What Is Wrong With Steve Jobs?

I have no information about anything, but if I didn't know better, I'd say Steve Jobs has cancer. He looks absolutely terrible. He's dropped a serious amount of weight.

Does Apple have their succession planning lined up? It's been a problem for them, since Jobs returned. Who will steer the Apple ship sans Jobs? No one knows. Anyway, it was so alarming, I just had to note it.

By the way, I'm so excited about the new iPhone. I want one! Of course, I have the old iPhone which works perfectly well. Just greedy.

New iPhone Desires

So, I love my iPhone. Still love it after all this time. Gizmodo has a wishlist for the new iPhone that's coming out just in time for Father's Day. There are good suggestions there. Some I'd like to reinforce and add:

First, the Edge network sucks ass. It is just so freakin' slow! AT&T needs to make it better. Or, the iPhone needs to be liberated to be on all networks. Apple works to thwart that of course. Rock on, hackers!

Second, phone calls inexplicably drop. What. In. The. Hell. As bad as I hated Sprint and the little piece of crap phone I had, phone calls didn't drop. I hope Apple fixes this. It's a problem with the phone.

Third, it's a hop and a skip to make the iPhone have GPS. Steve Jobs: make it so!

I haven't had problems with battery life, but my sister has suffered with hers.

The other thing is this: I want to be able to blog from my phone. At least a little post. That will only happen if the network speed and the iPhone's speed itself, gets quicker. I've gotten used to the typing on it. I just want it to not be so dang slow navigating the web.

I still love my phone. I just want more. Give me more!

Sales of Macs Up 50%

Hello! That's because Macs are better.

Around and About

Tigerhawk asks, "Is John McCain a cylon?" My only thing is this: Why'd they go and make a cylon with a faulty arm? Does it have some special fighting capability? Is the arm actually weaponized? That's my theory. It's not just an arm, it's a diversion and a weapon. Makes him look old, but he could kill you. I believe that anyway. McCain scares me.

If you don't know about the Canadian human rights commission crap, go here and here. This is important people. One of my favorite Canadian bloggers, Small Dead Animals, is being sued because he used speech that some dude in Canada didn't like. Imagine saying something a liberal didn't like and being hauled before a bureaucrat (this isn't a real court with a real judge, this is just some pencil pusher who is "following the rules") to defend yourself. Canada sucks.

The Pope is visiting New York. Catholics are happy (especially cult escapees). I'm not Catholic, but I have found myself warming to the Pontiff. He's an acquired taste. Pope John Paul was more approachable.

Glenn Reynolds needs a new phone soon but says that it won't be the iPhone. Too bad for you, is what I say. I love my iPhone. The direction GPS stuff is phenomenal (I got around San Antonio and upstate New York with it)--no more maps. I text and IM on it. I love the visual messages. I keep track of my schedule. I read the news. Hell, Instapundit is one of my saved pages. Really, this little machine is my life. It were to disappear. Aughhhh!

Advice for men giving women advice at the gun range: Back the frak off! Ditto advice at the gym. No joke, a girlfriend of mine is ripped, could be in body building competitions and she gets guys coming up to her in the gym explaining how to use the equipment. Same thing happens to me. When I say, I'm a chiropractor, yadda, yadda, guys will still press on advising. Sheesh! They would never do that with a guy, ever.

I am consistently impressed with Shiite cleric Ali Sistani over in Iraq. This man, who seems to live behind some mysterious shroud, has consistently put the best interests of Iraq first. It has to be life-threatening to be standing firm the way he does. It is also life-threatening to be one of al-Sadr's henchmen. C'est la vie mon cherie terrorist thug!

Have I told you people that I loath Keith Olbermann? If I have, I haven't said it enough.

Poor, poor Hillary! She's being hated on because she's a woman. If her hearty chortle, lack of humor, boorish behavior and leftist rhetoric were coming from a man, he would definitely be a shoo-in for president. Definitely.

Finally, egads! Mitt Romney won first place in a blogger poll as Veep to McCain. Heaven help us! I must be out of touch because who in sam hill is hot for Romney? He as inspiring as as....cordovan wing tips. What the hell? Michael Steele? Now, him, I like.

Apple Stuff

Here's a good round-up of what's going on in Apple land--family, pay attention!

iPhone's New Software Updates

So, I love my iPhone. Love. It. It goes with me everywhere and does almost everything I want it to. They updated something, though, and it ticks me off. One nice feature of the phone is the ability to dump all your email addresses into one place using POP. That means I can see my email, keep it, delete it, but it's still in my Gmail file. Well, now, Apple has this IMAP deal and when you delete a message on your phone, it's deleted everywhere. Me no likey. And there's no way to change it. So, I have to stare at a bloated in-box on my iPhone just like I have to stare at one in my Gmail account.

I'm not alone in my irritation. Apple needs to allow both formats. This is not a big deal. When is it a good idea to take away flexibility? Hmmm....??

On an up note, last week while running, my iPhone popped out of my pocket, fell on the ground and I stepped on it. The bottom part came a bit loose, but everything worked okay. Still, everything wasn't smooth and flush and I feared that a mere bump would cause a problem. So, I took it into the store with trepidation. I didn't deserve mercy, that's for sure, but I have a zillion Mac things now, and have paid for extended warranties on everything including the iPhone. The guy looked at it and said, "We'll just replace it." I was stunned and thrilled. Wow. What service!

I already tell everyone about the phone and how much I love it and all the other Mac products, too. Now, I'm letting you all know that the great thing about buying Mac these days isn't just superior products, but superior service and support. Half the time, we have these machines and don't know what the heck we're doing. Apple helps you figure it out. That alone is worth the extra bucks for their product. Good luck finding a Dell person to help you use the software and figure everything out.

iPhone Two Months Later

Shhhhhh, don't tell my husband, but I dropped my iPhone while running today from about three feet, in motion, onto the cement. It's fine. Nary a scrape. Whew. The thing does seem nigh to indestructible.

You might like to know how the iPhone is going. The touch screen is no problem, not great yet for blogging, but still, I use it to email and surf and it's fine. And there's cool new aps for it. (More here.) I'm not a Starbucks fan, but the idea of ordering my drink, pushing a button to pay for it and then picking up the coffee is way cool. I'm still waiting for Apple to create a teleportation device that just puts the drink in your car cup-holder, but I think they're still working on it.

Update: The iPhone just didn't change phones, it changed the industry. Perhaps the most annoying group of businesses in the U.S. is in the Telecom industry. Archaic and abusive to their customers, they need shaking up. The iPhone is just the start.

iPhone Camera Pic

The quality surprises me, actually. The key is keeping the camera stable. An unsteady hand is punished by the iPhone.

iLove the iPhone

OK, so there were some respected blog-friends who sniffed derisively at the iPhone. Pardon me, but, um, I don't get it.

My iPhone is nothing short of trés magnifique.

It takes pictures with a ginormous screen. It auto-downloads my contacts. It keeps track of recent conversations. I can grab the time, weather, etc. in minutes. It picks up Wi-Fi. I can blog from anywhere!! It plays tunes. It is so gorgeous, it makes me weepy.

This thing makes me think I'll actually use it to keep track of my schedule. I hated PDAs, bulky and overkill. Crackberry? No thank you very much. My sister is one slave too many. I just used one of those free mini-calendars you get from the bank, or used to. But this is awesome. Clear and big and everywhere with me.

The camera isn't great, but it's not bad. I actually took a great shot of my son tonight. The music will be fine. The other iPod will be permanently in the speaker system, I guess. The shuffle will still go to the gym when that happens. If that happens.

Anyway, I had no trouble setting it up. No need to beg my bro for tech support. Oh! It fades so I can call or be called and then picks right up with the music.

In short, it's everything I hoped for. Technological immediate gratification.

The New Nano

Even the commercial bugs me, so the whole marketing Babel that is Apple seems askew this time. The fatness bothers me, too. James Lileks says:

Anyway. I looked at the Nano, marveled at the screen, played with Cover Flow, held it in my hand, said a silent hosannah for the miracles of modern technology, then left the store without one. Because I don’t like it. I should check the tank to see if the Kool-Aid level is low, but I’ve never liked the new Nano. It’s too squat and stubby for my tastes. Naturally, this means that people who do like it are wrong and have no aesthetic sense and I sneer at them, preferably from behind a pseudonym on a gadget-blog comments section where I tout the virtues of another player that weighs six pounds and has an interface that makes a wall of Egyptian heiroglyphs look like a Dick and Jane primer.

New technology does breed sneering. And it does breed cheering. This I cheer for. I almost told the husband, but I see a gift in his future and so I refrained from sharing the cheering. I keep thinking we'll be on gadget overload. I keep thinking wrong.

Apple iPhone Hack Attack

To my way of thinking, the only loser in this whole mess is AT&T. It seems to be to Apple's advantage to have their phones on all networks. Everyone can use them. There is obviously a market for them.

People like me are stuck with Sprint because I'm too big of a tightwad to buy a phone on another network until the contract is over. Of course, by then all the bugs should be out of the iPhone, too. Lots of people would like on in the meantime, though, and will pay a premium to get it.

AT&T is in trouble. The lawsuit may be AT&T suing Apple.

H/T Instapundit