in store for iPhone 5 anyway? iPhone 4 already has a display so nice that you can't differentiate individual pixels. It has the long awaited front facing camera, a blazing fast processor, an 8MP camera, and plenty of RAM to handle the limited multitasking unveiled in iOS 4. It's not since the 3GS that we noticed any real speed improvement; this device can already handle everything we can throw at it. Looking at the Android and WP7 devices popping up at CES last week, you can see where phone hardware is headed: Multi-core processors, tons of RAM, high-megapixel shooters on par with regular point-and-shoot cameras, more on-board storage, 1080p video recording, and LTE connectivity. Every one of these features I mentioned are small potatoes compared to one: LTE. Without LTE, iPhone 5 will be a very incremental hardware refresh that, quite frankly, is boring.

Don't get me wrong, doubling the on-board storage and slapping on one or more of those features is going to sell a lot of phones. I'll be in line with the rest of them, dropping elbows and trampling children in a mad dash for the latest and greatest on release day. But it's really LTE that matters, and neither of the big carriers are ready in any practical capacity across enough of the US. Widespread LTE won't be realized until early 2012, making the shift to a February iPhone hardware refresh sound much more reasonable. Apple could release a single phone that could work on both networks, which would incur them great cost savings in manufacturing. Of course, they could come out with an LTE iPhone earlier than that, heck even in June, but it is unlikely. Take the 3G iPhone as an example; Apple waited long after 3G handsets were prevalent before getting into the territory. I suspect they'll do the same for LTE.

The bottom line is that I expect some sort of non-LTE phone released simultaneously on both carriers sometime after June or a multi-carrier LTE phone in February. In the mean time, should you get a Verizon iPhone 4? The answer is very situation-dependent, and not entirely clear. Here are my thoughts:

Current Verizon customers:

If you are eligible for an upgrade by February 10th, then by all means pre-order this thing and have it for release day. If you don't and I am friends with you, our relationship will likely be terminated. There simply isn't a compelling enough Android or WP7 phone to justify any other device on this network. It is also not worth waiting for just the chance that an iPhone 5 could come in June, since they can't add anything all that compelling to the feature set. A June LTE phone might be worth it if you lived in an LTE area, but those are few and far between, and that release is highly unlikely.
If you're not eligible for an upgrade, this device can get pretty expensive without being able to sign a 2 year agreement. You'll have to figure out if it's worth it to you when they announce off-contract pricing.

Current AT&T customers:

Note that we still don't know how Verizon is going to handle having millions of iPhone's jump on its network in the next few months. Wait it out and see how it goes. Data sucking iPhones across the US nearly took down AT&T a few years ago; hopefully Verizon is better prepared.
If your contract already ran out, and you're in the market for a smartphone, I would still wait to see if Verizon goes down in flames, at least for a couple weeks after release. If they don't, and Verizon coverage is better in your area, feel free to jump ship. I have not found AT&T's network to be bad enough to run screaming to Verizon though, but it could turn out to be a substantial improvement.

To wrap things up, iPhone 4 will likely have better coverage and possibly better data rates on Verizon, but you give up the ability to have simultaneous voice and data. This annoyance will likely be on par to AT&T's habit of dropping your calls. Remember that everything will change once iPhone goes LTE, and all of this will have to be re-thought. I don't believe that will happen for quite some time.

February should be interesting. Good luck out there.

More coverage:

Should you buy a Verizon iPhone? - Ars Technica

The Verizon iPhone - Engadget

Verizon iPhone Hands-on! - Engadget

American Express Comes Through on Broken iPhone 4!

2010-10-20T21:42:00.000-04:00

I filed a claim with American Express' purchase protection program after my iPhone 4 shattered asit was still in the 90-days-from-purchase window. Lo and behold, about a month after the claim went in they came through and are crediting me with the full purchase price! I've included the PDF they emailed me below. This more than covers the ~$150 it cost to replace the screen, although I'm not quite sure it covers the emotional pain and suffering.

I'll make sure to always, always, always use my Amex for all pocketable electronics purchases; couldn't be a happier customer right now.

iPhone 4 Screen Replacement First Look

2010-09-30T23:27:00.001-04:00

Two tiny screw drivers, one iPod prying tool, 8 shot glasses and two hours of manual labor was all it took to swap out the heartbreakingly shattered screen for this sexy new white one.

Shattered screen on the right, freshly renovated internets phone on the left. That piece in the bottom left corner of the picture should not be sitting next to the phone. It should be inside of it. Whoops.

I kept the home button black for dramatic effect. Completely my own original idea.
Full writeup to come after the weekend, enjoy these glamour shots for now. Here's to not breaking another screen. Salut.

Delving Into iPhone 4 Screen Replacement Options - Complete!

2010-09-21T23:01:00.002-04:00

Marched into the Apple store, bonded with the guy at the genious bar over release day shenanigans, administered puppy dog eyes, and was offered the standard $199 screen replacement service. Oh well, looks like it's DIY time! The cost differential is definitely not worth doing this yourself, since the savings only amounts to around $50. I just can't resist pulling this thing apart...

I've scoured the corners of the internets looking for part suppliers, and found several that supply the display assembly in both white and black. There are many more that will do the replacement for you for just a few dollars more than the parts themselves. What's the fun in that though?

SW-BOX iPhone 4 Parts

These folks sell both black and white screen and glass assemblies for about $135, as well as various types of metal and plastic replacement covers for the back of the phone for just over $10. Since they also sell parts from the front assembly without the screen, I have my doubts that these are OEM. Actually, since they have white screens, they're definitely third party.
Their about page says they're "a Chinese owned general trading and wholesale company". Never heard of them, strange part availability, sketchy.

Direct Fix iPhone 4 Parts

Significantly less sketchy looking parts supplier. Like SW-BOX they sell both black and white front display assemblies. They also sell what they're calling 'Original Glass Back Covers' in both white and black. I can't imagine they're actually getting 'original' white back glass, so this must just be more third party stuff. Black or white front screen assemblies are $139.50 after the 7% discount they're running through September.
These guys have a teardown video on YouTube with over 300k hits (embedded below) that was featured on Gizmodo.

I found several other suppliers and places that would do the entire job including parts for about $150. Use the Google machine, you'll find 'em.

Here's Direct Fix's instructional video on how to replace the screen:

You can see from the video that this is really not all that difficult of a job. From the looks of it, the hardest part is not losing any of those tiny screws.

I decided to purchase the parts from Direct Fix since they were by far the most linked-to and ordered-from supplier I came across. Total including shipping and a couple tools was $154. It will be arriving early next week. Oh, and FYI, I went white. Keeping the black back, you know, because I'm edgy. Definitely won't be able to bring it in for warranty work after this, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to next weeks teardown & white-ification - stay tuned!

iPhone 4 - Meet Stone Wall

2010-09-20T22:39:00.000-04:00

It's a bit ironic that the next (extremely belated) post after the saga of iPhone 4 release day is about the near destruction of that very same device. She treated me very well for 15 short weeks, until one fateful night when she slipped out of my jacket pocket and fell about 4 feet directly onto a stone wall. Epic iPhone fail. Here's what the damage looks like:

[Click to enlarge]

The worst of the damage occurred on the top right front corner, where a little gouge in the plastic rim shows that this is where it struck the rock first. A blow to the corner is guaranteed to ruin the phone's day. You can see in this photo that all of the broken pieces are still hanging tight in their place with the exception of one small triangular section. I've actually been using it for 2 days now without any more glass falling off. The broken pieces will likely remain intact since Apple glues the glass directly to the IPS display (This was the cause of the short lived yellow screen scare a few days after launch that eventually corrected itself). Scrawling across the center of the display, there are three unfortunately long cracks, as seen below.

[Click to enlarge]

You can see a little mark in the center of the screen above, which is a very small chip. But wait... there's more! The bottom right front corner also had a bad day at the office.

[Click to enlarge]

Despite all the carnage evident in these photos, the phone is surprisingly usable. Turns out this is thankfully all cosmetic and has not affected the operation of the display, buttons, or anything else. The entire touch sensitive area riddled with cracks is still smooth to the touch; there's no risk of losing a finger trying to zoom in on a photo. The corners are another story though, you don't want to be touching those.

The reactions I get to the current state of my beloved smartphone have been "You moron, you should have that thing in a case!" or "You moron, you should have bought insurance!" In a twist of fate, the most adamant case hater (me) could very well have averted disaster had this device been in a big bulky case. That's a risk you take by not wrapping the thing up in bubble wrap, and since it's the first disaster to befall any of my 4 iPhones over the past 3+ years, I think I've still got a pretty good record. That said, it's still too nice of a piece of hardware to hide away in an ugly case or an inconvenient bumper. And with regards to insurance; I don't buy insurance or protection plans on any of my electronics. It's very rare that any of my gadgets meet an untimely demise, and I'm sure that the periodic replacement cost of a gadget is far less expensive than the sum total of getting policies on everything.

It's actually pretty remarkable that this is the first time I've broken a phone. This guy is with me all the time and is in and out of pockets dozens of times per day. It follows me around the house, moving from surface to surface, plugged in here, plugged in there, tossed across the room on to my bed, and jammed into a cup holder to pump out the jams when I'm driving around. If I only bust a phone every 3 years the way I'm constantly using it, I'll be a very happy camper.

So, what now? Turns out that since the front glass is glued to the IPS screen, the entire business needs to be replaced. This is no simple task, since the entire phone is built up off of this front assembly. This is also unfortunate, since the glass itself is fairly inexpensive - It's only about $40 for the back glass. There are several options for what happens next:

March into my local Apple store, administer puppy dog eyes, and see if they replace the phone for free. This actually appears to be quite a common occurrence from what I've read on various forums on the intertubes.
Should the above plan fail, write Mr. Jobs a check for $199 and they'll replace the screen, parts and labor included.
Have the assembly replaced by one of a few third parties like this one for $162. For $199 they'll even make it white! Not sure if that one even includes the rest of the parts; looks a little sketchy.
Order the replacement parts and replace it at home with the assistance of the various teardowns and how-to's all over the 'tubes. Replacement glass/display assemblies run a little over $140.

It would be a little crazy to not try the puppy-dog-eyes option first, so I'll give that a try first. Should that fail, I'll be ordering the replacement parts and doing it myself. It actually sounds like an interesting project, and I'll blog the crap out of it accordingly.

iPhone 4 Release Day - Chaos & Bliss

2010-06-24T08:42:00.003-04:00

It's been a pretty crazy morning in Nashua, NH thanks to iPhone 4's release. Lucky for you, I took a ton of pictures and kept timestamped notes for the occasion. Aside from lining up about an hour early for the 3G's release, this is the first time I've lined up super early, even with the device already reserved. The Apple store in question is located in the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, NH. And here we go...

[04:28] Just arrived at the mall. There are about a dozen people milling around outside of the entrance by Target, with a similar number by the food court entrance. No one is line up by the door, presumably security has already yelled at them. I'm at the latter entrance, since it's both closer and on the same floor as the Apple store. Most of these people are fairly awkward looking; I'm totally one of them. It definitely doesn't help that I'm rocking an Apple tee.

[04:39] Met the dude who got here first. He slipped into the mall as it closed the night before at 9PM and camped outside the Apple store. Mall security gave him the boot at 1:30AM, so he went and slept in his car. Fun fact: Apple pulls huge black curtains over the windows of their store while they redecorate for major launches like this.

#1 in line, since 9PM, sleeping at the door. What a champ.

[04:46] We lined up anyway, 22 people deep. I already made the obligatory "we're waiting for the new Zune joke." Only I thought it was entertaining.

The super early crew.

[04:57] Mall security pulled up to the curb to break up the party, but someone talked him into letting us stay, provided we "stay under control and don't leave any trash." The line is a little loose still and folks continue to trickle in one at a time.

Telling the security guard (in an extremely official vehicle) to stand down.

[05:28] There are 44 people here now, but this is more of a mass of people than a line.

There was really never any tangible line, just a crowd. Big mistake.

[05:42] Over 55 people here, still no defined line.

[06:20] My friend Andrea is at the Holyoke Mall in Mass waiting in line. Apple has things under control there and are giving out snacks (!!!). Starbucks was also there, taking orders and serving people in line. Man, could I have used some Starbucks.

Line at the Holyoke Mall (Thanks Andrea!)

[06:31] About 100 now, with reports of even more at the other entrance. Apparently the folks over there are much more orderly, forming a single file line.

[06:46] Met an apple store employee from MA here to avoid the tax. He says customers with reservations versus those without will be served 10:1. The crowd is getting louder; a security guard appeared and people started freaking out. Since there's no real line here it's going to be a disaster.

[06:55] Someone started banging on the doors; the security guard is not impressed.

Getting antsy...

[06:58] In line in front of the Apple store now! Definitely one of the first 20 in line, which is now so massive I can't see the end of it. We just had to run to the store through the mall; it was complete chaos. The security guard opened a single door for over 100 crazed lunatics to pour through. If someone went down they would have been seriously injured. It was so cramped getting through the door it's amazing that no one got hurt. Once pushed, literally by the crowd, through the door everyone broke into a full sprint towards the apple store. I attempted to take a video of all of this, but apparently didn't have the strength to push the record button all the way. Apple is handling the line very well, but the mall was completely clueless. There are two lines: One for people with reservations and one without. Several Apple employees are handing out snacks, and a police officer is getting people to form the lines. He told the folks without reservations that it was going to be at least 2 hours until they can expect the line to move. That's what you get for not pre-ordering.

This is the line behind me within 5 minutes of the mall doors opening. It just kept going on and on...

Checking folks with reservations in.

[07:07] Apple employee says that there are 500-600 reservations at this particular store.

Front of the reservations line baby.

Inside the store was very chill.

[07:30] iPhone 4 purchased, activated, and on my way home!

The entire transaction is performed with an iPhone in a credit card reading case. We also took a really geeky picture of me with my phone and iPad, while she got all cozy with my new phone. Not sure where the Apple photographer is going to post that...

Immediately after unboxing! (gasp)

In-store activation took about 5 seconds. The longest part was opening the box.

From left to right: 4:30AM, 9:00PM (!!!), 6:30AM arrivals. All got their devices at the same time. Hah!

The way Apple handles things once you're at their store is fantastic. They pair each customer up one-on-one with a sales person that will do demos, show you the accessories, and force feed you the obligatory MobileMe and Apple Care pitches. It was very calm inside the store, and once inside everything went smoothly. It took about 15 minutes for them to get all my info into their credit-card-reading iPhone and complete the transaction ($299 for the phone, $9 for dock adapters), then they passed me off to another person at a laptop to activate the phone. I wasn't interested in having them transfer any of my info, so they just activated it.

First shot with iPhone 4. This is what the line looked like on my way out. Came out blurry, bah!

This device is truly beautiful; the screen is amazing, it's super fast, and feels really great to hold. I really can't get over how crisp text looks now. Someone just called, and the speaker is wicked loud; much louder than the 3GS, and it appears to be clearer. I'm writing this as it syncs the 2396 songs/videos, but it appears to have restored from my 3GS firmware image without a hitch. More on how I like this thing later, time to get to work.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be all about getting to the store super early ever again, especially since so many people got their phones in a day or two early. It's definitely exciting, everyone's really pumped up and in good spirits. If I ever do it again, I'm going all in and camping out the night before. If you're going to do it, do it right.

Mission accomplished. Well, until next year.

Updated 6/24/10: Fixed some grammar and formatting following my mad dash to write the post this morning.

Some Posts in the Works for May & June 2010

2010-06-21T23:28:00.003-04:00

Here are a few posts I'll be putting up in the near future. I suppose it's not particularly productive writing about writing about posts, but hey now, I can't sleep.

iPhone 4 Release Commentary from the Trenches

iPhone 4 release day is 6/24, and I'll be one of the crazies banging down the doors of the local mall looking to get in. It is going to be an extremely early morning, and I'm getting more fired up for it every day. I'm going to blog the crap out of the experience, as I've never waited fanboy-ishly outside an Apple store in the wee hours of the morning until now. Expect pictures of me and the other hipsters rockin' Crocs, sipping Starbucks double tall half-calf lattes, and quietly reading tech news sites on a multitude of iDevices. I'll be off-line blogging what goes down and posting later in the day.

2007 Toyota Prius - 3 Years Later

Next, this summer marks the 3 year anniversary of the purchase of my 2007 Toyota Prius. Don't you worry, I've

hung on to every piece of data since the day I silently rolled into my driveway with it. There are three years of mileage data (both computed by the Prius and actual figures) that I've analyzed to death. I can't wait to share this stuff; it's really interesting. This post is coming in the next few weeks.

iOS 4 Impressions

This is a pretty big week for hot and heavy iPhone action with both iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 being released. iOS 4 was released today and I updated my 3GS with it. Everything works as advertised so far; got Pandora streaming in the background, switched between apps relatively easily, installed iBooks and synced the books I have on my iPad to the phone, etc. So far so good, I'll write up my experience with it once it has been put through its paces.

Media on the Mountain: HTPC & Streaming Music

...I often refer to my house as 'the mountain', since most of the property is on a reasonable sized hill, so don't be confused. I'm always bombarded with questions about how I put together the streaming music throughout my home, and would love to share how that goes down. This will be combined with a breakdown of my current HTPC (Home Theatre PC), and plans for expansion.