The problems

1. I was at work on launch day, so I was unable to be one of the people drawn in so much by the marketing that I was camping out at the Apple stores;
2. The local Rogers stores only received 3-5 units of the 32GB version;
3. Apple was (and still is) selling unlocked iPhone 4′s, as well as performing hardware upgrades for those folks who are on Rogers, Fido, Bell, and Telus;
4. Apple had technical issues with connecting to the Rogers/Fido systems to perform hardware upgrades (HUP). This delay lead to the Apple store taking up to 2 hours to activate a phone – this was only an issue if you were HUPing, unlocked iPhones were processed in minutes;
5. Rogers is not letting their customers HUP online or over the phone. They’re directing all customers to go in to a Rogers location or Apple store, despite their competition allowing the aforementioned methods; and
6. Apple seems to be hoarding the iPhones for their sale. Smart move from a financial standpoint, as they seemingly don’t have to give a cut to the carriers for their part in the sale. It also allows them to up-sell AppleCare warranty, and possibly get additional sales on peripherals, computers, etc, etc.

Is antenna-gate a real issue in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)?

From the few chosen ones whom I’ve spoken with that have obtained the holy grail of cell phones, is NO. They’re able to get the “bars” to go from 4 or 5 down to 2 by strangling the phone with a “death grip” without a case or “bumper” on the phone, so I’m not worried. Once I get my hands on my very own, I’ll be able to test and know for sure. I’ll provide an update at that time.

Rumor has it, that majority of the problems in the USA are due to the poor quality of the AT&T network.

Why do I want one, and why 32GB?

1. I’m getting awfully close to filling my 16GB. The only reason it’s not full, is that I haven’t loaded all my music, and yes, there’s some that I’d like to listen to that I don’t have on there;
2. With 720p HD video, I’d like to not be worried about not being able to record what I want when I want – HD video requires a lot more space than regular video – not that my 3G can do video natively, a 3rd party app is needed;
3. 5MP camera – ok, I have a high-end DSLR for real photos, but if I’m out somewhere and want to take a picture, it’s nice to know I have a bunch of space for it;
4. Apps! There are some apps that run as fast as molasses, even on OS 3.x.  The new processor is going to make them run amazingly; and
5. Retina display! Wow, once you see it in person…  that’s all I can say.

Rumors

There’s a rumor circulating the Internet that Apple is going to release a CDMA version (no, that won’t work on the Rogers network, as they’re GSM) that’s going to have a metal rear face to the phone, and the antenna is going to be linked in to that, instead of part of the ring around the edge of the iPhone 4.  For the sake of calling it something, I’m going to dub it iPhone 4.1.  According to the rumor, it’s due to be released in Q1 2011, that’s just 5-months away. But as I mentioned earlier, in the GTA the antenna “issue” seems to be null.

Perhaps this is why there’s a delay in the white iPhone 4. Maybe Apple is holding off for version 4.1.

In the press conference Steve Jobs hosted at the Apple HQ on July 16, Steve mentions that they will re-evaluate the antenna issue towards the end of September.  That might fall right in line with an announcement about an updated revision to the hardware.

Conclusion – for now

I’ve already renegotiated my plan with Rogers for the next 3-years. I’m getting an amazing deal and awesome features. I don’t mind locking in for 3-years, as it will save me about $500 on the phone just based on retail vs. HUP pricing. As long as Rogers keeps their existing coverage and quality of service (QOS) I’m more than happy.

Now all I need is to get my hands on a iPhone 4 32GB. Anyone have any leads?

So when iOS4 was released a few weeks back I did the upgrade right away. I enjoy testing out the latest hardware and software, so I figured what they heck… why not?

Within 2 hours I had it loaded, and all my music and apps synchronized back on to it.

I immediately set up folders for my apps.  For the past year I’ve had my “screens” setup so that all my apps were arranged logically. I had a screen for navigation/car items, a screen for utilities, a screen for social media, two screens for games, and a screen for web links. So setting up the folders was great for me, because now I don’t have to flick through all the screens to get to the last one. I have all my folders on one screen.

I then realized that my camera now has a zoom function.  Great!

That’s pretty much where the good ends.

Within 10-minutes of using the phone, I had at least 5 apps crash and quit on me. And yes, that even includes the Maps app and App store apps that Apple ships with the os and phone.

So I shut down the phone, boot it back up, and the same problems persist. So I load up iTunes, and make sure I have the latest version of the apps. Sure enough there are a few that have updates, and those say iOS4 tested. Wonderful.  I load those on, and they work well, but the App Store app still crashes intermittantly.

The following days and weeks – up until now – have had many app updates. I would imagine that nearly all the apps loaded on my phone are now updated. There are a few that aren’t, like iFuel Lite, but I would imagine the developers are working on that – at least I’m hoping they are.

So what’s my real gripe?

I’m annoyed at how slow and laggy the phone seems now. It’s just chugging along.

This past weekend, I was at the Toronto Eaton Centre, and I figured why not go in to the Apple Store and chat with a “genius”.

I make an appointment on their computer system, and wait about an hour.

They hook my phone up to their computer, and within a minute or two he tells me that the problem is with some of the apps. He says there are 8 apps that have “bad data” on the phone. I ask him if he can write them down for me so I can uninstall the apps and reload them. He tells me that what I need to do is restore the phone software, and set it up as a new phone. Then go in to the app store on the phone, and download all the apps again through the phone – not through iTunes.

He said that just wiping the app doesn’t remove the data files and preference files. For all I know, the problem lies in the apps that I don’t even have on the phone any more.

I thought that once you deleted an app from the phone, all the prefs would get wiped out with it. I’ve had experience where I decided to delete an app, and then a few days later load it back on, and I needed to setup all the preferences and settings again.

Anyways, I’m wondering if anyone knows what app Apple uses to diagnose iPhones? All I could find is the “secret” iPhone Configuration Utility on the Apple site. I have yet to run it, but I doubt that’s what they used.

I’m wondering if I should even bother restoring, since the rumor is that the iPhone 4 will be hitting the Canadian market on July 23, 2010, and I just so happen to have that day booked off work… so I think I might attempt to get one on launch day.

1. Upload MP3.
2. Select section of the song, and if you want it to fade in/out.
3. Download file – yes, they have an option for iPhone specifically.
4. Import file into iTunes – the file will show up automatically in your ringtones list.
5. Sync your phone.
6. Go into your iPhone settings, and select the ringtone.

Anyone want to place their bets on when I’ll get it?

Over the last week or so, I decided to start calling in to sign up and port my number from Bell to Rogers, so that I can take advantage of the 6GB data plan for $30 before it expired on October 6th.

After calling about 15 times to different reps, and about seven-hours on the phone I finally got a CSR that was able to come pretty close to the Bell plan that I’m on with my HTC Touch. This was yesterday evening – I was getting anxious as it was getting pretty close to October 6th!I had to leave to meet up with some friends, so the CSR said that he would call me today around 5 p.m. to go over the plan details that he was going to work out for me. He said that he was going to spend about an hour trying to come up with the best plan that he could for me. Since I didn’t already have a mobile phone with Rogers, he was having a difficult time, because apparently he needed to create a mobile phone on my account to play around with all the pricing and plan details. That’s where we parted, and I was a bit concerned that he wasn’t going to call me. He was really nice and seemed quite knowledgeable. I was pleased that I finally got a CSR that was willing to help me get something as close to the plan that I have now.

5:45 p.m. came and I hadn’t heard anything from him. So I called Rogers, and after about 20-minutes of listening to bad music I got to speak with a rep. I let her know that I was looking for the person that I spoke with yesterday. I was told that he was in meetings or something, and that they would pass a note on to him to let him know to give me a call.

At 7:14 p.m. I got a call from a really friendly rep saying that the person I spoke with yesterday wasn’t at work today, but that he left the notes that he wrote down for her to follow-up with me. 104-minutes later all of the documentation and plan details were worked out.

So, despite the early termination fee I need to pay Bell, I’ve taken the plunge and have started the process to port my mobile number to Rogers.

Now it’s just a waiting game. The iPhone’s are out of stock, and when they get their next shipment they’re going to ship one to me.

I’m hoping that my Bell cell doesn’t get disabled before I get the new phone – I’m not too sure how the whole porting actually works when a phone is OOS.

I’m also a bit skeptical of the billing – I’m somewhat concerned that all the discounts and bonuses that were applied to the new activation aren’t going to actually be on the account. Having said that, the CSR that I just dealt with said that she’s going to be following-up on my account in a few days to make sure that everything is going ok with the porting, and that if I don’t have the new phone within a week she’ll be calling me to let me know what the status is.

Kudos to the CSR’s for stepping up, and offering me an outstanding plan. The closest plan that I was able to get up until this point was about $30/mo more, once you factor in taxes.

Once everything is settled, and the billing is all proper, I’ll post the full plan details. For now, I’ll leave you with this… the plan has more features that I have with Bell, and is only going to run me $5 to $9 more a month – that is… if everything goes according to plan and the billing isn’t messed up!

How does it work?
You simply dial 1.800.GOOG.411 from any phone, and talk into the system. Using their voice recognition they’ll respond with several listings. Not only that, but they’ll connect you directly for free!

At home, I sync it with my Leopard 10.5 system using Markspace MissingSync (MMS) software… you can get a 15-day trial of their software or their Beta software (I think the Beta is 30-days).  I’m using their latest Beta.

Using Parallels, it will sync with Outlook… no probs…  (we have an exchange server at work – so this is how I sync all my meetings and whatnot). I could use MMS at work to sync with Entourage if I wanted to – but I don’t bother.

When I sync with MMS – OMFG….  amazing stuff happens… I can sync with iPhoto, iMovie, iCal (I don’t use this as I use Entourage), and even Mail (again, I don’t use this – I use entourage).

The stuff with page magnification and whatnot… I have a few things to say about that.  The version of IE that comes on the touch doesn’t do that. You can set it to landscape or portrait, you can set it to force everything into 1 column, or desktop mode (there’s a 3rd option but those are the 2 that I use).  By default, the touch will try to load mobile versions of webpages – if I go to http://facebook.com – it will actually load up http://m.facebook.com automatically, unless I put www. in front.

There’s a version of Opera for the touch that runs through the Java app. I’m using the free Opera Mini (OM) – doesn’t seem to work all that well – so much so that I’m not going to continue using it. I’m not sure how the full version (paid version) of Opera runs. From what I’ve been able to get OM to do, it will load up the page zoomed out and in full “real” mode, and when you click on an area, it will zoom in to that part of the page. You can then pan around the page.  Not quite what Safari can do on the iPhone – but close.

I’m content with using the IE that came with it.  I don’t plan on doing a TON of web browsing on there. Mostly Facebook, Canada411 lookups (free… yay… no more 411 charges… BTW bell is $1.50/411 call).

It will be interesting to see how or if Firefox ends up debuting on the Windows Mobile 6 platform. My guess, is that something is in the works.

Perhaps Google is already working on something…

So far so good. Unlimited mobile browser and e-mail. Everything is setup and working how I want.

So – I decided that I would give some “hacking”, skinning, and apps a shot and turn my HTC Touch into an iPhone.

It took me about 30-minutes to get everything done – using some great resources that I found online. The interface works pretty well, but I should admit that I MUCH prefer the today screen plugin that HTC developed and included.

Why? Well, it shows the date and time without having to read the analogue clock – easier to see if I’m in a meeting or driving or something (yes, I wear a watch, and my car has 2 clocks in it). The weather panel is upfront vs. having to open an application (you have to change “tabs” in the HTC plugin – very easy to do).

In an effort to answer some peoples questions…

Hey man, its hard to get a straight answer from the forum, so I was hoping that you could answer a couple questions for me about the new HTC Touch and the unlimited plan for $7.00.

So, can you go to like any website with this for free (ex www.ebay.ca, www.mapleleafs.com) or is it restricted to certain sites?

Can you download clips and sound waves from these sites or is this not included in the plan? Ex: if I am on TSN can I watch one of their highlight clips?. Can you download an attachment from an email etc?

How is the speed and approx what sort of kb/sec do you get?

Thanks in advance for all the help! I know – some people just don’t understand/are upset that they’re not with bell/are speculating when they have no idea.

My response….

yes… for $7 you can go to ANY website you want. It seems that using the built-in IE – the sites that have mobile versions show you the mobile site (WAP versions) – but a site that doesn’t will show you want you want. Does that make sense? If I were to go to www.facebook.com it will end up taking me to m.facebook.com (their mobile version). I haven’t tried to see if there’s a setting to disable that – but it doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.

I haven’t tried to watch clips or videos… so I can’t answer that for you. You CAN download files off the web and save them to your phone or memory card. The phone has a built-in zip decompressor too…

As for speed – it’s EVDO… what the rating is I couldn’t tell you. There is a bit of a lag as it trys to load sites – but not too bad. For $7 who can complain?

You can get e-mail from any webserver on it – you can have 8 addresses setup on the phone. You can set the e-mail to check every 5/10/15…etc. automatically for you… so it’s similar to “push” e-mail. Also, if you have an active exchange e-mail server you can get hooked into that from the phone for real push e-mail. I don’t have one – so I can’t tell you about setting it up or anything. I do use my own pop mail servers though. It also supports IMAP.

On another note, I have a bunch of screen protectors and hard-plastic protective cases that are coming to me from a supplier – so if you have a Touch and want one, let me know.

Why is this big news? There are a number of reasons.

1. It’s a touch screen phone – similar-esq to the iPhone
2. It’s launching in Canada prior to the iPhone
3. Bell is reported to have a $7 unlimited data (does not include tethering to a computer) for it

I guess we’ll see later on today if it’s true or not. If it is, I have every intention of switching my Palm Treo 700P for the Touch.

Ever wonder what the purpose of system access fees (SAF) are? Have you ever asked? Well, a Saskatchewan lawyer has setup a Class action lawsuit, naming the Canadian cellular providers regarding the overcharging and misleading the companies have done to the consumer regarding the SAF’s.

Back in the early stages of cell phone history, the CRTC implemented SAF’s to helpp build the infrastructure. Now, it’s completely useless, and being charged to solely profit the corporations.

On September 17, 2007, a Saskatchewan court has approved the go-ahead with a class action lawsuit against Canadian cellular service providers.

It’s about time that the big corporations stopped taking advantage of the consumer!

If you have a cell phone – or had one – go and Join the class action.

iWant one of these… it’s the ultimate in geekdom. The phone runs a version of OS X, which means that it would be fairly easy to develop applications for it – similar to WM2005 or WinCE.

So, what’s the problem? I’m in Canada! Yup… Apple finally released a product that’s been speculated about for years, and it’s not going to be available until June, and apparently only being released in the US via Cingular.

What’s the other problem? It’s only being released in a GSM version.

Why is that a problem? I’m with Bell Mobility which is CDMA. You cannot use a GSM phone on a CDMA network. Bell – GET WITH THE TIMES!

So why not switch to Rogers or Fido? I can’t do that because in Canada the CRTC has not made phone number portability possible – yet anyways. Supposedly this is something that will be in place come March 2007. Check out the CRTC press release from December 20, 2005.

So why not switch when the phone is available in Canada as it will be after March 2007? I’m on a corporate plan that I doubt Rogers would be willing to match. The last time I spoke with someone at Rogers, the best they were able to do was $15 more a month than what I’m paying now.

Phone specs:

• 4GB ($499 US) or 8GB ($599 US) versions
• 3.5″ screen
• 320×480 @160ppi
• Quad-band
• Wifi (802.11b/g)
• EDGE
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 2MP camera w/ video
• sync via iTunes on either Mac or PC
• 4×5″ x 2.4″ x 0.46″ = 115mm x 61mm x 11.6mm
• 4.8oz = 135gr
• playback of music, photos, and video
• rotate the device, and it goes into widescreen – part of the built-in sensors
• calls, voicemail, sms
• Safari, e-Mail, live maping via Google maps, widgets

Fallout since the Apple annoucement

• Cisco announces that the iPhone trademark belongs to them, and is launching a lawsuit against Apple
• The day of the announcement RIM stock dropped $14/share
• Announcement day Apple stock went up 8%

Anyways, check out the iPhone… it’s HOT!

Relevant links:

• Apple – iPhone
• Bell mobility
• Cingular
• Rogers