Ok, so I don't even know where to begin with this trip. I guess I'll start with the beginning.
While flying from Philadelphia to Dallas/Fort Worth, I sat next to a naval officer named Miguel. He told me that I would stick out like a sore thumb in Mexico City, which was no surprise to me. He also said that to really enjoy Mexico, I had to just immerse myself in the culture. Just take it as it was. Something I pretty much already knew, but it was good to have it reiterated. His words did stick with me while I was there.
My plane was delayed getting into Mexico City, which may have actually been better for me, because I ended up running into someone on the bus to Cuernavaca. I had found the bus when I saw a rather tough-looking woman standing there. I smiled at her, but kept to myself. She suddenly said, "you look familiar. Are you going to Alison's wedding?" It turned out to be Nina, a girl I knew back at school, and had totally forgotten about since she left junior year. She is a tough chick, but was looking extra tough after a car accident claimed her arm. There's no nice way to put that, is there? I never even mentioned it to her, which I feel incredibly guilty about. I wish I had just said, "What happened?" and acknowledged it. Sometimes I have no spine. I am not proud of this at all.
At any rate, it was nice to have someone to share a cab to the hotel with. We got in around 1, and then there was some crazy mess with the beds, that wasn't resolved for days. For a little while I was Caroline Sparks.
The first day I woke up early and wrestled with the worst bathroom ever. No, that's not true, apparently the worst bathroom ever is in Tepoztlan, but this one was comically bad. First of all, the door didn't lock. Which wouldn't have been a problem, but the door didn't shut, at all. So if you peed, you peed with your roommate listening. Not a huge deal, but still, I don't like anyone to know what kind of sounds my body makes. Who is with me? High five! …Gross.
The toilet was in the shower. They had attempted to mark some kind of separation, by putting in a curtain rod, but the curtain just happened to fall exactly over the toilet. It wasn't a big deal to push it out of the way but it added to the charm. And then, the toilet liked to break, often. The very first day it wouldn't stop flushing. After getting in so late, I was up early for no reason, Nina was sound asleep, and I wanted her to stay that way. So here I am with a runny toilet and the door won't shut. So I take off the top and drop it on the floor, making a colossal noise, of course. Luckily it wasn't on my foot. I go poking around in the toilet to see what's wrong. I see water keeps shooting out of one little tube. Is it supposed to go in that big tube? No. I'm pulling it gently, trying to get a good look of what's in the tank, when I pull the tube off completely, and whatever goes EVERYWHERE. I put the tube back on - keep in mind I've already had a shower, but now I've got toilet water all over me. Not that it matters, you can't drink the water in Mexico. I didn't feel much better about bathing in it, either. It's fine as long as you don't lick yourself dry, I guess.
So I figure out the toilet and go on my merry way. I don't remember if it was the night before or that morning, but I met my two main cohorts for most of the trip, Mary Ann and Eliot. Eliot is something else. Everyone got really excited when he told us how he met Al (short digression. Al is Alison, my friend getting married. We went to school together). We would all shout, "so YOU'RE the bus guy!" Alison is something else. She meets the most random people (and they all show up to her wedding in Mexico). She met Eliot on a bus from New York to Providence and they dated awhile. Eliot is from Nevada, originally. He grew up on a ranch. He knows how to rope cattle. And people. "If you hit their feet with the lasso they will pick them up instinctively," he says. "That's when you get them." Aside from being a cowboy, he is a super genius. He's been to Harvard and all other kinds of smarty schools and is currently in graduate school for Logical Philosophy. I would tell you what this is, and he told me a thousand times, but I still couldn't wrap my puny brain around it. We would be walking somewhere and he would start telling us about pidgin languages and all kinds of brilliant stuff.
Mary Ann was a ton of fun. Very sweet and saucy. Petite like me, even petiter. She stole the dance floor on New Year's Eve. I know I would've gotten a lot of attention if I busted out my six-step, which I threatened to do, but you know, everyone was having so much fun it would've been selfish of me to request they put the hip-hop back on. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Mary Ann is cool. She was good at drawing Eliot and I out. She is a sock designer. I liked meeting someone else who designs something else so specific, like me. She appreciated my need to photograph a certain "x" like she would photograph a certain sock.
Nina's usual cohorts for the trip were Scotty and Jessica, the funnest couple ever. I'd like to think I could achieve such huge levels of zaniness someday. Scotty and Jessica are the kind of people who thrive on attention, but not in an obnoxious way. They were very sweet. I wish I'd had more time with them, too, because it seemed like the real party was always revolving around them. Some other time, perhaps.
There were Sarah and Jeff. Sarah had a few different names but the one that stuck with me was Sarah. We hiked up to the Tepozteco with them. A very cute, very nice couple. There was also Caroline and Steve? Kevin? I'm starting to get lost here. Steve was a Red Sox fan. He proudly wore a Ramirez shirt the day I met him. Of course we got along immediately. When the Patriots won their 16th game, it was his table that I ran to to announce the news. There were other great people, oh like Alison's parents! How could I forget? They were awesome. She is very much like her mother.
I met Marta in the bathroom during the wedding. She asked me, in Spanish, if I could help her with her dress. It was a funny exchange. She later told us a story we basically knew but deserved retelling; how Alison and Gerardo got together. Marta is Colombian, and Fred (Al's father) is American. Al grew up across the Potomac River from me in Maryland. Marta's father had always wished his grandchildren would become involved in their Latino heritage, which is what brought Al to Cuernavaca, which has excellent Spanish teaching schools. It was while there, in her last month, that Al met Gerardo. Their first date they decided to go to Oaxaca rather than bowling, and the rest is history.
The wedding was great. Perfect weather, good food, lovely ceremony. Al looked beautiful. They had us stand in a ring, everyone who came to the ceremony. They spoke about how everyone here was there to support them and they were a part of their marriage. They included Leonardo, Gerardo's son from a previous relationship, as a big part of the ceremony, giving him a necklace when they exchanged rings. Al has known Leo since he was 6 months old, so she has essentially always been a part of his life. They passed the rings around the circle of participants and encouraged people to share their thoughts on love if they so wished. It was really touching and I loved how they included us.
Later we partied down, there was a great mariachi band, and a blow-up slide for the kids. I went to the top of it, got a little scared, and was pushed down by a 5-year-old. It was pretty funny. Alison through the bouquet, Gerardo threw the garter. They picked him up and chanted like it was his funeral, all in good fun. Then we lit Chinese paper lantern balloons and watched them drift away into the sky. There was an afterparty, but I was too pooped for it. Also I was eaten alive by giant Mexican mosquitos. I still have scars from the bites, even though I managed not to scratch them.
The day after the wedding, we started to explore Cuernavaca. Down the street from the hotel, is the Jardin Borda. Which means "Embroidered Garden," I believe. It was gorgeous. It was really nice to see all these lush, green, tropical plants, after being in gloomy Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. We heard there was a lake where you could rent boats. The lake turned out to be more of a puddle. A really long puddle. But we got to see some aggressive geese and a turducken. Or something. It really looked like a turkey crossed with a duck and a chicken. Elliot said something about how they should take the idea of a turducken and expand it to something bigger. Like a goat and a sheep and a cow. Ok, it was funny at the time.
After that we headed down to the Salto de Anton, a waterfall. Salto means jump, I assume because the waterfall was so narrow that someone brave or stupid could jump over it. But getting there was something else. The Lonely Planet guide we had told us to take the #4 bus, and it would drive by the entrance. We forgot that the guide was from 2002, the year Alison moved to Mexico. So the bus route had changed. Or, as Alison had warned us, it just didn't go to the Salto. It went near the Salto. We ended up riding the bus to the very end of the line. Imagine a bus, albeit a small one, charging down a switchback. Chickens and dogs are running in the street. We go careening around corners, narrowly passing cars on their way up. It was like a rollercoaster. But I never felt at once afraid. I had complete faith the driver knew what he was doing. The scenery around the switchback was interesting - it was clear we were getting further away from the city, down into a valley, in one of the less prosperous parts of town. But I feel funny writing that. It seemed like such a foreign concept there, how much money someone has. It really didn't seem to matter there. More on that later.
Outside the final bus stop someone was frying up quesadillas. Just hanging out. The driver saw that we had missed our stop and told Mary Ann, whose spanish was pretty good, that he would let us off at the appropriate stop. That day we really experienced the kindness of Cuernavacans. He dropped us off as close to the Salto as possible and gave us directions how to get there. Along the way we thought maybe we were lost, so we stopped into a store to ask for directions. The store owner assured us we were on the correct path and even walked with us part of the way to make sure we were on the right track.
On the way to the Salto we passed our first coupling of passionate teenagers. I'm sort of surprised I hadn't seen more before then, because that was pretty much all I saw afterwards. I don't really mind seeing young people making out in public - it's kind of cute. But I always, always always want to yell, "get a room!" for fun. I think because the first time I was making out with a boy in public someone yelled that at us, and we laughed for a long time. There's no malice involved. So we tried to figure out the translation, and all we could come up with was "Necesitas una cuarto!" ("You need a room!") Oh man, I don't know how many people I accidentally told "you don't speak Spanish," because I conjugated "hablar" wrong. It's hablo, Sarcasmette. HablO.
So going to Tepozteco. The day started out kind of a mess. We were going to the big mercado over the highway with A's dad. At first it was just the 4 of us, but then it turned into pretty much everyone left in the hotel. So about 12 people in a crowded, insane market. This thing, it was like, a huge warehouse. And almost every inch of it was filled with stores. Although "stores" implies something larger, these were more like kiosks. Quioscos. Each one sold one thing and they sold every possible incarnation of it. Say I wanted a mug. Say I wanted it to be red. Fire engine red. And say I wanted one with a fireman on it. I bet the mug quiosco would have one. I could probably even choose the hair color and body type of the fireman. And it would be 50¢. So, anyway, with all these choices and colors and low low prices, I was completely overwhelmed. I didn't buy anything on that trip to bring home (except tequila). I didn't even buyh my parents a postcard because my senses were totally overloaded. The picture above of the market (with the hanging pretty things)? That was a better, nicer mercado, but imagine those colors times 6 billion and then in all sizes and shapes and... ok, moving on.
So we went to the not-so-nice mercado, and decided to get breakfast there. I knew it was a bad idea from the start. 3 people deciding on breakfast, you can all pretty much agree on something and find somewhere nice, and get in quickly. But 12 of us? We ended up choosing the worst little bodega-nook-thing ever. The waitresses could not communicate. And I don't mean they didn't understand us, they didn't understand each other. They took our orders about 3 different times. We all ended up with some sketchy huevos rancheros. We ate them in the shadow of a bicycle shop. It wasn't the worst experience, more like just, weird. And bad in comparison to all the other lovely breakfasts I'd had so far.
We were bursting to get out of the cramped mercado after that, so M and E and I went with another couple, S and J, to Tepoztlan. Some of the other wedding guests had gone there yesterday and had a crazy time, so we wanted to give it a shot. I got some great shots of the graffiti on the cab ride over. Once we got there, we headed towards the temple. Now, mind you, we had no idea what we were getting into. We thought, a temple, ok, it's probably on the outskirts of town. Just follow the signs. Nestled into the hills. Hey, look at that lovely mountain range surrounding us...
So we follow the signs, through an open-air market (sooo much better than the one from that morning). More gorgeous colors and delicious food. We walked for awhile and finally it seemed we were on a path into the mountains that would take us to the temple. It inclined steadily, getting rockier and rockier. We saw a sign, assuming we were nearly there, only to find out it as just the beginning. It indicated that we were an hour away from our destination... and we'd be climbing. M and I had worn flip flops that day - when we got up, all we knew was, we're going to the market. Not, we're going to climb a mountain. But at this point, we were already there, and when would we be back? So we started hiking. We had been at it for about 15 minutes before S announced she needed a break. I was glad, I needed one, too, badly, but didn't want to admit it. We stopped a few more times on the way up - S at some points claiming she was going to turn around, but we encouraged her on. I pulled out my iPhone and started playing "Gonna Fly Now (The Theme from Rocky)" and that re-energized us all a bit. We finally made it to the top. It took way more than an hour, but I don't mind, I was just glad we got there. The views were amazing. Not only from the top, but on the trip up. It wasn't exactly a tropical jungle, but it was the closest to one I've ever been, and it was gorgeous. The temple was cool. It's so weird to think that we were on something that had been there for 500 years or so. That people had put those stones there centuries ago, had touched those rocks, had lived there, had performances there, and it was there underneath my fingertips and feet today (well, that day). It was nice to sit in the sun on the last day of the year, looking down on the world, reflecting on everything. I can see how it is a mystical spot.
The carvings on the temple were pretty interesting. People had laid down flowers on the makeshift altar. I wonder if their ancestors were Aztec, and they were paying homage to them, or if it was in reverence to someone they had known. There were people doing rituals there. A's local friends had dismissed them as hippies. I guess there are a lot of UFO sightings in Tepoztlan too. They seem to be met with as much skepticism as they are here.
Before we headed back down we ran into a horde of white-nosed coatis. We didn't know what they were at the time, so we called them rodents of unusual size. They were adorable. They were also very friendly. Accustomed to humans - and their food. It was a little sad to see, but I think that's coming from an American perspective. Up here, you know, it's, "don't feed the bears! They won't find food in the winter and die," or something to that effect, but there, it's 85° every single day. There's an unending supply of tourists and their food. It's probably still sad in some way, but, que sera, sera.
The trip down seemed more treacherous than the trip up. M and I slipped several times, but luckily nothing remotely serious. We feasted on corn at the bottom, so hungry after the climb. The corn there, they grow it nice and big on the cob. After it's boiled, they slather mayonaisse on it. And then coat it in cheese, lime juice and chili powder. It sounds gross, but it's delicious. I preferred mine with less mayo and more chili. Good stuff. As we walked back to the center of town, we looked back into the mountains, to see if we could find the temple. Once we spotted it, our jaws dropped. Sure, it was only a 600 m climb, but still, seeing where we had been blew our minds. There was no way we would have started, had we known where the temple was beforehand. I'm kind of glad it worked out that way. It felt like a much bigger accomplishment.
I'm going to end it there, with a bang. Partly because I forget the rest, partly because it was like every goodbye ever after a trip like this: sad and awkward. No need to describe. I'd rather remember the end of my Mexican trip as the triumph we felt climbing that mountain. Wearing flip-flops. Ta-daa!
Lets talk about a variety of Mac OS X software called Input Managers.
In brief, an Input Manager is software that can affect other running applications. The original intent of Input Managers was to provide a means for customizing the operation of the keyboard and/or mouse to support things like locale-specific input behavior (treating keyboard input differently for different languages or regions) and software that aids handicapped individuals. The name “Input Manager” is thus appropriate for these intended uses. (Read more about Text Input Management.)
However, it wasn’t long before Mac developers found this to be a useful way to graft additional functionality into other applications. There are several OS X software products out there that are input managers which have little to do with input management (Inquisitor, 1Password, Chax are three that I use today). These products are typically unstable in nature, since they often times rely on undocumented aspects of the “host” application. But when they work, they can add real useful functionality to other programs.
The downside to Input Managers is that it is a tempting means for rogue software to exploit. One such example is the “Oompa-Loompa” trojan which surfaced about two years ago. This was a download that supposedly contained pre-release screen shots of OS X 10.5. It masqueraded the installation program as an image file, and when the unsuspecting user tries to view the file, it installs itself into the user’s “Input Managers” folder. It then can access any application that is run and affects iChat in particular, so that it tries to spread to others in your iChat contact list.
One of the changes in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) was in how OS X dealt with Input Managers. The early rumors were that Leopard wouldn’t permit them to run at all. But after release, Leopard did run Input Managers, but only those that are installed in the system-wide “/Library/InputManagers” folder.
The distinction is this: before Leopard, if a user runs software that tries to install an Input Manager, there is nothing to stop it from installing one that is local to that user’s account (installing it to the “/Users/username/Library/InputManagers” folder). With Leopard, installation of an Input Manager requires system-administration rights (so the user is prompted to authenticate to permit the installation), and the Input Manager is installed to the “/Library/InputManagers” folder.
The authentication requirement is the key and is a welcome change. There should be some kind of barrier to install software of this nature. BUT, it is wrong for Input Managers to only be installable in a system-wide fashion.
Before Leopard, I always— always— installed Input Managers for my own account only. By doing so, I could always login as another user to disable them. Remember— by their nature, they are less stable, and can cause applications to crash. A common request of developers when reporting bugs in their programs is to disable any third-party Input Manager software to see if it resolves the problem at hand. I could do that by logging in under a different account before Leopard, but now I cannot.
Personally, I would have preferred that user-specific Input Managers were still supported, but also require an administrator’s password to install. So, you would have a path, perhaps like “/Library/InputManagers/Users/username”, which may even be symlinked to “/Users/username/InputManagers”. I think this is a better option, than requiring Input Managers to be activated for all users of that machine.
Hopefully a later update or release of OS X will address this and restore the option of user-level Input Managers.
Netflix.com has this option to watch a selection of their movies through your browser. Assuming your browser is running on Windows, as they require Windows Media DRM to play it.
But their promotional graphic (pictured here) shows it running on a black MacBook.
They doctored the thing of course, placing a still frame over the display, covering the portion that has the built-in camera and all evidence of the ‘MacBook’ imprinted at the bottom of the display. But you can make out the key layout, the size of the trackpad, and even the infrared receiver on the front-right side. It’s definitely a MacBook.
Now, it’s not impossible to get those videos on a MacBook. You can do it if you’re running Windows under Parallels or VM Fusion. Performance is fine, even at full resolution. But I seriously doubt they expect their average customer to do that!
The new empty trash confirmation dialog in Leopard.
But… I’m using Time Machine. There is an undo! This seems contradictory.
Also, the window grab action includes the huge drop shadow Leopard puts on focused windows. Is that necessary?
Just wondering how long it will take for someone to restore the rounded edges that have always been on the Mac menu bar.
From Tiger:
From Leopard:
Update: Not long.
I suspect Vonage doesn’t want Mint.com to recommend existing customers to switch to a cheaper plan, but hey, you save $117 a year if you do!
I played through the Halo 3 campaign at the 'Normal' difficulty to start with. I typically play normal and sometimes even easy when playing games these days... I just don't have the time and patience anymore. But the normal difficulty was actually pretty easy, and left me wanting more. Besides, I finished the campaign in probably 8 hours, which seems really short for a $60 game. I know, I know... multiplayer. But still.
So here’s a hodge-podge of additional thoughts after using an iPhone for a day or two.
About the Speakers
I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner, but the iPhone is the first iPod ever to have built-in stereo speakers. That’s pretty significant. It means you can see and hear your videos and music from this device without needing any headphones. I think I had just assumed the speaker would only be useful for the iPhone ‘speaker phone’ option, and wouldn’t really be good enough for playing music. But the quality is actually pretty good. I wonder how many other portable music/video devices are in that category?
Matching Socks
The iPhone fits fine in iPod socks. Yes, I own a pair of iPod socks. And I feel less silly today about buying them. They’re much cheaper than the $30 or $40 cases made for the iPhone. They also cover the whole thing in case you are worried about scratches, etc.
Headphones and the Built-in Mic
The built-in microphone in the iPhone earphones is genius. And also genius that you can click and double-click it to pause and advance music (although I wish you could rewind as well). The microphone also makes it possible to know which side is the right-side earpiece without having to hunt for the ‘R’ on the earpiece.
With these headphones it becomes possible to listen to your music and receive calls without ever pulling out your phone. So if you see someone chatting while they appear to be listening to their iPod, they’re not crazy… they probably have an iPhone tucked in their pocket some place. Of course, if you see they have no microphone on their headphones, then maybe they are just crazy.
No Wheel
I can’t tell you how many iPhone mockups we’ve seen over the years on the Internet. You can find scads of them by doing an image search. Most of these incorporated some variation on the iPod click-wheel control. Even the ones that had a full-surface touch-screen; they still had some kind of click-wheel shown on-screen. Some transparent overlay that you could use to control the music being played.
Yet, the iPhone has no click-wheel control anywhere.
Yes, the click-wheel was revolutionary (heh) for the iPod, but the iPhone is capable of much more responsive and reactive UI. Finger scrolling left and right using Coverflow is a far more realistic and appealing interface that scrolling over a list of items. Even for lists, it’s far more natural to slide up or down through them than to rotate some kind of semi-transparent wheel that may be obscuring your view while you’re using it. I’m sure Apple experimented with prototypes that used such an interface, but in the end, decided to throw that patented feature out the window because it wasn’t best suited for this device.
Nonetheless, this was a brave move— to abandon a user interaction that had been so well embraced by their users for something entirely different. That’s what “Think different” is all about though. And Apple doesn’t let history interfere with innovation.
Third Party Applications
Finally, I think Apple has a plan for the next step in supporting third-party applications on the iPhone: Widgets. The current solution— running web-based applications— is a poor substitution for local applications that don’t require a net connection to use. Widgets are basically also web-based applications; they do have access to run local services though. And Apple can sandbox them further if they wanted to.
Several of the iPhone applications are in fact widgets on Mac OS X. Stocks, Weather, Calculator (reskinned for the iPhone), Google Maps— these are all widgets you can run on OS X today. The other front-door applications are probably also developed as widgets. The bottom applications— “Phone”, “Mail”, “Safari” and “iPod” are probably not widgets, but actual Cocoa-developed applications (MobileMail.app as some have found already).
Full-blown third-party applications on the iPhone would awesome, but I’ll take third-party widgets as a runner-up. There are thousands of these available today. Not all of them would run well on an iPhone though. They’ll have to be tweaked to support the resolution of the device of course. But many would run well without many changes at all. I’ll bet that by the time Leopard rolls out, we’ll be hearing support for third party widgets on the iPhone. At least, I hope so. I really want the BART widget on my phone.
Update: Georgia would very much like the Dictionary/Thesaurus widget. I would also like the Wikipedia, Translation and Flight Tracker widgets. And why not some game widgets-- like Tile for instance. Or a multi-touch Tetris widget, where you slide falling pieces into place with your fingers?
iPhone Halo Effect
Much has been written about the iPod halo effect, and how Apple computer sales have been affected by the success of the iPod. I imagine they will be even more affected by sales of the iPhone. Sure, an iPhone works with a PC, but that isn’t an ideal counterpart. Mac OS X is the big brother to the flavor of OS X running on the iPhone, and will always be a better match as a host to the iPhone than Windows.
Well, I did buy an iPhone after all. My Verizon contract was up, it’s a few days from my birthday— all the rationalization I needed was already there, so Apple, you got me. Again.
I drove up to the local mall at 6:30 PM and found a pretty long line for the Apple store. I heard they had 500 units in stock, so I decided to wait. But they were very well prepared, and the line moved very quickly. I was out of the store by 7 PM (my apologies to those that waited all day or even overnight in some cases). With my purchase in hand, I went home to try out the activation.
But, as some have found, it didn’t go so smoothly. My problem turned out to be that I was transferring a number from another service. Apparently there were some issues there and I had to return to the mall to work through them with an AT&T rep. That took longer than buying the phone itself. In the end, we managed to activate the account.
The phone is now set up and functional and I’ve had a chance to play with it. First impressions and thoughts…
- Love the UI, the shape and feel of the device.
- Love the WiFi support, Safari, Google Maps, YouTube, Mail. All the built-in apps function very well. Honestly, having Google Maps everywhere I go is a killer app for this thing. I just wish it supported GPS as well (any bets on how long until an iPhone accessory surfaces to add GPS?).
- For some reason I can’t find the one video I uploaded to YouTube. I can find it from my computer, but not using the YouTube search option on the iPhone.
- Concerned about the EDGE connectivity and throughput. Most places I frequent have WiFi now, but everywhere else I will likely be using EDGE (on my commute, etc.) and that will probably be painful from what I’ve read. But I love that the data plan is unlimited use, so I don’t have to worry about watching my usage. It’s nice that the phone will choose WiFi over EDGE if it can, and it’s not something you have to select— it just uses the best connection available.
- Confused that I can’t select a music track for a ringtone. Although I can see the business reasons why not; the ringtone market is pretty lucrative, but really… it’s silly that this isn’t possible. This is a music player after all. I also can’t select a music track as the sound for an alarm.
- I’ve had a few hiccups from doing multiple things at a time. Such as playing music and using Google Maps. It just returned to the main menu all of a sudden and the music stopped playing. Some sort of soft reset? Software problems that are bound to be fixed, but a little annoying naturally.
- I’m intrigued by the choice of a “Safari” label for the browser. Most devices would label that as “Web”. It has occurred to me that the iPhone is perhaps the reason Safari was made in the first place.
- I’m really happy to see support for viewing attachments in Mail. I just noticed that it doesn’t support playing .wav audio attachments which is a shame, since that’s how Vonage sends voice mail notifications.
- It’s nice that iPhone syncs with the phone to grab pictures you’ve taken. I no longer have to email photos from my wireless phone to keep a copy of them. My old phone, a piece of garbage from LG, only had room for 60 low-res, pictures. And it was a tedious experience to offload those images. Navigate to the photo gallery; choose to email photo; select contact; send; navigate to outbox; delete the sent message; navigate to gallery; delete the picture. Repeat that a few dozen times and you’ll see why I started to be very selective in the mobile pictures I took.
- Looking forward to the web-based services that will spring up for the iPhone (and some have already).
- Looking forward to support for full-blown third-party iPhone applications.
- Worried I might get mugged for carrying this around in public.
And… I bought one for Georgia. Because I love her that much.
