Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Accessorizing

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So my shiny iPhone 4S has been in my hot little hands for a couple of days now and I’ve been searching for some new accessories for it. For the moment, I’m making do with a couple of silicone cases I had for my iPhone 4, which don’t quite fit given the mute switch’s change in location.

But first up is some screen protection. I have used screen protectors on damn near every gadget I’ve ever had in the past several years to avoid mishaps with my keys in my purse or coins in my pockets. Also, fingerprint marks drive me nuts and I tend to favor matte protectors so they don’t build up as quickly or stand out as much.

So far, here’s what I plan on getting:

1.  SGP Ultra Fine Screen and Body Protector set (Amazon affiliate link)

I have used screen protectors from Brando (review) and Power Support before but SGP has taken over the top spot on my list since they offer the best clarity in their matte screen protectors to my eyes. I’ve had this same screen protector on my iPhone 4 and it’s been great. I just ordered this set and should have it in a few days.

2.  Incipio Feather Ultralight Hard Shell case (Amazon affiliate link)

Around the house, I usually just pop my iPhone into a Speck Pixelskin case but this case is too thick and grippy to make it practical for me when I leave the house. When I’m out running errands, my iPhone usually goes into a pocket and since I’ve found that pockets in the jeans I like are quite tiny (I’m firmly convinced that the Gap clothing designers make the jeans pockets small to save money on material, or they have abnormal teeny tiny hands by which they make their pocket measurements), jamming my iPhone in a grippy rubber case into them does not work.

So, something a little sleeker is in order. Chris Meinck, with whom I co-host the everythingiCafe podcast, has had a very good experience with the Incipio Feather case for his iPhones in the past and I’m going to follow his recommendation this time around. I’m getting a black matte one that has a soft-touch coating, which should offer a bit more grip while not adding much bulk.

(My friend Bob has a spare one of these made for the iPhone 4 that he picked up at a gdgt event that he’s going to send to me. Thanks, Bob!)

For snowboarding season, I think I’m going to try out the LifeProof case. It’s supposed to be fairly shockproof and waterproof, which is good given the horrendous winter conditions I normally see on the mountains here in the northeast.

Of course, I’ll post about and/or review any exciting new accessories I get. For those of you who got an iPhone 4S, what accessories are you buying?

I <3 UPS (and my iPhone 4S)

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At around 9:15 a.m. ET this morning, I was puttering around the kitchen, having stepped away from my computer to make some coffee to begin the caffeine infusion that would render me coherent enough to work. My dog barked once and then growled, the low sound rumbling through his deep chest as he stared in the direction of the window.

I dismissed it as nothing since he goes through this exercise several times a day, often for no reason that I can see. But then I heard the grumbling of a large diesel engine and went to peek outside. It couldn’t be the UPS truck – it was way too early. The UPS truck usually hit my neighborhood around 11:00 a.m. most of the time. With my iPhone 4S delivery on schedule for today, I thought that I was going to be looking out the window and hearing ghost trucks a lot today.

But it *was* the UPS truck. And I squeed. I couldn’t even help it. It just popped out – a high-pitched, girly screech that made my dog stand up and look around to see what had bitten me.

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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.

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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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