Ennui Blog

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Today was a harder day to fill with no TV or Internet. We were stuck mostly around the house and didn’t have much to do. So, we spent the day tidying the house and decorating for Christmas.

We kept the computer hooked up to the home theater and watching movies and downloaded TV (downloaded pre-shutoff). We also took a trip to the grocery store, which is what we were able to do since we didn’t pay the Comcast bill.

It felt much better to fill the cart with food (and subsequently our bellies) despite not being able to feel the warm glow of Comcast High Speed Internet and TV.

Sunday night was difficult to fill. My wife had to watch a movie that I had no desire to watch, so I had to busy myself while she used the home theater to watch it. I read, surfed what I could of the web on my iPhone (read a really interesting article about Cuba) and read Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

It was quiet. It was nice.

Still no word from @comcastcares.

It’s that time of year again. There’s a major Apple based conference coming up with a scheduled keynote by our God, Steve Jobs, and the geek media is frothing at the mouth of the possibilities it could hold.

In the past, Apple was pretty reliable about announcing new and awesome products at it’s major events. Lately, however, the groundbreaking product announcements haven’t really been happening like they used to. The last major, earth shattering product announcement was the iPhone and that was nearly 18 months ago.

So, with that fact in mind, perhaps that’s why the rumor sites are going crazy with speculation. It’s been so long since a major product announcement, there’s gotta be something up their sleeve. What’s Steve Jobs been up to?

We’re all hoping that it will be more than another version of the iPhone. That in itself would not be a major, groundbreaking announcement. Woohoo a 3G iPhone. Ok great, but it’s still the iPhone (I won’t be buying one).

There’s rumors circulating of an Apple Tablet PC based on the iPhone OS. This would be pretty cool, but honestly the idea of it doesn’t really impress me that much. It’s not something I would stand in line overnight for. Granted, Steve hasn’t demonstrated it yet.

This begs the question. Apple has conquered most avenues of revenue. They’re the standard for music players, standard for high end computers, standard for high end laptops, they’ve tackled TV, online music and movie sales, the list goes on and on. What could they possibly do next? Can Apple out Apple itself? Should we even expect it to at this point?

I hope this isn’t the beginning of a decline. Really, we should be content with every product Apple has given us. Why do we always need something MORE? Always need something better?

I’m not going to get very excited about WWDC. Of course, I’ll monitor the live feeds on the major Mac new sites, but I don’t expect anything earth shattering to come out of WWDC. I expect a new 3G iPhone, maybe a Mac tablet and maybe a preview of the next version of OS X.

We shall see. If anything, Steve Jobs is great a surprising us all.

Last year, Mac geeks around the world heralded the coming of the Jesus Phone. It was the great phone, music player, PIM, web browser and automatic ass wiper to ever be invented. We gobbled it up like crack addicts who screw to earn the next hit. Disclaimer, Yes, I have an iPhone, yes I love it. However…

iPhone lovers have been nagged by the possibility that their great phone would COULD HAVE been better. Everytime it takes 5 minutes for Digg to load on Edge, you have to wonder, there has to be a better way and surely, Steve Jobs is thinking of it. Well, the savior everyone is anticipating is a 3G Enabled iPhone.

They possibility of it’s release next month is being treated as the Second Coming of the Jesus Phone.

What the hell is 3G and why is it going to be better? Is it actually better?

I remember in the early naughties, 3G was touted at the future of cell phones. I salivated at Japanese phones and European phones that supposedly had this ‘broadband’ capability. Steaming video would be possible they said! Well, typical of American cell carriers, they couldn’t get their crap together. So, they came up with 2.5G, which became known as Edge. It gave moderately fast data speeds, if by fast you mean compariable to logging onto Prodigy at 2400 BPS. 

Over the past couple years, the cell carriers, flying jumping on the bandwagon, decided to roll out 3G networks. Coverage is spotty. Most major cities are covered but the coverage is no where near as great as Edge. The point I’d like to make is that 3G is old. There is already a 4G elsewhere in the world.It promises faster speeds than Edge, and it may deliver that but there are disadvantes as well, such as:

• Spotty Coverage
• Bandwidth and Latency are different concepts - just because the speed is fast doesn’t mean packets of data will actually move faster
• High Bandwidth = greater data errors
• Phone software doesn’t run as fast as a ‘fast connection’ does
• 3G drains batteries

Despite all these disadvantages, iPhone lovers have been clamoring for an iPhone based on outdated 3G technology. And frankly, Digg loading in 2 minutes rather than five would be great. Battery technology hasn’t changed much in the last year since the first iPhone came out, so I doubt they’ve really fixed the battery drain issue, so likely we’ll have a bigger and heavier battery in the new 3G iPhone.

I’ve been pretty happy with my iPhone over the past year. Yeah, it’d be great to have stuff load faster. But it’s not a reason to plink down another $500 for another one. Apple would have to enable it to make me breakfast, then I’d consider.

The iPhone second coming will undoubtedly come soon and it will convert the holdouts who’ve been waiting for 3G. Will current iPhone users switch in droves? I don’t think so. Besides, the minute it comes out, they’ll be demanding 4G from Steve Jobs.

One thing is for sure, we Apple nuts are never truly satisfied.