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An odd thing happened today…

Macworld logoAnd that odd thing is this: I'm now an iPhone owner. As of yesterday, I had no plans to be anywhere near an Apple or AT&T store today. But that all changed when Macworld asked me to stand in line, buy a phone, and then mail to the corporate office--they wanted to make sure they had several phones in hand for review next week.

iphoneI detailed my camp-out experiences in this blog entry on macworld.com, along with this afternoon update.

Shortly after that last update was published is when my day got really surprising: Macworld asked me to buy two phones, but just send one in their direction--I was to keep one and use it myself, replacing my Treo. Wow. I was quite surprised, to say the least. You see, I didn't even really want a first-generation iPhone; it's missing many things that I'm used to on the Treo. But I guess now I get to see if that's really true, and to write about just how well, or not well, the iPhone works for me. As I have time with the iPhone, my write ups--covering the good and bad of the experience--will appear on Macworld's new iPhone Central pages (and probably on macworld.com, too).

The iPhone is now activated, and it's busy synching all my content. I'll post links here to anything that winds up on Macworld, in case you're contemplating an iPhone of your own.



Free time at San Francisco International

747 approachingMy Friday flight home from WWDC (San Francisco [SFO] to Portland [PDX]) wasn't set to depart until 9:15pm, probably putting me in the door around midnight. In an effort to get home somewhat sooner, I headed to the airport around 5pm, as there was a 6:15ish flight to PDX, and I thought maybe I could get on that one instead.

However, when I reached their gate, the departure board indicated "delayed," and the estimated new departure time was 9:40pm--well after my booked flight's departure. With no pressing requirements for the next four hours, I made my way to the end of the C concourse, where I had a good view of the planes taxiing by--as well as a view, though quite far away, of landings on runways 28L and 28R.

Thinking simply "I wonder if someone will come question me about this," I got out the Nikon, attached the 70/300mm zoom, and started snapping pix. Amazingly, over the course of an hour's worth of picture taking, I was completely ignored by Homeland Security. (The first few images were snapped from a café near the international terminal, outside the concourse proper.)

The pictures may only be of interest if you're a true aviation nut; most aren't even that good. I do like, however, the nose-on shot of the China Airlines 747, which was snapped as it maneuvered on the taxiways just outside the concourse. It makes a most impressive desktop image when cropped to fit 1920x1200! (As always, if you ever want a full-size version of any image, just ask.)



Overheard on the street…

It seems that everyone walking around here in San Francisco is connected to something--if it's not an iPod, it's a cell phone (with or without headset). As I was walking back to the hotel last night, a sharply-dressed woman was walking towards me, talking quite loudly to someone via her cell phone's Bluetooth headset.

Her voice was loud enough that there was absolutely no way I couldn't hear what she was saying, in a most animated fashion. To the best of my memory, this is exactly what she said:

Listen Danny ... I said listen! ... they don't know about any of that, really! They can't. There's no way!
pause while Danny is obviously saying something
Oh Danny! Give it a break! You watch way too much CSI! They simply can't know...

And then she was passed and on her way, leaving me wondering just exactly what they had been discussing--a friend suggests she may have been rehearsing lines for a play or TV show. I'm going to go with that thought, as she clearly wasn't too concerned about anyone overhearing her conversation!



Apple’s disappointing iPhone message

Macworld logoOne of the biggest questions surrounding the iPhone since its January preview was whether developers outside of Apple would be able to create software that would run on the phone.

And just 18 days before the iPhone's June 29 release, Steve Jobs stood on stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference and told software makers that Apple had found an answer: a 'sweet' way to support outside iPhone development.

Unfortunately, if you're thinking that Apple really addressed third-party development in Steve Jobs's keynote, you'd be wrong. While many people—including myself—have clamored for support for widgets and applications, Monday's announcement actually did nothing at all to address either issue. Instead, it told developers that since Safari on the iPhone is a full-fledged web browser, they can use Ajax and CSS to make nice, pretty Web-based applications.

Read my Macworld blog entry, Apple's disappointing iPhone message, for the rest of the story...



Play ball!

Last night, a few Macworld staffers took in the Giants-Blue Jays game at AT&T Park. Our seats were well out in left field, so the picture taking wasn't the greatest. However, the 300mm zoom did a decent job of bringing the action a bit closer, as you can see in this brief album.

The Giants won 3-2, with all scoring completed by the end of the 3rd inning--late arrivals to the ball park missed most of the excitement (though there was one spectacular home-run-preventing catch later on).



WWDC 2007 Keynote images

I took a bunch of pictures of the keynote yesterday--our press seats weren't the greates, as we were about 50 or 60 rows back and well off to the left. The room was quite dark, and I was shooting from our seats without a tripod. I used my new Nikon D40X with a 70/300mm zoom, with the camera (mostly) left in automatic mode (but with the flash disabled). Despite the long zoom and dark room, some of the shots actually came out halfway decent--a testament to the vibration reduction technology in the lens!

Here's the gallery, and these are definitely unedited pictures--the only requirement for inclusion was "not too blurry to understand." Feel free to borrow for your own uses if you wish--just ask me if you want a non-watermarked version.

Today I've been working on other stuff most of the day and haven't actually made it to any sessions yet, but that changes in 30 minutes or so as I sit through something that's probably way over my head! :)



A different kind of paging…

It's Sunday morning as I sit here in this San Francisco airport café, having just arrived on my flight from Portland for this week's WWDC. The flight itself was fine--the air was smooth, the plane was lightly loaded, and I had an entire row to myself. Without being in first class, it just doesn't get much better than that!

However, just before we pushed back from the gate in Portland, I heard this on the plane's PA system: "Rob Griffiths, please press your flight attendant call button." Uh oh. Talk about a quick way to elevate one's heart rate--nothing like an on-board page to accomplish that! A sampling of thoughts that ran through my head: "Uh oh, what happened to one of our kids!?" ... "I bet I left something at home, like my luggage, and my wife is calling to let me know" ... "They figured out that their online check-in tool shouldn't have let me move from the cheap seats up into Economy Plus?" [I was able to jump from row 22 to row 8 without any trouble] ... "Was there something in my carry-ons that they've just now discovered to be dangerous?" ... "Someone saw me taking pictures of the airplanes from the concourse windows and called security" ... "I always wondered what happens when someone is asked to press their flight attendant call button; looks like I get to find out!"

After all that (and more) had run through my head for a couple of minutes, the flight attendant showed up and simply said: "Ah, thank you--we just wanted to make sure you were on the plane. Didn't want to leave without you!" Whew, no emergency, no trouble. But then I began to wonder...how come they didn't already know I was on the plane? After all, I had handed them my boarding pass at the top of the jetway, they had scanned it through their boarding system, and I heard the thing go "beep."

The only thing I can think of is that by jumping from steerage into Economy Plus (or whatever my airline calls it), I somehow confused their system. Perhaps the gate agent did something special to let me claim my 'upgraded' seat--the flight was quite empty after all--and that somehow 'lost' me in the system? Whatever the reason, it was just a bit disconcerting to find myself 'lost' in an airplane despite having had my boarding pass scanned prior to boarding!

In any event, I'm here now, and have a free day to explore the city and its surroundings and take some pictures with the new camera. Tomorrow things get busy, with the (public) keynote talk in the morning and then a number of "state of the union" presentations in the afternoon, and a reception in the evening. I'm hoping that there are at least one or two real 'wow' secret features revealed in Leopard, as I'm not overly impressed at the moment (based on the features shown on Apple's OS X pages). We'll know one way or the other in about 24 hours!



The waiting game…

Macworld logoIf you read any of the Mac Mania blogs, you probably know I got to play around with a digital SLR--the Nikon D40X--during the cruise. Well, after I got home, I decided the time was right for an upgrade from my pocket digital camera. In a case of wonderful timing, Costco happened to have a D40X kit (camera, two lenses, memory card, case) available during our last visit, so I got my birthday present (and Christmas and next year's birthday and...) a bit early this year.

You can read about why I chose to upgrade, including some interesting comparison photographs, in this Macworld blog. I've only had the camera for a few days, but I'm having a blast with it so far, and really looking forward to taking it to WWDC next week--I have a free Sunday in San Francisco, and I hope to take a bunch of pictures.

One of the things I wanted with the camera was a more powerful zoom lens, so I also ordered a 70/300mm telephoto from Amazon. It shipped on Tuesday for a Wednesday delivery, but a recorded phone call early Wednesday reminded me that a signature would be required. So I was basically locked in the house until the lens showed up. And (eventually), it did:

timetable

Yup, nearly 12 hours into the waiting game, the lens showed up! Urgh. Just in time, too, as I was literally backing the car out of the garage to go pick up the girls at day care when the UPS van pulled up! Now that it's here, though, I love it, though I haven't had much time to play with it. Here's a shot of the lens (with the hood as shipped, not in shooting mode!), as well as two pictures I took--both from about 15 feet away, standing on our back porch one evening. (These were handheld shots, too--the lens includes an image stabilizer that seems to work quite well). Click any image for a larger (640x480) version:

Lens  Lens  Lens

Of course, the presence of the large lens meant that the nice Nikon bag that was included in the kit was no longer large enough to carry the gear...guess it's time to find a nice camera kit backpack!



Vacuous Vista versioning

Macworld logoWhile thinking about the upcoming release of 10.5, aka Leopard, I realized that Apple has yet one more advantage over Microsoft: simpler choices for the consumer who is contemplating an OS purchase. I compared Vista and OS X versions in this May Editor's Notes writeup on Macworld. As a friend noted, it's almost like Microsoft is making it hard to purchase Vista, given the differing versions one must choose between.



Shopping (or not) at the Apple Online Store

Macworld logoI wrote this piece back in May, when the Apple Store was down for about four hours, and for what? To release some very modest speed bumps to the MacBook line. I can't think of any other major online vendor that takes their store down when they add new products, which is what inspired me to write the piece.