iPhone DIY

If you're anything like me, you probably don't deserve nice, expensive playthings because it'd slip through your butterfingers and break/crack/die pretty soon after you buy it.

My iPhone has survived 20 months living with me and it's barely in one piece. Poor thing. Today I decided to replace the antenna cover. Here's a DIY site on how to take your iPhone apart. Here's where you can get cheapie iPhone spare parts. Gawd I love the internets :)

S asked me recently if I wanted to swap my 1st-gen iPhone with her 3G iPhone since she only used her's for weather updates. I looked at her as if she was crazy and an impolite, "NO WAY!" slipped out of my mouth. I also constantly get friends asking me why I don't get a cover for my iPhone to protect it.

I loves my iPhone. I love how it looks. I love its dents, its scratches, its mini patch of lines on the left side of the screen. I love how I hacked it with a chip back in the early days! It's got personality and history. I've taken it everywhere with me over the past 20 months. It doesn't need some pansy-fancy-schmancy ugly cover for protection (sorry if you've got one *grin*). Like me, it just needs a new dress to spruce it up once in awhile ;)

I'm not giving up on it yet.

So ronery :(

This evening I dropped off my MBP at the Apple store. My heart-strings tugged as I left it at the store. As usual, I had to beg for this appointment last weekend, and then deal with an Appletard tonight. It's funny, try saying something "anti-Apple" at the "Genius" Bar and just watch how defensive the Appletards get *grin*

Me: "It's unbelievable that I've spent so much money on this machine and when I talk to other Mac users, we all have the same problems. It's always the battery, fans or harddrive."
Appletard: "I find most Mac users who complain don't know what they're talking about."

I don't bother to mention that I'm in IT and so is everyone one else I talk to about Mac problems.

Awhile ago, my left fan made the most evilest of clunking noises. It almost sounded like it was grinding walnuts in there. When the noise stopped, I knew it had died. Hence, I'm getting both left and right fans replaced. The right one is just in case :P When I was trying to burn some stuff for backup last night, guess what? My optical drive died. Slowly, my beautiful machine is falling apart on me. So far, it's had the battery, logic board and power adapter replaced. The new fans and optical drive will make my machine an official Frankenstein :(

How much is all this costing me?
Drive: £146
Fan left: £9
Fan right: £9
Hardware repair: £40
Tax: £35.71
Grand Poobah Total: £239.71

DAMN YOU APPLE!! Squiddie-grubbing monsters!

Me: "Hey, what's this here about a £100 diagnostics fee? Do I have to pay more?"
Appletard: "Oh, don't worry about that. It's in case we open it up and find out that you've caused the damage. Like spilt water on it. If that's the case and you don't want it fixed, then we still charge you a £100 for wasting our time."

I wish I could charge people at work £100 everytime they wasted my time :P

How do I feel?

About the new 3G iPhone coming out? *Shrug* The only thing that bugs me is that it's sooo much cheaper than the one I have. SOOOO much cheaper. Half the price cheaper!! On the other hand, mine's still hackable, and I'm not forced to register. Not that people who stood in line for ages in the UK could register *grin* They're calling it the iPocalypse. Lack of 3G and GPS doesn't really bother me either. Although GPS probably would've been handy when I was in Hampstead Heath this weekend :)

I think the other thing that bugs me is that the latest iPhone has a jack which fits normal earphones. Now _why_ couldn't they have done that in the first place??

Early adoption hasn't really benefited me yet when it comes to Apple products. It's definitely worked the other way though. I've honestly become an iPhone salesman :P Never loved a phone so much before. Don't worry my 2G baby, I'm not trading you in yet...

I hate to admit it

I love my iPhone. It's an unhealthy sort of love. I never thought I could love a phone so much before. I never use to care much about what phone I had. This one's different. It took me a month to hack it, and half a bottle of plum wine to build up the courage to do it! Not to mention, I had online support back in Aus :) "The default password isn't working... It won't let me run the command... It keeps closing the connection *aaargh*..." My nerves were wrecked when I had to cut the SIM cards. Incidentally, the pimply punk at the stationery store asked me if I was 18 before selling me a stanley knife!!

This was me, back on NYE, before I passed out, loving my iPhone :P

It was worth it. The iPhone (nicknamed "touchy feely" :) ) sleeps beside me and my MBP. I looooove sliding my fingers across the screen. I looooove the two finger ZOOM on my pictures. I especially love scrolling! I've never had so much fun setting the alarm on my phone before, it's almost like playing the pokies *grin* Well sorta, you just spin the wheel until you get to the right number. An exuberant "WHEEE" burst out of me when I was demoing the alarm clock feature to someone. Apple has made the lamest, most mundane task fun :)

I really didn't expect the iPhone to be this cool. It's soo nice to look at, and it's soo nice to play with.

Cons that I can think of:
* Camera has been a little glitchy, however, I don't use it all that much and it's really not that big a deal.
* The headset that comes with the iPhone sux0rz to the max0rz. So much so that I rushed to the Apple store to see what other alternatives were available. Unfortunately, the only pair Apple were selling that was compatible with the iPhone were the V-Moda Vibe Duo. For 70 squiddies. I forked it out. What choice did I have? They're heaps better than the Apple pair, but I can't say I like them better than my old Sennies. For the first time in months, I can hear the tube softly rattling away behind my music.
* My fingers _are_ a little too fat for tapping away on the screen :( I find I'm better at typing when I rotate the iPhone to get a horizontal keyboard. Unfortunately, I can't do that when SMSing. The predictive spellchecker on the iPhone makes up a little for it. However, bit annoying when it corrects words I don't want corrected and I realise it too late.
* I haven't figured out how to sync Notes I tap out on the iPhone to my laptop yet. Or figured out if it's possible to view PDFs. I also tried to load up a tube map in gif format, that didn't work, it looked pretty crap. That's the one thing that would be really useful for me to have on my iPhone.

My biggest worry? That it's a first gen Apple product and it might burst into flames on me one day. It's going to be a stab to my heart if that day ever comes. Even still... Go buy one! Now, nOW, NOW!!! :)

iPod Touch

I got to play with one of these babies today:

It's slim, it's sleek, it's sexy... But my fingers are too fat to use it :P Well, for typing things anyway. T'was surprisingly difficult for me to type out a URL. Mm, overall impression? Nice, but... it's 200 squids for a puny 8GB and not that many extra features. How often am I going to get a free wifi signal? If I'm at home, I'm going to be using my Mbp. The 160GB iPod Classic is much better value at 229 squids. Yet it irks me to get the Classic since it's going to be obsolete... I'm currently lugging my Mbp to work, however, since the wifi got denied on my level, the Mbp has become an oversized mp3 player and calendar. It's pointless working on documents on my Mbp since USB sticks are blocked, and I can no longer transfer files to my desktop via email. I'm a little tired of taking my Mbp to work just for music :P Hrmph, must think about it.

The new Nano is, as I thought, pointless. Definitely not as sexy as the original version either.

Size queen

I don't get it. Pretty it may be, but do I really want to watch "two movies back-to-back" on a 2-inch screen? :/ I'm squinty enough as an oriental...

I'll stick to my 15.4 inch MBP display :P

Shufflicious

I couldn't resist. I finally bought a Shuffle about three weeks ago. When Apple first introduced the new Shuffle, I was reluctant to buy it due to its small 1GB capacity and no screen display. But it's been perfect for me and the battery life is amazing! My old Archos Gmini has a 20GB capacity but use to cark on me after 3-4 hours. Not even a full work day. I haven't managed to drain my Shuffle on a day out yet.

The problem I have with the Shuffle though, isn't the lack of a screen or its small capacity. It's the lack of a Hold button! Having fat fingers, made even more uncoordinated by gloves, I have a bad habit of accidentally skipping to the next track. Which isn't such a big deal, but the tracks I listen to are DJ sets ranging from an hour to two hours in length. The Shuffle's fast tracking functionality is pretty crappy and it'd take too long to get back to where I was. Apart from that, I'm a happy consumer with the Shuffle. Have to admit though, I spent a lot of time in the Apple store steeling my nerves and convincing myself to buy it. Just the thought of having to deal with Apple support again if anything goes wrong put me off.

No laptop, no blogging

On hiatus till I get my laptop back. It's just not the same when I have to hijack B's Vaio to blog :P My lappy's in the Apple Store, with the "geniuses", getting a new battery, logic board and power pack. Considering I've only had the MBP for about 6 months, that's a lot of repairs. Did I mention that I've been trying to get an appointment with the "geniuses" at tech support for THREE WEEKS? Everyday, I've been logging on to their website to try and book an appointment, always failing. I finally had to pay 79 quid to become a Procare Member which allows me to rock up without an appointment. Good un Apple. I could rant all day about Apple's crappy support. "Come back tomorrow at 10am and we'll try and book you an appointment," Apple support tells me. What, I don't have a job? How do they think I afforded their expensive laptop? Baaah... Not to mention my battery was on the recall list. I swear I checked it and it wasn't on the list (Apple guy, "Well the numbers haven't changed!").

My advice, don't buy first gen Apple products. The amount of effort you have to go through to get support from Apple is ridiculous. First they make it impossible to get an appointment without coughing up hard earnt squiddies. Then they'll make it seem like it's _your_ fault that things break down on a 6 month old laptop. Uh huh... Apple, you can be such a goat fcker.