iPhone Issues in Western Canada
No matter what happens with the release of the 3G iPhone today, some people are going to be happy, and some are going to be pissed off. It’s just the way it works. People at the Rogers flagship store in Toronto were a little less than thrilled to find out that the store only had 80 phones in stock. When the line is a couple of hundred people long, though, it’s not hard to figure out why.
To be honest, though, this isn’t really a new occurrence. I’d be willing to bet that by Monday or Tuesday you’ll be able to walk into any Rogers retailer in the country and pick up a 3G iPhone.
Regardless, though, it doesn’t sound like Rogers had a good morning. Their activation system went down (at least in the west) and customers were forced to stand around with their new purchase waiting for the system to come back up so that they could activate their new phone. Would have been a rough morning for the sales reps, without a doubt. I wonder if the problems seemed worse out west because those in the east were in the process of getting their phones activated as well and the whole country just overwhelmed the system.
If you’re looking for more updates on the whole thing, have a look at Buzz Bishop’s Cyberbuzz post, which seems to get updated when he gets new information on the whole thing.
Rogers Unveils A Different Data Plan
I admit that I was rough on Rogers the other day when I heard about the data plan for the new 3G iPhone, set to go on sale this Friday. But I was hardly the only one to get P.O.’d about it.
It’s nice to see that Rogers was listening, and whether it was due to public outcry or something that they’d planned to do all along, they’ve now announced a 6GB data plan for just $30 per month, as long as you activate the phone on a 3-year contract by August 31st.
They’ve also announced that they’ll be limiting buyers to a maximum of two iPhones to help deal with the high demand. This isn’t that unusual, as they already do this in the U.S. - although that was primarily to deal with iPhones that wound up on eBay.
Rogers Does It To Canadians Again With the iPhone
When it was announced earlier this month that the iPhone would finally be coming to Canada on July 11th, there was no shortage of discussion as to just how bad the pricing was going to be for the data plans.
For those outside of Canada who might not know, there are three (major) mobile carriers - Rogers, Bell, and Telus. Only Rogers uses GSM, so it was a given that they (along with subsidiary Fido) were going to be carrying the iPhone exclusively in Canada.
The big question came down to data. Many don’t realize, but there’s really no such thing as unlimited data plans in the Great White North, and to match a U.S. unlimited data plan, Canadians would need to shell out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1200 PER MONTH.
So when Engadget Mobile dropped a rumour about a $30 consumer plan and a $45 enterprise plan, it was quite the surprise. Today though, comes the hard slap of reality.
While requiring a 3-year contract, you’ll get exactly 400MB of data along with 150 minutes for $60 per month. If you’re a hardcore user, the most you’re going to get is 2GB of data + 800 minutes for a whopping $115 per month.
Oh, and if you want caller ID with that, it’s available in a couple of extra packages, for either $15 or $20 per month. Otherwise, you don’t even get caller ID with a phone that you’re going to pay a premium for.
And if you’re a prepaid customer, I’m willing to bet that you’re looking at close to $1000 to buy the phone, and then no data plan.
But what else can you do? No competition means they can charge what they want.
Review: Logiix Optic Alloy Case for 2nd Gen iPod Nano
For the last year and a half or so, I’ve had a black Logiix silicone skin on my 2nd generation iPod Nano, and I’ve been more than impressed with it. iPods have a tendency to scratch fairly easily, although I hadn’t seen much of this with mine, thankfully.
But it was getting to be time for a new skin, as the Nano was starting to slide out the bottom of the skin and I had visions of it bouncing off the floor sometime. Not something that you want to have happen.
So I decided that I’d see what I could do about picking up a new silicone skin, preferably something other than black, as it was time for a change. Headed to the store where I’d purchased my last one, and they didn’t seem to have any for the 2nd generation Nanos. Lots for the 3rd gen, but I didn’t feel like buying a new iPod just to get a skin for it, y’know?
As I was getting ready to leave, I saw that they were on a different rack, kind of out of the way, so I spun the rack around looking for something that caught my eye. That turned out to be the price. Silicone skins were marked down from $12.99 to just 99 cents. Cool. Sometimes obsolescence can be a good thing. I wound up buying three, a Logiix clear silicone, a black iSeal skin, and a Logixx Optic Alloy case, which was the expensive option ($1.99)
I put the clear Logiix skin on after I bought them and it worked out about as well as its black predecessor had. The one complaint that I have about silicone skins is that you lose a fair bit of sensitivity in the click wheel. The center button will be fine, but dragging my finger on the wheel has been sluggish or even non-responsive at times.
So this morning I opened up the Optic Alloy case to see if it was any different. First thing I noticed was that, being a hard case, the screen protector is built in. I don’t have much in the way of scratching on the display of my Nano, and it’s nice to see that I won’t be getting any more in the foreseeable future.
I slid the Nano into the case, and gave it a spin. The whole thing feels a lot more substantial, and not quite as ‘delicate’ as the Nano felt when it wasn’t encased in the silicone skin. The Nano doesn’t slide around inside the case like it did with the metal one that I bought for my holidays last year. The wheel isn’t covered, so it’s as responsive as I would expect it to be if the device wasn’t encased. The edges are rubber coated as well, so I don’t feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand when I’m trying to find something else to listen to.
Had I known about this case a year and a half ago, I’d have picked one up and used it all along. Of course, then it was probably $39.99, but it would have been worth it.
If you’re not ready to be upgrading your 2nd generation Nano to a 3rd gen, or even a Touch, this would be the case I’d recommend picking up for your device, and quickly if at all possible - I wouldn’t imagine that too many retailers are going to be stocking 2nd gen accessories for too much longer.
I’ve emailed Logiix to ask them if they’ll continue to make the cases available for order online, but the response from them was that the case was no longer available, but new designs were being worked on.
If you’re able to pick up an Optic Alloy case from Logiix for your 2nd gen Nano, I highly recommend doing so. This the only case that I’m going to be keeping on mine until it’s time to upgrade it to something newer.
Applications Broken After Upgrading to Vista SP1
Microsoft has posted about a number of applications that are know to either break completely or have reduced functionality after a machine is upgrade to Service Pack 1 for Vista. Most of the applications are security-related in nature and can either be blocked from starting, do not launch at all or can have reduced functionality.
Of those listed, BitDefender AV, Zone Alarm Security Suite, and the New York Times Reader are likely to be the most commonly recognized applications.
To say this is a common thing just among Windows users would just be wrong, though. The current release of Apple’s OS X 10.5.2 points to a number of problems with apps getting borked after the upgrade.
So before you go jumping on Microsoft, please realize that they don’t write the apps that no longer work after applying the upgrade, and perhaps the companies that developed these apps should have confirmed that they worked under SP1 themselves.
But then, it’s Microsoft’s fault that HP didn’t write new drivers for your printer when you upgraded to Vista too, isn’t it? </sarcasm>
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