Wednesday Tech – Part 5S

The iPhone 5s and 5c have arrived.

Meanwhile, my iPhone 4 is still going strong, and if I’m lucky, by the time it blanks out, Apple might be shipping the iPhone 7. In the meantime, I’m excited at the prospect of moving to iOS7 in the next couple weeks whenever Apple drops the final consumer release to the public.

Technicolor

There have been numerous tech improvements since the iPhone 4.  Processor and camera-related upgrades are de rigueur.  Now we have colors, though to be honest, it’s a brave soul who doesn’t already armor their iDevices in some sort of protective colored condom.

It’s market genius for Apple to promote customers NOT using a case in order to show off their fancy new colored gadgets.  Lots of broken phones to be replaced means more profit. You pay your money and you take your chances.

Aside from the fingerprint reader, the beltway press seems dinterested in the latest chip improvements or hardware advances in Apple’s new offerings, and much more interested that they didn’t drop the price of the colorful plastic model (5c) enough to make a dent in the Android-awash smartphone markets in central Bangladesh.  That’s something I never would have wondered about, let alone contemplated happening, but then I live on planet Earth and don’t get paid big bucks to write deep insipid analysis like Farhad Manjoo.

Tech Thoughts

To be fair, tech improvements beyond the iPhone 4 are far less critical to me than the operating system that runs on it (and the app environment it supports). For most of the world, anything beyond the iPhone 4 is more than adequate technology. That level of tech has now dropped to a zero price point (on contract).  If you want the added bling of color or the latest in Apple smartphone tech it’s available for a couple hundred bucks more.

I’m hard pressed to come up with a defensible reason why upgrading to the latest model iPhone, just to get the bells and whistles of fingerprint scanners, faster chips and camera magic is worth it.  The camera upgrade intrigues me, but I’m savvy enough to know from experience that at the end of the day, it’s still a “phone cam”.

Enjoy

Thrice in Two Days

The “Once”

What in the hell is going on at Apple?  The Mac Mini I just got was a royal pain in the ass to setup because it wouldn’t sync with my Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard. (below, my full MacMini Epinions review here.

The “Twice”

Yesterday I decided to upgrade my iPhone 4 to the new iOS6 (because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time? Argh!)  The press hoopla over the talking maps app DEMO made it out to be the shizzle.  “Dazzling Flyover” was mentioned on a plethora of tech websites.  It was so exciting that I posted the event to Facebook and Twitter while waiting on the download to finish. The kinda thing people do when they are expecting the birth of a new family member.  The kinda thing I should only share with my support group at Apple Fanboy Anonymous (AFA) meetings.  They have a twelve step program to clear your mind of Windows clutter, the details of which I am sworn to protect with the tenacity that Mitt Romney does his hidden tax records.  But I digress.

For the most part, outside of the invisible internal code changes, I suspect that the maps change was the biggest deal for iPhone 4 users, since we lack Siri functionality and our models aren’t panorama capable.  Once the download and upgrade was finished, the first thing I did was check a route I utilized under the old map.  The walking route from my house to the NaturZoo in Rheine.  The walking route is basically the bike route and I used it to get to the Zoo on my moped awhile back.  Imagine my shock and surprise to find that no such option is available now.

With the new map app I only get routing via the autobahn, and with my moped being limited by law to the sidewalk at 15 mph (25 kmh) that info is as worthless as a plea for sanity aimed anywhere in the general direction of the Republican party (or Faux News, ibid)

I jumped on the web to check what was up, Seconds after confirming the trending Twitter topic MAP APP SUX, I see all these tech sites that had previously been heralding the new iOS like the second coming of Christ are now bashing the crap out of the new maps app like Mitt Romney attacking reason itself, and with the exact same Etch-a-Sketch ability to condemn what they so heartily were hailing just a day earlier.  That must have been the day the seed was planted that I “needed” this upgrade.  I blame those media bastards because “never blame yourself” is something I learned at AFA.  Actually, It is the first rule of fight club. AFA from which I shall now be banished for exposing the first rule of AFA.  Not that I would chance attending another meeting now that I have blown the org.

The “Thrice”

Now my update apps button takes me to the German version of the apps store, where it correctly identifies the apps I need to update and then rejects me for being in the wrong store for my device (DUH).  It always went to the US store before.  I now have to chase down or figure out if-where that setting resides so I can update about half a dozen apps that the device says I need to update.  Steve Jobs, I am crying for you bro’

Enjjoy.