Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Geeky girl strikes out at Genius Bar

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I wrote about my experience getting a Rev. B (the second update to the model, for those of you uninitiated in Apple geek speak) MacBook Air last November. I promptly declared it perfect, and frankly, overlooked an issue that has become more glaring the more I use it: gray lines on the display. MacNN wrote about this issue in December and there has been much discussion on the MacRumors.com forum dedicated to the MacBook Air about it. So, I finally decided to take it into an Apple store to see if anything could be done about it. I’ll be honest – the only viable solution in my head was a replacement, and if a screen replacement was going to be offered, I was going to decline. I have horrible luck with these sorts of things and I envisioned it coming back to me with multiple dings and scratches and even more prominent gray lines on the screen. No, thank you.

A bit tricky to see here, but the damn things are there! Grrr!
(Photo courtesy of Macrumors.com)
I traipse happily into my local Apple store Friday afternoon just in time for my appointment. Unfortunately, the Genius I get is absolutely unsympathetic to my plight, claiming to barely seen the lines, thinking that they could actually be part of the screen’s anti-glare coating, though he retracted this when I pointed out it has a glossy screen and they’re not visible when the screen is off. He was completely immune to my geek girl charm, even though I was wearing my Nerds 4 Ever shirt and my stylish-yet-serious glasses (they’re Versace, biotch!). I must be losing my touch.
He offered to replace the screen, which would take 3 to 5 days. I begged off since, a.) I can’t do with my Mac for that long at this time (or for any amount of time, as sad as that sounds), and b.) as I mentioned, I’m not letting anyone manhandle my beloved MacBook Air. So, I’ll live with the lines. They don’t bother me too much unless I’m thinking about it and they’re not an issue at all when I have it connected to my 20″ Cinema Display, which I use as my main display, of course.
At any rate, it does appear to be a widespread issue – it’s noted in a couple of discussion threads at the Apple Support forums here and here, on a ZDNet review of the MacBook Air here, and in the aforementioned MacRumors forums here. Now, I’m not the kind of girl who goes to start petitions and picket lines when I’m riled up about something, but I have half a mind to add my support to others experiencing this issue to get Apple to address it. I’ve never seen these lines on any of the previous Mac portables I’ve used (multiple MacBooks and PowerBooks over the years) and I don’t think they’re normal. What bothers me most is that I paid $2,500 for this computer, and while I don’t expect perfection in every unit that comes off of a production line, I don’t expect to see a widespread issue like this manifest itself. I’ve read of some folks who open up their new Macs while they’re still at the store to check it over before they leave with it. I think I’m going to start doing that the next time I get a new Mac…

Must. Get. iPhone. 3G S.

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I’ve already said that I definitely plan on getting the new iPhone 3G S. However, how I do it this time around is going to be a bit different. See, I waited in line at an Apple or an AT&T store to get my first-generation iPhone and my first iPhone 3G. This time around, I’m not eligible for upgrade pricing from AT&T to get the 32GB iPhone 3G S for $299 (which doesn’t surprise me and does not cause me to complain since they subsidized my first iPhone 3G less than a year ago), so I’m going to try to get it through a kind friend with family in New Zealand where they will hopefully be sold in a factory-unlocked state again. However, I still may get one from AT&T on launch date and then just return it before the 30-day return period is up. I’m not sure I can bear not having the latest iPhone for at least a little while after it’s released.

Also, I’m pursuing this sneaky method of getting an iPhone 3G S because I don’t want to sign up for another 2 years with AT&T. While I have no plans to switch providers, I’m tired enough of them that I don’t want to be stuck with them. I still remember the change in text messaging from the first-generation iPhone to the iPhone 3G. With the first-generation iPhone, 200 text messages were included for free with the data plan, and this changed with the iPhone 3G, requiring $5/month to get 200 text messages. So, in addition to the $10/month bump in the cost of the data plan, you had to pay $5/month more to get the same number of text messages, adding up to an additional $180 per year in plan costs to go from the first-generation iPhone to the iPhone 3G. Bastards.

Now that you know about my devious iPhone 3G S obtainment plan, I must say that I am in iPhone heaven right about now what with the final 3.0 version coming out soon and the TomTom and Navigon navigation apps due out soon. I’ve used TomTom devices and software for years now, but I think I’ll also check out Navigon’s to see if I like it more. I know TomTom is putting out a cradle to go with theirs, but suction-cup window mounts inevitably drive me batty by falling off no matter what I do and I already have a ProClip mount in my car that I’d rather keep using. However, the TomTom window mount accessory will have one major thing in its favor – its own GPS receiver to supplement the iPhone’s. I imagine this will result in better GPS reception and tracking while you’re on the move, providing an advantage over the Navigon app. Hmmm, I don’t know. What if I buy the Navigon app but find that the iPhone’s GPS chip isn’t really robust enough to provide solid navigation? Then I’d have to buy the TomTom app to go with the GPS-boosted cradle. I suppose I should wait for reviews, or get impatient and just do my own review to see. 😉
TomTom has put their iPhone app and cradle video up on YouTube:
On the Mac front, I’m not entirely thrilled about the substantially-lowered price of the MacBook Air considering what I paid for mine in November, but I am happy about the $29 upgrade price for Snow Leopard. As I type this, my husband’s MacBook appears to have gone tits up, and I’m trying to duplicate his hard drive before I need to do anything drastic to fix it. He’s running Tiger and did not have Time Machine to automatically back up his data, and I think it’s high time to get him to Leopard, or Snow Leopard at this point, to remedy this situation since he’s apparently bound and determined to not back up on his own. Which I’ve told him he should do. Several times. How bad would it be if I made up an “I told you so” song and sing it to him repeatedly when he gets home from work today? Are we talking wife-strangling bad? Or just I-won’t-speak-to-you-for-a-few-days bad? It would be really helpful to know this in advance. 

Where to get live WWDC coverage

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As I’m sure you already know, I’m going to be glued to my computer during the WWDC keynote. I’ll likely have multiple browser windows open to see what’s going on and here are the sites on which I’ll be focusing:

Apple won’t be broadcasting the keynote live online, which is SOP for them. If they did, I’d have to imagine the stream would peter out shortly after going live from the number of viewers who would try to tune in. Last year, IIRC, a member of the press started to stream video of the keynote live, but that died soon after word got around on the internet about it and more people tried to watch it. If any journalist who will be attending the keynote would like to try this, please send me a link to your stream – I promise not to send it to anyone else. Really.
Prayer of the Selfish Child by Shel Silverstein
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my toys to break.
So none of the other kids can use ’em…
Amen.

Living vicariously through others at the Pre launch

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So, I was able to withstand the temptation to get a Palm Pre over the weekend, but that did not stop me from harassing my friend, Bob, for every last detail of his experience in buying one. Bob shares my gadget obsession and he had been trying to decide which cell phone to get next. Of course, I had thrown the iPhone out there as an option for him, but he wanted to see how things would go with Sprint, his current carrier, which is understandable.

I hadn’t been aware of this until Friday, but apparently WalMart was also set to sell Pres at launch, and it appeared that they were willing to sell them at midnight on Friday based on what Bob heard from a local store manager. Unfortunately, this was turned out to be complete misinformation, so it was necessary for him to brave the lines on Saturday morning along with the rest of the world.
At a Sprint store in California, the line wasn’t too long. The first person had gotten there around 5:00 am, and they handed out numbers to everyone in line, so it was possible to actually leave the line to grab a coffee or something and come back a little later after you’d gotten your number. The store had 30 Pres, so most of the people in line were able to get one. The only negative parts were that they were saying that activation would take 45 minutes (!) for each person, and you could not leave the store without activating a Pre (Sprint was definitely taking a line out of AT&T’s iPhone play book with this one). Accessories were limited, with no Touchstones in stock.

The line at a local Sprint store at around 8:00 am

Bob ended up getting his Pre at the local WalMart. He went back there after he’d gotten his number ticket from the Sprint store and found only a couple of people waiting for the mobile phone department to open in order to buy a Pre. Because of the SNAFU from the night before when a manager had told him he could buy one at midnight, one of the 3 Pres in stock was on hold for him. He bought it and was done well before he would have even made it inside the Sprint store given his position in that line.
Bob thinks the Pre is nice, but he’s sorely missing syncing it with Outlook on his PC and may end up returning it, and I can’t blame him one bit. Intellectually, I understand why Palm wanted to make the move to avoid the standard sync-with-computer method (there’s an article on Ars Technica that explains it here), but I certainly don’t agree with it. While I don’t necessarily view the data on my Mac to be the single authoritative source of all of my PIM data, I don’t want to have to refer to my phone or some web-based service to find it when I’m sitting at my computer. I make changes to my data on both my computer and my iPhone, and I want them to stay in sync with each other, which they do remarkably well thanks to MobileMe. I think Palm is missing the point on this as computers become more and more portable in the form of netbooks where a cell phone won’t be the only computing device you might have with you at any given time.

The Pre’s packaging looking just like that of the Treo Pro

Unbelievably, I never even made it to a Sprint store over the weekend to try to see a working Pre demo unit (it was a busy weekend full of lawn mowing, shopping with a friend, and a BBQ) and I doubt I’ll get the chance until next weekend. This is probably going to be very good timing for me anyway since a new iPhone is expected to be announced today and I’ll be less tempted to get a Pre after that. There have even been rumors that the new iPhone model would be available today after it’s announced at WWDC – I highly doubt this, but I would surely exceed every speed limit on my way to my closest Apple store if that turns out to be true somehow.

My favorite fake shot of the 3rd-generation iPhone

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Speculation and rumors abound on the internet about what will be revealed at WWDC next week. Of course, my guess (along with just about every other Mac fan out there) is that a new iPhone will be released. I’ve seen a number of fake pictures on the internet, but this is the one I like the best:

I’ve seen this over at everythingicafe.com and a few other sites. I could seriously dig a new iPhone that looks like that. I’ve seen the picture/rumor of the matte case back for some time now and I wouldn’t mind that at all. I hate shiny surfaces that attract fingerprints like there’s no tomorrow, particularly on a device that’s frequently handled. I think all cell phones should have matte surfaces – if I were queen, I’d make it so. 
Only a few more days to go before the WWDC keynote!
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