cdrum

I’ve been back in Beijing for a few days and have had a chance to play with my new gadget, the iPod Touch. Here are some observations:

• I jailbreaked it. Currently at version 1.1.2 – waiting to upgrade to 1.1.3 until the jailbreak process is more fullproof. Here are my jailbreaking notes.
• It’s slick – nice interface, and Safari + Wifi makes it a nice toy while at the coffee shop.
• I am surprised why Apple decided to make 2 partitions – the first one is around 300 MB, the 2nd one, for lal your data, spans the rest of the storage (in my case, almost 8GB). The problem with this 300 MB limitation on the first partition is that is where the applications are installed to. I am already full! I have read though that people have simply moved the Applications folder to the other partition and created a symbolic link. I’ll try that today or tomorrow. But, why bother with 2 partitions?
• I wish it had Bluetooth (and consequently Bluetooth-enabled internet access). I’d love to be able to pair it with my mobile phone so I could access the Internet in the taxi. YES, I know that an iPhone is essentially this! But I didn’t buy an iPhone, did I?! (besides, unlocking would have been a pain, more expensive, etc.)
• The build quality and packaging is surpurb. Nice all-metal casing, glass scratch-resistant face – gadgets are getting somewhere!
• I haven’t gotten music and movies to sync properly yet with gtkpod or amarok. I’m following this guide, and am getting close! Will hopefully get this working soon. The files transfer, but the iTunes DB doesn’t get updated properly. But, I won’t be using this as my primary multimedia device. I want it primarily for these two reasons:
  • Internet Tablet
  • Big(ger) screen movie viewing during travel

So I guess I should retire the ‘ol “N95″ category for this blog.

“Wait, What?!”

…you may be asking yourself… Yes, I did just buy it in June of this year, so that’s… 5 months and a few days of ownership. Man, I think that’s a record for me!

Here’s the reason:

I want an iPhone. There. I said it.

My dutch friend (yes, the fact that he is Dutch has just about zero relevance here) accused me of “flip flopping”. Yes, I would agree with that….

I went from using an Apple for my first computer, to hating Apple, to buying an iPod, then Airport Express, then a Powerbook, to hating Apple again, to installing Linux on my Powerbook (a post is in the works), and now back to wanting to get an iPhone.

Can I not just make up my mind and stick with it?!

Simple answer: No. With technology, I cannot make up my mind. 

Great, but didn’t I just buy the N95? Money don’t grow on trees, son!

Read the title of this entry: I sold the N95 for RMB 2600 (yes, he did a good look over today and found all the nicks and scratches….). I’ll be in Portland, Oregon on the 21st of December. I’ll buy the iPhone there for US$399. Tax free. That’s around ~2950 RMB. So, it’s a NETT ~300 (depending of exchange rate fluctuation from now ’til then) for a new phone.

The ONLY two things I am going to miss are the 5mpx camera and the GPS mapping. But I can live with that. I have a nice 6mpx Canon point-and-shoot, and maybe I’ll get the Garmin Nuvi. Maybe not…

China don’t have no 3G, so don’t need that shiz.

One of the things I critisized theiPhone was in the past was the lack of earth-shattering technical advances – specifically that it only packed 2.5G (Edge).

The N95 worked on just about any network available on earth. quad band GSM, UMTS, WCDMA, X59TQP, AJAX75, POS1000, whatever blah blah. (Ok, not the U.S. 3G network, but I don’t live there, so…) I now realize: who gives a crap!? I don’t travel much outside of China…

Seeing that China won’t be getting 3G (or at least a western-standard for 3G) any time soon, it doesn’t make any difference.

Also, let’s not forget that Beijing just upgraded to EDGE. So the iPhone fits perfectly here.

So, Chris is a Mac geek now!

Not so fast there. I am perfectly happy with my Linux set-up at home. I still don’t like OSX, for various reasons. And I still don’t support Apple’s sadistic genius business model(s), as a consumer, that is.

But remember – I won’t be using the iPhone in the states. I’ll be hapilly using it, unlocked, on the China Mobile network. No profit sharing from me! I’m sticken it to the “man”!