Stan's List

MacWorld 2010 is considered a success due to the number of attendees. Crowded bothThursday and Friday. due to the expo being only in the North conference center. Apple was always on the South side and thus crowds were divided between the two sides with more on the South side than the North where smaller venders usually were found.

The Showwx laser pico projector can be connected to any device that display photos or video, such as a Mac Book or iPod or iPhone. Always stays in focus, whether projecting a 6 inch image up to 200 inches, in WVGA (848×480) format. The battery can usually power projection of an entire movie before requiring recharge. The Showwx should be available in the US in March, they had a working prototype at the expo. It is currently available in Europe and Asia. Certainly deserved the best of show award.

Office for iPhone or IPod Touch allows viewing, editing and creating MS Word and Excel documents. Many of the commands in the full version are included in the iPhone/Touch version and are listed on their web page. A number of the commands take advantage of the iPhone/Touch, particularly the Excel commands.

Both the Showwx and Office for iPhone/Touch would seem useful together, though graphs are not mentioned as a feature.in Office for iPhone/Touch.

Eye-Fi adds Wi-fi to your camera, enabling one to send photos to their computer without connecting either one to each other.

There is a compatibility page, as some camera’s can not accept a 4 GB SD memory card. My Nikon D50 can not read more than a 2 GB memory card, whereas my wife’s CoolPix S710 can.

Eleven Engineering, a semiconductor company, has targeted a new wireless technology for use in portable devices with what it contends is better-than-Bluetooth performance in stereo music applications. This company is the chip maker, partnering with potential product companies.They were demoing a wireless speaker system, nothing tempting. The technology is the key, it they can convince their partners to use their circuit board in their products. As said, Wi-Fi is preferable to Blue-Tooth. Any product using the symbol, which is a abstract of TRIK will be assurance they are using Eleven Engineering’s technology.

This version of the software includes the following improvements and supersedes all previous versions:

Bug fixes

Only available via iTunes when you connect your iPhone or iPod Touch.

In a lengthly USA Today piece, AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson reveals that the contract has been extended to 2010. The previous term would Apple would be free to make offers to other carriers in 2009. AT&T has done very well with the iPhone and extending that privilege and huge addition to their bottom line.

AppleInsider has links to Apple Discussions of 3rd party app crashes or hangs. Other reports of lags in the interface operations and audio echoing. Unreliable GPS mapping and non-working tilt sensor reported by a few users.

iPhone 3G Lag is intolerable! Video examples included.

iPhone 3G bluetooth echo

iPhone 3G GPS Problem

Volume changes on its own?

iPhone ring volume resetting

None of these issues affect the original iPhone even running 2.0.

Also reported is that Apple is working on a 2.0.1 update.

Go to an Apple store, as most AT&T stores are out of stock. As with any Apple product release, any remaining inventory is hold up in the Apple Stores, as Bloomberg reports

There were a number of reports of trouble with updating one year old iPhones, mainly attributed to the overload put on the iTunes servers. Results …

Sorry, I was distracted by an iPhone application

The IPhone/iPod Touch 2.0 is flowing smoothly this morning and in case you were wondering:

If you choose to update the software on iPhone, iTunes will back up iPhone automatically, even if it is not configured to sync with iTunes on that computer.

If you choose to restore the software on iPhone, iTunes asks if you want to back up iPhone before restoring.

The original iPhone and iPod Touch are getting the best of the bargain. As for the iPhone, with AT&T bumping up the speed of EDGE a while back, the only advantage of the iPhone 3G is 3G and 3G is only available in major cities. How can a 3G cell phone not have voice dialing? Fortunately, that may be remedied by Fonix Speech, Inc., whom has announced a voice activated application for the iPhone.

The iPod Touch never had it easier. Sans phone, Touch can be everything else, including a business tool.

The iPhone/Touch apps occupy little space. My iPhone 12 3rd party applications occupy 480 MB. There are already a good assortment. The 8 GB iPhone

There are already a good variety available. One of the top downloaded is the free AOL AIM program (free). If you have an account you just put in your user name and password and all your chat buddy’s names automatically appear. There is no push though, till the receiver connects.

An example of how useful an iPhone app can be is related by Nathan, an EMT:

The Epocrates RX pill finder is great. Its fast and makes it easy to identify patient’s medication. its helpful when patients dont tell me all their history i can lookup up their meds and figure out what medical problems they have.

Top paid (6 of top 7 are games)

Super Monkey Ball
Texas Hold’em
Enigmo
MLB.com At Bat
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Cro-Mag RallY
Moto Racer
Band
iBear
Bejeweled 2

All the top free apps are non=games or utilities.

There are more concrete reasons to update or buy a 3G iPhone, the security patches are substantial.

Getting ready for Friday’s iPhone 3G and iPhone/iPod Touch software version 2.0, iTunes 7.7 includes an updated iTunes Phone Driver and Apple Mobile Device Support for their remote-control application available now in the App Store. The App Store is open and you can download iPhone/iPod Touch applications The 2.0 software is not yet available, and is necessary to take advantage of this new store.

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.

Pogue and Mossberg have videos which sum up their reviews. Baig has a sidebar which does much the same. All list the nearly same pros and cons, only Baig is more enthused about the iPhone 3G. All point out that the reduction in price is more than made up for by AT&T with the increase in the contract price. Remember, AT&T is not paying full freight for their supply of that iPhone.

David Pogue, New York Times

Walt Mossberg

Ed Baig, USA Today

No voice dialing, copy-and-paste, Bluetooth stereo audio or phone-to-phone photo sending (MMS), in their order of importance, will cause me not to upgrade, as I do not consider this an upgrade. I have worked out how to do two of the four. I just have to accept not using voice dialing till I can get that voice dialing software available for unlocked iPhones.

We have a GPs device and will likely have more. The iPhone 3G does not equal any current devices, it tells you were you are, not how to get to where you want to go.

Oh, the 2.0 software, which allows uploading 3rd party software, is available for existing generation iPhones.

Case made.

This article explains how to replace an original iPhone with an iPhone 3G using the same carrier. If you follow these steps to backup your original iPhone first, and then restore the backup to your iPhone 3G, your saved SMS messages, email accounts, photos, notes, and other personal settings will be present on your iPhone 3G. More …

A week away, no reason not to kick the excitement up a notch.

AT&T Announces iPhone 3G Pricing Existing AT&T customers who are not currently eligible for an upgrade discount can purchase iPhone 3G for $399 for the 8GB model or $499 for the 16GB model. Both options require a new two-year service agreement. In the future, AT&T will offer a no-contract-required option for $599 (8GB) or $699 (16GB).

AppleInsider has a comparison chart of old vs. new plans

AppleInsider: How to hand-down your old iPhone after upgrading to iPhone 3G