Lets Talk iPhone

I’ve been planning on buying iPhone 5 for two years now.   That’s about the average life of a phone right?  I purchased the iPhone 3Gs when it first came out because for the first time an iPhone could record video!  And I wanted to take it on my honeymo…. I wanted to take it to Hawaii.

The iPhone 4 came, had some issues, and is now the world awaits iPhone 5.

Or is it iPhone 4s?

Nobody knows until Apple’s big announcement on Tuesday.  But here’s the speculation so far:

Concept iPhone with tapered back.  

I think this design would make it harder 

to play Angry Birds

1. An aluminum unibidy construction.   This is cool.  The MacBooks are made this way and it makes them smaller and lighter than other computers that are held together by a multi-part chassis. It only makes sense that Apple would include this design into their mobile line.
2. Smart money is on this feature as an unintended posting of iPhone 5 cases has confirmed that the new iPhone will have a redesigned body.
3. Improved 8 megapixel Camera.   This is a no-brainer.   All the competing phones have an HD, 8MP camera, why not iPhone? This is just keeping up  with the Joneses…. If by  Joneses you mean Google.
4. Faster/more processers and Ram.  There is heavy speculation that iPhone 5 will have a full gigabyte of ram, doubling the previous incarnation.  It is assumed to also have the same a5 dual-core processer from the iPad 2.  All the thechnial specs aside, I trust apple’s hardware.  Think about all your friends who have the HTC Android phones.  How many times have they been replaced? I know people who have had to replace their handsets three times in a contract.  My first iPhone is still being used by my dad… and boy is it slow.  But it still works.  Solid!    
5. Voice Integration.   This could sseriously be a gamechanger in the mobile market.   Don't belive me?  Well this article from Forbes should give you some insight.   iOS has had a voice integration for a while now, but it was fairly limited.  But imagine being able to control most functions of your smartphone without having to touch it?  Wow!  "Gamechanger" is an understatement!
6. iOS5.  Really that’s all I need to say but there’s a ton of new features in here.   iOS (the system software that runs all Apple mobile devices) was announced at a spring event to be released “in the fall” but no specific timeframe was given.  Typically new hardware follows about 10 days after the big product announcement so I would speculate that, based on previous experience, iOS 5 will be available within 24 hours of the big announcement for existing devices.

   

   Another "thin" concept iPhone 5

   
   Features  include:

·         Twitter integration – You can now tweet from Safari

·         iOS Messenger – free texting between iPhones.  Also why you should cash out of your RIM stock IMMEDIATELY as this will finally kill the blackberry

·         Less intrusive update messages.  Lets face it, there’s nothing more annoying during a rousing game of Angry Birds than getting a Fox News update about something not as important as getting 3 stars on a level.  Especially when that alert pops up in the middle of aiming your slingshot.  Now the message will exist in a tab at the top of the screen where you can look at it later, thus helping you to get that 3 star award without interruption.   Believe it or not this is a HUGE deal!

·         iCloud – Very cool technology that lets you sync your phone wirelessly.  It’s about Fraking time for this one!   Though some are complaining that this does not let you stream your media to your phone from your home computer, I’m not sure why this is a big deal.  All iOS devices have a hard drive capable of carrying lots of media anyway.

Facebook is scheduled to launch their new iPad app at the event too.  Let’s hope that the app is more well received than their recent user interface upgrade.  Honestly, I don’t mind it, but that’s another blog post.

So the announcement is next week.  The phones will probably go on sale around the 15^th.  I plan on getting my pre-order in as soon as they start accepting those and then I’ll have a kickass phone once again!

You know, I had an iPhone back when having an iPhone made you cool… Now I’m in an exclusive clique called “Everybody”! 

Would Have Made a Great Series Finale...

I hold few things as sacred as a series finale.   While MASH claims to have the best ever (way too long but redeemed in the final 2 minutes) few series finales have lived up to the entire run of the series.

How this show USED to look!

Which brings me to last night's ninth-season-premier of "Two and a half Men".    The show starts with a funeral for Charlie. His trademark bowling shirt and khaki shorts (also my trademark) are hanging next to the closed coffin.  Most of his on-camera girlfriends are present, all saying horrible things about him. Alan (John Cryer) is giving the eulogy explaining how Charlie died in Paris.   Next Rose (Melanie Lynskey) explains how Charlie proposed to him, then she caught him with another woman, to which all the women in the audience sympathized.  Then she explains how he "accidentally" slipped onto the rail in front of an oncoming train.

This is exactly why 28 million people tuned in last night, despite an NFL game on ESPN (my cable isn't working so I didn't have that option).

So, we've resolved how Charlie Sheen is no longer on the show.  Do we care about anyone else in the house?  Not really, I was willing to leave it at that.  Charlie leaves the house to Alan and Jake, life goes on and if my cable was functioning I could have tuned away and not cared.

But My cable is not working so I continued watching.

The new man!

Alan can't afford the upkeep on the house and goofy internet billionaire Waldon Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher) enters, and after some mildly amusing antics buys the house.

Okay, now things are resolved.

Except for some reason we were left "to be continued..." though, if Schmidt is going to buy the house and he seems popular with the ladies (though I didn't need him to be so naked the whole episode) we now see that the house will continue to be a revolving door for good-looking loose women.

Life goes on and I wish I could tune to ESPN!

So this would have made a nice series finale. Charlie dies, Alan gets on his feet and Jake says something stupid (though that shtick hasn't been funny since he was a cute chubby kid).

Much like a bad car wreck causes people to rubberneck on the freeway, the real-life Charlie Sheen caused a media rubberneck as his life turned into a forty-car-pileup last spring.  People wanted to see the end result of how things fallout.

This episode is how the show should have ended, and if my cable gets fixed by next week, it will have ended here for me!

But how would it have stood up as a series finale?   Well, first off, there was the absolute lack of the star character.  So the finale seems a bit forced.  But at least all the loose ends would be tied up. And that's usually what an audience is looking for.   If they had sent Charlie off to get married or join the Peace Corps or beamed up to Mars by aliens, that would have left questions.  But he's Dead and I think most members of the audience are cool with that. More-so, I think at least half the audience tuned in for the closure on this show that seems to be persistent on every channel at all times. I expect at least a 50% falloff in the ratings for the next episode.  So instead of a single episode series finale, you get a whole season.  At least I have my closure.

RIP Charlie Harper, RIP Two and a half Men!

Going Down in a Landslide

Somewhat inspired by my previous post from today, here is President Obama singing how he will loose in a "Landslide" next November.   To the tune of the Fleetwood Mac Song of the same name!

The Tea Party wants to take me down

I won Election and turned around

And the media echoed all my talking points

But a landslide’s how I’ll go down

All my polls don’t look good.

Where are the jobs?

Can this man-child in Washington rise above?

Can I win reelection on hope and change?

Or will there be a new conservative age?

Mmmmm Mmmmm….

Well I’ve been promising changing

Cause I forced you to buy healthcare

But Jobs didn’t come back

No one likes Barack

I need a new Wall Street scare

(Guitar Solo)

Well I’ve been promising changing

Cause I forced you to buy healthcare

But Jobs didn’t come back

No one likes Barack

I need a new Wall Street scare

I need a new Wall Street scare

So take my message into town

We’re going to take the Tea Party down

If you look at what I’ve done to across this great land

Well, in a Landslide is how I’m going down, down

And if you see my poll numbers on MSNBC

Well a landslide is how I’ll go down

Oh in a landslide is how I’ll go down

With Apologies to Stevie Nicks

When you think about it, the cool thing about Fleetwood Mac is that they had a girl named Stevie and a guy named Lindsey ! 

I Saw Obama's Reflection in Snow Covered Hills...

Ever watch video of an avalanche? 

It starts at the top with just a few small pieces of snow and then all of a sudden half the mountain comes down. 

Last night, for the first time in 80 years the Republicans took a congressional seat in Lower Manhattan. 

If the GOP is making inroads in the most liberal part of the most liberal city in the second most liberal state then Obama has next-to-no chance in the heartland next November. 

The landslide is coming, hope Obama brought his skies! 

More on this later...

Holy Crap, a new blog post!

Okay,  I’m kind of tired of looking at the picture of the monkey in a Santa hat from my previous blog post showing up every day in the RSS feed on my home page, I think it’s time to blog about something. 

Now, I know none of you watched the Obama hosted pre-game show last night, and neither did I (you'd know this if you followed me on Twitter).  But I did listen to it via the Mark Levin Podcast today.  So as a service to you, so you won't have to listen to it, here is my analysis of Obama's speech: 

1.  Offering a tax cut to businesses who hire or give raises to employees: 

While I’ve never met a tax cut I didn't like, unless sales are up and the business is expanding there is no reason to hire more people.  Raises work as a means of retaining good employees.   This is proposal based on flawed logic.  Obama doesn't realize that a business is in business to make money. It does not exist to play games with the tax code, but to maximize profit.  Hiring only occurs when it helps the goal of profit.   

2.  Rebuilding infrastructure 

Isn’t that was TARP was for? What about the last stimulus?  Shouldn't we have repaved every road, rebuilt every bridge, and rebuilt every public building by now?  The money designated for these projects never ends up helping the economy because at every level the unions take a cut and the work never gets done because it's being performed by aforementioned unions. 

3. Repairing and rebuilding schools

This could have been lumped in with #2, but I decided to separate it because it was a specific point in Obama's speech. The President makes the claim that teachers can't teach, and children can't learn as well in dilapidated buildings?  This has nothing to do with jobs!   Jobs come when the economy starts expanding again and that rarely if ever happens in a classroom.  The classic complaint that teachers are underpaid is refuted by the fact that most people are paid according to what they directly produce.  Teachers, while providing a necessary service, are not the producers in the is economy.  In a classroom there is no combining of raw materials to create something of greater value than it's component parts.   Investing in rebuilding classrooms does not expand the economy. 

Obama spoke on more than this but this is roughly when I stopped paying attention, and being slightly hungover today this is all I’m willing to really write about at this time. 

So I’ve complained but didn’t offer a solution.  You’re probably saying, “If you’re so smart how would you fix things?”   Okay, give me a minute.

I think I would use the Jerry Seinfield approach.  The comedian once said about department store clerks who ask “may I help you?” that they are either trying to help him or trying to sell him something.

Government works much the same way.  Any time the government tries to “help” the situation only ever gets worse.  Don’t try to help the economy.  Go back to your designated tasks of building a few roads, delivering mail and keeping the king of England on his side of the Atlantic.  Those of us who actually live and work in the economy will take care of that ourselves!