Well there it is.

No surprises at all in the new iPhone. Yes, the much-vaunted 3G is there, but the early specs seem to indicate that actual 3G connectivity will be twice as thirsty as ordinary GSM talk time, and I expect there’ll be a similar dropoff for data. GPS is interesting, but I don’t know how much better it will be than the existing semi-triangulation locator.
See, here’s the thing: I’m on the wrong side of 30, married, fairly socially inert, and living in Silicon Valley. I’ve got free Wi-Fi coming out my ears on all sides, and for the most part don’t really get THAT much out of having 3G speed – there are not a lot of times when I need that kind of speed and don’t have access to it. In addition, I’m not wild about the fact that the base 3G data plan is $10 a month higher – which means, when you add it all up, that the most basic upgrade to the new unit will end up costing me $440.
There’s not $440 worth of delta between my iPhone and the new one. Which is actually a good thing, because that’s money that could more usefully be put into, say, a new TV in time for football season. However, for all the people who held off because they wanted 3G or GPS, now you get a nice cheap option relative to what was available at launch. (Although if you buy an 8GB model now for $200, then add in the $240 from the delta in plan price, you’re still paying only $60 less over 2 years than you would have at the start, and lining AT&T’s pockets besides.)
Two things people wanted that I don’t think will show up:
1) Video capture, to which I say – yeah, but the problem is, all but the best cameraphones still capture video at a crappy 160×120, or at best 320×240 (QVGA). One thing I’ve learned pretty quickly is that Apple is reluctant to include a feature that they think sucks, unless they can make it *not* suck. And I think anything less than VGA-quality video will, in Apple’s collective mind, suck.
2) MMS. I would still like a better way of receiving MMS. As it stands now, though, AT&T’s default method for informing non-MMS subscribers of a multimedia message is what shows up on the iPhone, complete with URL and incomprehensible ID and password. Ultimately I think the Cupertino powers that be will still say “why do you want to send crappy little pictures for a quarter a pop when you can send much better stuff in email for free with your unlimited data?” And I can see the logic there, but it would still be nice to get pix of my niece right to the phone without going through hoops.
Oh, and to whoever it was I saw on a web forum saying that the iPhone ought to have 160GB of storage the same as an iPod can: grow up.

New rule

Stagger Lee’s Eighth Rule of Political Discourse:

Anyone invoking George McGovern as a signifying comparison for Presidential elections after 1984 is automatically not worth taking seriously. A similar comparison holds for Barry Goldwater (with the exception of discussions of John McCain solely related to the angle of candidates from Arizona; any other correlation will not be taken under advisement as intelligent commentary).

Any election that took place before the current candidates were able to vote is not germane to this one, and the caliber of intellectual laziness that relies on such comparisons will not be indulged by this publication. So if you seriously think we’re experiencing a repeat of 1972 this year, well…

Why the Wall Street Journal is full of shit

Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple’s standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that’s kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of Internet videos.

Apple has said that Adobe’s flash media player, which is on hundreds of other phones, doesn’t perform up to Apple’s standards for the iPhone.

Listen, jackass, “flash memory” != Adobe Flash.

I always thought CNN went downhill after deciding that OJ was worth wall-to-wall coverage, but if you need more proof than this that they are butt-worthless, I can’t help you.

Armageddon Eve

So Monday at 10 AM is the keynote for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. Also known as “Apple Mardi Gras.” This is the only show of the year that is actually operated by Apple – MacWorld is actually an IDG event, and the other stuff like NAB or EDUCAUSE or PRINT ‘0n are their own things – and it’s the only one with no exhibitors, no third-party vendors, nothing but Apple seminars and sessions all week. It also comes with a ridonkulous party Thursday night awash in free food and booze and a live musical act. (The last three years they were the Wallflowers, BT and Ozomatli, in increasing order of energy and entertainment.)

This year, we see the results of a yearlong experiment in which the entire community of MacMacs and Apple fanboys attempts to will a product into existence, i.e. the mythical “3G iPhone.” I admit that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming – the supply chain empty worldwide, AT&T denying its retail staff leave in July even as they ramp up HSDPA (HSPDA? HPSDA? WTF?) deployment, tons of mysterious boxes being unloaded in Long Beach–

OK, this is where I have to take a detour. God knows I owe my life to Apple – when I crapped out at grad school, the thing that saved me was that in three years of monkeying around with a Power Mac 6100, I had taught myself enough to be taken on as a junior support tech. Literally every penny that has come into my pocket since September 1997 has been due to or as an indirect result of something to do with Apple. So I have a certain amount of gratitude to the Monster of Cupertino for keeping me out of the produce cooler at the Piggly Wiggly.

However, the worst part about being an Apple supporter is…the other Apple supporters. You know – the recalcitrant more-Apple-than-Apple types, the ones who literally cried when they realized there was a command line in OS X and that you couldn’t customize the Apple menu – the ones who would willingly throw out protected memory and preemptive multitasking because they thought the System 6 Multifinder was the pinnacle of UI achievement. The MacMacs (hat tip to the genius of John C. Welch, who is what every Mac administrator should be), who are like the seagulls in Finding Nemo, only with “Mac” instead of “Mine.” You can usually tell them because they look like normal geek fanboy types, only with a rainbow-Apple sticker on the can of paste they’ve been eating.

These are the people who have basically said that there is an iPhone coming that will do foo, bar, and X. Either that or complaining that the iPhone is worthless without foo, bar, and X, and it should have the Newton interface. Foo, bar, and X are usually some combination of 3G, GPS, CDMA and EVDO support, voice recognition with text dictation, full-on text editing, a user-accessible command line, 1080p HD video recording, full VTOL launch capability and the power to transform into Trinity from The Matrix and Princess Leia in the metal bikini, with three-way recreation on their minds.

Now, there is probably something coming out. We know at a minimum that we’re going to get either an announcement or an outright launch of the new 2.0 version of the existing iPhone firmware, incorporating support for 3rd party applications and ActiveSync/Exchange in an enterprise environment (basically throwing down the gauntlet to the Blackberry monolith). Any features beyond that, or new hardware to run them on? Purely speculation at this point. However, I am prepared to bet, and bet big, that at the end of the day Monday, whatever has been announced will still lack foo, bar, or X, and that there will be hot tears and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Here’s the thing. It may sound absurd and contradictory, but it’s the truth: Apple’s output is not and cannot be directed towards satisfying the fanboy market.

Remember 1997? The stock was down around $15. Since then it’s split 8 ways and is bumping around the mid-$180 mark. Every dollar you sunk into AAPL back in the day has jumped by close on two orders of magnitude in the ensuing decade-plus. It didn’t happen because they turned their efforts toward what the geek masses desired, or stuck with satisfying the dead-ender loyalists, because that’s not where the money is.

I’ve had about two dozen phones in the last 5 years. I had a couple of smartphones back when they were new and preposterously expensive, and I tried to do stuff with them, and in a pinch I could have done about 90% of what the iPhone does. Because I was a geek and willing to screw around with that kind of stuff.

But when a friend of mine takes her iPhone up to Canada and shows it to her parents, and they are overcome with amazement and want one almost immediately? That’s where the money is. When you can go outside the expected market and captivate people, that’s when stuff happens. Apple didn’t make the first smartphone, they didn’t make the first MP3 player either – but they made them captivating. And having had my share of MP3 players and phones, I can say with confidence that it’s not all down to trendy design and an aura of hip – it’s because they worked better than what was out there. Everybody remembers the famous Slashdot riff on the first iPod – “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.” – but the rest of the world doesn’t care about that shit. They want something that they can use easily without too much effort.

So don’t get too bothered Tuesday morning when the Intarweb tubes are clogged with ranting and raving. Apple, like God or the Cylons, has a plan, and they’re sticking with it. And based on ten years of paper in my pocket, I’m willing to let them play it out.

(As God is my witness, I actually do some work during the day. Honest.)

Your soundbite, if you like:

I’ll tell you the whole story of this primary in 100 words or less. Ready? Start the clock…NOW!

“Hillary Clinton voted for the war in 2002, which pissed off the Democratic base. They rallied behind Obama once he proved he was viable by winning Iowa. Clinton burned through all her money by Super Tuesday and had no plan for what to do if she lost. The schedule was so front-loaded that by March, there weren’t enough delegates in play for her to make a comeback. She tried to carry on as if there were still a chance, and the media indulged her so they wouldn’t run out of material. Then time ran out and here we are. Yay!”

Everything else is filler. Especially the chirping about the VP spot, which I will address below…

Continue reading “Your soundbite, if you like:”

Be happy, folks.

Fifty years ago, the old man was sneaking into a segregated Bo Diddley show.

Tonight, the Democratic Party – the party of Bilbo and Eastland and Ross Barnett, of Leander Perez and Lester Maddox, the party of George Fucking Wallace – chose a black man to lead the charge.

He didn’t back into it, he didn’t stumble into it, he didn’t get the hookup – he had a plan, he stuck to it, he just kept grinding, and tonight, he’s the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

This is a big night, people. Irrespective of who you’re pulling for in November – or who you’ve been pulling for the last six months – this is something to be proud of. We can get the knives back out tomorrow.

I was right – again.

The point is, Hillary Clinton has a couple of wins in decertified primaries. They mean a whole lot of nothing, because there won’t be any delegates awarded, and Obama is still sitting on more live delegates in hand – but inasmuch as they contribute to the sense that she will be X, they are valuable wins. But they will only contribute to that sense *IF* the results are presented in that matter.

-January 29, 2008

I could be wrong, but I’m not.

Yes, delegates were actually awarded out of Florida and Michigan. In Florida they were apportioned according to the voting; in Michigan they were apportioned according to a deal cooked up by the Michigan Democratic Party which was subsequently endorsed by 2/3 of the DNC panel empowered to adjudicate the disposition of those delegates.

However, the net impact was, at most, a couple dozen delegates. Out of over 2000 needed to win. All the hue and cry over Michigan and Florida, at net, budged a hair over one percent of the totals. Ultimately, they do Hillary Clinton more harm than good, because back in January, everyone agreed that those were beauty contests rather than viable elections.

Now, with the brain trust of Wolfson and Davis and Penn and etc, they become the last link in a preposterous chain of events that says that if you count primary states only, assume no input from caucus states, count in Puerto Rico and other non-state entities, and assume that not one single person in Michigan would have voted for Obama, then you can almost show Team HRC with a larger popular vote count.

In our reality-based world, of course, you go for the nomination with the delegate-selection system you have, not the one you try to shat out halfway through the fifteenth round of the fight. Yes, caucuses were created to stimulate popular participation and build a base more inclined to activist participation, and superdelegates were created to counteract the influence of caucuses, and Iowa and New Hampshire get their special privileges because…because…shit, I got nothing. Nor does anyone else. At some point, the Dems will revert to a model like the GOPs, and the GOP will move closer to the Dem model to prevent what happened to them this year, and the lion will lie down with the porterhouse.

But until then, we have this, and Obama’s leading it fair and square. And aside from close personal friends and a few delusionals, Team HRC knows it. Even James Carville, the Clinton’s most loyal retainer, is talking about how Barack Obama “can and will” win in November.

Game over. Everything else is bookkeeping.

RIP Bo Diddley

Dead at age 79.

I saw Bo Diddley once, the first time I went to City Stages, in 1990. I think it was Friday night, and I remember seeing Charles Barkley in the crowd packed into the park outside City Hall. If memory serves me right, Bo Diddley only played four songs, each of which took about 15 minutes and was full of all sorts of improvs and riffs and freestyle action that put every other rocker at the festival to shame, capping the whole thing with a burst of “The Star Spangled Banner” that made Hendrix look like a sophomore in the garage. And Bo Diddley was in his sixties at the time and still churning out an unmistakeable sound.

It’s not often that you and your dad were going to see the same artist at a similar age. The difference is, the old man was sneaking into Boutwell Auditorium for what was ostensibly a “race-only” show (i.e. decent white folks wouldn’t be caught dead) and I was crammed in a public park among 50,000 people of all ages and colors. So I guess that’s something.

Lazy Sunday, in bullet points

* Family’s always trying, isn’t it?

* In high school, when I was first coming to consciousness of sports, my fellows and I all supported the Detroit Pistons. Not only did we see ourselves as the academic-bowl version of the Motor City Bad Boys, we were thrilled to see the Lakers-Celtics monopoly broken. I say that by way of saying that for this year’s NBA finals, I am rooting for plague. Lots of it.

* I bought the oxblood DMs. The string on one of them broke almost immediately. I replaced it with a black lace out of my last East Coast pair of black 1460s, which I think is an appropriate passing of the torch and kinda punk besides. I doubt I will wear them that much – my black Solovairs are much easier to make work with my everyday wardrobe – but the important thing at this point is just to *have* them.

* Besides, you’ll never know when I’ll need to go back in time and pass as a pre-Two Tone skinhead. Along those lines, I now need a donkey jacket and a Lambretta. If you have either, please write in care of I Hate That Poser, Box L-7, Googleburg, CA.

* The new Fratellis single doesn’t sound that much like Costello Music did, although I do appreciate the driving piano throughout. It reminds me of something but I can’t put my finger on what.

* Who knew they were putting an IKEA factory in Danville VA?

* I finished second for the month in the online trivia competition I’m part of. That was almost entirely down to my missing two days – if you’d added two instances of my average score to the totals, I would have finished in first, handily. The moral of the story, as always, is that four-fifths of life consists of showing up for it.

• Vandy’s non-con schedule this year: at Miami (OH), home to Rice and Duke, and away at Wake. Conference home games are Carolina, Auburn, Florida and UT. If Big Six is going to happen this year, it’ll mean winning a few on the road – and of Ole Miss, Georgia, Mississippi State, and Kentucky, the best chance is that we somehow catch Georgia sleeping again. Not the sort of thing you want to hang your hopes on, especially given how many key Commodores just graduated. Still…only 89 days to go.

* My Buddy Vince Sez that if you’re looking for a new HDTV, jump on those Father’s Day sales in the next two weeks.

Finis.