D&P - Blog

So I went ahead and did it last week. I just couldn’t resist having e-mail and web access (almost) anywhere I go for $20/month. It’s great, and with the latest update just released today for the iPhone, it makes it even better. My only complaint so far: 3G phones have better reception. (My blackjack was 3G)

And I’m not complaining about the slowness of the EDGE network the iPhone uses; I’m just talking about the quality of voice calls, and the signal strength where I go. When we were in the hospital last Friday visiting Pam’s dad after he had some surgery, I had No Service throughout the whole building. Pam’s phone was at least on “Extended Network”, obviously struggling to get a signal, but got one none the less. I was just dead in the water.

There are spots too, if it’s not just right, I get a horrible signal. Luckily it’s just barely not bad enough to ruin the experience, but it does put a damper on it. I feel like I’m taking two steps forward and one step back. I never had to worry about signal or battery life with my blackjack… but now I find I’m always checking to see if I have a signal so I don’t miss a call, or that I may have to hunt down a signal if I’m in a building.

Ironically, this is exactly what the AT&T guy at the store warned me about. When I asked him if he had any iPhones, his immediate response was “is there a particular reason you needed the iPhone? Or does it just look cool?”. He then proceeded to pull his own iPhone out and tell me the problems he has with it; which include having to go outside to make/take a phone call sometimes cause of poor signal strength.

We’ll see, I have another 8 or 9 days to take it back if I’m unhappy!

So I’m loving my iMac, but it sure irks me when I hear things like: “you never need to restart your Mac” or “your Mac won’t crash” or “Macs are lots more stable than PCs”. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to reboot Leopard now to fix weird things that started happening. Just little things, like the dock’s background disappearing, and the text over icons no longer showing. Or the DoubleCommand app no longer working for some unexplained reason; just to name a few.

And the number of program crashes I’ve had, almost makes me feel like Vista was more stable. And it’s not just 3rd party programs like CyberDuck FTP (crashes ALL the time), but even Mail.app and Safari crash often enough to be annoying. The “rock solid” image that all the Mac fan boys keep screaming about just isn’t there in the long haul.

Don’t get me wrong… I love OS X. Having recently moved all my domains to use Google Apps for e-mail (etc), I not longer need my PC for day to day use (although Picasa is better than iPhoto, and Sony Vegas can do AVCHD natively; iMovie can’t). I use MailPlane to have almost instant access to my e-mail accounts, which nothing is stored locally. I’ve fully switched (for the most part), and I use Coda for all my PHP development.

So… that’s my rant. Mail.app just crashed on me again so I thought I’d write about it.