Newton Poetry

In the G3-G4 Mac era, pinstripes were everywhere.

Look at the front of a G3 iMac, or an Apple Studio Display (CRT or flat screen), or even OS X up until Panther. Even the classic Mac OS had pinstripes on the tops of windows, and the pre-Power PC Macs had pinstripes as a rule.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to find pinstripes creeping back into the Mac OS. But the iPhone OS X? Take a look:

I found that shot in the Contacts app, but pinstripes can also be found in the iCal app (try adding a new appointment), the Settings, and even the Clock (the map in the background). Now the iPhone’s pinstripes are a little thicker and more prominent than OS X’s. Check this preference pane from Jaguar:

Takes you back, doesn’t it?

With its darker hue and thicker lines, the Mobilie OS X goes for a more professional and buttoned-up look, much like OS X 10.5 Leopard, than the lighter, “lickable” OS X of yesteryear. The pinstripe motif is mostly a simple backdrop to app screens displaying boxed areas of information (iCal, Settings). But also, the vertical stripes lend to the iPhone’s mostly vertical orientation. Granted, the pinstripes only appear here and there (I noticed the scheme in a few apps, like UrbanSpoon, too) – instead of everywhere with OS X 10.0 and beyond.

The more unified look of Leopard begins to break down in areas like this, much as Panther and Tiger only used the brushed metal design willy-nilly.

I agree with John Siracusa: using OS X 10.2 Jaguar on my iBook G3 is a “jarring” experience: the clunky finder, the toy-ish polish on buttons and tabs, and all those pinstripes.

Now they’re back, in iPhone form.

[Jaguar screen shot courtesy of Ars Technica.]

To test my MobileMe account’s syncing ability, after getting it up and running yesterday, I ran a simple experiment: schedule a reminder on the iPhone calendar (above, for a Chicago trip this weekend), and watch what happens.

You know what happened? Nothing:

The above screen shot is from iCal, one whole day later. Notice no event scheduled to remind me to “pack for Chicago.” Nope, just a few reminders that were already there. Despite telling MobileMe and the iPhone to sync every hour, MobileMe sent nothing to iCal. And that iCal reminder, the green one about the open house? That didn’t get pushed to the iPhone, either.

Things really started to get weird when I received a phone call. Instead of my contact’s name popping up, the iPhone displayed the number only. It turns out that 90% of my contacts were missing from my Contacts app. Where did they go?

Then, while browsing with Mobile Safari, I found all my book marks missing. All Mobile Safari gave me was the stock bookmark options:

So even though I told MobileMe to sync my contacts, my iCal events, and my Safari bookmarks, none of that made it to my iPhone.

Now, after I turned MobileMe syncing off on the 3G, I can’t get my Mobile Safari bookmarks to show back up – even though I told iTunes to do so:

MobileMe, on my iBook G4 running the latest Tiger install and synced with an iPhone 3G, doesn’t work as advertised. The web version is only a little better. That “pack for Chicago” reminder? It showed up in MobileMe’s web iCal. But my contacts made it from either my iPhone or my iBook just fine – but why wouldn’t they show up on my iPhone?

Surely these are all symptoms others have reported before – but MobileMe actually syncing with Tiger was enough of a treat to try the whole thing out. It turns out, though, that MobileMe probably isn’t for me. Not the way it’s working now, at least.

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.]

How-to:

• Fax with your Newton
• Sync with OS X
• Survive in a post-iPhone world
• Write a Newton Poem
• Reset your Newton
• Install an Airport card in a clamshell iBook
• Read eBooks

Interviews:

• Matt Howe, D&D dice developer
• Brian Floe, creator of MyAppleSpace.com

Newton Poems:

• Death of a Soldier [the most popular by far]
• Armistice Day
• Blaze of Glory
• iGoogle haikus
• From Montauk Point
• Psalms 35:12-15

Newton misc.:

• Newton User Groups
• Newton 2.0 rumors
• Newton on the iPhone?
• Einstein emulator

iPocalypse:

• The beginning
• The breakdown
• Success
• Epilogue
• iPocalypse roundup

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.

[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.

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.

Lots going on at the WWDC 2008 keynote, which I finally streamed and watched with much joy. Watch it yourself to see all the action, clapping, and skinnier Steve Jobs.

In the meantime, a few thoughts:

• iPod is now a great name. Some folks made fun of the name “iPod” when it was first released. What’s so “pod” about music, after all? But now it fits perfectly. With the iPod Touch, the “pod” become the mobile computing platform – a place to get your e-mail, web, games, and – yes – music. The iPod is now a “pod” for your mobile computing platform.
• “We’ve learned so much.” Here, Jobs displays some real humbleness. .Mac kind of sucked. MobileMe is an improvement of sorts. And Apple admits they had things to learn. That’s great.
• $199? That’s all me. But because I’m such a big fan of the white Apple products (iPod, iBook, everything), I may splurge and grab the 16 GB version. No 32 GB iPhone? That does stink.
• Wait for the Snow Leopard. I wished for a refurbished iMac with Leopard, but now I may just wait until Snow Leopard is released. Why not? “Improved” is always a good word when OSes are concerned. And waiting has seemed to pay off for me so far.
• Chinese character recognizer hack? I can see it happening. Use the handwriting recognition app for Chinese characters and hack it so it will recognize English characters. Boom – a Newton-like HWR emulator. And Jobs was right in the keynote: the lack of plastic keys or a physical stylus actually plays in the multi-language-supported iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s favor.

Now I have to wait until July 11 (or maybe a day or two after, depending on lines and in-store activation), but oh well. This is what I’ve been waiting for. A true successor to the Newton has been born.

Behold: iPhone 3G

Stressed about the “one more thing” that will be announced this Monday, June 9 at the Worldwide Developers Conference? Fear not. We have a round-up of rumors, damned lies, and fun games to play while you’re waiting for the next big thing.

A Newton 2.0? That’s on the list, kind of.

WWDC ’08 Keynote Bingo. Ars Technica always does a nice job at this. I’m hoping for the top two corner pieces.

Snow Leopard strays from PPC. This one was first featured at TUAW.com, but the Cult of Mac guys really touch on what a change Mac users have seen from the days of OS 8 and 9 to now. In short, “The Mac is dead. Long live OS X.”

From .Mac to MobileMe. John Gruber did some snooping and found the new domain names Apple registered. People have been bitching about .Mac for years (I had it for a year, and it was…eh), so this could be pretty exciting.

WWDC banner pictures. That’s right. They’re up, and the speculation is flying. OS X iPhone, anyone?

Newton 2.0. This one has been like Lazarus. A new MessagePad in the form of a Mac tablet? Supposedly, there’s a 50/50 chance. But we’ll see. After all, Apple is shopping for handwriting engineers.

Oh, and that rumor. You know, the one everyone knows is coming. And the iPhone 1.0 is undergoing drought conditions. What else could it be?

I’ve decided not to participate in any of the live blogging feeds or constant refreshing of Apple news sites. I’m going to wait until the Quicktime video is released (which I watch faithfully anyway), just so it can all feel new and “just announced” to me. Should be fun.

Something along the lines of what the Cult of Mac guys are thinking: that the 3G iPhone will just be a warm-up.

It’s kind of like right before last year, when the iPhone was first announced. The buzz was feverishly high. Remember that? And all those mockups and predictions came across the blogs, and everyone was going nuts.

Then Steve Jobs gave the demo, and it was better than anybody came close to imagining.

I think WWDC on June 9 will be just like that. All this hyper-excitement over the new iPhone (and well-deserved, I might mention), when all this time Jobs and his crew are planning something that blows us all away. As usual.

Daring Fireball did some digging on something called “Mobile Me,” and I think that might be the key everyone is ignoring (except Gruber, of course). But who knows? No one but a few Apple employees.

So a week from now, I have a feeling we’ll all have something new and exciting to talk about besides a 3G iPhone.

That’s all I got.