a prairie web companion » apple

Running list of places AT&T has failed me

bkim — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:18:19 +0000

After several years of relatively complaint free wireless service with Verizon, I switched to AT&T so I could get an iPhone. It’s been a few months since I’ve switched and so far, here’s where AT&T has failed me:

US Open at Flushing Meadows in Queens, NY: No Service for the first several hours I was in the grandstand. Spotty coverage after that.
Lollapalooza ’08: My phone was pretty much worthless. My phone claimed it had signal, but I couldn’t make or receive calls and sending text messages only worked some of the time.
Aragon Ballroom during a Beck concert: No Service inside
Soldier Field at the Bears/Vikings game (10.19): Internet (EDGE and 3G) didn’t work for most of the game.
Lakeshore Drive around Illinois Street: Guaranteed dropped call here.
I-290 a few miles West of the city: Call dropped

Note that AT&T has a knack for failing when you need your phone the most (e.g. when you need to find your friends in a large crowd). Sometimes I’ll have five bars of signal and the phone will spontaneously drop to No Service. I’m loathe to take conference calls when I’m on the road because of the likelihood of the call dropping. I never had this problem with Verizon. I’ll be updating this list as AT&T continues to disappoint.

Mmm… Apple TV

bkim — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 06:15:22 +0000

Thanks a lot Apple…

bkim — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:18:58 +0000

I pre-ordered an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station on February 6. It didn’t ship until very early this morning. Apple let me know when I placed my order that it would ship by February 28. So, what’s the problem you might ask? Well, Apple said “ship by February 28″. That means it was within the realm of possibility that they would ship it earlier. My brother ordered the exact same thing but he placed his order almost two weeks after I did. His Base Station was shipped several days ago. Mine just left China–yes, China–this morning. Shouldn’t Apple be filling orders in the order they receive them? What’s the point of pre-ordering then?

Just for that, I made Apple’s stock tank yesterday:

Vista apparently not worth the long wait

bkim — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:40:52 +0000

Erika Jonietz, a long time Microsoft apologist (self-proclaimed, nonetheless), found Vista so underwhelming and disappointing that she switched to OS X. I've never seen so lukewarm a reaction to a major operating system release. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that Microsoft rushed things (even though Vista is long overdue) and released an OS that's not quite ready for prime time. It's apparently heavy on the eye candy, but light on new features.

I work in the technology field and I haven't heard anyone express any real excitement for the release of Vista. I only know of one guy who has installed Vista on his machine, but in a virtual machine instance. He wasn't brave enough to actually install it as his main operating system.

Liz Phair at the Apple Store

bkim — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 07:40:36 +0000

Liz Phair will be at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store tomorrow at 2pm. You’ll probably have to get there pretty early, though.

mini-me iPod

bkim — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 21:44:53 +0000

The rumors were true. Apple released the iPod mini today. It weighs in at only 3.6 ounces with a capacity of 4GB. Apple probably chose a 4GB hard drive, in part, so they could claim that it holds 1,000 songs. Other than its smaller size, the new iPod mini seems to have all the features as its bigger brother. It starts at $249. Apple is probably hoping that the iPod mini will compete with the lower priced flash memory based music players on the market.

Apple also announced an update to its iLife package that includes a new audio application called GarageBand. I wonder how much of GarageBand’s technology came out of Apple’s acquisition of eMagic. Apparently, Jobs had John Mayer help him demonstrate GarageBand at MacWorld SF. I haven’t seen the video of the keynote yet, but that should be interesting to see. iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes have also been updated. A new G5 Xserve was also announced, as well as an increase in capacity to 3.5TB for the Xserve RAID.

Visit macintouch for MWSF updates.

Chicago tops for Apple

bkim — Sat, 27 Dec 2003 05:07:33 +0000

Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Apple store boasts the highest traffic of all the Apple stores in the world. The Michigan Avenue store is the second of four stores that Apple has opened in the area. The first Apple store in the greater Chicagoland area was opened in Schaumburg in Woodfield mall. While it was a nice store, it didn’t receive the full treatment like the Apple store in Manhattan. Apple’s patience for a prime Michigan Avenue location paid off. They were able to build a store that they themselves refer to as “the ultimate Apple experience.” Apple has since opened stores in Oakbrook and Skokie.

G5 Laptop?

bkim — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 07:35:03 +0000

Alex Salkever thinks that a G5 laptop might be a reality next year: BW Online | December 17, 2003 | A G5 Laptop? Maybe Next Year.

Rolling Stone interviews Steve Jobs

bkim — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 21:29:47 +0000

Because, as you may know, almost every song and CD is made on a Mac—it’s recorded on a Mac, it’s mixed on a Mac, the artwork’s done on a Mac. Almost every artist I’ve met has an iPod, and most of the music execs now have iPods. And one of the reasons Apple was able to do what we have done was because we are perceived by the music industry as the most creative technology company. And now we’ve created this music store, which I think is non-trivial to copy. I mean, to say that Microsoft can just decide to copy it, and copy it in six months—that’s a big statement. It may not be so easy.

Steve Jobs in a Rolling Stone interview

This is Steve Jobs’ way of telling you that all your base belong to us! Talk about hyperbole. Maybe a lot—maybe even the majority—of music and other creative work is created with help of a Mac. However, to say that almost every song and CD is done on a Mac; that’s a pretty bold statement. Read the entire Rolling Stone interview here.