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It’s nothing fancy, just the “Hello World!” app that Apple so kindly put in their developer documentation. I even went above and beyond with a custom icon and some fancier text in the app. Now my only problem is that it’s taking forever (over an hour now) to get a Development Provisioning Profile from Apple.
Update: I finally got a DPP and I’ve installed the app on my iPhone. Now to learn some more about developing for the iPhone in Xcode!
An old friend of mine, Ron, responded to one of my Facebook updates by saying “Are you writing some iPhone apps during this time?”. That’s a damn good question. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Program/Project Management in hopes of landing a PM job with Microsoft, but so far that hasn’t panned out. I’ve been considering expanding my knowledge base beyond that, but didn’t know what to concentrate on. As an avid iPhone user, I can’t believe that Ron had to point out the obvious to me. Well, after this post, I am going to signup for the iPhone SDK and hopefully have my “Hello World” app written in no time.
Thanks Ron! You seem to be the angel of reason on my shoulder.
This morning Apple Inc. updated the Mac Mini, iMac, Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule. We’ve all seen the Photoshopped Mac Mini pictures with a billion USB ports but now we know that it has five. The biggest updates for the desktop line are faster graphics cards, faster CPU’s and lower power consumption.
What interests me the most is the enhancements to the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule. Apple has seperated the 802.11g and 802.11n into seperate channels. This will allow each device on the network get the optimal speed without slowing up the network (iPhone at 802.11g and Apple TV at 802.11n). They’ve also added a “guest” network that will provide a password protected, seperate WiFi network that doesn’t see your local network. Very nice touches. At $499, Im seriously considering the 1TB Time Capsule.
Source: Apple
I give myself a 5.5 out of 10. Let’s see how I did:
I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll summarize the keynote later today when I get back home and
I’m going to keep this rant short. After watching Steve Jobs announce that every major movie studio is on board with movie rentals, I have one question. Why didn’t I hear anything about NBC/Universal bringing TV Shows back to iTunes?
I was hoping that would be Steve’s “One More Thing”, but that phrase never left his lips (or nobody blogged it). I’m curious to see if they show up on the sly.
Do you have comments about this? Feel free to leave them here.
This week is the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. While I can’t be there in person, you can bet that I’ll be living vicariously through all the bloggers that will be. I’ll keep you posted on the big news daily.
What am I looking forward to seeing announced/released this week? Here’s my list:
That’s all I can come up with on short notice and most of them have been rumored for some time now. I kept it at 10 to keep score. Let’s see how I do.
I’ve been trying to give Apple my money all weekend and all I keep getting is an error that says “The iTunes Store is unable to process purchases at this time. Credit card processesing is temporarily unavailable. You may continue to browse the store. Please try to make your purchase later.”Well, I’ve been trying for over 24 hours with little success. At first I thought it might me a problem with PayPal, so I switched my payment method to a Visa checkcard. That let me make one $3 purchase and then it too gave me the credit card error. I’ve been checking the Apple Discussion Boards and the problem is occuring with all forms of payment, even gift cards.If you’ve been having this problem, chime in with a comment.
Apple CEO, Steve Jobs writes in this letter on Apple’s website:
“…we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.”
If you were thinking about trying to get a $200 credit from your credit card company, I would do it now before they catch wind of this.
With all the buzz surrounding the $200 price drop and existing iPhone owners (include me in that list), feeling they deserved some sort of compensation, I decided to try a couple of different avenues that I’ve heard were successful for others.
First, I called AT&T customer care and was kindly told that they would only issue credit for purchases between August 23 – September 5. Unfortunately I purchased my 8GB iPhone on July 5. Strike 1.
Then I visited the local Apple Store that I purchased it at. A manager who has obviously had this conversation hundreds of times already told me that he could not do returns or credits outside of Apple’s normal return/price matching policies. Strike 2.
Then I read this post on Apple’s Discussion Forums:
If you bought your iPhone on an American Express Card call 1-800-297-8019 (this is the return protection program) and they will credit your card with $200 for each phone you purchased. (I bought 2) The lady said it takes about 2 weeks and all of the reps that you talk to know about the price drop and they have set up a special program to return card members their money. I hope this is helpful.
I decided to give it a try and HOME RUN! Here is a summary of the phone call with my credit card company, American Express:
I called American Express and they transfered me to the Return Protection Program. The customer service representative said that yes, they are crediting cardholders the $200.00. According to her, Apple told them to refund the American Express holders $200.00 for each phone. I was informed that this is not one of the norms, but they credited my account $214.00 which includes local sales tax.
So there is hope. And if what the customer service rep says is true, than Apple, in a roundabout way, agrees that iPhone early adopters deserve their $200.
Yesterday’s $200 price drop of the Apple iPhone only 2 months after its release is an insult to Apple loyal customers. Many of us stood in line for countless hours to buy the 8GB iPhone for $599. Many of us also went through the pains of activating our iPhones with AT&T for periods as long as 3-10 days. We provided valuable feedback that has aided Apple in releasing 2 firmware upgrades in as many months.
So what do we get for all of this. We get insulted by Apple and mocked by our friends and family. If Apple can afford to reduce the price by 33% in only 2 months, why the heck was it so expensive to begin with? To prove that they could get people to pay $600 for a phone? I feel used.
This is reminiscent of the recent release of the Apple TV. Early adopters pre-ordered their 40GB Apple TV’s only to have their brand new toy be outdated in a few months when Apple released an Apple TV with a 160GB hard drive for only $100 more. While I was not pleased to hear that Apple wasn’t offering an upgrade, at least they didn’t insult me by lowering the price of the 40GB Apple TV.
What does this mean to Apple? Time will tell. But from my standpoint, the $2,500 that I was going to spend on 2 MacBooks this Christmas season may be spent elsewhere. I’m not sure my wife would let me spend that kind of money on a company that has neglected me as an early adopter twice in less than 12 months.
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