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I never posted here when I got my iPhone for some reason. But now I’m on my 2nd iPhone and guess I should take the opportunity to talk about it.

After Apple’s last major announcement, I was sold on the iPod Touch. I’ve written here before about my decision to not go with the iPhone but the Touch was perfect for me. Everything I wanted in the iPhone without changing cell phone providers. A few weeks later, the iPod Touch’s were released and I was one of the first ones out of my local Apple store with one. The iPod Touch was the sexiest piece of hardware I have ever owned. After a few days of using it, I wanted more. WiFi access wasn’t enough, I need always on access. All of a sudden the newly price dropped $399 iPhone was attractive. After a day of getting up the courage to switch carriers, I went to the Apple Store and returned my 16GB iPod Touch for a new 8GB iPhone.

Within a few hours, I had hacked the iPhone and enjoying 3rd party software along with my now always on access, Mail and other goodies like hacked ringtones that the iPod Touch didn’t support. A week later, Apple release iPhone firmware version 1.1.1 and knowing it would kill my 3rd party apps, I installed it ASAP. For me, the 3rd party apps were a work in progress at best. There were a few apps I liked but none I couldn’t live without. Even today I don’t feel I’m missing out especially with Apple announcing official 3rd party support in February. Hopefully native apps for IM and Twitter will finally be a reality.

Enter my 2nd iPhone. A friend of mine who bought an iPhone at the same time I did, was having issues with “negative blacks”. He pointed me to a website that tested for this and sure enough, I was affected too. Most stuff was OK, but movies like 300 really showed the problem. I wasn’t in too much of a rush to get my iPhone replaced so I waited a few weeks until I was going to be at the Apple Store again, for the release of Leopard.

Before the Apple store closed to prepare for Leopard, I made a Genius Bar appointment and had them look at my iPhone. I showed him appleservedup.com on my phone, he checked his and I had a new phone within a few minutes. I checked the site for blacks and dead pixels before I left and everything was perfect. Now I can finally apply my Invisible Shield thats been waiting patiently for me.

Decisions, decisions. Apple revamped their entire line of iPods yesterday and introduced a new model, the iPod Touch. The iTouch, as I call it, is the iPhone, without the phone. To me that translates to “everything I wanted in the iPhone without losing my Blackberry and switching carriers”. And speaking of the iPhone, they officially discontinued the 4GB model in favor of the 8GB model, then lowered the price by $200. iPhone now costs $399 which is very attractive but also at the $399 price point is the new 16GB iPod Touch.

iPod Touch:
I haven’t been this excited for a product in awhile. In a previous post I stated I would pass on the iPhone. My dependance on my Blackberry and switching to AT&T were really my only reasons not to purchase one. Otherwise I thought the iPhone was amazing. Now Apple has all the amazing without any of my worries. Without a doubt, I’ll be picking up the iPod Touch the day its released. I went as far as to pre-order it from Apple.com last night but when I seen they charged me sales tax, I said screw it and I’ll just pick one up at an Apple store when they are available. I’m all about instant gratification. Its just my luck that the only product that wasn’t in stores already was the iPod Touch. Apple’s site says it ships by Sept. 28th. That’s along time to wait when you want something today. That’s around the same time the T-Mobile Blackberry Curve is rumored to be released so I should have some new toys to play with at the end of this month.

iPod Nano:
The Nano’s got a major overhaul with a new design, interface and video support. Unfortunately it seems the Nano is the sleeper product of the day being overshadowed by the Touch and the iPhone price drop. If the Touch wasn’t released, I would have ran to the store to pick up a new Nano without a second thought. $199 gets you a 8GB Nano that plays video. That’s epic.

Afterthoughts:
The 2-3 week wait for the iPod Touch is actually good for me. It will give me time to sell off my G1 Nano and my AppleTV to make room for the new iPod. My decision to sell my AppleTV stems more from my currently living situation than the new iPods. My HDTV has died and only have access to an SDTV so the AppleTV will do nothing more than collect dust for the next few months. With the Xbox 360’s support for SDTV, h264 and the help of Connect360 for my Mac, I don’t lose much from not having my AppleTV. Don’t worry little AppleTV, we may one day meet again.apple

I get a lot of questions about the kinda of hardware I’m running these days. I thought I’d do a few posts about the hardware, software and everything in-between that I am currently using. With the exception of the Router and NAS, most of this I carry with me all the times in my Timbuk2 Blogger.

Hardware:
Macbook 2.0Ghz/2GB RAM/250GB HDD
Western Digital Passport 120GB USB External HDD
Buffalo Linkstation 250GB NAS
Linksys WRT56G running HyperWRT 2.1b1 +tofu13c

In My Bag:
iPod Nano 4GB w/ Nike+iPod Kit
Nintendo DS Lite + games
Sandisk MicroCruzer 1GB Flash Drive
Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000
T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl
Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS
FujiFilm V10 Digital Camera

Home Entertainment:
Norcent LT-3222 32″ LCD TV (Slowly dying)
Microsoft Xbox360 Premium
Apple TV 40GB

If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time trying to keep your music collection backed up. If your library is relatively small, you can use iTunes 7’s built-in backup to burn to DVD. Thats all fine and dandy unless you have a large collection. In my case I need to keep my iTunes library on an external hard drive due to my Macbook’s hard drive being too small to support it. This poses a problem as now I need an additional external hard drive just to back up my music. I would buy an iPod and keep everything sync’d to there but I’m waiting for the 120GB Widescreen video before taking that route.

This is were Mp3tunes.com comes in. They are now offering unlimited storage for free accounts. This means I can sync my entire iTunes music library and now have it backed up to an offsite server for free. Plus I can sync my library with other computers and stream my entire library wherever I have an internet connection.

You use a program called Oboe Sync that scans your collection and will only uploads what has been added or changed. There is a Oboe Sync client for Windows, Mac and Linux so no one is left out. There are also plugins for iTunes, Mac and PC, and Winamp that allows streaming of your locker. In the case of the iTunes plugin, you see your locker show up under the Shared music source list. Files are streamed at 128kbps so its CD quality.

While everything sounds perfect. There are some caveats:

1) It only sync’s music, no video files so any iTunes TV shows or Movies you have, you still need to back those up on your own. It will sync DRM’d music tho.
2) Syncing takes along time. This is due to your internet connection. Upload speeds tend to be a lot slower than download. For a 42GB library, I’ve been syncing for about a week on and off.
3) The Obeo plugin for iTunes (Mac) is not Universal binary yet.
4) All new free accounts do not have unlimited storage right away. They are adding the unlimited storage to free accounts in waves. It took me about a week after I signed up before my account was converted to unlimited.

If you’re looking for a way to backup your music collection, look no father. The price is right, free, and you have the added bonus of being able to stream your music anywhere and keep multiple computers sync’d with the same library.

[Sign up now]

Keynote
I didn’t go to the keynote this year. $200 and standing in line for 5 hours didn’t really appeal to me too much so I did what everyone else did, followed everything online. I followed mostly everything from Macrumors and Engadget with a few refreshes of a couple other sites.

What did I think?

Apple TV
I’ve been waiting for this. I like what they did and will probably pick one up but its definitely not the perfect device. I don’t want to move all my movies into iTunes. I keep everything on a separate drive and you cannot stream from a folder.

The interface is slick and it can sync with iTunes just like a iPod so you don’t have to keep your computer running. I’m probably going to pick one up anyways since I get all my TV Shows from iTunes and its convenient but I’ll probably find another device down the road to replace it.

iPhone
This thing is amazing. I’ve said it before that when Apple drops there phone I would be be first in line to buy one. After all is said and done, I’m probably not going to get one.

Reasons:
1) Cingular. I’m a T-mobile customer.
2) Price. $599 is kinda steep tho I do think its worth every cent.
3) I’ve fallen in love with my Blackberry’s push email from work and I’m not sure if the iPhone can do that.
4) Doubt its going to work with the Nike+iPod kit.

June is along time away, half a year. As more details get announced, I’ll weigh in on my choice.

In other news, if Apple released a 120G touch widescreen iPod, that I will buy.

Apple AirPort Extreme
Nice, real nice. I want one but kinda pricy and my Macbook doesn’t have N in it.

Disappointed
After dropping a bombshell like the iPhone I still felt a little disappointed with the keynote. Why?

No new iPod, no Leopard and no iLife ‘07.

I was actually looking forward to new Leopard details, maybe even a release date and what’s new in iLife ‘07. I’m really hoping they overhaul iPhoto.

My guess is all that stuff will be announced soon and wasn’t at Macworld do to the iPhone stealing everyones thunder.

EarBuddy is a new product from Send Station that offers cord management for your iPod earbuds. Looks like a great idea as I usually spend 3 to 4mins trying to untangling my eadbuds. It can be hooked to your keychain for easy access. At $15 and you get a free song from iTunes, its not a bad deal. Personal I use a set of Sony MDR-E829V that came with a cord management case for $15

So this week was another onslaught of iPhone rumors mostly fueled by entries found in the iPod Updater and rumors of an August launch. Let me be the first one in line to buy this thing. Give me a flipphone that syncs over Bluetooth with iCal and Address Book plus 1gig memory to sync iTunes and I’m sold. I dont care what provider nor the cost of the phone. Right now I’m using a Motorola RAZR and frankly it sucks. Its only saving grace is its size. While I doubt it will happen, if it does drop, I’ll be the first one in line.