xkcd strikes again…

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Oh my.

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Are they expecting me to come in looking to buy furniture or something?   I just find it a bit ridiculous that every time I go in, I have to tell them I want a haircut.  It’s not just me either.  Any time I’m waiting for someone who can run clippers and scissors, I see other guys come in and get the same treatment.

Next time, I think I’ll ask if they sell Buicks.

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In front of the Apple Store, there were about 25-30 people in line, mostly under the cover of umbrellas, some under the awning of neighboring store, Blue Tulip. The 2 guys at the front of the line have been there since 1:00 P.M. on June 28. Ok, not exactly iLoser style, but still, overnight in crappy weather for a phone/iPod/“miracle device” that you’ll be able to stroll in and casually buy in a few days. That’s dedication.

I then took a ride to the other side of the shopping center to check out how things were going at the Cingular, err.. The New Deathstar, err, The New AT&T. Much quieter there.

At AT&T, there were only 5 (empty) chairs, and a few cars with people in various states of consciousness.

What the heck guys? If Apple’s got enough iPhones to give one to every single Apple employee that’s been with the company longer than a year, then I’m quite sure there’s enough to go around.

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Wow. Holy half-truths Batman.

While there are technically no lies on that image, it doesn’t really seem to tell the whole tale. Let’s see..

• GPS and turn-by-turn directions – Yes, it’s indeed true, the N95 has a built-in GPS. During the nearly a month that I had an N95 (and no, it wasn’t a proto), I found the GPS nearly useless. It was unbearably slow to lock on. I’m talking like 5 minutes guys. And the turn-by-turn directions – those cost extra.
• Wireless stereo – A2DP is indeed present on the N95 and is missing on the iPhone, at least at launch. Since Nokia was able to add A2DP to recent N73 firmware releases, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to think that we may yet see A2DP on an iPhone software update. Regardless of the device in question, A2DP will drain your battery.
• Second camera for video calling – Since the iPhone is (thus far) only for sale in the US, this is a non-starter. The N95 can only do video calls on a 3G network. The only UMTS band supported in the N95 is 2100 Mhz, not available in the US.
• Video-out port – I believe, like other video-capable iPods that have come before, the video output comes via the headphone jack.
• Removable battery – I’m torn here. Yes, it’s true, the N95’s battery can be swapped, and the iPhone’s cannot be swapped. However, this fails to address the abysmal battery life afforded to N95 users. Less than a day on a single battery? That’s just bad, like on an epic scale.

I’m a big S60 user (work phone is an E65, home phone is an N73). I’m also a fan of Apple products. Neither side has the perfect phone. Fanboi-ism doesn’t help, regardless of what side it’s coming from.

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In general, I don’t particular care one way or another who wins the format war, but I’ll say that HD-DVD does have some things in their favor, even if they’re the 2007 equivalent of VHS to BD’s Beta. For instance, HD-DVD’s don’t seem to be suffering from the disc rot problems currently being reported over on the AVS Forums. Further, HD-DVD lacks the extra layer of DRM, BD+ that is available on the BD side of the house.  In my book, the less DRM, the better, preferably, none.

Why no DRM?  It has nothing to do with piracy.  Pirates already have proven themselves wildly successful at circumventing copy controls on all sorts of media (VHS, CD-ROM, DVD, various digital music formats even).  DRM has to do with you & me, the consumers.  The ones that pay for their content.  You see, according to the RIAA or MPAA, if we want to shift our media to a different format, preserving our investment, we should have to re-purchase the media.  Don’t even get me started on the commercials urging you to “own it on DVD today!“  You know what you own?  A disc and the box it came in.  What you don’t own is the content that you were led to buy.

In a perfect world, what would I choose?  Blu-Ray’s technical superiority, no DRM, and the dual-format publication system that lots of HD-DVDs are using now (standard def DVD on one side, HD-DVD on the other).  Why?  I’ve seriously pondered buying those, and I don’t even own an HDTV, let alone hi-def player of any format.  But I will.  Why re-purchase the movie?  So, I pay a bit more up front, but (hopefully) save on the back end, and have the ability to play the movies I’ve already got in 1080p, rather than just 480p.

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I can only hope it’s a joke and photoshopped.

Dude, go outside or something. And next time, wait until something is going to be sticking around before you go tattooing it on yourself, if being stabbed thousands of times is your thing… I’m not even to go into the list of how many ways the iPod is better than the Zune. At this point, it’s been beaten to death so badly, that I’m surprised “Zune” is not synonymous with “bad tech”.

Welcome to the social, indeed.

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Yes, I know, it’s a bunch of commercials for pants. It’s true.

Get over to YouTube and watch the videos from Haggarfilms. You’ll laugh yourself silly.

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What did I love? The convergence. Extreme Convergence, as Dameon calls it. There was a lot to love about the N95:

• Great camera (and I mean great – the best I’ve ever used on a phone, nearly standalone quality)

• Good music player. For a week or two, I left my iPod at home and listened to my N95. It was nice that it had a 3.5mm jack on the side for “normal” headphones. I never bothered with A2DP.

• Built-in Wifi

• Played video from the N95 on a TV a couple of times. It was neato.

There was also a fair bit of stuff I didn’t like about the N95.

• No Access Point Groups – come on, this one’s so easy to implement (and already done in the E-series phones!) and so useful.

• While the music player worked well, the controls were a bit obtuse, like trying to find the “shuffle” feature for a playlist. You have to actually be playing a playlist before you can tell the device to shuffle it. Seems sort of a ham handed way to do it.

• Slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow GPS lock-on. We’re talking in minutes here. I wound up picking up a Garmin Nuvi, which locks on in about 15 seconds if I’m not driving when I turn it on. If my car’s already moving, it takes about 30 seconds.

• Battery life. This was the true deal breaker for me. I just couldn’t take it. If I was actually using some of the device’s potential (not all either!), my battery was out of juice before the end of the day. What was I doing? IMAP mailbox with auto-retrieve over EDGE or Wifi (30 minute sync interval), talking a bit, playing music on the train (1 hour one way), and a bit of web browsing. Maybe a picture a day, on average.

I had shuffled my devices around a bit to accommodate the N95.. My work phone, the E61 is on loan to a friend traveling in Europe. My work SIM migrated to my N73 Music Edition, and my home SIM went to the N95. After the return? I traded in the N95 and left the Flagship Store with an E65, in which my work SIM lives, sending my home SIM back to the N73 ME.

I’ve got an E65 review coming one of these days. It’s probably 90% positive. The other 10% is stuff that will (hopefully) get resolved with firmware updates.

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