There’s a reason why I always feel the need to apologize for the Crappy iPhone Picture ™ anytime I post one to my photostream.
Though I understand the camera in the 4 is improved.
5.
Jebediah
That pup has one of the sweetest faces ever. I know I have said that many times, but it’s true every time!
ETA: A friend just got one a them new iphones, and it does do really well in strong light – he took three really cute pictures of Juno and they look as good as a small digital camera’s pics would.
6.
Scott P.
Try with and without HD on (there’s a button in the top center of the screen). You will find a marked difference. If HD is off, make sure flash is on.
7.
Wag
I highly recommend Pano, a super simple but high quality app that lets you stitch together great panoramic photos. Well worth the $3
8.
erlking
Oh, sure. It’s starts with adorable pictures of the canines but you’ll end up twittering pictures of your junk before all’s said and done.
Yeah, I was gonna say that looks low-light with no flash, which every camera struggles with. I don’t have nor want an iPhone but every picture I’ve seen from them in proper lighting has looked quite good.
10.
sfinny
Those toenails look a bit long though. Of course I shouldn’t comment given that my cat’s nails click when he walks on the hard floors.
11.
khead
She’s adorable.
But I will use the fuzziness in the pic as an excuse the next time my wife suggests trading the Droid(s) in for an Iphone……
The real reason is that I’m cheap.
12.
Xecky Gilchrist
I’ve owned half a dozen digital cameras now, and for all of them the first picture has been of my dog. Well done.
@sfinny: Appt Tuesday morning at 10 am for both dogs to have toenails clipped.
14.
Martin
Which model of iPhone is that, because it doesn’t look like a 4S photo.
15.
Martin
@John Cole: I use the Dremel tool with a fine grit 1/2″ sanding drum to do the dogs nails. No risk of cutting too deep, takes less than a minute to do the full set. Just don’t spend more than a couple of seconds on each nail without a bit of a break or else they’ll get hot.
16.
Gilles de Rais
Welcome to the cult.
17.
Comrade Mary
Umm, John, how does Tunch deal with nail clipping? My cats were fine with it, surprisingly, but I generally bribed them with Tonic-Lax (aka Laxitone) afterwards.
18.
Jenny
The Federal Communications Commission is unveiling a plan to bring broadband Internet connections to eligible low-income families in the form of a contract for two years of $9.95 broadband cable Internet, with a no installation or activation fee option and no modem rental fees.
In addition, Redemtech, a technology refurbishment company, will offer refurbished $150 notebooks, or desktops with LCD monitor, to all eligible school lunch families, shipped to the home.
Fucking Obama. Who does he think he is providing low cost computers and broadband to the least among us. He’s worst than Bush. It’s initiatives like this that demands a primary.
19.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@John Cole: Did you make the appointment on the iPhone? Did you just speak into it “I need to make a vet appointment.”?
This thing is sounding like a hand-held Skynet to me. And my wife just got one, so I need to blog quietly.
Also, too, spouse’s iphone 4S is great for everything save talking on the phone. Her old HTC sounded much better on the receiving end. Sigh.
22.
Cliff in NH
I just got a SSD for my system drive and it’s like I got a new computer! Best performance per dollar I’ve ever spent on a computer, by far. I find my self restarting just to watch how fast it is now =)
I’ve been thinking about doing that. What software did you use to move your old boot drive over to the new SSD boot drive? Or did you (re)start from scratch and reinstall everything?
Also, too, spouse’s iphone 4S is great for everything save talking on the phone.
The iPhone wasn’t designed to be disruptive to the phone market by being a better phone. It was designed to be disruptive to the phone market by being a better computer and a just good enough phone that you’d be willing to replace your phone with it.
It’s funny – people hate the markets we have – the phone carrier market, the cable market, and so on. You don’t change those markets by putting better products into them – that only makes them stronger and more powerful. The only way to change those markets is to flat-out fucking destroy them and build something new in their place. That’s hard. And convincing people to go along for the ride and help is, surprisingly, even harder – because even though they hate the market, they can’t bear to give it up.
So I wrote this piece for the Rumpus on Paterno and being a victim of sexual abuse that’s been pretty well received. I’d like to thank Samara Morgan for pissing me off so much that I felt the need to write it, and thank the fact that the pie filter doesn’t work on my iPad so that I could read what she said and get pissed off about it.
@Martin: The fact that the iPhone is a middling phone at best never bothered me because I hate talking on the phone. But I love having a computer in my pocket.
29.
TheOtherWA
Lily can’t take a bad picture, IMHO. Still using my iphone 3gs, and have been pleasantly surprised by how nice the photos are if the lighting is decent.
The only way to change those markets is to flat-out fucking destroy them and build something new in their place.
meh…Actually they did just make a better product.
Smartphones had been around awhile before the iPhone. Apple found a way to make it less intimidating and more accessible to non-geeks. I don’t want to diminish Apple’s achievement in the market, making complex technology easier to use, is quite an accomplishment.
But as far as functionality, the iPhone didn’t offer anything that the Blackberries or Pocket PC phones at the time did. Apple did make smartphones sexy though…
31.
Yutsano
LILYPUPPEH!!
I haz a Crackberry. I like my Crackberry. It takes ok pictures, I’ll be showing one off tomorrow. My new license plate is comedic gold!
After an intense day of investigation, I have just discovered that a CFTC rule(1.29) allowed Jon Corzine’s MF Global to use the margin and cash in customers heretofore segregated accounts to amass a risky $6.3 billion investment in European sovereign debt that backfired. Nor did Corzine have the obligation to inform any of these customers he was gambling with their money. Or that he was intending to keep all the profits for himself and his troubled firm. Nothing for the customers.
The language of Rule1.29 allows “The investment of customer funds in instruments described in 1.29 shall not prevent the futures commission merchant (MF Global) or clearing organization so investing such funds and retaining as its own any increment or interest resulting therefrom.” Increment refers to any trading profits or gains.
$633 million has gone missing and no one seems to know where it is.
33.
Mnemosyne
I’m kind of surprised at how crappy that photo is. G’s iPhone 4 takes much better pictures.
Wait a sec. Last week the story was that the”missing” funds were in an account at Chase that they “forgot about.” which Chase denied.
This is turning into something from the Business section of The Onion. I’m thinking it’s time for Bethany MacLean and Michael Lewis to collaborate on a book.
I very much want to put one in my laptop, but money is way too tight right this second. But my boss told me tonight he might be able to get me back to fulltime, so who knows… Are there any reliability issues/differences between brands?
44.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: Not that I’m aware of. Especially something in the middle of the week like that. I can’t even blame the football of either stripe.
@Steeplejack: A 2011 Chevy Malibu. Used but still under full warranty. And holy schmokas that car cruises.
I’m going car shopping this weekend. I had the use of the brother’s Mini Cooper while I was dogsitting last weekend, and it was like a hit of crack cocaine. Talk about motivation.
That doesn’t look like a 4S photo. FWIW, I had a “problem” getting good pictures from my iPhone until I realized that if I tapped on the screen in the area I wanted focus. From then on my photos looked great.
It has autofocus, but I wouldn’t rely on that, any more than I would using full-on Auto mode with a DSLR.
The Mini is kind of cool, but I wouldn’t get one. The visibility is not great. The rear “posts”–the area between the back side windows and the rear window–get in the way, and every time I pulled up to a light I had to lie across the dashboard to look up at the traffic light.
I highly recommend Pano, a super simple but high quality app that lets you stitch together great panoramic photos. Well worth the $3
Photosynth lets you make not only panoramics, but quasi-3D ones that you can move around in. I like it.
Also, Cole, try HD and a flash. Also, there many good camera apps out there (Camera +, hipstomatic, etc.) that let you do fun things. I just got my first iPhone too and you can make much better looking pictures than what you posted here.
Adobe also makes a mini photoshop app called PS Express that allows you to do some basic on phone editing. It’s free too.
Will keep it in mind. I’m going to CarMax to sniff the breezes, and I have an open mind. Sort of tending toward a small SUV–Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, etc.–but I’m not dogmatic. I have driven Jettas in the past and like them.
56.
burnspbesq
Good night, all. Early flight tomorrow. Taking my Slimy Tax Avoidance Lawyer (hey, that’s what someguy called me, and he’s never wrong) show on the road.
Well it’s easy to misplace small change. I’ll bet Corzine will find it in a suit he has hanging in the back of his closet.
Happens to me all the time.
Or @Suffern ACE is right and Uncle Billy just plumb forgot to go to the bank and the money is in the glove compartment of his 1958 Ford pickup truck.
58.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I will admit driving the Audi convertible was a nice test drive. I did come thisclose to jumping at it, but I got that tickle in the back of my brain that said…not so much. Next on the list to test drive was a Jetta, but it sold THAT MORNING right before I got there and they didn’t have another one. Showed me a Chrysler 300 and I said no fucking way. Then test drove (and almost wrecked!) a Ford Focus. Agreed to look at ONE MORE CAR…and that was the Malibu. I was rather happy with the choice. I still am.
But as far as functionality, the iPhone didn’t offer anything that the Blackberries or Pocket PC phones at the time did. Apple did make smartphones sexy though…
Actually, I dispute that.
Blackberry and Pocket PC were trying to be phone/PDAs, not computers. Shit, there was no even marginally decent mobile web browser until Mobile Safari. The others were dependent on WML and other pseudo web bullshit. They were so computationally starved that they sucked at being much more than glorified rolodexes. They were limited to stylus/keyboard input.
The combination of multitouch, accelerometers, enough computational power that you could have apps that actually resembled computer apps, and non-watered down apps (like Mobile Safari) really made the iPhone a whole other class of device. Pocket PC was trying so hard to cram familiar Windows constructs on there, and it did kind of okay, but it never achieved the kind of instant use that a non-stylus device could mange. And Blackberry works great as long as everything you do involves typing. When it came to inventing a touch interface, Apple really was the only one who bothered trying. Siri is going to be comparably revolutionary – you just watch.
The problem that most pundits and reviewers have with these kinds of things is that they focus too much on the big crunchy things – like the size and resolution of screen or the camera megapixels, and not enough on how the aggregate effect of all of those little features add up to even bigger things to the user. They don’t cover them because they’re really, really hard to measure and quantify. So yeah, on first measure it’s easy to see these devices as being really similar, and yet, the iPhone revolutionized the market in ways that the other devices didn’t, and ‘sexy’ doesn’t accomplish that.
One example is scrolling fluidity in things like the web browsers. The iPhone is built around the illusion that you are physically moving the screen image as you touch and drag the screen – that there is an instantaneous 1:1 correlation to you moving your finger and the screen moving. As soon as that breaks, even a tiny little bit, the illusion vanishes (I’ve yet to see an Android phone get this right). You’re no longer just moving the image with your finger, you’re now aware of that whole software layer between the two and you have to start anticipating what might happen, rather than simply expecting what will happen. It’s the kind of thing that frankly a lot of people can’t see consciously, but they’ll know if it feels right or not. When its right, you have this proper suspension of awareness – kind of like when you see special effects that are so believable that you totally forget that they’re effects. But when it’s only 99%, your brain clicks in and can’t overlook the fact that it’s an effect. That 1% kills it. When you get it just right, suddenly you can do new things with the user because there’s no friction there – everything stays properly subconscious and you can focus on other things instead. It’s tiny, but it’s real. You do that in 100 different ways, and you wind up with something that is notably better. I mean, that’s really the difference between great movies and good movies. It’s not the big crunchy stuff – it’s the hundreds of things that wound up being 100% right instead of 99% right. And that’s really what made the iPhone so revolutionary. They solved problems that Pocket PC and Blackberry weren’t even aware were problems. Hell, even now RIM hasn’t figured out what problems Apple solved in 2007.
60.
Martin
@Steeplejack: I looooooooove my Honda Element. Small SUV. Drives great. Hauls the world.
I have to admit that I have a pretty big patch of Element lust. It’s like the modern avatar of the old VW Microbus for all us ex-hippies (or ex-faux-hippies). The only negative is that I was a little surprised at the low gas mileage. Although I shouldn’t have been, given that it’s a big box on wheels. I wouldn’t kick if I ended up falling into one, though. It’s on the list.
ETA: I do love the haulage aspect. I want to get back into woodworking (I currently live in an apartment, but I have my eye on my brother’s basically unused garage), and the Element would be nice for carrying lumber.
63.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Two dealers. The Audi was at one and the others were at the other one. Funny thing is getting the Malibu he took FOREVER to get back. I looked at my co-worker and almost bailed. Now I’m happy I stuck it out. The car seriously might as well be new.
Yeah, a 2011, how much use could it have gotten? Sounds like somebody bought it new and then had either (a) an “Oh, shit, I can’t afford this!” moment or (b) an “Oh, shit, I’m being deployed next Wednesday” moment.
65.
Martin
@Steeplejack: Well, around town (and here in the OC, we’re talking about 10 lights per mile) it’s only about 20 MPG, and yeah, that sucks. But cruising it’s in the low 30s. We went out to Joshua Tree a few weeks back and even with bombing around on the dirt trails (at quite frightful speeds, because it handles so fucking well) we averaged 32. That’s not earth shatteringly high, but for a <$20K SUV that you can haul a shitload of stuff in, its pretty damn good.
Mainly it's heavy with a smallish engine. So getting up to speed is what kills the mileage. Once you get there, even though it's a big box, it does fine. We did a 7,000+ mile camping trip a number of summers ago with 4 of us, and averaged something like 29 MPG – and that was a packed vehicle, with dry bags on the roof humping over the continental divide something like 12 times. Even with that it had no real problem climbing up to Eisenhower tunnel at 65 MPH, and got 30+ MPG doing it.
Wife loves it too, and the kids love the massive space in the back as they can have the dog back there with them. We take it up into the mountains when it snows and it's rock solid. I've got Yokohama Geolanders on it and the short wheelbase (it'll match a Mini for turning radius) plus AWD is really solid on slippery surfaces, plus disks on all 4 wheels. And it's got nice responsive steering like Hondas generally have.
66.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: It had 28K mileage on it, so my thought is a rental that was very popular. Which is a good sign since rentals tend to be very well-maintained. But living in a large military area, option B is not out of the question.
God, you’re close to making a sale here! I really do like the Element, and the only thing that had pushed it down on the list was the gas mileage. I didn’t know that once you got up to speed on the highway it increases dramatically. That could remove the one deal-breaker for me. I have a friend who had an Element for a short period of time, and I loved the visibility, the handling and the massive amount of (configurable) interior space. And my favorite car of all time is the ’80s vintage Accord hatchback that I had for years, so I like Hondas in general.
Hmm, well, as I said, I’ll be going out to sniff the breezes this weekend. There is a Honda dealership not too far from me, so maybe I’ll drop by there and see if there is a forlorn Element waiting to be adopted.
68.
Martin
@Steeplejack: It can’t swing 4×8 sheets flat on the floor, so you have to put them in at an angle or on the roof, but I’ve hauled plenty those ways. For dimensional lumber, you can get 8′ and 10′ boards inside the vehicle. It’s pretty funny going down to the fine lumber yard near me with all the craftsmen and shoving these 8′ boards into this vehicle that’s shorter than a Civic and then closing the back. I’ve hauled 16′ boards in it. And it’s flexible enough that you can do a lot of this stuff on a whim. There was a pile of lumber that someone ordered and didn’t pick up that was 75% off and contained a lot of what I was going to need for my next project. So, unprepared, I bought it, flipped the seats up, shoved maybe 500+ board feet of lumber in there, tied it down, and drove off.
I’ve rebuilt all of my fences, a shed, cabinets, a bunch of furniture, baseboards and crown, closet organizers, redone 2 bathrooms, most of a kitchen, turned some dead space into storage – all hauling with that car. And most of the furniture in my house is from consignment stores or craigslist, so all of that has come home in it as well. 9′ leather sofa, 8′ dining room table plus 6 chairs, beds, armoires, giant desks, my 8′ teak patio table plus bench and 6 chairs. Even picked up 130 cases of girl scout cookies. I was told driving up that they couldn’t fit more than 100 in a car – and that was an Excursion. I didn’t even have to put any on the roof. Probably could have made 160 with that.
IMO, it’s the most useful vehicle out there. And it’s surprisingly fun as well.
My friend who had the Element worked at a company that ran several assisted-care facilities, and he routinely lugged around stoves, washers, refrigerators, big furniture pieces, etc. I was impressed.
70.
Martin
@Steeplejack: If you have any questions feel free to ask. I’ve got 2 kids and a dog, been in 1′ of falling snow up in the sierras, in mud, in the desert, up to 12K feet, down to death valley, up to Canada, out camping in all manner of weather, shoved the mountain bikes in it, slept in it – you name it. I’ve got a Yakima rack on there along with a roof basket. About the only thing I really haven’t done is tow anything with it, but it’s supposed to be pretty good up to 1500 lbs, which is light, but hey, it’s a small SUV. And there’s not many things I haven’t shoved inside of it and hauled home.
Mine is a 2006, so it’s on the older end, but they haven’t changed it terribly much. Better transmission in the new ones, more airbags, better electronic doo-dads. That’s mostly it.
Thanks. I might be getting back to you on a few details.
As I said, I pushed the Element down the list because I was surprised to see that the nominal mileage was down around 20, and I was looking for something up around 30. But, as I think about it, the Element could fit my situation very well. I live very close to where I work and could see myself still taking the bus for “normal” shifts (daytime) and using the car only when I get off late at night. Other than that, the car would be used for the usual hunter-gatherer activities–shopping, movies, restaurants, etc.–in a fairly compact area (nothing like the O.C. sprawl), with regular weekend jaunts for hiking, camping and what-not. Plus occasional hauling of lumber or whatever. So the mileage could even out.
Hmm, food for thought. Thanks for the input. Think I’ll go read some Richard Brautigan. Heh.
ETA: Plus I do like the fact that I could live in it if I become homeless. Gotta plan for the future.
72.
Bill E Pilgrim
That will get better, that’s nicely framed but just not nearly enough light and the phone doesn’t have a flash of course.
Here are some shots taken with my three years out-of-date iPhone 3G. Your 4s camera is apparently quite a leap up from there.
It’s definitely hit and miss, you never know how the light is going to be since there’s little-to-no adjustment on the phone, so you just have to experiment and take tons and select the few that worked.
73.
harlana
She looks like a mythical woodland forest creature!!
74.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Bill E Pilgrim: Weird, for some reason the slide show in that link seems to be starting on the third photo, and the first two are actually my favorites. This link seems better. I hope.
I’m running parallel at the moment, aka reinstalled everything.
since they are limited size there is a bit of pick and choose as to what games go on it since they take up the most space, also starting from scratch its easier to set up all the data directorys and download folders on the hard drive. the biggest PITA is the windows updates and eternal update/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot cycle that microsoft tortures IT people with. (thankfully with the SSD the reboots are blazing fast tho, so there is that)
Are there any reliability issues/differences between brands?
Quite significant ones apparently, I’d avoid the ocz vertex drives since I saw many failures in comments, the intel drives are among the best for reliability I think, either way some new tech is coming out and prices should decline significantly in the next year.
I got the corsair force gt 120 and even though it’s on sata2 (half speed) till I upgrade my motherboard (black friday deal – fingers crossed) it’s still blazingly faster than a hard drive.
Keep in mind that you should have a hard drive in the machine as well, for backup and data – set up windows backup! (I use a Drobo FS for automagic secure data backup)
here is a decent article on SSD’s with some reliability data thrown in:
Aphoto is only as good as its subject. What a beauty she is.
79.
DMcK
Pet videos next, please! Not only does the iPhone take great movies, but the sound is surprisingly good as well. I shot some video whilst at an indoor gun range with my buddies in Vegas–a very noisy environment, natch–but our comments and conversation were perfectly audible, and the gunshots didn’t blast out the mic.
80.
Montarvillois
Her nails need clipping.
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PeakVT
Doggeh!
Lily fans will be demanding hourly uploads of pics now that you have a net-linked camera, you know.
James Hare
It does a much better job in good lighting. Indoors it’s kind of muddy.
I just got an iPhone as well.
Calming Influence
OK?!? She’s awesome!
Catsy
There’s a reason why I always feel the need to apologize for the Crappy iPhone Picture ™ anytime I post one to my photostream.
Though I understand the camera in the 4 is improved.
Jebediah
That pup has one of the sweetest faces ever. I know I have said that many times, but it’s true every time!
ETA: A friend just got one a them new iphones, and it does do really well in strong light – he took three really cute pictures of Juno and they look as good as a small digital camera’s pics would.
Scott P.
Try with and without HD on (there’s a button in the top center of the screen). You will find a marked difference. If HD is off, make sure flash is on.
Wag
I highly recommend Pano, a super simple but high quality app that lets you stitch together great panoramic photos. Well worth the $3
erlking
Oh, sure. It’s starts with adorable pictures of the canines but you’ll end up twittering pictures of your junk before all’s said and done.
The iPhone is the devil’s workshop.
J.W. Hamner
@James Hare:
Yeah, I was gonna say that looks low-light with no flash, which every camera struggles with. I don’t have nor want an iPhone but every picture I’ve seen from them in proper lighting has looked quite good.
sfinny
Those toenails look a bit long though. Of course I shouldn’t comment given that my cat’s nails click when he walks on the hard floors.
khead
She’s adorable.
But I will use the fuzziness in the pic as an excuse the next time my wife suggests trading the Droid(s) in for an Iphone……
The real reason is that I’m cheap.
Xecky Gilchrist
I’ve owned half a dozen digital cameras now, and for all of them the first picture has been of my dog. Well done.
John Cole
@sfinny: Appt Tuesday morning at 10 am for both dogs to have toenails clipped.
Martin
Which model of iPhone is that, because it doesn’t look like a 4S photo.
Martin
@John Cole: I use the Dremel tool with a fine grit 1/2″ sanding drum to do the dogs nails. No risk of cutting too deep, takes less than a minute to do the full set. Just don’t spend more than a couple of seconds on each nail without a bit of a break or else they’ll get hot.
Gilles de Rais
Welcome to the cult.
Comrade Mary
Umm, John, how does Tunch deal with nail clipping? My cats were fine with it, surprisingly, but I generally bribed them with Tonic-Lax (aka Laxitone) afterwards.
Jenny
Fucking Obama. Who does he think he is providing low cost computers and broadband to the least among us. He’s worst than Bush. It’s initiatives like this that demands a primary.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@John Cole: Did you make the appointment on the iPhone? Did you just speak into it “I need to make a vet appointment.”?
This thing is sounding like a hand-held Skynet to me. And my wife just got one, so I need to blog quietly.
sfinny
@John Cole: You are such a good dog dad.
trollhattan
Can somebody please let TBogg know he’s missed a critical photo op? I ain’t registering over at FDL just to make comments.
Thanks!
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=39818116
Also, too, spouse’s iphone 4S is great for everything save talking on the phone. Her old HTC sounded much better on the receiving end. Sigh.
Cliff in NH
I just got a SSD for my system drive and it’s like I got a new computer! Best performance per dollar I’ve ever spent on a computer, by far. I find my self restarting just to watch how fast it is now =)
Here is Molly taken with a HTC thunderbolt (well, all the pics in the stream are from the phone actually):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64725711@N07/6332577752/in/photostream/lightbox/
RareSanity
@Cliff in NH:
HTC really does have some pretty good cameras on their phones. Well, compared to other phone cameras.
I am constantly impressed by the one on my Amaze.
Ed Dane Defender of Donuts
Balloon Juice Pet Calendar 2012 … for charity!
I assume that is why you are playing with the camera function of your iphone.
Steeplejack
@Cliff in NH:
I’ve been thinking about doing that. What software did you use to move your old boot drive over to the new SSD boot drive? Or did you (re)start from scratch and reinstall everything?
Martin
@trollhattan:
The iPhone wasn’t designed to be disruptive to the phone market by being a better phone. It was designed to be disruptive to the phone market by being a better computer and a just good enough phone that you’d be willing to replace your phone with it.
It’s funny – people hate the markets we have – the phone carrier market, the cable market, and so on. You don’t change those markets by putting better products into them – that only makes them stronger and more powerful. The only way to change those markets is to flat-out fucking destroy them and build something new in their place. That’s hard. And convincing people to go along for the ride and help is, surprisingly, even harder – because even though they hate the market, they can’t bear to give it up.
Brian S
So I wrote this piece for the Rumpus on Paterno and being a victim of sexual abuse that’s been pretty well received. I’d like to thank Samara Morgan for pissing me off so much that I felt the need to write it, and thank the fact that the pie filter doesn’t work on my iPad so that I could read what she said and get pissed off about it.
Brian S
@Martin: The fact that the iPhone is a middling phone at best never bothered me because I hate talking on the phone. But I love having a computer in my pocket.
TheOtherWA
Lily can’t take a bad picture, IMHO. Still using my iphone 3gs, and have been pleasantly surprised by how nice the photos are if the lighting is decent.
RareSanity
@Martin:
meh…Actually they did just make a better product.
Smartphones had been around awhile before the iPhone. Apple found a way to make it less intimidating and more accessible to non-geeks. I don’t want to diminish Apple’s achievement in the market, making complex technology easier to use, is quite an accomplishment.
But as far as functionality, the iPhone didn’t offer anything that the Blackberries or Pocket PC phones at the time did. Apple did make smartphones sexy though…
Yutsano
LILYPUPPEH!!
I haz a Crackberry. I like my Crackberry. It takes ok pictures, I’ll be showing one off tomorrow. My new license plate is comedic gold!
Anoniminous
How interesting.
MF Global May Have Used Customer Funds In The Losing $6.3 Billion Trade Without Informing Clients
$633 million has gone missing and no one seems to know where it is.
Mnemosyne
I’m kind of surprised at how crappy that photo is. G’s iPhone 4 takes much better pictures.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: KITTEH!! I fergot which one though.
Mine goes in for her official uterus removal tomorrow. No one tell the Republicans.
sfinny
The Lily picture isn’t great, but the subject is delightful. Man, those ears are amazingly cute.
guachi
John, please buy a camera that doesn’t suck. What an awful picture. I
f I didn’t know better, I’d think you hated your dog, what with the muddy, out of focus, grainy picture.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
What new car did you end up getting to go with the new license plate? Or are you still looking?
Raven
Great night for the Hokies at Grant Field! Cold but fun.
burnspbesq
@Cliff in NH:
SSDs are expensive, but money well spent.
Villago Delenda Est
The photography may suck, but the subject is like awesome cubed. What a cutie!
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
Dude, is there a big convention in Seattle next week? Trying to get a hotel room for the 16th was a nightmare.
burnspbesq
@Anoniminous:
Wait a sec. Last week the story was that the”missing” funds were in an account at Chase that they “forgot about.” which Chase denied.
This is turning into something from the Business section of The Onion. I’m thinking it’s time for Bethany MacLean and Michael Lewis to collaborate on a book.
Jebediah
@burnspbesq:
I very much want to put one in my laptop, but money is way too tight right this second. But my boss told me tonight he might be able to get me back to fulltime, so who knows… Are there any reliability issues/differences between brands?
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: Not that I’m aware of. Especially something in the middle of the week like that. I can’t even blame the football of either stripe.
@Steeplejack: A 2011 Chevy Malibu. Used but still under full warranty. And holy schmokas that car cruises.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Kudos. The Malibu gets great reviews.
I’m going car shopping this weekend. I had the use of the brother’s Mini Cooper while I was dogsitting last weekend, and it was like a hit of crack cocaine. Talk about motivation.
burnspbesq
@Jebediah:
“Are there any reliability issues/differences between brands?”
Not that I’m aware of. I’ve read that Samsung SSDs are faster than Toshiba, but have no first-hand knowledge.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I thought about a Mini. I seriously did. I went with the Malibu ultimately because when I sat in the driver’s seat it felt RIGHT.
Suffern ACE
@Anoniminous: I believe Corzine’s next excuse will be that Uncle Billy had it in a newspaper and was last seen heading to Mr. Potter’s bank.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
Jetta. Drive it. Love it. Buy it.
Comrade Luke
That doesn’t look like a 4S photo. FWIW, I had a “problem” getting good pictures from my iPhone until I realized that if I tapped on the screen in the area I wanted focus. From then on my photos looked great.
It has autofocus, but I wouldn’t rely on that, any more than I would using full-on Auto mode with a DSLR.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
That would be Charlotte. I think she was about eight months old at that point.
Lynn Dee
Too much brown in that photo. Either dye the couch or dye the dog.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
The Mini is kind of cool, but I wouldn’t get one. The visibility is not great. The rear “posts”–the area between the back side windows and the rear window–get in the way, and every time I pulled up to a light I had to lie across the dashboard to look up at the traffic light.
But it’s great when the top is down!
Nylund
@Wag:
Photosynth lets you make not only panoramics, but quasi-3D ones that you can move around in. I like it.
Also, Cole, try HD and a flash. Also, there many good camera apps out there (Camera +, hipstomatic, etc.) that let you do fun things. I just got my first iPhone too and you can make much better looking pictures than what you posted here.
Adobe also makes a mini photoshop app called PS Express that allows you to do some basic on phone editing. It’s free too.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Will keep it in mind. I’m going to CarMax to sniff the breezes, and I have an open mind. Sort of tending toward a small SUV–Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, etc.–but I’m not dogmatic. I have driven Jettas in the past and like them.
burnspbesq
Good night, all. Early flight tomorrow. Taking my Slimy Tax Avoidance Lawyer (hey, that’s what someguy called me, and he’s never wrong) show on the road.
Anoniminous
@burnspbesq:
Well it’s easy to misplace small change. I’ll bet Corzine will find it in a suit he has hanging in the back of his closet.
Happens to me all the time.
Or @Suffern ACE is right and Uncle Billy just plumb forgot to go to the bank and the money is in the glove compartment of his 1958 Ford pickup truck.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I will admit driving the Audi convertible was a nice test drive. I did come thisclose to jumping at it, but I got that tickle in the back of my brain that said…not so much. Next on the list to test drive was a Jetta, but it sold THAT MORNING right before I got there and they didn’t have another one. Showed me a Chrysler 300 and I said no fucking way. Then test drove (and almost wrecked!) a Ford Focus. Agreed to look at ONE MORE CAR…and that was the Malibu. I was rather happy with the choice. I still am.
@burnspbesq:
Must…avoid…POA…jokes…
Martin
@RareSanity:
Actually, I dispute that.
Blackberry and Pocket PC were trying to be phone/PDAs, not computers. Shit, there was no even marginally decent mobile web browser until Mobile Safari. The others were dependent on WML and other pseudo web bullshit. They were so computationally starved that they sucked at being much more than glorified rolodexes. They were limited to stylus/keyboard input.
The combination of multitouch, accelerometers, enough computational power that you could have apps that actually resembled computer apps, and non-watered down apps (like Mobile Safari) really made the iPhone a whole other class of device. Pocket PC was trying so hard to cram familiar Windows constructs on there, and it did kind of okay, but it never achieved the kind of instant use that a non-stylus device could mange. And Blackberry works great as long as everything you do involves typing. When it came to inventing a touch interface, Apple really was the only one who bothered trying. Siri is going to be comparably revolutionary – you just watch.
The problem that most pundits and reviewers have with these kinds of things is that they focus too much on the big crunchy things – like the size and resolution of screen or the camera megapixels, and not enough on how the aggregate effect of all of those little features add up to even bigger things to the user. They don’t cover them because they’re really, really hard to measure and quantify. So yeah, on first measure it’s easy to see these devices as being really similar, and yet, the iPhone revolutionized the market in ways that the other devices didn’t, and ‘sexy’ doesn’t accomplish that.
One example is scrolling fluidity in things like the web browsers. The iPhone is built around the illusion that you are physically moving the screen image as you touch and drag the screen – that there is an instantaneous 1:1 correlation to you moving your finger and the screen moving. As soon as that breaks, even a tiny little bit, the illusion vanishes (I’ve yet to see an Android phone get this right). You’re no longer just moving the image with your finger, you’re now aware of that whole software layer between the two and you have to start anticipating what might happen, rather than simply expecting what will happen. It’s the kind of thing that frankly a lot of people can’t see consciously, but they’ll know if it feels right or not. When its right, you have this proper suspension of awareness – kind of like when you see special effects that are so believable that you totally forget that they’re effects. But when it’s only 99%, your brain clicks in and can’t overlook the fact that it’s an effect. That 1% kills it. When you get it just right, suddenly you can do new things with the user because there’s no friction there – everything stays properly subconscious and you can focus on other things instead. It’s tiny, but it’s real. You do that in 100 different ways, and you wind up with something that is notably better. I mean, that’s really the difference between great movies and good movies. It’s not the big crunchy stuff – it’s the hundreds of things that wound up being 100% right instead of 99% right. And that’s really what made the iPhone so revolutionary. They solved problems that Pocket PC and Blackberry weren’t even aware were problems. Hell, even now RIM hasn’t figured out what problems Apple solved in 2007.
Martin
@Steeplejack: I looooooooove my Honda Element. Small SUV. Drives great. Hauls the world.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Were these at different dealerships or all at one place?
Steeplejack
@Martin:
I have to admit that I have a pretty big patch of Element lust. It’s like the modern avatar of the old VW Microbus for all us ex-hippies (or ex-faux-hippies). The only negative is that I was a little surprised at the low gas mileage. Although I shouldn’t have been, given that it’s a big box on wheels. I wouldn’t kick if I ended up falling into one, though. It’s on the list.
ETA: I do love the haulage aspect. I want to get back into woodworking (I currently live in an apartment, but I have my eye on my brother’s basically unused garage), and the Element would be nice for carrying lumber.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Two dealers. The Audi was at one and the others were at the other one. Funny thing is getting the Malibu he took FOREVER to get back. I looked at my co-worker and almost bailed. Now I’m happy I stuck it out. The car seriously might as well be new.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Yeah, a 2011, how much use could it have gotten? Sounds like somebody bought it new and then had either (a) an “Oh, shit, I can’t afford this!” moment or (b) an “Oh, shit, I’m being deployed next Wednesday” moment.
Martin
@Steeplejack: Well, around town (and here in the OC, we’re talking about 10 lights per mile) it’s only about 20 MPG, and yeah, that sucks. But cruising it’s in the low 30s. We went out to Joshua Tree a few weeks back and even with bombing around on the dirt trails (at quite frightful speeds, because it handles so fucking well) we averaged 32. That’s not earth shatteringly high, but for a <$20K SUV that you can haul a shitload of stuff in, its pretty damn good.
Mainly it's heavy with a smallish engine. So getting up to speed is what kills the mileage. Once you get there, even though it's a big box, it does fine. We did a 7,000+ mile camping trip a number of summers ago with 4 of us, and averaged something like 29 MPG – and that was a packed vehicle, with dry bags on the roof humping over the continental divide something like 12 times. Even with that it had no real problem climbing up to Eisenhower tunnel at 65 MPH, and got 30+ MPG doing it.
Wife loves it too, and the kids love the massive space in the back as they can have the dog back there with them. We take it up into the mountains when it snows and it's rock solid. I've got Yokohama Geolanders on it and the short wheelbase (it'll match a Mini for turning radius) plus AWD is really solid on slippery surfaces, plus disks on all 4 wheels. And it's got nice responsive steering like Hondas generally have.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: It had 28K mileage on it, so my thought is a rental that was very popular. Which is a good sign since rentals tend to be very well-maintained. But living in a large military area, option B is not out of the question.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
God, you’re close to making a sale here! I really do like the Element, and the only thing that had pushed it down on the list was the gas mileage. I didn’t know that once you got up to speed on the highway it increases dramatically. That could remove the one deal-breaker for me. I have a friend who had an Element for a short period of time, and I loved the visibility, the handling and the massive amount of (configurable) interior space. And my favorite car of all time is the ’80s vintage Accord hatchback that I had for years, so I like Hondas in general.
Hmm, well, as I said, I’ll be going out to sniff the breezes this weekend. There is a Honda dealership not too far from me, so maybe I’ll drop by there and see if there is a forlorn Element waiting to be adopted.
Martin
@Steeplejack: It can’t swing 4×8 sheets flat on the floor, so you have to put them in at an angle or on the roof, but I’ve hauled plenty those ways. For dimensional lumber, you can get 8′ and 10′ boards inside the vehicle. It’s pretty funny going down to the fine lumber yard near me with all the craftsmen and shoving these 8′ boards into this vehicle that’s shorter than a Civic and then closing the back. I’ve hauled 16′ boards in it. And it’s flexible enough that you can do a lot of this stuff on a whim. There was a pile of lumber that someone ordered and didn’t pick up that was 75% off and contained a lot of what I was going to need for my next project. So, unprepared, I bought it, flipped the seats up, shoved maybe 500+ board feet of lumber in there, tied it down, and drove off.
I’ve rebuilt all of my fences, a shed, cabinets, a bunch of furniture, baseboards and crown, closet organizers, redone 2 bathrooms, most of a kitchen, turned some dead space into storage – all hauling with that car. And most of the furniture in my house is from consignment stores or craigslist, so all of that has come home in it as well. 9′ leather sofa, 8′ dining room table plus 6 chairs, beds, armoires, giant desks, my 8′ teak patio table plus bench and 6 chairs. Even picked up 130 cases of girl scout cookies. I was told driving up that they couldn’t fit more than 100 in a car – and that was an Excursion. I didn’t even have to put any on the roof. Probably could have made 160 with that.
IMO, it’s the most useful vehicle out there. And it’s surprisingly fun as well.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
My friend who had the Element worked at a company that ran several assisted-care facilities, and he routinely lugged around stoves, washers, refrigerators, big furniture pieces, etc. I was impressed.
Martin
@Steeplejack: If you have any questions feel free to ask. I’ve got 2 kids and a dog, been in 1′ of falling snow up in the sierras, in mud, in the desert, up to 12K feet, down to death valley, up to Canada, out camping in all manner of weather, shoved the mountain bikes in it, slept in it – you name it. I’ve got a Yakima rack on there along with a roof basket. About the only thing I really haven’t done is tow anything with it, but it’s supposed to be pretty good up to 1500 lbs, which is light, but hey, it’s a small SUV. And there’s not many things I haven’t shoved inside of it and hauled home.
Mine is a 2006, so it’s on the older end, but they haven’t changed it terribly much. Better transmission in the new ones, more airbags, better electronic doo-dads. That’s mostly it.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Thanks. I might be getting back to you on a few details.
As I said, I pushed the Element down the list because I was surprised to see that the nominal mileage was down around 20, and I was looking for something up around 30. But, as I think about it, the Element could fit my situation very well. I live very close to where I work and could see myself still taking the bus for “normal” shifts (daytime) and using the car only when I get off late at night. Other than that, the car would be used for the usual hunter-gatherer activities–shopping, movies, restaurants, etc.–in a fairly compact area (nothing like the O.C. sprawl), with regular weekend jaunts for hiking, camping and what-not. Plus occasional hauling of lumber or whatever. So the mileage could even out.
Hmm, food for thought. Thanks for the input. Think I’ll go read some Richard Brautigan. Heh.
ETA: Plus I do like the fact that I could live in it if I become homeless. Gotta plan for the future.
Bill E Pilgrim
That will get better, that’s nicely framed but just not nearly enough light and the phone doesn’t have a flash of course.
Here are some shots taken with my three years out-of-date iPhone 3G. Your 4s camera is apparently quite a leap up from there.
It’s definitely hit and miss, you never know how the light is going to be since there’s little-to-no adjustment on the phone, so you just have to experiment and take tons and select the few that worked.
harlana
She looks like a mythical woodland forest creature!!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Bill E Pilgrim: Weird, for some reason the slide show in that link seems to be starting on the third photo, and the first two are actually my favorites. This link seems better. I hope.
Cliff in NH
@Steeplejack:
I’m running parallel at the moment, aka reinstalled everything.
since they are limited size there is a bit of pick and choose as to what games go on it since they take up the most space, also starting from scratch its easier to set up all the data directorys and download folders on the hard drive. the biggest PITA is the windows updates and eternal update/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot/update updates/reboot cycle that microsoft tortures IT people with. (thankfully with the SSD the reboots are blazing fast tho, so there is that)
Cliff in NH
@Jebediah:
Quite significant ones apparently, I’d avoid the ocz vertex drives since I saw many failures in comments, the intel drives are among the best for reliability I think, either way some new tech is coming out and prices should decline significantly in the next year.
I got the corsair force gt 120 and even though it’s on sata2 (half speed) till I upgrade my motherboard (black friday deal – fingers crossed) it’s still blazingly faster than a hard drive.
Keep in mind that you should have a hard drive in the machine as well, for backup and data – set up windows backup! (I use a Drobo FS for automagic secure data backup)
here is a decent article on SSD’s with some reliability data thrown in:
http://www.hardware-revolution.com/best-ssd-hdd-november-2011/
Steeplejack
@Cliff in NH:
Thanks for the info.
Beauzeaux
Aphoto is only as good as its subject. What a beauty she is.
DMcK
Pet videos next, please! Not only does the iPhone take great movies, but the sound is surprisingly good as well. I shot some video whilst at an indoor gun range with my buddies in Vegas–a very noisy environment, natch–but our comments and conversation were perfectly audible, and the gunshots didn’t blast out the mic.
Montarvillois
Her nails need clipping.