Newton Poetry

You see that? Finally, after two weeks of waiting, my MobileMe account syncs to that damn cloud that keeps raining on everyone.

Every day since I purchased my iPhone and signed up for the free 90-day trial of MobileMe I’ve tried syncing my iBook (running OS X 10.4.11), and every day it gives me the same message: try again, buddy. But, like a mouse hoping the electrified button will bring more cheese, I kept trying.

Finally, this morning, after a friend had sent me an e-mail asking if I liked MobileMe (and right before I sent my reply saying “don’t even think about it”) the .Mac sync screen above showed up. It parsed through my iCal and Address Book settings and sent them to MobileMe Land, which meant I could keep everything on my iBook and iPhone synced. Good news.

Things have gotten so bad that usually-secretive Apple has a MobileMe status blog of sorts from some mysterious employee who received a directive from Steve Jobs: inform the masses. Apologize. Send it via RSS. Keep them In The Know.

In the 14 days since we launched, it’s been a rocky road and we know the pain some people have been suffering. Be assured people here are working 24-7 to improve matters, and we’re going to favor getting you new info hot off the presses even if we have to post corrections or further updates later.

The “pain” part hasn’t been so bad. I use Gmail for e-mail, and my iPhone syncs with my iBook settings every time iTunes syncs it. Before, I thought you had to have MobileMe to, say, add an iCal event on the iPhone and have it appear on your Mac in some form or another. This is false. I’ve found that, just like photos, the iPhone will “push” contact info and calendar events from the phone to the Mac when you plug it in with the USB connector. Which is handy, and doesn’t make MobileMe a necessity. Thank goodness, because MobileMe hasn’t been what we would call “reliable.”

The true test comes in about an hour, when my MobileMe account is scheduled to sync. I added a Calendar (is it iCal on the phone? I get confused…) event on the iPhone, and we’ll see if it shows up in iCal on my Mac sometime in the near future. But even that little note above, where the .Mac preference pane shows the damned thing doing something, is enough to give me hope.

Any other MobileMe syncing successes out there? Let me know in the comments.

[Update to an update: MobileMe is still acting weird, with no end in site.]

It’s typical of an Apple product to delight and amaze the more you use it. The iPhone 3G is no different. It’s been a ton of fun to use and explore in the week I’ve had it.

First, I discovered this blog looks good on the iPhone’s screen, both in vertical (above) and landscape mode.

Other blogs out there are helping me discover new things.

Lifehacker shows how, by holding down the “.” and “.com” buttons in Safari and Mail, you get more options:

First, in Mobile Safari, just hold down the .com button for a second to see other domain options (namely .net, .edu, and .org). Second, when the keyboard has the @ symbol but no .com key, you can hold the ‘.’ (period) key to get the same domain shortcuts – something that comes in especially handy when you’re manually entering email addresses or filling in login credentials in new apps.

Just the “.com” in Safari was enough to make me smile. But this? That’s handy.

Wired’s How-To Wiki taught me how to avoid SMS charges (I opted for no text plan): plug your contact into AOL’s free iPhone AIM client and text to your heart’s content for free.

I’ve tested it, and it works great.

To Do apps, however, were another story. I struggled with the multitude of options out there: free apps, pay apps, voice note apps. I hate to sound cheap, but I was mostly looking at free solutions, and the reviews were of little help because they went either way. Finally, a new app popped up in the App Store – Dobot’s To Do app – so I downloaded it on a whim. And so far, it suits my needs pretty well.

I was never a big fan of the Newton’s solution to to-do lists. The easiest way was to sync the Newton with Newton Connection Kit and type up the list on my iMac. The keyboard made the whole process more comfortable and quicker. But on the road, you have to scribble a note, highlight it, have Assist interpret it, and the it appears in your to-do list. Way too complicated, and awkward when all you want to do is have a list of check-off items. In fact, it’s one of the key gripes that I have against the Newton. I’m sure there’s another to-do app out there, but I’m limited with my Newton OS 1.0.

If Dobot’s To Do app fails me, I can always spring for app that costs actual money. What I’m hoping, however, is that somehow Apple includes some sort of iCal to-do list sync.

My experiment is to try and use only the iPhone for lists, to-dos, and calendars for the next few weeks. By forcing myself to one platform, I can get to know its ins and outs, and find out what it lacks.

I couldn’t help but scour the iPhone’s new App Store for applications that mimicked what the Newton MessagePad offered at its height. Here’s what I came up with so far.

Good ol’ PocketMoney. This is a Newton classic, and they even brag about it on the description page. The Newton version is still available, and the new one will set you back $10. I was actually going to review the old school PocketMoney. Instead, it may call for a comparison.

Starmap here is a take on the Newton’s StarChart: basically a star-finder and map that helps you look for planets and such when you’re in your backyard with a telescope. Darned handy if you are an astronomy fan.

Squiggles is pure fun. You can take iPhone photos and doodle all over them in different colors. Your finger becomes the brush. I picked this one because it’s the first one I saw that, in whatever way, translates the MessagePad’s handwriting recognition into a creative app.

Sketches looks like it has the most potential to be Newton-ish. Basically you draw notes, diagrams, or whatever with your finger, and save the file for later. Notepad, anyone?

Have you tried out any of these, or another iPhone app that copies the Newton’s capabilities? Let me know in the comments. I’m going to try some of these myself, and offer a review later.

That’s probably the best news I’ve received all day: my iPhone is synced and ready to go.

At 10 p.m., I finally got up the nerve to plug the sucker in and give it a whirl. And everything went great.

MobileMe is offering a free 60 day trial for us suckers, so I thought, why not? My System Prefs are still showing .Mac syncing, however, and I imagine it’s because I’m still a OS X 10.4 user. MobileMe is giving me error messages, so I’m not going to get my hopes up. But a free trial is a free trial. What’s the harm.

Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at see, I hope you’re having the same luck I’m having right now – which is good luck. Now I’ve got all weekend to play with the beast.

Arrived just before 8 a.m. this morning. Walked into the mall (it opens at 5 a.m. for walkers, I found out) to the sound of clapping and cheering. The festivities had begun.

The Apple employees were outside the store, pumping up the crowd, and handing out coffee and water to anxious waiters. I followed the line past Rogers & Hollands and down to JC Penny, where the familiar sculpture stood, and took my place at the end of the line next to a guy in a Joker/”Dark Knight” shirt.

“I hope they don’t run out,” he said. “I drove past the AT&T store and they had, like, five people in line.”

One lady walking the mall, her iPod mini in hand, asked us why we were all waiting in line.

“You know they’re going to have some tomorrow, right?” she said. One guy told her to go away; she was ruining our fun.

Later a security guard on a Segway rolled past, and an Apple staffer came out and asked if anyone had any questions. They have coffee and water stations set up at strategic points along the waiting line – a nice touch, I thought.

Applause echoed through Briarwood as the first customer in line got in the store. A second round of clapping followed after the transaction took place. All together, it took about 10 or 15 minutes, which is what we expected.

“I’m leaving for vacation next week,” the lady behind me said. “I have to get one before I take off. I hope they don’t run out.”

This fit the general feel of the crowd. One guy didn’t expect this kind of line, but I told him it could be worse: last year, when this Briarwood store opened, the line snaked across the entire mall. All that for just a t-shirt.

Incredibly, Briarwood charges for a wifi connection. There were several WEP connections in the area, and the one free wifi connection wasn’t loading. And I’m not about to pay for wifi – not at some mall. Finally some linksys connection opened up. Hence this post.

One thing I forgot to do was transfer money into my account to actually make this purchase. What a fool I was. Luckily I’m on the grid now, so a quick trip to online banking and I’ll be good to go.

What kind of iPhone will I be getting. Despite all the controversy, I like the white one. I matches my iBook and my iPod 30 GB video, and there’s something about the white look that says “Apple.”

This is report number one from the front lines. Hopefully I’ll post again as I get closer (maybe even in the Apple store, on some super-powered Mac Pro).

Over and out from Ann Arbor.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBu3N8_U4WE]

I have a feeling I’ll have this song in my head all day tomorrow.

It’ll be so worth it. I’m taking the iBook, just in case I can get a connection, and will post updates if there’s a super-big line. If you’ll be in line, let me know – we can iChat with News from the Front Lines.

It’s official. I took the day off work. I have a friend who might be joining me.

I’ll be there.

Come July 11, I’ll be one of the fools in line at the Ann Arbor Apple Store waiting for an iPhone.

The news I’ve been reading says things may be crazy. The scripts are ready. The lines are forming. And the hour is pretty well known.

Who’s with me?

The madness continues, but us AAPL investors have to be feeling better than we were just a few months ago.

Conventional wisdom says buy on the rumor, and sure enough – after the iPhone 3G announcement, AAPL stock took a bit of a dive. It’s been bouncing back and forth (with the markets, apparently, in red and orange above), now resting at $173 as of today’s closing.

Apple is in good condition, and with the iPhone price drop, I can only imagine things will get better. And others agree (including a blogger I read regularly over at The Simple Dollar). The final pricing point doesn’t matter. What’ll be interesting is to see how the stock performs come July 11, when lines outside Apple stores will surely beat last year’s. I hope to be at our own Ann Arbor store that morning. If it’s anything like the store’s opening, it should be a fun day, indeed.

For all the speculation and gambling and non-news that gets thrown around in regards to Apple, what matters most is the ability of the company to churn out high-quality computers and phones and music players that people want. And they are doing that.

If, as king-hell capitalists believe, a company’s stock price is the true measure of its worth, than Apple is in good condition. Says one analyst (thanks to Reuters):

Analyst David Bailey also raised his target on the stock to $220 from $185, and said Apple should be able to increase its available iPhone subscriber base by more than 80 percent this year due to aggressive expansion into international markets.

Will all that optimism change should that Jobs guy leave the company?

Who can tell? The experiment marches on, anyway.

Well, kind of. It helps if you know who he is.

“Splorp”” is actually Grant Hutchinson, a big Newton MessagePad fan and keeper of the Newtontalk list (which seems to be down as of this posting – here’s the Twitter feed), the Newted Community, and his own personal site (and, above, his Twitter feed).

Anyway, one of the 2008 Apple Design Award winner for “Best iPhone Social Networking Application” was Twitterrific for the iPhone, and his picture is right there on Apple’s web site. Kind of cool.

He might not even know it yet, but I’ll let him know right now. Because, you know, us Newton users need all the help we can get, right?

When I first got my iBook, back in November 2005, I saw a Celldweller CD sitting on one of the desktops on Apple’s “Get to know your Mac” tutorial sites. Being a fan, I let him know, and he seemed to appreciate it. “I know we have some fans over at Apple,” Clayton told me.

Gizmodo is hosting a wallpaper image to use as your iPhone backdrop, a roundabout way to relive Newton glory days.

Gizmodo is pretty harsh on us Newton users:

However, the fact is that the iPhone, while simpler than Newton, it’s an extremely powerful device. Much more than the Newton ever was. Its software is more accessible to normal users than the Newton’s; it runs an extremely fast operating system and, most importantly, it has a phone and built-in Wi-Fi, which is reason enough to make it a better communicator than the Newton. A product for the masses, rather than a niche wonder.

Whatever, Gizmodo. But we do appreciate the iPhone wallpaper. Click the above image to get your own copy.