Brett's Tech Blog

iThink we have some competition coming.

Since the introduction of the original iPhone, I've watched many a cell-phone manufacturer scramble to come up with something equally cool or better. The one thing theyve all missed (or maybe they just forgot), is that Apple has spent years, no, decades creating interfaces, software and devices, but more importantly making them easy to use and elegant.

That gave Apple an advantage when they entered the Cell Phone market which has been dominated by a few key players who had up-until-then been shoving the same BLEEP down our throats. We were an audience ready for change, and it happened to be change we could believe in.

Googles G1, their first attempt at a mobile phone with T-Mobile, looks like it was a spawn of the iPhone and some other device (Like, the Sidekick). And it works a lot like them too, you touch the screen, things happen, you flip it open and theres a keyboard.

The keyboard does give it an advantage over the iPhone: its one of the things people have complained about when complaining about the iPhone: the virtual keyboard. Even I have had my own frustrations with tapping in messages and seeing the wrong words appear on the screen. A real keyboard does away with that all together (and also lets you type without looking since you can feel the keys under your fingers, a bonus when youre trying to send something quickly but also pay attention to whats going on around you).

The G1 also has a very touchable interface which has similar animation that most people dont notice outright but feel when theyre using it-for example, when you swipe from one screen to the next, icons dont just move over they glide over and jiggle when they stop, like they would in real life.

There will also be an App store for the G1, much the same way there is for the new iPhone. Unlike the Apple App store, anyone who wants to write an application can do it and get it to your phone without the hassle of going through Apple and getting it cleared and approved by Apple. Sure, that could open the door to hackers and virus writers, but it can also open up the phone to corporate customers who need customized programs on handheld devices for accessing their information.

Only time will truly tell how well Googles attempt at mobile computing will go, but theyve got all the pieces in place: from mapping software, to online e-mail and calendaring, to web searching… the list goes on and on.

I think this device will sell well. Where it wont likely have people lined up for hours and days before launch to get one, it will certainly be popular. And as more devices show up running Android, and more useful applications are created, it will only get better.

So, it isn’t really out-of-the ordinary that I would, say, spend a weekend upgrading my computer to the new version of Mac OS X Leopard. I should admit, in the interests of full disclosure that I have always been a Mac user (in fact, my father used to work for Apple when I was a kid), but before you fire up your e-mail program to fire off some anti-Mac rhetoric or what have you, listen. I’ve never bashed Windows, I’ve never unnecessarily propped up the Mac. I’ve seen enough, experienced enough and covered enough technology to know when something is good, great or mindblowingly amazing and conversely, when something is total garbage, frustrating or just plain utilitarian.

Anyway.

The process was pretty simple. I popped in the DVD and clicked upgrade. My MacBook restarted and went through the hour-long upgrade process. Now, I always get a little nervous when I upgrade my computer because inevitably something breaks (even Apple has issues). I’m confident, though, because I keep several regular backups of my computer (Geek note: I have over 5 terabytes of data storage in my home, which at last count, in enough space to hold nearly 800 DVD movies or something like 100,000 songs and a virtually endless amount of photographs. Sweet).

When it restarted into the new OS I was amazed. Leopard is hands down the best computer operating system I’ve used to date (And I’ve used them all, Sun Solaris, Linux, Windows, BeOS, NeXTStep, Mac OS…). It’s simplicity and elegance is far and away better than any version that came before it. And Vista? Well, compared to Leopard, Vista looks like something a High-School-aged summer camp team threw together. I’m sorry Windows fans and users, but I’ve been running Vista on my PC and seen it for years. It’s just a lot of shine and polish with nothing that makes me say “OOoh, that’s cool.” But then Windows has never been something you think is cool, it’s just like I said before, utilitarian.

I’m not going to discuss each of the 300+ new features, that’ll bore even the truest of geek among us (myself at the top of that list), but instead a handful of useful, easy-to-use and interesting features.

For starters, the new Finder (that’s the application that lets you get to everything on your computer, including your desktop) is cleaner and even easier to use. Shared computers show up on the left, and you can set the interface to be like a jukebox of your files, scrolling through them in real time and seeing their contents without opening them—that’s a time saver!

Next, Time Machine—a backup solution so simple to use, you don’t even know you’re using it—seriously, I have no idea when it runs only that I can go back 30 days and find things that were there at some point. The importance of backing up is second only to the power supplied to keep your computer going. One failed drive, deleted file or lost e-mail could ruin your weekend or worse, loosing years of photos of your kids you can’t get back. Time Machine makes it so easy you can’t avoid backing up.

Last, the updated iChat and abilities to share a screen and control a remote computer (either on your network or around the globe). As someone who is frequently asked by family members and friends for help with their Macs, this is a feature I’ve always wanted. Now, I can simply start a chat session with anyone and, if they’re running OS X as well, I can take control of their computer. More times than one, I have been on the phone with my mother asking me how to get her printer to work, how to get on a certain web site or some other random thing where I say “Well, if I was sitting right there, I could tell you what’s wrong, tell me what you’re seeing.” Forget it. Now, I can iChat her, control her computer and SHE can see what I’m doing so she’ll know what to do in the future. It’s awesome.

There are certainly a lot of other little things that add up to greatness too—cleaner interface, uncluttered desktop, smooth lines. Computers are tools, yes, they are here to perform tasks, true. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be elegant and to easy to use.

The iPhone is here.

The air was crisp and you could literally feel the excitement as the clock struck 6 p.m. As we waited in front of the AT&T store in Midtown (which had a reasonably small crowd), 6 by 6 they started letting people in as soon as the time was right.

Calmly they entered the store to make their purchase, only a few stopped to actually check out the phone, the others simply walked to the counter to buy it. Unfortunately, the computers went down at AT&T for nearly 40 minutes which put a stop on buying the new phones.

When we left, at 7, the first customer was walking out with his new phone, and was thrilled.

We headed to the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, which was controlling the crowd with a Disney-like ease. By the dozens, people went in and people came out to clapping and cheering from Apple employees. It was quite a site. Inside, the store was jammed with people lined up to buy -- a process that took about 5 minutes -- and all around the store it was everything iPhone. Huge groups of people gathered around tables while they played with the new phone and got demonstrations of what it could do.

I got in line for mine, and 10 minutes and a few hundred dollars later, I'm the proud owner of the all-new iPhone. Now, I get to spend the weekend setting it up. Be sure to join me Monday morning for a round table discussion about what the iPhone can do and more importantly, what it CAN'T do. Monday morning on Good Day!

Watch my VIDEO REPORT.