Tuesday, December 04, 2007

How do you replace iPhone 1.0 with iPhone 2.0?

Given all the restrictions Apple has placed on iPhones, does that mean we can't sell an old iPhone if we buy a new one?
Apple - Support - Discussions - Replacing my iPhone with the next ...

.... Suppose I buy an iPhone today using Apple's plan.

Sometime in the next year Apple, according to what Jobs has publicly said, will produce a new model. Say it costs $500 for new customers.

Suppose I decide to buy the new model.

Would I be able to buy it for $500? What am I allowed to do with my old phone? Can I sell it? Can I give it away? Can I transfer it to my wife?
Update: Here's the answer from the Apple Discussion thread (link above) ...
... You can sell your phone to another person. They can go to AT&T and get a SIM for the iPhone...then go home and activate it with their account. Very similar to when you get back a refurbished phone or a replacement from an Apple Store (just a bit reversed)...

... You could sell your iPhone to me and before handing it over, the iPhone includes an option to erase all data and settings and you would remove the SIM card and transfer it to your new iPhone.

I would visit a local AT&T Store and request a new SIM card for the used iPhone I purchased which would allow me to activate this iPhone with my existing AT&T number or if I wasn't an existing AT&T subscriber I would need to become one via the iTunes activation process with AT&T...
So if you're an AT&T subscriber who's interested in the iPhone, you might be able to get a used 1.0 phone fairly inexpensively when the 2.0 phone comes out (perhaps in ?).

Google project inventory

The FSJ satire site is also an "insider" gossip site. I really liked this list of Google projects - with status. It's incomplete of course, I could add another six I've personally used.

Still, a good reference.

Update: a less sarcastic review - for 2007.

Leopard Mail.app has unique message identifiers

This will enable many very important productivity applications.
Daring Fireball: 'message:' URLs in Leopard Mail:

... The new version of Mail in Leopard introduces a ‘message:’ URL handler that allows you to refer to individual messages in Mail from other applications. You can use a utility such as RCDefaultApp to see that Mail registers as the default handler for the “message:” scheme. That Mail now supports these URLs does not seem to be documented by Apple anywhere, but it’s fairly simple, and very useful. It’s one of my favorite new features in Leopard Mail...
It qualifies as a 10.5 "hidden feature".

Now if only Mail.app (and Gmail) would implement Outlook's most important feature -- the ability to edit the subject line of a received message.

Monday, December 03, 2007

New Canon CanoScan drivers

Mac OS X 10.5: Canon CanoScan scanners unable to scan tells us Canon has updated CanoScan drivers out. I didn't check this out as my mother won't be on 10.5 for a while, but she does have a CanoScan. Canon's OS X drivers have been quite horrid, so anyone stuck with a Canon scanner might want to take a look at this.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

OS X Backup doesn't do other users folders

I don't recall anyone every mentioning this:
.Mac: Backup intended for backing up files in your Home folder, but not your entire startup disk

...Files in other user's Home folders Because Backup runs with the same file permissions as the currently logged-in user, you can't use it for backup up files in other user account's Home folders even if they are on the same computer. Log in as the other user before using Backup.
Backup works with .Mac. In some ways it's the precursor to Time Machine.

I wonder how many people think they're backing up the family's files, when they're only backing up their own ....

Kind of worthless on a multi-user machine.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

iPhone 2.0 in summer 2008

Ouch.
EETimes.com - IPhone delays to impact NAND in '08

...'Although Samsung expects NAND fundamentals to hold and improve into CY08, our recent checks suggest that, due to a pushout in the introduction of such 'killer applications' as the second-generation iPhone from the March/April time frame to mid to late summer, demand for NAND in 1H08 could weaken more than expected,'' said Mehdi Hosseini, an analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. Inc. (FBR), in a report. Indeed, after recently rolling out the iPhone, Apple is projected to show new and less expensive products in 2008. Apple is also working on new iPods, which, in turn, could drive the NAND market in 2008...
I'd at least like one with 16GB.

I suppose if they're waiting until summer 2008 it might be a 3G phone.

Email for our 5 year old

Our boys have never had much interest in email, and given the declining use of email by the non-employed it's unlikely they'll ever do much with it.

Our five year old daughter, however, has correspondents. That's not too surprising, our children fit classic gender assumptions remarkably well.

So now she's pinkbunnylover67@hotmail.com.

Cough.

The actual setup is a bit more complex and even more controlled than what I'll outline here, but that's for historical reasons. I'll describe the basic setup first.

The components
  1. We have a family domain and a set of companion Google Apps services. I have complete administrative control over that domain.
  2. I created a non-admin account for her on the family iMac, which will move downstairs where we can easily watch the children using it. On that account I disabled OS X Chat and set up some lightweight family controls (more when I install OS X 10.5.3 next March).
  3. OS X Mail using IMAP to Google App Gmail.
The above links to prior posts overstate the complexity a bit. In particular the OS X Mail IMAP setup went very easily. I think Google has simplified their IMAP configuration.

The implementation
  1. The Google Apps account is "invisible" and unknown to our daughter. She doesn't know the password or even that it exists. All mail is sent and received throught that account, and all incoming mail is copied to my wife's account. (I could also send a copy to a bloglines email/rss conduit; if I did that then I'd monitor via bloglines.)
  2. OS X Mail.app in her account works with Google App Gmail. So I have access to all sent and received email.
It might be she'll never make much use of her email, it's a waning habit for the young. If she does though, we'll be able to track it until she's older and ready for more independence.