Anonymous Communist

Here’s my admittedly lame first attempt at creating a custom Webclip for iPhone (tip of the Cardinals hat to Shoo). The Soviet sickle turned askew is supposed to represent a “C.” I couldn’t find a good way to incorporate the hammer, so I had to settle for just the sickle and a star.

Getting it to work was troublesome initially. Attention, geeks: Bring on your derision and scorn. I deserve it.

Anyway, the new iPhone software update, among other things, allows the user to place bookmarks (or “Webclips,” if you will) on the phone’s Home screen. The user also can “paginate” the Home screen and scroll between icon “pages.” I think I might leave the Home screen as-is and create a second page of just bookmarks.

Hopefully, I won’t eff that up.

It looks as if all the iPhone users who have been kicking, screaming and holding their breath over the iPhone price cut have gotten their way:

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs apologized and offered $100 credits Thursday to people who shelled out up to $599 for an iPhone this summer and were burned when the company chopped $200 from the expensive model’s price.

This, apparently, after Jobs received “hundreds of e-mails from iPhone customers” whining about the price cut. While I certainly won’t turn down $100 from the Apple Store, I really don’t understand why people are complaining.

Certainly, every person who waited in line on June 29 should have expected that, at the very least, a price cut would be soon to come.

After all the pre-release hype about what the phone could do, there was just as much hype about what it couldn’t do. People knew that they were going to be getting a less-than-perfectly-featured phone (no 3G capability, no GPS, low capacity, etc.), and yet they willingly waited in line to drop down a stack of billz for one (or more).

And now after two months, Apple merely lowered the price. But some early-adopters act as if Apple pulled a fast one on them and proceed to go all 3-year-old on Apple. What’s going to happen in another two months, when Apple releases a more powerful iPhone with 3G capability, GPS and more storage at the same $399 price point, just in time for Christmas?

I stood in line on June 29 with the rest of you, eagerly awaiting my chance to willingly give my money away in such fashion. I don’t feel the least bit cheated or swindled or whatever it is others are whining about. I gots mine, as the kids say. And so did you.

The people who sat on the fence for several weeks before deciding in the affirmative might have a legitimate beef. If I may relay part of an e-mail my dear friend Steve sent me Thursday night:

My receipt is dated the 20th. I think I just missed that (full refund) window…

But if you stood in line on the release day, you have nothing to complain about. It was your choice. You knew the risks, but you did it anyway. Act like you have a pair.

Oh, and thanks for the $100 in Apple Store credit, whiners. I’ll probably get the Remix Tools for GarageBand.

I may have mentioned a while back that I bought an iPhone. It’s pretty neat.

Sometime last week I came across an article in the New York Times regarding a potential security flaw in the unit. The article referenced a Web site that spelled out exactly how a no-goodnik could take complete control of an iPhone through a flaw in the Safari browser.

One way to do this was through an unsecured wireless Internet connection. I just about soiled myself, because I had such a connection.

Clearly, I had to do something about this. Problem is that I had no idea how to do it. It took me posting a message to an Apple discussion forum just to find out how to change settings on the router. Technology is my life.

SMC does not make adding a password to an unsecured connection intuitive. I ended up having to guess which option and subsequently locked myself out of my own wireless network.

And in another post on the Apple forum, I learned that the protection that my SMC router offers, WEP, totally blows. Somebody with the right tools could crack a 128-bit WEP password in about a minute, I was told.

So after spending three or four hours over parts of three days trying to secure my connection, the obvious solution finally occurred to me: Buy an Airport Express. Duh.

This remarkable little device is the size of your average AC adapter. You plug your cable/DSL modem and USB printer into it, then plug the device into the wall.

After about three minutes of setup on the computer, I now have a WPA-secured wireless Internet connection complete with printer sharing. The signal isn’t quite as robust as the one from the SMC, but the peace of mind makes up for that.

The people next door probably are going to be upset with me now.

Among the reasons that people might want to wait on buying an iPhone is the unit’s (lack of) capacity.

Today I had to make some tough decisions on what music to put on my iPhone. My 20GB iPod has about about 4,300 songs, comprising about 17 GB. The iPhone’s capacity after activation is somewhere in the low 7s. Clearly, I had a difficult task ahead of me.

Some of the decisions were easy — artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Nirvana, Ween, NIL8, the Pixies, Tortoise and others were must-goes. Some that didn’t make the cut:

• The Beatles
• Blur
• Camper Van Beethoven
• Miles Davis
• Dilated Peoples
• Descendents
• The Fall
• Joy Division
• Charles Mingus
• Radiohead
• R.E.M.
• Sade
• Jimmy Smith
• et al

Having to grease Sade was the most agonizing. UPDATE 1:17 a.m. 7-7: The kiss of life has returned. The browbeating by Your Neighbor convinced me to restore Sade to her proper glory. What a fool I was.

What was added totaled about 5.8GB. I left a little bit of room to add more music as necessary as well as to add photos, which I haven’t done yet. This is to replace the photos in my wallet, which I have none of anyway. I’m such a bad father.

You shall be called “Buttonface.”

Yes, I know… it’s unhealthy to treat material goods in such fashion, as JP has reminded me. But, damn, this iPhone is cool. It does so many things, and does them so well and in such easy fashion. I was a late adopter of the cell phone, not getting one until 2004, but it didn’t take long for me to wonder how I got on without it, and all it did was make phone calls.

Our story begins early Friday afternoon. My dad had come over for an errand and asked me why I wasn’t in line yet. I told him I wasn’t feeling so hot (which was true) and that I didn’t like waiting in lines (also true) and that I wasn’t sure I wanted to get one straight away (which was a total lie).

Mrs. C replied to the effect of: “You’ve been obsessing over that thing for a week now. You should just go.” I came back with a “Wwwweelllll, I dooooooon’t knooooowwwww…” but marked down her tacit approval in my mental notepad. I then set about various household chores, as if doing the dishes and picking up the kids’ crap from the front room can make up for disappearing for a few hours to go stand in line.

So I get in line at the Monroe Street Cingular AT&T store about 4 p.m. I estimate that I’m about No. 25 or so in line. Mrs. C suggested I take a book, but I don’t have anything new to read, so I just sort of sat there, checking out who was in line. An adorable Mr.-and-Mrs.World-War-2-veteran couple was about five spots ahead of me. I also remembered that this guy said he was going to get one, but I only know what the top of his head looks like. So I just sat there, being last in line.

I was last line for about 45 minutes, feeling like a complete schmendrick, until a nice gentleman relieved me of my schmendricity. I could have gotten in line at 5 and been only two spots behind where I was at 4. A little after 5, the Cingular AT&T peeps explained the sales procedures and gave the dreaded “Direct Fulfillment” warning, which basically was to not fret if you were still in line when they ran out of units. You could still give give them your money, you just couldn’t walk out with an iPhone.

That didn’t seem like a very good deal to me, especially because the Cingular AT&T folks weren’t saying peep about how many units they had. I started to feel a little bit better when I learned that a few of the people ahead of me were just placeholders, including the group of three irritating teenagers standing in line for who I’m guessing was their mom. Setting off your car alarm the sixth time was just as unfunny as it was the first time, kids.

Finally, at 6 p.m. the doors were opened. Those first in slowly trickled out with units to huzzahs from the rest of us in line. One guy who brought his family walked out with four units. It took until I was about No. 3 out the door before I started getting antsy. When I was next in line, I started rocking back and forth like Leo Mazzone and gnawing on my pinkie nail. If I still smoked, I most certainly would have been chain smoking at this point.

And then it was my turn. There were four points of sale inside, and as one customer was done, they brought a new one from outside. Of course you had to stop at the accessories stand first, where there were all kinds of chargers and cozies and what have you. I was like, “Yeah, yeah… just give me the phone.”

An exremely polite and cheerful Karen obliged me, and after 2.5 hours of waiting I had a unit in my quivering little hands. Mrs. C wasn’t going to let me off easy, as I had to go up to Mr. Eggroll for dinner duty before I could take my new iPhone home to activate it. On the way home, I passed the Cingular AT&T store, and as of about 7 p.m., there still were about a dozen people in line outside.

Up next, a review of sorts.

Did it work?

Home with the baby.

Full report soon.

You might have heard about Apple Inc.’s new product they are releasing Friday evening. Check out this video to get acquainted. Dim the lights, maybe light some candles and enjoy a cigarette afterward.

Yeah, that iPhone is wicked awesome. Except that Apple has been more secretive than President Cheney regarding any sort of per-month cost information. As late as Monday, nobody knew what the monthly plans were going to be. Even the dude I talked to at Cingular the new AT&T was clueless. He also told me that only people eligible for an equipment upgrade could get one.

But thanks to fellow Macintosh junkie Dave Heinzel, we now know that the Cingular AT&T guy is wrong. Dave linked to the rate plans information, which was released Tuesday. And I found that I was mildly surprised at the cost. Existing Cingular AT&T customers such as myself can add an unlimited data plan to their current voice plan for as little as $20 more per month. The only small type I saw was that you had to sign a new, two-year deal, which is standard practice for a new handset.

The big twist in signing up for a plan and activating the phone is that you do it at home. Seriously. All you need is your iTunes account. No browbeating by the salesman to buy 10 million minutes and fancy text packages. All you do is buy the phone, take it home and plug it into your computer.

The iTunes program will then load up, just like when you plug your iPod in. The phone activation then takes place through iTunes. You choose which plan you want, fill in the payment information and you are on your way to awesomeness. If you don’t believe me, check out the activation video.

From what I’ve read, that easy activation process was one of the concessions that Cingular AT&T made to be the exclusive service provider.

You can also say bye-bye to the SIM card, which the iPhone has obsoleted (yes, I verbed it). You upload all your contact information by computer, iPod style. So it would probably be a good idea to update your Address Book before you drop off your sack of gold at the Cingular AT&T store.

And if you want one the first day, you’re probably going to have to stand in line. The guy at the store I talked to Monday says he expects at least 200 to 300 people Friday evening. He said he’s even fielded calls from people wanting to camp out Thursday night. Hell, there already are people lining up in NYC (and elsewhere, presumably). They are going to close the store about 4 or 4:30 p.m., he said, to prepare for the onslaught, which will begin at 6.

I desperately want one, but I don’t really want to stand in line. I’m going to survey the scene Friday evening, and if it’s manageable…

Those shits cost a lot of money, though, and a Mac-hating colleague of mine takes particular delight in breaking my balls about it. He asks how many meals my kids will miss if I get an iPhone. It’s a valid question. We’ve got plenty of lima beans and old cans of pumpkin pie mix, so it shouldn’t be too much of a hardship for them. And half a dozen more Mac-friendly colleagues are counting on me as well, saying, “Dude, if you get one you gotta show it to me.”

For more iPhone iNformation, check out the excellent iPhone Central blog, from the Macworld guys, linked to at right. Walt Mossberg has had an iPhone for a couple of weeks and has reviewed it, as has David Pogue from the Old Grey Lady (login may be required).

UPDATE 12:34 p.m. 6-27: Looks like Dave at The Eleventh Hour is going to get one. Awesome.