iPhone: Best Gadget Ever

On Wednesday September 5th, as Steve Jobs was delivering his keynote speech, I was listening to what he had to say about the new iPods. I was expecting new top-of-the-line products as Apple always delivers. But a $200 price cut? That was enough to get me to run out of the office during work to the Apple Store on 5th Ave. to buy an iPhone.

Many of you know that all summer I had talked over and over and over about wanting to get one. But two factors stood in the way: 1) Price and 2) I was still under contract with Sprint until August 17th.

So that was that and I had expected that I'd wait until next year to buy whatever iPhone 2.0 would be. But a $200 price cut was too good to pass up and since I rationalized that I did not do anything for myself for my birthday, an iPhone would be a perfect gift for myself.

Two weeks have gone by and I've used the iPhone pretty much to its full potential. And I gotta say:

IT'S THE BEST DAMN GADGET I'VE EVER BOUGHT

More so than my PSP, XBOX 360, PS3, Nintendo Wii, Treo 650, hell, even my old Tivo box that I use to rave about. Notice I didn't say that it's the most perfect gadget I've ever bought. It has its flaws and the flaws are pretty apparent once you get to know it. But here's my basic overall review:

• It's Sexy - I find myself constantly wanting to rub off the smudges and smooth out any scratches on it. It's sleek, it's thin and looks great, better than any other phone that I've owned.



• Phone - The phone part of it isn't its strongest point. I really wish the earpiece volume was a tad bit louder because a soft volume walking down the street in New York City doesn't really help. It's not impossible to hear and in a quiet environment, like my apartment, it's more than adequate. It just needs to have that extra umph in a loud city like NYC.



• iPod video/music - Oh man is this a sexy iPod. I love being able to flip through covers and tapping on music. The other day, I kept ripping DVDs and now I have 300 megabytes of music on the device and now 6 gigs of video including NewsRadio, The Office episodes as well as films like "Jerry Maguire" and "The Man Who Wasn't There."



• Internet Device - The web browser is great. I like being able to view REAL websites and not half-assed versions of them on what you see on smartphones. I've already bought a DVD through Amazon on the iPhone, I've managed my fantasy football team last week and I've sent instant messages through online IM web chat. Just marvelous.



• Keyboard - For months, I was skeptical about using the keyboard on the touchpad. And it took a few days to get used to but now, I feel like I'm a pro on it, as good as I was on the Treo. Just watch me type "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood."

As more updates and hacks are released for the iPhone, I'm sure I'll get more use out of it in the coming weeks. I'm absolutely looking forward to iPhone 2.0 as well. Steve Jobs, thanks for this wonderful product.

A summer of, well, experiences

I entered this blog address knowing that it had been a while since I last posted anything but I had no idea the last time was May 20, 2007 when I had went on about one of my favorite TV shows, "The Shield," right after its season finale. I guess it was right at the beginning of summer and so, well, I got lazy about writing anything.

But now that summer is slowly fading into the darkness once again, I thought I'd jot something briefly about my summer.

It was an eventful summer but then again, it wasn't. I know that doesn't make any sense but hear me out: my summers are usually filled with disappointment in that I usually make a checklist of things I want to accomplish and I end up usually not doing any of them. Well, same thing happened again for the most part. But a lot of unexpected things did happen which I guess made me grow up a little bit as a person. So here we go:

• Mourning Loved Ones - Up until this summer, I had never been to a funeral, let alone lose someone that I knew. However, in the course of just four weeks, I attended two funerals, one for someone I considered a friend and another for a good friend's sister. I wrote an obituary for Dan Epstein on CineCon, something which I put a lot of time into considering out of all the movie web geeks that I know in the City, he was the one whom I knew the longest. As for my friend's sister, I unfortunately didn't know her that well but knew how much she meant to her big brother and given that she had just graduated from college and was celebrating her birthday just a week earlier with her family, it was just a hearbreaking set of events. Dan, Kathy: I hope you're both in a better place and we'll all miss you.


• Augh, I'm stuck in Midtown West for ANOTHER year! - One of my goals this summer was to move out. And guess what? After searching in Manhattan, Long Island City, Brooklyn...I'm once again dealing with Times Square tourists outside my apartment.


• Dated a blonde French girl! - I didn't see that one coming.


• Once again, I waste my half day Fridays - Last year I kicked myself for not taking any weekends off to leave New York City since my job gave me half day Fridays. Well, we got half day Fridays this year. And once again, I confined myself to New York City for the most part for three months. NEXT year...oh who am I kidding.


• The College Gang - I did, however, get to see a lot more of my friends this summer, something I was pleased with. Cornell A9/A10 guys - I miss y'all.

Well, those were the things that stuck out in my mind. I'm sure I could name more stuff but it's 11 pm on a Friday and I'm ridiculously tired. I'm going to make it a point to start jotting thoughts here again.

I promise.