Dear Apple,

Thanks for 4.2 on my iPad, but I really want the switch on the side to lock the screen again.

For the vast majority of the time I use my iPad without any sound, and spend a good deal of time locking the rotation via the switch. I’d like that feature back. I find using the multitask switcher clunky and awkward.

I’m also reminded of the Camera+ application when they re-assigned a volume button as a shutter button for photos. Your company rejected the app from the store because, it uses the volume buttons in a “non-standard way, potentially resulting in user confusing,” Source: AppleInsider

That is exactly what you have done with this change. Without reading the release notes, and after using my iPad for 6 months, how exactly was I to know why the button changed? So, where is the consistency? Do as I say, not as I do comes to mind.

Do you really want to know what makes Apple stand apart from other cellphone companies? Two words, Customer service.

Compared to my experiences with other phones, Apple’s iPhone support has been vastly superior. For example, I had a Nokia phone (I’ve had Motorola & Ericson phones too, but I only ever had to get the Nokia fixed), it needed repairs. My cellular company, Rogers, sent me to one of their so called authorized service dealers, after a long argument that the phone was indeed faulty. And an even longer time with the repair center on the phone to Nokia; they gave me a loaner phone. There was no offer to transfer my phone numbers so I grabbed the few I thought I needed, and transfered them to the new phone. Three weeks later, I get a call to come pickup my repaired phone. Total time spent probably 3 hours.

Apple, on the other hand, in both my and Staysea’s experience have been the model of customer service. I booked an appointment online. Showed up at the store. Showed them the dust under the screen. The nice lady, Carina went over to her drawer, pulled out a new iPhone gave me some papers to sign and off I went. 30 minutes, tops. The same level of service was provided when Staysea complained about some hairline cracks in her white iPhone case. A common problem that is recognized by Apple.

Thank you Apple for standing behind your products and making the decision to buy from you again that much more easier.

So, my friend bought an old Firewire iBook, the very colorful ones, this one is blue. Anyhow, he also bought the latest OS X, Tiger, and it only comes on a DVD. But I was able to install it using the DVD drive on my iBook. Here is how I did it.

1. Make sure you have the latest firmware installed, you’ll need 9.1 installed to update the firmware. (link)
2. Boot the old iBook in Firewire mode, hold down ‘T’ and power on the iBook.
3. Connect a firewire cable between the two machines.
4. Start the installer on the machine with the DVD drive.
5. Choose the firewire disk as your install destination.

That’s it. When the install is done, you should be able to reboot the old iBook and it should be running Tiger. Not too slowly either. Hope this helps some people out there who don’t have DVD drives on their older Macs.

Technorati Tags: apple, hack

So, Apple has noticed that podcasting is here to stay, and are planning to integrate support for RSS feeds with audio content in their next version of iTunes. Should be interesting, although, I must say that I will continue to use iPodderX. Just like I use a separate news reader for my RSS feeds. It’s nice that the support is in Safari, but I don’t really use it to read my news. iPodderX does a superb job of getting the audio I need, converting it and provides me a wonderful directory of content. Plus a much faster development cycle over apple.

Technorati Tags: apple, podcasting, itunes

So, it’s official, after getting up at 7 am and arriving at 8 am, I’m in the apple store a mere 2h 50m later. Lots of nice people in line, and quite the layout. I’ll post up some pictures of the line and such, when I get home, it’s a little crowded in here. I was actually around the 400th person to enter the store. Definitely worth the wait.

Technorati Tags: apple, Canada, ontario

3 Mondays ago, I ordered my brand new iBook. I have yet to receive it. How very, very frustrating. It has now been 12 business days, and it should have been 5-10 according to the store I ordered it through. I should have just ordered it through Apple, but since I did a trade in initially, then ended up selling it privately there was no way to change the order.

This has totally sucked all the fun out of getting the new iBook.

UPDATE: The store just called with the information from FedEx who apparently sent my iBook from Ancrage to Taiwan to Memphis and it just left Winnipeg. Suddenly Cast Away is becoming less and less believable.

So, it would appear that Apple is finally opening a store in Toronto, Yorkdale mall in fact. So I can go play with all the cool new apple stuff, instead of drooling at my computer looking at the website. Oh happy days. I wonder if they have an employee discount. Maybe a part-time job is in order here.

Apple Canada Jobs

I’ve had an iPod as for a long time. I bought one of the 5 Gig ones when they where first released, and it has been a faithful friend ever since. Now it’s been passed on to Staysea and I’ve gotten a new 20 Gig 4th generation iPod. This was possible thanks to the $125 discount audible.com was offering to new clients. I need to start off that I wasn’t impressed with the button layout on the iPods between my old one and my new one.

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Europe got their iTunes Music store today. Germany, UK, and France can now download songs at 0.99€.

Today, I was able to download my first song, with McDonald’s free Big Mac tunes. I have to say that, it was awesome! I’ve wanted a copy of one particular song for a while now, but never got down to a music store and now I have it, at least on my Windows machine. Not compatible with my Mac or iPod.

Apple? You listening? I downloaded “Where is the Love?” by Black Eyed Peas. Where is the love, Apple? I want my online music service.

My poor iBook is sick. It’s hard drive died yesterday. It likes to ‘click’ when it tries to boot, then it won’t boot or it will boot and then it likes to ‘click’ again and lockup. Today I go to buy a new hard drive in hopes of breathing some life back into my good little friend.

Thankfully, I found the technical manual for my ibook. Just do a google search for ibk_dusb.pdf and you should be able to find one, so you can disassemble your Dual USB White iBook and replace your hard drive, or anything else that might need fixing.