All Apple All Day

Sorry for the long absence! We just finished up our summer vacation, visiting my sister in London, with side trips to Paris, Wales, and Dublin. We traveled by air, land and sea - with a 10 year old, and a 2 year old. It wasn't easy. But traveling with iOS devices makes things a lot easier. Here are our Top Five iOS tips for traveling abroad, with kids.

This is a weird post to write. Because I really like the iPhone Leather Case. But these days, I can barely stand touching it. I'm actively repulsed by it.

I read an interesting post this morning at Monday Note , setting forth a hypothetical "Red Guide" to the Android Market.  The general point is this: while the App Store has been a transformative, massive success, it's also very chaotic and difficult to use. New apps are just dumped in the index, competing with millions of others.  At some level, human curation of apps may be the next "evolution". But what would a curated App Store look like? A hint for my potential answer is to the right - and no, it's not an Apple Power Glove.... although that would be " so bad ". 

Well, that's what's being reported , anyway.  I still hope that this isn't the case.  But analysts keep saying it .  But I still don't think it makes any sense. Apple's iPhone is one of the most profitable products in the history of mankind.  It's a luxury item. It commands a premium on the market. And people are willing to pay that premium.  Just to be associated with the brand. Because they like what owning an iPhone says about them as a consumer.  This way of thinking - no compromises, no price battles - has led Apple from the brink of bankruptcy, to becoming the most valuable company in the world.  Look at the Macintosh. Despite Apple's stubbornly small market share, which (to my knowledge) has never topped 10 percent of PC sales,  Apple rakes in a giant share of the industry's profits .  This is a fundamental truth, and one which Steve Jobs conclusively proved at Apple: create great things, and people ...

No one talks about the iPod anymore. I only know of two types of people using them these days - preteens using iPod touches for gaming, and people using old Nanos or Shuffles for running.   And, I suppose, my sister, who has an iPod permanently residing in a dock and acting as her home stereo system. But for about 6 years, from 2001 until the iPhone's announcement in 2007, it was THE gadget.  Music only, and we liked it that way. When the iPhone was just a rumor, one critic memorably said "I love my iPod. I don't want it to ring ." These are the 5 "Greatest" iPods. They're not necessarily the 5 "best" iPods - obviously, the Touch is the most capable, "best" iPod. But can it really be called the "greatest", when it's practically an afterthought in the Apple product line? And these iPods aren't being graded on a curve, either. Obviously, the original iPod was the most revolutionary for its time...

I wrote a post, about a week or so ago, expressing skepticism about the Apple iWatch rumors.  Basically, my thought process boiled down to " People wouldn't want to show off an iWatch, so Apple shouldn't make one ". And still the rumors continue to build.... Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Apple was experimenting with some sort of curved-glass wristwatch, which would have some iOS functionality. I still didn't get it, and wrote it off as an "Apple HDTV" type of wish-rumor.  After all, it's been a few years since Steve Jobs wowed us all with the iPad. Tablets are mainstream now. We want to be astounded by Apple again. So we look around our houses and try to figure out what products Apple could improve upon. And for the moment, the idea is wristwatches. 

The Wall Street Journal and a number of other outlets reported last week that Apple was going to begin producing a cheaper iPhone, presumably going after the "economy phone" market. It would cost users nothing with a 2-year contract, and it would only cost Apple all of the ideals they hold most dear, and much of their current business model.   I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration. But not entirely.  Story time! 15 years ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Their stock price was in the single digits, and had been for essentially the entire nineties. They were lost. I was still an Apple fanboy, and purchased a Mac LC 3 to take with me to college.  The Mac LC (which stands for "low-cost color") is precisely the kind of misguided product that the  low-cost iPhone - let's call it the "iPhone LC" would be. The computer was so underpowered that  a warning bubble popped up telling me that it literally could not run the MacPaint so...

I've read a few reviews of the Ronin case by Element, and, true, it's not the most practical purchase at $199. It's a phone case. But just look at it . The wooden sides, curved ever so slightly. The milled aluminum. The leather back . The last time I felt this way toward a gadget was when I saw the first iPhone. It's just so perfect looking. I guess I'm a sucker for wood trim on my electronics... And since when does practicality enter into the equation? I'm buying a $250 thermostat , for crying out loud, and I definitely spend a lot more time with my phone in my hand than I do my thermostat. Okay, I've convinced myself. I'm buying this thing. And I'll take pictures and review it here.

I imagine that headline sums up a pretty common course of action these days. I just dropped AT&T wireless, after 6 years of iPhone fun. Things had gotten a bit better following our move to the suburbs. Back in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood, it was common to have no service whatsoever. AT&T explained that a cell tower had completely failed in our neighborhood, creating a "dead zone", and that there were no current concrete plans to repair it. And still, they offered no solutions whatsoever. No microcell, no equipment swap, no SIM replacement, nothing. Basically, a "deal with it" stance. Which is their prerogative.