Under a Gibbous Moon

My favorite thing about the iPhone aftermarket is the number of gadgets available to add functionality that Steve Jobs says that you don’t need.

This attaches to your iPhone to let you have a flip out physical keyboard.

It’s a rather clever device. I do like the tag line: Take that Blackberry! Because you know, if you bought a Blackberry wouldn’t be spending and extra fifty bucks for your keyboard. So take that!

Not sure that’s a real word. Watch and then discuss. (Warning, gets vulgar near the end)

This is what I find so interesting as technology as a fashion item. Technology is supposed to do something useful effectively but once it becomes a fashion statement, the purpose becomes divorced from reality.

My personal favorite is Apple’s iPad. Tablets have been on the market for some ten years. People owned them, people loved them but they remained a niche product. Suddenly Apple makes a tablet and everyone wants one. What I find interesting is that it is more expensive than a netbook and yet less capable in nearly all respects. It is cheaper than many of the older tablets that I have seen but, once again, is far less capable.

Apple makes good products, I don’t think that anyone is going to argue with that, but for many people, it is not whether or not the product is what they need or what is the best but merely that it is Apple.

I think that this is a dangerous attitude because it lowers the bar. People are willing to accept less and therefore the drive for better is dampened. Sure, the iPhone was a game changer when it was released but its days of technological domination are (currently) over and have been for some time.

The reason for this is simple, Steve Jobs could release shit on a shingle, call it the iPhone 5 and he would still sell millions of them. Notice one of the big selling points was its redesigned case. Yes it’s pretty it doesn’t do you a damn bit of good when the phone doesn’t get reception unless you hold it just right.

Hat Tip: Phandroid

The latest iPhone’s release has been a bit of a mess. From signal issues (you’re holding it wrong), the super glass that scratches, defective screens, and dead cameras.

I’m not an Apple fan, but this has surprised me. With Apple’s obsessive quality control, this phone has a lot of problems out of the gate. So now, one has to wonder why. It seems to me that the iPhone 4 was released before its time. The only reason I can think of for Apple pushing out the iPhone before it was ready was to beat the release of several high profile Android devices in the next few months (specifically the Droid X and the Droid 2).

With Android making inroads with mobile developers and it’s impressive growth, it seems that Android is able to put enough pressure on Apple that they are making mistakes.

I’m not a big fan of Apple. They make some good (if over priced products). The problem I have with them is their obsessive control over pretty much everything. Apple isn’t so much a product as it is a lifestyle. Hell, even one of their magazine is called the Cult of Mac. At the head of that cult sits a man named Steve Jobs who is brilliant and could teach Howard Hughes a thing or two about being crazy.

In Apples latest attempt at world domination, they have an editor over at Gizmodo house raided (because of the leaked new iPhone) by the police after he returns the phone to Apple. I guess that they were afraid he had quickly cobbled together a duplicate before he returned it. Anyway, I could go on all day about it, but I won’t because Jon Stewart is funnier.

I don’t give a shit about the iPad one way or the other. To me it seems like a underpowered, under-featured  and overpriced laptop, but the thing that keeps pissing me off is how tech magazines and blogs seem to act like this device will dethrone the Kindle as the eBook king and lead a new revolution in the technology.

This is strange since, last time I checked, the iPad would be a step backwards. The hole point of the E Ink technology was to create a display that was actually easy to read. Anyone who uses a computer for an extended period of time knows the kind of headaches reading on a monitor can cause.

It’s no surprise since you are essentially staring into a low powered lamp. Now, though, the pundits think that people will go scrambling back to read while staring into the sun. I’ve even read that school are interested in replacing textbooks with iPads.

First, this is awesome because I want a $600 dollar device to read my $100 book and don’t tell me they’ll cut the price for the electronic version, they’ll just add a few hyperlinks and call it the enhanced edition (not to mention killing the used market). And second, since students (well not frat boys) spend hours and hours studying their textbooks I’m sure they’ll appreciate the added eyestrain.

The iPad may be everything to everybody but it’s not a goddamned eBook reader. Stop acting like it is.