iPhone 4 Unboxing

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:46:11 +0800

Here is the usual set of unboxing pictures. I can’t imagine now getting a new iPhone or any other Apple device without taking unboxing pictures. It became now a tradition.

Here’s a bit strange picture, I don’t know why I’ve done it. It’s just when I was taking unboxing pictures in the garden I saw a snail nearby and decided to take a picture of it on the iPhone before I removing protective plastic film.

Newton MessagePad at iPad launch

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 08:00:06 +0800

For iPad launch I brought to Apple Store the first Apple tablet, Newton MessagePad. It was a great device but was released ahead of its time and never gained a significant market share. But nonetheless it was the first touch screen PDA that inspired a whole new category of devices. I have the last version, MessagePad 2100 released in 1997, some 13 years before the iPad. Comparing Newton to both iPhone and iPad I certainly can find some similarities in both software and hardware. Even the names are similar MessagePad and iPad. I think that iPad is in a way a rethought and re-imagined version of Newton.
At Apple Store quite a few employees were surprised to see Newton, one member of the staff even decided to take a photo of it. Take a look at pictures below.

Newton and iPad side by side.

Me holding my Newton at Apple Store in Brighton several minutes after the doors opened in the morning.

iPad launch day expedience in Brighton

Sun, 30 May 2010 10:30:23 +0800

I didn't want to pre-order my iPad just because I really like queuing up, all the hype and excitement about it. When Apple started accepting pre-orders I decided that I'll be going to Apple Store to get mine iPad.
On Friday morning I got to the entrance of Churchill shopping centre where Apple Store is located at about 5 o'clock in the morning, there was only one person already in front of me in the line. He said that he was queuing up since half past 2. Fortunately Apple decided to open its stores an hour earlier then usual, at 8 AM so we didn't have to wait for that long.

Since about 6 AM a lot of people started to come in, picture above shows the queue at 7:30. I think when the store opened there were around about 60 to 70 people in line. Finally at 8 Apple staff started to allow people in, only 10 at a time.
When I got the Apple Store itself, all the windows were covered up in black fabric and it was impossible to see what's inside. Not sure why they had to do it, maybe so that people who work at the shopping centre would not be able to see what was inside, but it certainly did add to the hype.

When they finally took the curtains down and let first people in I took a video of all the staff cheering and clapping. Take a look below:

I spoke to one of the employees while waiting outside and he said that he had to work until 4 AM to prepare the store for launch. Inside the atmosphere was amazing! Both all the staff and customers were very excited. iPads were selling quickly, but they had plenty of stock.

And here’s me with my brand new iPad Wi-Fi + 3G 32 GB :)

The launch was definitely a success and I’m so glad that I came early enough to be the second person in the queue. Also I brought to the Apple Store with me my Newton MessagePad 2100. A lot of people were surprised to see 13 years old Apple PDA. I’ll publish pictures of it in the store later.

iPad 3G Unboxing photos

Sat, 29 May 2010 05:19:55 +0800

Here are my iPad unboxing photos. I always tend to take unboxing pictures of all the gadgets I buy. And iPad is no different, especially because Apple’s packaging is a work of art of it’s own. Apple puts a great effort to make it’s packaging perfect: small, beautiful and recyclable. I took some 65 pictures, but here I’m going to publish just a few the best ones.

iPhone repair story

Thu, 20 May 2010 02:28:18 +0800

Last Friday I noticed that a thin crack appeared on my iPhone above the ringer switch. It’s quite a common problem, plaguing mainly white iPhones. You can see examples here and here. This are small and thin hairline cracks appearing for no particular reason.
As soon as I noticed it I made an appointment for the Genius Bar at Apple Store in Brighton. I’ve read on the Internet that many people got their phones successfully replaced by Apple. To my surprise genius actually told me that this fault does not impact the performance or function of the phone and for this reason refused to repaired it. He said that I can pay £140 to get my phone replaced with brand new republished unit. Of course I didn't want to pay that much money to fix cosmetic problem of one year old phone.
But I didn't want to give up, so I made another appointment a few days later at flagship Apple Store on Regent Street in London. This time genius acknowledged the issue straight away and after a few standard questions he replaced my iPhone 3GS with a refurbished one and also extended the warranty by a few more months. I was really happy! Above is a picture of my brand new iPhone in new case by Griffin + Threadless!
Now I’m just left wondering why one genius can decide to repair and another one refuse to do it.

Second issue of WoW Official Magazine

Sun, 16 May 2010 07:23:19 +0800

On Saturday I got the second issue of official World of Warcraft magazine. It was a long wait, but well worth it! Overall the second issue feels to me a bit more mature and contemplated. The first one was a bit of everything, there was an article or column on just about any aspect of WoW, but nothing major in particular. Now magazine is clearly divided in to different sections, each containing well-structured material. Although topics in table of contents didn’t change this is just how I felt.
This issue has quite a few interesting articles about dragons and all their varieties, Cataclysm and what is going to be changed in the next expansion, ICC, old-school 40-man raids and much more. I particularly loved an exclusive interview with Blizzard quest designer team. It is always exciting to get a glimpse at what’s happening behind the scenes!

Hove Park miniature railway

Mon, 10 May 2010 06:57:47 +0800

A few weeks ago I’ve been to miniature railway at Hove Park in Brighton. It was really great, I didn't expect for tracks and trains to be that small. When you ride it, you got to actually have your legs on the side of the carriages.
Track is quite long, over 600 meters in lengths, it takes around 3 minutes for complete loop. All the trains are replicas of the real ones and surprisingly they don't just all have an electric engine inside and look like old trains. All the steam ones actually have a mini steam engine and when you ride it you get sometimes steam and a little particles of coal in your face. It was a very authentic and pleasant experience and I’m looking forward to do it again.

There are some videos and photos below.

If you are reading this on iPhone you can watch this video on YouTube, It looks like Vimeo didn't convert it in iPhone compatible format.

My thoughts about eBook market in UK

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:03:37 +0800

A few days ago I wanted to buy a copy of a book ‘Stormrage’ by Richard A. Knaak. I’ve got a Sony Reader and also often listen to audio books on my iPhone, so naturally I was looking for a digital version of the book, either audio or text. Paperback was already released in print back in February and it is available to purchase on Amazon.
But to my surprise I could not find eBook version on any of UK online eBook stores. Audible doesn't have it either. I’m afraid that currently in UK the only way to buy this book is to buy a print version. That would have been just fine perhaps just a few years ago, but now so many big names in tech industry as well as smaller companies are pushing eBook reader devices. But how do they expect people to have a satisfactory experience, if there is no good way to get a recent content on them?
Another issue is the environment. One of the main reasons why I decided to purchase an eBook reader is to do my bit for environment and save the trees. But I can save the trees only if I will purchase a digital editions of the books instead of print.
In United Sates on the other hand eBook market is more mature. There are a few quite successful eBook ecosystems, such as Amazon Kindle and Apple just recently launched their own iBook Store. Talking about Amazon, the book I’m looking for is available in Kindle format and audio book is being sold on Audible US too. I wanted to find out the reason why it’s missing from UK store, so I’ve sent and email to UK Audible, enquiring about the issue. I got a reply with usual stuff that publishers have different rights in different regions, and sometimes they choose to publish different editions at different times and so on and so forth. But I was quite surprised that at the end of the email they told me that to speed up UK audio book release I have to contact the publisher directly! Never before I’ve heard about contacting publisher if you want to buy a book. Besides it’s not a limited edition or a rare publication, but a regular fiction book released a good two months ago. I’m not asking for too much.
This even makes me slightly regret buying an eBook reader at the first place. It is useless without content same as TV is useless without signal.
Out of curiosity I decided to check if ‘Stormrage’ is available on BitTorrent. Not surprisingly I quickly managed to find both PDF version of eBook as well as an MP3 audio book. This rise some questions about piracy.
Companies complain about the it, but they often leave customers no other viable option but to pirate. Instead of releasing more and more eBooks and encouraging people to buy them, they just largely ignore the market. Of course file sharing systems can quickly fill this space. It looks like eBook market just remains the hobby for publishers. But who are at loss? As always consumers.

Obviously this all is just about my experience trying to find just one book. But it’s a fact that the number of eBook available in UK is significantly smaller then print editions.

The very first Brighton Marathon

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:36:12 +0800

I had a great time at Brighton Marathon today! To be honest I didn’t expect to see so many people taking part, there were 7589 participants (7426 completed the course). And apparently as many as 80 thousand spectators were on the streets.
What I liked the most about it is that the track was going through a road just a few houses away from where I live. I didn't have to go anywhere, I even popped in home to make myself a cup of tea :)
Here are some pictures from the event:

The winner Ser-od Ba-otochir from Mongolia (right)

Giant testicles

SpongeBob!

Cow woman

Is this a Snow Leopard kitty?

Stormtrooper, shame that Darth Vader wasn’t there

Banana guy

Scooby-Doo!!!

A toilet guy, why would someone want to wear this?

And here’s a video of the marathon, atmosphere was great! Loads of people clapping and cheering!

Microsoft is using Apple’s keyboard and mouse in their adverts

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:00:51 +0800

I saw this advert on the Tube in London a few days ago. It’s an ad for Hotmail, but when I looked closer it appears that Microsoft is using Apple’s Pro Keyboard and either Pro Mouse or Magic Mouse in it. It’s not the first time when Microsoft used Apple’s products in their marketing materials. Back in 2005 they used iBook on Windows Vista website. Here’s a screenshot below, iBook is in a red square.

Still it looks a bit odd to me because Microsoft is making their own range of keyboards and mice for PCs. Below is a closeup of the image, you can see that they flipped image horizontally, mouse and numeric pad on the keyboard is on the left side instead of right.