As Apple has become more popular, it seems that the reports of bad service have been on the rise. This makes sense--if you increase market share, more people will be upset. However I have friends who have experienced extremely bad service.

My G5 iMac has had its mainboard replaced once and until today its power supply once, both covered under Apple Care. A few days ago, my iMac started spontaneously shutting off in an un-ceremonious way. I'd be in the middle of something, and the screen would just go dark. Then two days ago, it just STOPPED powering up entirely. This is just the same behaviour as I had seen when the first power supply went bad. I sighed and set up a Genius Bar appointment for today over lunch. Because Apple Care on this computer had expired and because the power supply was over 90 days old and I really wanted my computer back up and running with the least fuss I was resigned to the following:

1. I am going to have to buy the part
2. I am going to have to pay for labour
3. I am going to have to wait 10 days + to get my computer back

I went into Apple Store and sat down to wait for my turn braced for a miserable experience. I was called up a full 10 minutes earlier than my appointment time. Then the events kind of blew me away.

Over the weekend, I purchased an iPhone. I have been a long time Sprint customer for cellular service--my wife and I have had a shared plan for some time. My latest phone had been a Treo 650--which has been a great phone. Prior to the 650 I had a 600. Prior to that I had a Palm Vx along with a cell phone. You can probably see the PDA pattern.

When the iPhone came out I felt the pull, but still had quite some time left on my contract with Sprint.

Lets get the things about the iPhone I don't like out of the way:

1. In the US, the phone is tied to one carrier--AT&T
2. On a device that costs between $400-$500, what is with the measly 2 mega pixel camera?
3. When you send a photo attached to an email, it reduces the size to 640x480
4. Where the heck is 3G?
5. I have been a pretty heavy user of Dial Up Networking (DUN)--basically, you pair your phone to your laptop and you can access the Internet through that connection. It is slow, but it works. DUN is not supported by the iPhone without a hack.

Ok, now that we've got my dislikes out of the way, let me just say that the experience of unboxing an iPhone is similar to taking other Apple products out of the packaging. It is a very satisfying experience.

A few days ago I loaded an install disk for Ubuntu into my Macbook Pro.  I booted up from the DVD drive and it loaded in beautifully.  I thought that I might back up the drive and run bootcamp to create a dual boot machine.  Then I heard that the bootcamp beta license will expire as of 10.5 being released...in just a couple of days.  Presumably a new non-beta version of bootcamp will be included in 10.5...so I will wait.

On Friday a collegue handed me an Ubuntu install disk. I booted up from the CD and lo and behold, it appears that the Macbook Pro can handily handle Ubuntu. At some point soon, I will run boot camp and turn the laptop into a dual boot machine. Pretty cool.

Finally some iPhone sanity from Apple.

They appear to be opening the platform up to third party developers. 

I am an Apple fan.  I've used Macs since the ][e and either owned or have heavily used a Plus, LCIII, Bondi Blue iMac, G5 iMac, iBook, and a Macbook Pro.  I've owned two different iPods.  When the iPhone was announced and then shipped, my wife strongly encouraged me to buy one and replace my aging Treo 650.  My current carrier is Sprint, which makes that problematic.  Besides, I rarely purchase hardware before it goes through a couple of revisions.  That said, I've handled the iPhone several times and it is slick.

I want one...

One of the things that I found out last year, quite by accident--I crushed my Macbook Pro's power supply in a first class suite on an airplane to Sydney Australia--is that Apple has designed the power cord on laptop blocks to take a plug from any country. This means that they really only have to build one model and it can convert to any country's power style.

This has proven particularly nice in the UK. I have my UK plug on the brick and I don't have to use a power convertor. SWEET!

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I'm selling an iPod nano on eBay.

If you are interested in a good deal, check out my listing. It is brand new--normally retails for $200--and I'm selling it for $150 plus shipping and insurance.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my iMac. I bought it in January of 2005. It has a gorgeous big screen and runs all the software I really need.

In December of 2005 it started acting fritzy until it stopped working entirely. Bringing it into the Apple Store, they determined it was a motherboard failure. In went a new motherboard and it has been working like a champ ever since. I wrote about buying a new backup drive and extra storage last week. I started a backup and it was working like a champ--until the computer shut down on its own. I restarted the computer and tried again--boom, it shut down. This cycle went on until I finally just gave up.

Do you remember Apple's home page when it released iTunes for the PC? It read, "Hell froze over: Introducing iTunes for Windows." Then Apple announced that it was shifting from PowerPC chips to Intel chips. Then BootCamp made it possible for Windows to run on Mac Architecture. Now Safari is available for the PC.

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