Greg In The Desert

Wow, I’m really ruining my reputation as a Apple Fan Boy and early adopter. I didn’t buy the first iPhone when it first came out (instead waited for the 16GB version) and I haven’t purchased a iPhone 3G. I had no desire to stand in line for one on launch day. I’m not really a people person and I’m not interested in socializing with strangers.

I did look into it last week. The Albuqueruque Apple Store was out and while I was in Portland for a few days, all three of those stores were out.

I can live with the EDGE network speeds. The killer feature for me is the GPS. Since there are no real GPS realtime navigation software out for the iPhone, yet, I think I will hold out. If I hold out long enough a 32GB version might be available.

I’ve got a pretty good reputation on being on top of the latest technology. I’m usually considered a early adopter. I spent $1000 on a DVD player back in the mid nineties (which by the way that Sony 5 Disc player still works). Yet I don’t have a iPhone, I don’t like ebook readers and here I am about to say why I don’t recommend HD discs of either flavor. Perhaps I’m getting older and smarter, perhaps technology sucks more than it used to.

Movie studio fragmentation is the problem with Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Half the studios are on one format and the other half are on the other format. You need a Blu-ray player to see Spiderman, you need a HD DVD player to see Transformers. Thus, I haven’t purchased either and haven’t recommended either. The situation is improving and it looks like one format could be a winner.

Up until last week a 60% of the studios made Blu-ray discs, now Warner has announced it is switching to Blu-ray and it looks like Paramount may be making the switch as well. This just leaves Universal and a few small studios to make HD DVD disc.

I still say wait and see until one or the other format is declared dead by the sponsoring forums. Microsoft is a backer of HD DVD, for example, and won’t let it die so easily.

Apple released new iPods today. There weren’t any color iPod minis this time around as predicted. They did however alter the coloring of the mini’s, they are a little more brighter than before and they eliminated the gold min. Guess it wasn’t that well of a seller. The 4GB mini is now at that magic price of $199, and they introduced a 6GB version for $249. They also say the battery life hits 18 hours.

The iPod photo 60 that I bought for $599 is now $449. Yikes! You would think they could at least wait 6 months (welcome to the world of a New Early Adopter). They took out the firewire cable and black belt clip, still not $150 worth of stuff though.

More significantly they finally announced a “iPod Camera Connector” accessory. It will hook up directly to your digital camera. It’s about time, I specifically bought this iPod photo for this reason. Now that iPhoto 5 supports RAW format images my 1GB CF card doesn’t hold nearly enough photos.