Apple

I just finished a trip to North Carolina and Florida, and as expected the iPhone was everywhere. If you aren’t an iPhone user, I’m sure you know someone who is. It was a game changer and expands of the old adage “Once you go Mac, you never go back”.

During my flight home, I was thinking about Apple success and it’s inevitable switch from underdog to favorite. It’s rise and the current cellphone battle between Apple, Blackberry, etc is the best proof that competition, in an uncorrupted form, does produce greatness. Does anyone think Ma Bell could have gotten us an iPhone?

As a devoted iPhone and Apple follower one might be forced to look negatively at their competition. Quite the contrary, we should hope that Palm and the others do their bast to force Apple to continue innovating.

Check out the new Droid ad for further proof:

Kids and Komputers

iTouch after a Shower

It’s always the youngest.

On Saturday my 4yr-old left our iTouch (old iPhone) outside for four hours of rain.  We didn’t notice it was missing until we went looking to play with it at 9:00 PM.   My 4yr-old  sheepishly told my oldest that she was using it outside and put it down on a lawn chair shortly before being chased back inside by the rain.

While holding the now dripping device, I did a little searching on some tech blogs for hope.  Not surprisingly, I found numerous others with a similar problem, though different causes; dropped in the toilet being the best.

Following the advice of blogs, I dried it with a paper towel and stuck in a tupperware container with some silica packets and rice (short grain, in case you were wondering).

Well I opened the tupperware up this morning, plugged it into the computer and presto, it works.

I think I may be buying some more AAPL today.

— Tom

High Anxiety

108th Floor – Sears Tower, Chicago

High Anxiety

I’ll pass.

iPhone 2.0

When I first got the iPhone in early July 2007, it was a necessary research expense.  Only by sampling the features and, most importantly, its ease of use could I determine the prudence of increasing my AAPL stake.  By testing it frequently using my 2, 4 and eight year olds as test subjects, I knew that Apple would dominate the cell phone market.  So when it was down from $200 to mid $120s in February and March, I quickly bought some more AAPL.

The financial aspect of the iPhone settled, I switch my focus to its suitability for non-tech savvy boomers.   The iPhone is a great product whose features will come easy for any Blackberry addict.  The rub, as with many technological advances, is that you have to read the instructions.  Smartly, Apple has a multitude of great videos that replace the usual written manuals.

That being said, the iPhone learning curve is shorter than a Blackberry, but because more use Blackberrys, for now, it is easier to get hands on help from peers.