Marianne Schultz

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everythingiCafe: the show “Visionary”

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Chris Meinck and I recorded episode 38 of the everythingiCafe.com podcast on Sunday and it’s now available to download via iTunes (or you can listen to it right here using the embedded audio player above).

We talked about the iPhone 4S announcement and preorders and iOS 5. We also talked briefly about the death of Steve Jobs to offer our condolences to his friends and family and note the passing of a true visionary in the technology industry.

My Teh Awesome for the week was the official Apple Store app (link opens iTunes) solely because it finally let me preorder my iPhone 4S last week after all other methods failed me miserably (you can read about my preorder experience here). It’s a free app and beyond placing orders for Apple products, you can join the queue to get support while in an Apple store and more.

Chris’s Teh Suck this week was AT&T Wireless, who backtracked on letting him go back to an older voice plan despite promising this when prompting him to move up to a more expensive plan to avoid overage charges. AT&T is not my favorite company (my last beef with them came from their decision to only offer a single unlimited texting plan to new customers for $20 per month) and this behavior on their part does not surprise me, frankly.

Our schedule for upcoming podcasts is still a bit up in the air but you can get the latest news on when we’ll be recording/broadcasting by checking this thread in the everythingiCafe forum or following @everythingicafe on Twitter.

[frame]What do you think of our show? I have one free promo code for each of the following songs for the first two people who post a comment on this post with some feedback on our podcast. Tell me what you like, don’t like, or what you wish we’d change or add.

Note: these links open iTunes

These codes are good for U.S. iTunes store accounts only and expire in December 2011. When you comment, be sure to use your real email account (it will not be visible to others) since this is how I’ll send you the code. The first commenter gets to pick which song you want while the second gets whichever song is left. 🙂

[/frame]

Waiting

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Gah! I can barely contain my excitement to receive my new iPhone 4S on Friday. My Apple online store order status is “Prepared for shipment” so it should be on its way soon.

ohpleasefortheloveofgodfedexdonotmessupthisdelivery

(I’m hoping Apple will use UPS for my order this time – the UPS guy who delivers to our area is great and usually hits our neighborhood in the morning.)

On a related note, my favorite app for tracking packages is Delivery Status touch by Junecloud (link opens iTunes). I do most of my shopping online and once I enter tracking numbers in this app, I can see the current ETA and other information for each one easily. I can guarantee you I will enter the tracking number for my iPhone 4S into Delivery Status touch as soon as I get it. And I’ll probably check it about 5,563 times until it arrives at my door.

You may think I’m exaggerating with that number. I’m not.

Anyway, my trusty iPhone 4 is still going strong and at this point, I will not be updating it to iOS 5 on Wednesday since it’s currently jailbroken and unlocked and I want to keep it that way for the moment. I’m not sure about whether or not I’m going to sell it since I might keep it around as a testing device. Though my car is now due for new brakes (thank you, handy brake pad wear indicator warning light), which will cost me a pretty penny so we’ll see.

If you’re thinking of selling an older iPhone to upgrade to the iPhone 4S, check out this handy guide I wrote for everythingiCafe. Though it was written just before the release of the iPhone 4 last year, the information there is still very relevant.

If you want to try an electronics reseller service instead of going through eBay, craigslist or similar, I used Gazelle to get rid of my first-generation iPad to upgrade to the iPad 2 and my review of how that worked for me is up on my old blog here.

If you get your iPhone 4S early, please comment here so that I may rant and rave in a fit of violent nerd jealousy. I will then curse your name to the heavens until the moment my own iPhone 4S arrives, at which point I will see nothing but my precioussss for at least a few hours.

Hours of sleep: 5
  iPhone 4S preorders placed: 1
 Crankiness level: High

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My alarm clock jarred me out of a sound sleep and it took me a few moments to remember why I’d set my alarm for 2:55 a.m. Oh, yeah. I needed to preorder my iPhone 4S. The thought of getting my hands on the new iPhone served well to rouse me and I reached over to my current iPhone to preorder one with the Apple Store app.

But the Apple online store was still offline and displaying that “We’ll be back soon” message on a virtual yellow sticky note. I was very familiar with that sticky note thanks to many previous preorder efforts for other new Apple products. I hated it. With a passion.

I dragged myself out of my warm, comfortable bed and hunted down some slippers and a robe to brave the cold floor and the fall chill that had worked its way into the house. I made my way down to my home office and sat down in front of my computer with a sigh. I woke it from sleep with a tap on the keyboard. Unlike me, it did not notice the late hour and woke without any disorientation.

I went to the Apple store site and saw the same cheerful virtual sticky note. And I kept seeing it for the next 30 minutes after refreshing the page over and over and over again.

I wanted to tear that sticky note into tiny little pieces.

[Read more…]

3:00 a.m. eternal

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[frame]I’m incredibly sad about the passing of Steve Jobs even though I’d never met him personally. The world has lost an incredible visionary. My condolences go out to his friends and family and others who are touched by his death.

I began the remainder of this post (below) yesterday morning and was planning on completing and posting it last night but opted to delay it given the sad news about Steve Jobs.[/frame]

Yesterday was crazy, wasn’t it? All those rumors and the speculation frenzy came to a head as Apple finally unveiled the next Jesus Phone, the iPhone 4S that will be available starting October 14 (and go up for pre-order on October 7). Was it what I expected? Not really. Am I still going to buy one? You betcha.

As I’ve mentioned, I really expected Apple to come out with a new design to make a “real” iPhone 5 and differentiate it from the iPhone 4. Clearly, I was wrong. Perhaps this is Apple preparing us for how their iPhone cycle will work for the next few years?

The Loop points out an interesting article that speculates on what it takes to design a new iPhone, particularly one with 4G/LTE. It’s a pretty long piece but the general gist for you TL;DR folks is that it takes a lot of engineering work to move to a new cellular radio chipset platform and integrate it with custom hardware. Considering everything outlined there, I was probably underestimating the complexity of building a new iPhone model.

At any rate, this isn’t new to us long-time iPhone users. Apple did this no-design-change-but-other-internal-improvements dance when going from the iPhone 3G to the 3GS. It’s certainly easier when it comes to accessories, both for the manufacturers and consumers who upgrade to the new iPhone each year (since they don’t need to buy all new accessories for a new device). And I must admit that I am a bit happy I won’t have to go out and buy new cases, screen protectors, etc. Though I could also view this as an excuse to buy some new accessories I had held off from buying because I was expecting an iPhone with a new design – the TwelveSouth BookBook (affiliate link) comes to mind.

So far, it sounds like Apple will open pre-orders for the iPhone 4S at 12:00 a.m. Pacific time on October 7. Since I’m on the east coast, I’ll be setting my alarm to wake up just before 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on Friday morning to place my preorder for one shiny black 64GB iPhone 4S.

It will be possible to place a preorder using the Apple Store iOS app, which is the route I plan to try out first so I can try to avoid even leaving my warm and cozy bed in the middle of the night. Laziness FTW.

Will you be ordering an iPhone 4S?

Note: The title of this post is a reference to The KLF’s one-hit wonder (iTunes link) that came out in the early 90’s. Yes, I know my mind is a strange place.

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