The Gadgets Page

Thank you, Apple, for finally replacing the Newton. You did it with such style!

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I have to say that Apple puts on a good show. The countdown until the moment they opened the store with the seconds counting down on the huge iPhones in the display windows was a beautiful touch to the experience. Listening to the Apple employees whooping and hollering from behind the covered glass made me feel so excited just to see everything there.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t waited in line all night, so I just watched the first 50 walk in. Since I didn’t plan on buying an iPhone, there really wasn’t a point for me to wait in line for twelve hours just to step into the door. Once I saw that they had a table of iPhones available for customers to play with, I knew that I would come back that evening.

After a nice dinner and a movie with friends, we returned to the Apple Store. It was still filled with excitement, but anyone was allowed in. I asked the salesgirl at the counter if they had any left and she said she did. She was ready to ring me up one and suddenly I wanted one. Luckily Mike and Jason were able to talk me down and once I escaped the reality distortion field, I realized that it was for the best.

Playing with the iPhone was fun. I think I’ll go back to the store tomorrow and play with it some more. When I saw that the videos on this website loaded and played on the iPhone like a dream, I nearly cried. My videos always seem to be subpar on a computer, but playing on the iPhone, they looked prettier than I ever imagined.

Please, someone make the iPhone work as a USB modem so that I can justify buying one for myself. It’s really the only thing that’s holding me back now.

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Even though there was no one waiting at the Apple Store last night, there is a huge crowd there now. With over 130 people in line, it looks like they might run out of iPhones for the eager masses (depending on which rumors you believe). Did Steve Jobs send enough iPhones to Salt Lake City, Utah? I guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours.

This is Johnny. He says he has been in line since 3pm yesterday. He must have wandered off when we took our photo of the Apple Store last night because he was nowhere to be seen, but based on his sunburn alone, he has his Geek Cred intact.

It’s incredibly hot here in Salt Lake City. Many of the line sitters are equipped with umbrellas, hats and even canopy tents to protect themselves from the sun. Even then, it looks like the drug stores are going to sell out of Solarcaine in honor of the iPhone World Premiere. Apple employees have brought shaved ice to the line sitters to keep them as cool as possible in the nearly 100 degree weather.

The windows of the Apple Store are covered with black curtains while the transformation takes place. The atmosphere outside of the store is jovial and light. The children playing in the fountain make the area sound more crazy than it actually is.

Most of the people walking past the store are saying, “What are all these people waiting for?” There’s a big line here waiting for the iPhone, but as Mike said, “I’ve seen lines bigger than this for Toby Keith tickets.”

I gave up long ago trying to make my Treo do all the things that Palm told me it could do. Like that playing videos with Kinoma Player thing? Yeah, good luck finding a video encoded correctly to play on Kinoma. What about playing music on it with RealPlayer? Yeah, I guess you can do that, but good luck playing just the songs from one album or by one artist. You can make your Treo make noise, but the user interface is so difficult it makes the software useless.

There is one thing that the Treo does better than the iPhone. You can connect it to your laptop and get online with it. I’ve used both of these software products and they both work extremely well.

• PDANet – Connect your Treo to a PC computer to get online
• USB Modem – Connect your Treo to a Mac computer to get online

The thing is, getting my laptop online is pretty important. When we were covering CES, we stayed at a hotel with no Internet access at all. We used our Treos to get online that entire week. When we stayed in Anaheim, the hotel was supposed to have free high speed wireless access, but it never once worked. We wouldn’t have been able to work at all if it hadn’t been for the Treos. Even worse, when we were at SXSW, there was wireless, but it was so bogged down by all the conference attendees that it was nearly useless. It was actually faster for me to get online with the Treo than to use the wireless at SXSW.

Because the iPhone currently can’t be used as a USB modem, it is useless for me. Sure, the video and audio features are cool. Sure, the user interface makes me drool with envy. But all that can’t hold a candle to letting me work when I’m out in the boonies. Staying connected means more than just accessing the Internet from my phone. I need a phone that can get my laptop online as well.

I put the iPhone clownfish wallpaper on my Treo, but it doesn’t make my phone play videos or music any better than it did before. Fortunately, what it does do, it does well.

We took a trip to the Apple Store in SLC, Utah today and there were no iPhone sitters camping out. Unlike the New York stores, that already have people waiting for their iPhones, the Apple Store in Utah is free from campers.

That doesn’t mean the store was empty. As always, it was full of people learning how to use their new Macs or others trying to decide if it’s worth the jump. There are three boys junior-high age that are ALWAYS in the store, playing with PhotoBooth or choosing hip hop songs to play on the iPods. They almost feel like part of the store because they are always there when I visit.

After much thought, I spent my iPhone money on a MacBook. I’m sticking with my Treo for now. Sadly, it’s better than the iPhone because I can get my laptop online with it. Because Mike and I travel to so many places with sketchy Internet connectivity, I can’t sacrifice my handy USB modem. In fact, I’m almost tempted to just upgrade to the Treo 750p because it can get me online using EVDO, which is much faster than Sprint’s normal network and screaming fast compared to AT&T’s EDGE network.

No one can tell me whether the iPhone works with my Nike+, so I suspect that it doesn’t and it isn’t even a concern for Apple. I love my Nike+ so much that I would have to keep the Nano, so if I have to have a phone and a Nano, I might as well stick with the Treo.

Everyone is so excited about the iPhone. Hell, I’m excited about the iPhone, but in the end, it just doesn’t do the two most important things I need it to do. I’m going to have to pass on the first generation and hope that the second generation has what I need.

Konami and their DDR series has kind of tapered off in popularity, but it looks like the people at the University of Udine are still working on ways to make exercise and video games work together.

• HCI Lab – University of Udine – Projects

You can see how the game works here:

It looks like a simplistic version of breakout, which typically isn’t a very exciting game. What I would like to see is DDR with a heart rate monitor. The dance steps increase or decrease depending on customizable heart rates. Why hasn’t Konami done this?

Via: Video game follows your movements, adapts to your heart rate – Engadget

Here is a review of the Oral-B Triumph 9400 from someone who thinks about toothbrushes even more than I do.

• Review: Oral-B Triumph 9400 Power Toothbrush and Research :: Gizmos for Geeks

It has been time for us to upgrade our electric toothbrush. Currently, we have a Sonicare, but the poor thing is so old that it barely runs. Fortunately, there is someone who cares MUCH more about electric toothbrushes than I do to do all the research!

I had been keeping my SD cards in a case that took up three times the space it should have. Now, I have the cutest and tiniest little SD Card Cozy you ever saw.

The drawstring keeps them secure so they won’t escape and hide in the small crevices of my purse.

Next time you need something, try creating it yourself. You’ll probably make something infinitely better than anything you could buy at a store because it will be something made just for you.

Mike Moon is a prolific video-blogger who entertains me almost every day. The other day, he made me laugh talking about a do-it-yourself underwater camera case he made:

“A three dollar jar and you get to eat the salsa that’s in it.”

You can see the video explaining the case and the results here:

• Moon Echoes: Underwater

Before you spend a couple hundred dollars on an underwater case, try some of the bottles you have in your pantry. You just might have a case for your camera waiting for you to finish eating the salsa and take it on a journey!

I have been very happy with iTunes. As long as I don’t let it reorganize my music files, I’m pleased as punch with it. It takes some time to load, though, and I don’t feel comfortable just leaving it running in the background. If you aren’t quite as happy with iTunes as I am, you might be interested in some software to manage your iPod. That’s what Mike at iPod Managers did. You can see his full review here:

• iPod Managers: Manage my iPod without iTunes

Mike did an in-depth review of each of the programs, but here is a quick overview from his weblog:

vPod: Really cool and original but very limited: 8/10
Load Time: less than 1 second

PoddoX: Pretty limited at this stage, but certainly the tool that best corresponds to what I was looking for when I started this comparison test, 10/10.
Load Time: less than 1 second

CopyTrans Manager: Apparently released just some days ago, but extremely promissing according to its speed and look and feel, 5/10 for the moment but will definitely get 10 when more stable.
Load Time: 3.2 seconds

Winamp: Perfect for Winamp fans (like me). A bit old-fashioned for the others. Two thumbs up for me, but you would probably give 7-8/10.
Load Time: 6.5 seconds

Ephpod: Sucks, 4/10.
Load Time: 7.5 seconds

Floola: Excellent interface, really user-friendly, very pleasant way to add songs to the iPod. Unfortunately, much too unstable at this stage of development. To be watched carefully, as it would get 10/10 if working.
Load Time: 1.5 seconds

Yamipod: Impressive for a free tool, simple, light, smart, portable. Too many features for me but will rock for most users, 9/10.
Load Time: 4 seconds

iPod Copy Manager: The two panes interface is an excellent idea but this tool is so buggy at this point that it cannot be used to manage an iPod on a regular basis yet. 1/10 for the moment, would easily get 10/10 if more stable, (much) smaller and, most of all, when it will feature a decent iPod navigation.
Load Time: less than one second

Songbird: Except if you have a very small amount of songs (less than 100), the listing of iPod songs is so slow that this application cannot reasonably be called an iPod manager at this point. Let’s hope the Songbird team will improve this as soon as possible. In the meantime, 1/10.
Load Time: 4.4 seconds

I had no idea there were so many people trying to compete with a free program from Apple. Since they added Smart Playlists (which are very much like the AutoDJ that I loved so much on MusicMatch), I have been so happy with iTunes that I never even considered looking for different software, despite the long load time (9.2 seconds). I guess Adobe Photoshop has trained me to expect long load times over the years and iTunes isn’t enough to push me over the edge looking for buggy software.