OK, so Apple has come up with a great new device called the iPad.  I got mine on April 30, 2010, because I chose to wait for the release of the 3G versions.  I really like the iPad and will write more about that in a later post.  I chose to write this post to warn all of you who may get an iPad 3G about a very serious rift between Apple and AT&T respecting the servicing of the iPad.

My iPad 3G works fine except for the cellular radio.  It failed shortly after I received the iPad.  We can discuss Apple’s quality control some other time. When it failed, I got “NO SERVICE” messages everywhere I went.  I contacted AT&T as I thought it was a network issue and was told repeatedly that AT&T does not support the iPad and that Apple provided all technical support respecting the iPad (even 3G network issues).  It will probably not surprise you to learn that contacting Apple tech support resulted in the finger pointing back to AT&T.  Apple tech support’s position was that AT&T had the responsibility of providing tech support for all 3G network related issues, as Apple could not provide support for AT&T’s network problems.

AT&T went so far as to tell me that they could not service the iPad, as Apple had not provided them with any information as to how to support the iPad.  AT&T’s store personnel and customer service personnel actually got downright surly about it.

I have long believed that Apple made a bad decision in partnering with AT&T and that AT&T represents the weakest part of the iPhone/iPad package.   That belief results from the frequently dropped calls, spotty coverage and poor customer service and support that AT&T has provided over the years and continues to provide now.  In this instance, however, I believe Apple and AT&T both equally share the responsibility for this situation.  Neither Apple nor AT&T provided accurate or adequate information to their customer service or first tier technical support personnel or, in the case of AT&T to their in-store employees and managers.

If you encounter similar problems with your iPad 3G(and I expect that you might as was told by an AT&T customer service supervisor that she had handled seven calls similar to mine that day), be sure that you get to second tier tech support.  I finally got my issue resolved (Apple sent me a replacement iPad) by getting to the second tier of Apple’s tech support and having the tech support person get a second tier AT&T tech support representative on the line.  A three-way conference call resolved the issue in about 20 minutes.  In that call, both the AT&T and the Apple second tier tech support representatives repeatedly apologized for their company’s mishandling of the problem and for the lack of correct information that the lower echelon tech support representatives had respecting the manner in which to address such problems and the issue of which company is responsible for what.

Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Allen.

Tags: Apple, ATT, customer service, iPad, iPhone, technical support

Posted in Hardware, PDA, Product Review, Smart Phone, Travel  |   No Comments/Questions

I have been playing with the Motorola Droid on the Verizon network for the last couple of months.  My first reaction to the Droid was that it did not stack up to my iPhone.  While nothing has changed that conclusion, I have developed some respect for the Droid as it has proven a very decent phone.  I have not had any trouble with it; it has performed well for me and it has the advantage of using the Verizon network, which provides better coverage than a number of its competitors. You can learn more about the Droid and its features on the Motorola website at www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.Motorola-DROID-US-EN.alt or on Verizon’s site at http://phones.verizonwireless.com/motorola/droid/#/home.

The Droid is a slider style phone and has a physical keyboard.  The physical keyboard is, perhaps, its weakest link.  The keyboard has small level keys.  They do not have raised ridges, such as RIM uses with some of the Blackberry models.  I prefer the raised ridges as they make it easier to use.  Raised ridges on a slider phone, however, could pose a problem as they would either require extra space making the phone cumbersome or interfere with the sliding process.  In truth, I prefer the virtual keyboard option and rarely use the physical keyboard.

The Droid has a 5mp camera, complete with a flash unit. It takes very decent pictures.  It also takes high quality movies.  As with most smart phones, you can play movies and music on it.  The Droid comes with 16GB of internal memory, but you can add more through the use of micro SD cards.  The phone came with a 16GB micro SD card installed and supports up to 32GB micro SD cards.

The Droid uses the current iteration of Google’s Android operating system.  I have worked with the Android system since shortly after it came out and I like it.  It works smoothly and easily, bringing substantial power to the smart phone without burning up the battery.  Like the iPhone’s OS, the Android system allows for the use of Apps or applications.  In fact a number of Apps available on the iPhone also have Android versions.  The variety of Apps for the Android system does not approach that available for the iPhone yet; but you can get a lot of usable Apps for the Android phones.

Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Allen.

Tags: Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, Motorola, Motorola Droid, Product Review, Smart Phone

Posted in Hardware, PDA, Product Review, Smart Phone  |   No Comments/Questions

The folks at Uniea asked me to let you know that they have a year-end special sale on their cases at their web store.  The information you need is as follows:

The code is “newyear” and it is good for 20% off on any purchase in the online Uniea store at http://www.unieastore.com. The offer is valid From 1/1 to 1/3 only and is valid worldwide.

Uniea send me some sample cases to look at a while back;  I thought they were pretty decent.  In fact I have been using one of their samples on my iPhone 3Gs for the last month or so and I like it quite a bit.  If you have a chance, you might want to wander over to their website and take a look.

Tags: Apple, cases, Hardware, iPhone, Uniea

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I thought you might be interested in knowing that the ABA GP Solo Division has released the newest issue of the Technology eReport.  You can read it on line or get your own copy at

http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2009/vol8/num4/.

This issue has the following contents:

FEATURES

Is Your Website OK Today? » Attracting clients and making favorable impressions.

SaaS Security: Can You Trust Your Data in the Cloud? » How to pick the right SaaS provider, come rain or shine.

Setting Up a Web-Based Virtual Law Office » Practical and ethical considerations to address when moving online.

COLUMNS

MacNotes » Snow Leopard: snow job, or great new OS?

SurvivingEmail » Email sig files, social networks, and getting seen.

Sites for Sore Eyes » Where to go to learn about Windows 7.

TechNotes » Is Skype all hype, or is it a helpful tool?

ProductNotes » Casio EX-FC100 camera, Novatel MiFi 2200 USB modem, Google Wave, and PBworks.

DivisionNotes » Midyear Meeting events and an upcoming teleconference.

Tags: ABA, Apple, Casio, FC100, Google, Google Wave, GPSolo, Mifi, Novatel, SAAS, Snow Leopard, Technology eReport, Virtual office, web site

Posted in Hardware, Product Review, Software, Technology and Laws, Websites, eMail  |   No Comments/Questions

Snow Leopard is an upgrade to Leopard and you need to take your computer to that OS first to upgrade to Snow Leopard.  Although Snow Leopard only costs $29 for a single license, if you don’t already have Leopard on our computer, you have to purchase a copy of Leopard if you want to use it.  The OS also requires a Mac with an Intel processor.

Image courtesy of Apple, Inc.

It will probably take some time before you see the benefit of the most significant enhancement for the new OS- its support of 64-bit software.  Once vendors start producing 64-bit code for programs, you should see a marked improvement in processing speed.  Until then, not so much.  Apple has announced that it has converted its key system applications to 64-bit, so you will see a speed jump there right off the bat.

We are moving from two to four core processor computers.  Snow Leopard takes advantage of the new multi-core processors.  Intel produces several multi-core processors. Apple has had multiple core processors available in its Mac Pro line for some time.  Apple recently announced that it would ship a 27” quad-core processor iMac in November 2009.

Moving to a quad core-processor and code written for a 64 bit OS/processor combination will generate substantial speed improvements for the system.  I have discussed some of the new features of Snow Leopard in a review that I wrote for the November issue of the Technology eReport, you will be able to find that review on the ABA’s GPSolo Division web site in the near future.  Apple has devoted a section of its web site to Snow Leopard and its features.  You may want to take some time to look through the web site to help you decide whether you want to upgrade.  You can find the information at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/.

I installed Snow Leopard over existing Leopard installations on two different generations of iMacs, a MacBook, a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro.  Each of the installations went smoothly and fairly quickly.  Once I completed the installation current versions of my programs worked just as they had before the installation.  Some older programs had problems, but Snow Leopard compatible updates e released within the last month solved most of those issues.  If you upgrade to Snow Leopard, I strongly recommend that you check out your existing software and make sure that you have the most current versions of the programs you need.  If you do that you should have no significant problems from the new OS.

My overall reaction to the new OS is that it provides a good tune-up for the Leopard OS and justifies the $29 price tag.  I plan on getting a quad-core iMac and expect that I will see a very significant performance improvement at that time.  I will write about it after I have had the chance to use it for a while.

Copyright 2009, Jeffrey Allen, all rights reserved.

Tags: ABA, Apple, iMac, Intel, Leopard, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacPro, quad core processor, Snow Leopard

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Image courtesy of o"Reilly publishers

O’Reilly press recently released a new must get book by Josh Clark entitled “Best iPhone Apps”. As a dedicated appophile, I regularly look for newer and better apps to add to my outrageously large collection. Big as my collection has grown, the over 50,000 choices available at the App Store dwarfs my group of apps. The amazing size and continually rapid growth of the variety of available apps at the App Store makes it very difficult to keep up and impossible to get ahead of the game.

For those who have kept their app collection to a minimum, you are losing out on a great deal of enjoyment and entertainment, to say nothing of utility from available apps.

The one bad thing about the App Store is that some apps cost money and you have to buy them to try them. If you don’t like the app you bought, you can take it off your iPhone, but you cannot get a refund. As many functions have attracted numerous available apps from which you can choose, you can easily end up buying repetitively to end up with what you want.

While Clark’s book will likely lose currency in a short period of time, I still recommend it to you. The book will cost you $19.99 for a hard copy, $15.99 for an eBook version and $21.99 for both. Apps cost anywhere from nothing to at least $69.99 (that is the most expensive one I have found to date), with most of the apps that I have seen costing less than $9.99. It doesn’t take the HP 12c app emulator to calculate that the book can easily save you more than its cost before it becomes dated. At the same time, it will certainly help you make wise app choices. I found that Clark’s choices of top apps largely matched my own in those areas that I collected apps. We disagreed on about 10-15% of the choices; but I agree that his choices were also good. He left off a few of my choices in areas he did not address and included areas in which I have not collected apps. The novice or intermediate appophile should consider this book indispensable. The advanced appophile should find it desirable.

Tags: App, App Store, Apple, iPhone, O'Reilly

Posted in Software  |   No Comments/Questions

I had some spare time the other day, so I opened up iTunes and went to the iTunes Store fore a quick look to see what it may have of interest.  I spotted a section of the store that I had heard about, but to which I had not paid much attention, iTunes University.  To my amazement, the iTunes U department had course and lecture offerings from some of the world’s top institutions of higher learning.  Among the schools represented: MIT, Oxford, Cambridg, Stanford, Duke,  and my own alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley.

The University section of the store included materials covering fields as disparate as the arts and political science, physics and foreign languages (although, I have heard some people say that physics is a foreign language to them).  I also found courses on history, mathematics,  philosophy, literature, education and rhetoric.  Stanford and Cornell even offered courses on Law.

The store has broken the offerings into thirteen general categories to facilitate finding what you seek.  The chosen categories:  ”Business”, “Engineering”, “Fine Arts”, “Health & Medicine”, “History”, “Humanities”, “Language”, “Literature”, “Mathematics”, “Science”, “Social Science”, “Society” and “Teaching & Education”.

All of the courses I looked had were of recent vintages and none of the schools charged for their offerings.  Acquiring a course took little effort, simply clicking on it and telling it to download to iTunes.  Once in iTunes, you had the option of playing it on a computer or synching it to an iPhone/iPod.  The store offers another very convenient feature;  it allows you to download the entire course or selected lectures from the course.  Some of the courses continue to grow in terms of material and lectures.  The University allows you to subscribe to the course, so that iTunes can automatically download any new material for your use and enjoyment.

If you have not yet seen the iTunes U section of the iTunes Store, you should do so ASAP.  Download a few courses and learn something new.  Expand your horizons!

Tags: Apple, Cambridge, Cornell, Duke, iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch, iTunes Store, iTunes U, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, UC Berkeley

Posted in Websites  |   No Comments/Questions

Image Courtesy of Apple, Inc.

OK, Apple finally turned out iPhone OS 3.0.  I immediately downloaded it into my 16 GB 3G iPhone and gave it a quick run through before replacing that phone with the 32 GB 3Gs that I am now using and which I will report on in a week or so.  This is a preliminary assessment of OS 3.0.  Get it!  Get it now!  Apple makes it available free for all iPhone owners. iPod Touch users need to pay $9.95 for the upgrade.

Simply put, I am very impressed with the new OS.  It improves on existing features and adds some new features to the mix.  The things that most impressed me from the start:

1)  Spotlight.  You can now search your iPhone for data or the location of an App using the spotlight feature.  Spotlight is not immediately apparent on your iPhone.  If you go to the home page of the iPhone and shift one page to the left (you could only go to the right before) you find yourself at the Spotlight screen.  Type in your search term and let the computer (iPhone) do the work.

2)  ”Find-Me”.  Ever lose your iPhone?  Not such a problem any more.  You can use the GPS features of the iPhone and MobileMe to locate a misplaced iPhone using another computer.  The system is not perfect.  For example, it won’t tell you that you left it in the kitchen under the sports page.  It will tell you that you left it in the vicinity of your house or your office or at a shopping area, etc.  Note, it only works if the iPhone is on and has power, so don’t wait until the battery is gone before you start to look.  If you find out that you left it at home, go into the house, dial up your iPhone and follow the ring.

3) “Wipe” (or for you Beach Boy fans, “Wipe Out”).  As long as your iPhone has power and is on, you can wipe out all information on the iPhone remotely from your computer using the “Wipe” feature.  Not a bad idea if you get your phone stolen.  On the other hand, if you wipe it out and then find it, you can restore the information from the last synch using iTunes.

Apple also added “cut and paste” to this version of the OS.   I have not yet tested that feature, but I think it will likely add value and functionality to the iPhone.

Tags: 3Gs, Apple, Find-Me, iPhone, iPHone OS 3, Spotlight, Wipe

Posted in Hardware  |   No Comments/Questions

A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience with the Mophie Juice Pack Air;  perhaps more accurately, I wrote about my experience with Mophie’s support and warranty service.  Since that post Mophie has somewhat redeemed itself as to its support and warranty service.  The jury remains out about the device, however.

Although Mophie’s support department never returned any of my telephone messages, several days after I wrote the last Mophie-related post, I received a call tag for the dead device.  I packaged the device up and gave it to the carrier.  Not quite a week later, I received an email telling me that Mophie had determined that my Juice Pack Air was defective and that they would ship me a replacement.  A week later I received the replacement white Mophie Juice Pack Air.  It appeared to be a brand new (as opposed to remanufactured) device.  Accoerdingly, while I do wish they had returned my phone call, I have no other substantial criticism of Mophie’s support or warranty service.

My testing of the Juice Pack Air has commenced anew as I have recently upgraded my iPhone to the Aple’s new iPhone 3Gs, operating on the new OS Version 3.

More on the testing later, as I remain concerned about the issue of signal blockage and have discovered that the new device will not talk to iTunes with my new phone and OS 3.0.

Tags: 3Gs, Apple, iPhone, Juice Pack Air, Mophie, service, signal, support, warranty

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OK, folks, you heard it here first. Apple’s SDC (Software Developers’ Conference) is Apple’s new MacWorld. For years Apple timed its new product announcements to come out at MacWorld. Since MacWorld takes place in January, that meant Apple missed the holiday season with its new announcements. Since Apple would not want to stack updates up so that it release some for the holiday season and held enough back for a significant showing at MacWorld, in reality, upgrades and new product announcements for the holiday season came out much earlier in the year, causing them to lose some luster by the time the holiday buying frenzy kicked into full gear. By opting out of MacWorld, Apple freed itself from that schedule.

Surprisingly, Apple chose its SDC as the venue to announce a number of new products. One would reasonably expect Apple to announce software products at its SDC; the hardware announcements came as something of a surprise. Be that as it may, the Apple fan club will now look to the SDC as the timing point for the release of new products.

On the software side, Apple gave us more information about OS 3.0 for the iPhone. Everyone knew Apple was going to release it in June, but most of us did not know when. We know now it will come out on June 17, 2009. As was the case with the last major update, the new system will cost iPhone owners nothing and iPod Touch owners $9.95. Look for it on a computer screen near you next week.

Apple’s web site gives detailed information about many of the new features that the new OS will bring to the iPhone; check it out at www.apple.com.

Also of note, the new Mac OS X v.10.6 (known as Snow Leopard) will come out around September at the most reasonable price of $29 ($49 for the family pack). Those of you who have been around for a while will recognize that as a substantial price reduction from prior iterations of the OS.

On the hardware side, Apple announced the release of a new MacBook Pro in 13”, and 17” screen sizes. That you get more computer for less money is not a surprise as that trend has applied for many years. The new computers follow the MacBook Air model of locking the battery up so that users cannot simply buy a second, keep it charged and pop it into place when they need it. While users may choose to void their warranty by opening the case and installing a replacement battery themselves, that is not the same thing as being able to change the battery on the fly. The good news is that Apple promises a usable battery life substantially longer per charge, so the inability to exchange batteries will not prove so debilitating as it otherwise might. Still it introduces a new and unnecessary level of inconvenience for the user in order to allow Apple to make more money by requiring users to bring their laptops in for a battery replacement.

Photo courtesy of Apple, Inc.

The other big hardware news relates to the new iteration of the iPhone 3G S (the “S” supposedly stands for “Speed”) as the 3G S is reputed to be the fastest iPhone yet.

Most notably, the new iPhones come with 8, 16 or 32 GB memories. After discounts for new and renewal subscribers to AT&T, the iPhones cost $99 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB. If you bought the last iteration of the iPhone and are not yet eligible for an upgrade, you get to pay several hundred dollars more as a reward for your continuing loyalty to AT&T. The 32GB iPhone 3G S costs $499 without the discount.

Photographs Courtesy of Apple, Inc.

Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Allen.  All rights reserved.

Tags: Apple, Apple SDC, iPhone, iPhone 3G S, iPHone OS 3, Mac, MacBook Pro, OS X, Snow Leopard

Posted in Software  |   No Comments/Questions