Well it's been almost a month, and the iPhone is still by far the best mobile phone I've ever owned. One of the things that people chastised Apple for originally was that they did not open the device up for 3rd party applications. Apple responded by saying there was no need, developers could simply create applications targeting the phone's internet browser, Safari. When I first heard this was the answer to 3rd party applications, I kind of thought that Apple was looking for an easy out, and that it was a cheezy response. I've changed my mind. Here are just a a handful of applications I'm using on a daily basis, and why they're so great on the iPhone.

JiveTalk (Alpha)
iPhone Link
Alpha? Alpha? This thing is amazing. JiveTalk is a web-based instant messaging client, that aggregates almost every popular IM service. It works with AIM/iChat, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Chat, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber. I have three IM accounts, so putting all my instant messaging contacts in one place, and being able to carry on multiple conversations is great.

The user interface is amazing. You're able to have IM conversations with as many people as you want to. In the conversation screen, they even make it look like Apple's SMS threaded message view, complete with speech bubbles. The user interface is polished and slick. I had three IM threads going last night, and it was seamless to switch between each one, know when someone had said something, and manage them all as a whole.

I encourage you to check out this free (so far) IM client.

Scenario Poker
iPhone Link
Shuffle up and deal! This is another 'application' that I find myself frequently loading. I love poker, I love Texas Hold 'Em to be specific. Scenario poker allows you to play against 8 people in portrait mode, or choose the landscape mode and turn your iPhone on it's side to play against 10! The players all appear to be imaginary, as there is no lag or delay while playing.

The play is good. Animations for cards going to each player are smooth, I have yet to encounter a bug in this poker application. It's free, but purchasing a license via Pay Pal will allow you to upload your picture, give you statistics while playing, and they'll even mail you a poker odds card to keep in your wallet.

I have not paid to use this program at this point.

Showtimes
iPhone Link
Not that I get to go to the movies that much any more with two kids, this application is pretty cool. It beats loading Fandango and zooming around in the iPhone screen. You simply type your zip code into the search box, and you're presented with a list of theaters. Choose a theater, and you get a list of movies. Simple and slick.

Choose a movie and you get a image of the movie poster, a synopsis, rating, reviews, theater addresses and movie times. I would love to see a 'buy tickets' link, I can only guess if that's a future enhancement or not. Showtimes does a good job of delivering a plethora of information formatted just for the iPhone.

iPhone Network Test
iPhone Link
Let's bash the EDGE network and complain about how slow it is! Well, it's not a slow as you may have thought. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is not room for improvement, but this little gem will tell you what network connectivity speeds you're getting over EDGE or WiFi. Clicking on the Start Test button, a graphic is downloaded to your device, and the resulting speed in KBS is displayed above it. They even give you a link to click (or tap I guess) that lets you specify which connection you're using.

Ok, numbers. Most of the time on EDGE, I'm getting upwards of 200+ KBS. Sure it's not DSL or Cable, but it's not that slow!

Seeqpod
iPhone Link
Let me start by saying, use this site at your own risk. The legality of it seems a bit sketchy at this point. The site allows you to type in a song title, or artist and search the internet for instances of MP3 files that match your search criteria. Clicking search results stream music right to your iPhone. It's really amazing. I searched for some really obscure stuff and was able to listen to the entire song.

I've only tried this application on WiFi. My guess is that on edge, it would depend on signal strength and download speeds.

While you can't save files to your device, it's almost like On Demand Radio. You want to hear a song? Type the title in and listen! Very cool stuff here, but I bet we see this shut down in the next six months.

Do you have an application you'd like to see on your iPhone? Leave a comment, I've been trying to come up with an application to build, but I don't have any good ideas yet.

I read a post recently about how to get DVDs onto your iPhone. There must have been twenty steps, and I don't know if the software was free, or required a purchase. I think I've found better software, and less steps to do it. It is not a 'quick' process, maybe my computer sucks. Any ways, here's the approach I'm using, and all the software is free.

Download Software
DVD Decrypter (DVD Ripping Software)
Videora (Video Encoding Software)

Step 1.
Open DVD Decrypter

Click the stream processing tab, and check the video checkbox, and the 2ch English checkbox. This will get just the movie and audio. Then click on the destination folder at the bottom, and choose a location to save the file to. It will create a .VOB file. This file is what you'll encode in Videora. Now just click the DVD > Hard Drive image at the bottom, and wait... and wait... and wait.

Once the ripping is done, you can close DVD Decrypter. 

Step 2.
Open Videora

Click on the settings menu option and configure it to work with the iPhone screen. You'll only need to do this step once.

 Click on the Convert menu option at the top, and then Video Wizard, locate the file on your machine and click the 'next' arrow. Steps are highlighted below.

Next, select your video settings. You'll need to play with these to determine what you preferences are.

Finally, click the Start Converting button and wait... wait... wait....

Then, to get it on your iPhone, simply import the file Videora generates into iTunes, and then choose to sync it to your iPhone. So I have a process that is roughly seven steps to get just about any DVD onto your iPhone. The article I read was 19 steps, I didn't have the patience to read the entire thing, yet alone try it!

The videora UI is horrific. Lots of ads, but nothing shady gets installed. I like it because it's free, and simple. You can rip to other devices too like PSP, iPod video, and other formats. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

Sick of getting spam, here's a few things to try.

• If you run your own domain, turn off your settings to allow *@domain.com email to go to a single box.
• Remove text that contains your email address on your site, and consider changing it to be "user at domain dot com".
• Consider creating a windows live or Gmail account to use for sites that require registration. Once you've determined if they are trustworthy, change it to your 'good' email address.
• Double spam filter your email. The email from my site goes through my ISP's spam filters, and then Gmail picks it up from my inbox there, sure, it's a few extra minutes to get my mail, but then it goes through Gmail's spam checks. I think I get maybe one to two spam messages in my inbox per week. This also allows me to have a single point of presence for all of my mail, not to mention the hard disk space I'm saving by using Google 2.8 GB of online storage. I've set it up this way for close to six months, and I've only hit 5% of their allotted storage space.
• If you are getting a lot of spam from reliable companies, unsubscribe from their notices, they have to provide a way for you to opt out of their requests. Be careful though, a lot of spammers use this feature to fish for email addresses, so while it's ok to tell Macy's or Nordstrom to stop sending you junk, I'd be weary of BigOffers.com.
• Use Gmail's Report Spam feature in the web based email.
• If you're using Outlook, use it's built in Spam filter capabilities.
• Only give your email address to people you want to receive email from.
• Spammers use name lists to guess at common windows live, yahoo, and gmail accounts, when possible, add something that won't allow your name to be 'guessed' (jsmith89@gmail.com) . It's kind of cryptic, but yet another effective preventive measure.
• If you're getting more spam than good email, it might be time to retire that address and start clean.
• Don't get caught by a phisher either.

I ended up placing 11th place in the National Poker Challenge league that I've been playing in. So the 60 highest ranked players get invited to a tournament for the month of June. The really cool part of this tournament is that 1st place is around $1,000 cash for first prize, and the higher up you finished for the month, the more chips you start with.

The 1st place player gets $20,000 in tournament chips, and 11th place gets $17,000 and change. 60th place gets around $10,000. It will be good to start the tournament with a lot more chips than the rest of the field. I hope I have a lot of players with low chip stacks at my table.

Tournament play is difficult. It's very hard to bluff, or get away with much. My strategy will be to play premium starting hands, raising more than calling raises. I'm really going to focus on playing good poker, and concentrate on making the final table. It will be a long day, it's on Sunday July 22nd starting at 2:00 PM. Hopefully, by the time I get home, it will be dark, and I'll be counting my winnings.

I've switched my RSS feed to point to feedburner. Sorry for those of you that have 'subscribed' to the original feed.

Please update your RSS readers to point to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/johnbatdorf

Thanks

Well it had to happen, that first little scratch on the screen. I'm still not even sure how it happened. I've been really careful, and it's glass. Maybe I shouldn't be rubbing diamonds against it... har har har. I've been a freak about screen scratches on my portable devices in the past. I bet I've tried every know case, protector, or screen film known to geeks all around, and the only one so far I've even remotely like is the Agent18 case for the iPod.

When I purchased my iPhone, I started off with a Belkin iPhone case. It did not protect the screen, but sort of cradled the whole iPhone. I liked it at first. The removable belt clip is nice, because I hate belt clips. After reading about some people's experiences of the Belkin case actually causing more scratching damage to their iPhone than protection, I decided I'd better check it out.

Yep. I was starting to see very small scratches around the silver bezel. I'm a realist, I know this thing is going to get scratched, but if I can prevent it, I'm going to try. I ditched the Belkin case and started my search for the best screen protector I could find.

I think I've found it. 'invisible SHIELD' available at www.shieldzone.com. They claim their protective film is used in military applications, such as covering helicopter blades! (Sounds like a gimick, huh?) I went to the site, and watched all the videos. My primary complaint about film style screen protectors is they're good for a week, two, maybe three, and then they come off, or start peeling at the edges.

Watching the 'how to' installation video for invisible SHIELD was interesting. It's not a peel and stick film. You actually spray both sides of the film with a mild adhesive and then squeegee the excess liquid and bubbles out. Wow, that seems cool. It also seems like it could be a tough install. I almost forgot the best part, if your screen protector is scuffed, scratched, or damaged in any way, they'll send you a replacement free for life. See my post about shopping where I do, and you'll understand why something like this is attractive to me.

I plopped down my $15, ok I ordered it online with my credit card, but you know what I mean. After about a week or so it showed up. I opened the package and removed the small spray bottle, squeegee, and film. I read the directions, cleaned my iPhone with an LCD screen wipe, made sure (I thought) there was no dust on the screen and sprayed both sides of the film with the spray.

Setting the film on the iPhone was tricky, but not impossible. I patiently kept making slight adjustments to make sure the film aligned properly with the screen, home button, and ear piece. I then squeegee'd the fluid out from underneath, and on top of the film. Some small dabs with the LCD screen wipe, and presto! The shieldzone site says to set it aside for 24 hours, I checked it in the morning and it seems fine.

I was reviewing my email, and noticed, of course, that a small piece of something had managed it way under my protector. I'll pull it off again tonight, clean, scrutinize, and re-apply. They say you can do that no problem.

Impressions, this stuff is awesome. You can not tell at all that it's on there. It also feels way tougher than any other screen protector I've used. The touch screen display does not seem to care that it's there either. Nothing has changed in the way I use my phone. And as for the original scratch, I can't even see it now with the invisible SHIELD installed. Hooray!

I'll report back in a few weeks about longevity, and how the remove/replace procedure goes.

Sure, there are places where you can save a lot of money by sacrificing customer service. I have a couple of examples of why I shop where I do.

The Bad - Save a Nickel Spend a Dime
I once bought a television from Video Only. I bought it solely on price, they were $400 less than other places, and I was convinced this savings would outweigh any issues. I was sorely mistaken. A few months after purchasing the television (and an extended warranty) the unit started having problems. I called up Video Only expecting to have them help me out, I mean the set was only a few months old! They told me to talk to the manufacturer, and there was nothing they could do. I was bummed, having bought several different electronic items from Magnolia Hi-Fi in the past, I expected an experience similar to how Magnolia operated, I was wrong. After hours of phone calls to Hitachi, and working with their service department, I finally had an appointment for a tech to come out and fix my broken television.

The tech came, replaced some things, and said I was good to go. Ok, so it wasn't that bad, until the set broke again, and I had to repeat the process. This happened about 6 times. At one point they wanted to take the unit to their shop and completely rebuild it. This is when I freaked out and called Hitachi directly, I stayed on the phone for hours, insisting they send me a completely new unit, they finally did.

The moral of this story is that the $400 I saved was no savings at all. If you look at the amount of time, frustration, and stress I was caused the $400 is a joke. I would have gladly paid even more than that to have a company like Magnolia simply refund my money, or just get a new set, let them fight with the manufacturer. I understand statistics (I'm not a pro...) and realize that no matter how good a manufacturer's build process is, there will be a percentage of 'bad' products sent out.

The Really Bad - Bad service, bad workmanship - blame the customer?
We recently hired Home Depot to replace some vinyl flooring in our home. To make a long long long story short, they caused damage to our house during this installation. Thousands of dollars worth. While dealing with the store level on this was good, the corporate and claims adjuster level left a horrible taste in our mouths. The claims adjuster promised us one thing, and then dodged our calls for 2 weeks. When I finally got a hold of him, he promised something else, and when I pressed him on why he did not return my calls for two weeks, he replied "I don't have an answer for you."

All part of the claims adjuster game I'm guessing. I'm glad that when I go home from work, I don't feel dirty. I can't see how this guy/company (Sedgwick Claims Management) lives with themselves. We finally reached an agreement, but it also involves the store level refunding my labor charges for ALL of the flooring in my house. The claims adjustment portion left us about $700 in the red. Sure, I could get a lawyer and all that crap, but the thought of dragging this out, and further deliberations makes me ill. All in all in the end, we're out about $250 dollars. And while we shouldn't be, and the principle of the matter again, makes me ill, I'm just glad for it to be over and done.

The Good - Pay more to Begin with
My wife recently bought a swimsuit top from Nordstrom. We don't shop there exclusively, but we do hit their sales, and when we want something fairly specific, we do end up there from time to time. We love Nordstrom rack (same great service and return policy - lower prices).  The top was not super expensive, nor super cheap. Could she have found something elsewhere comprable for a lower price? Probably. She wore it one day, and did not like the fit, the liner was coming out in the pool, and there was some threads coming out. She went to return it the next day, no issues. They instantly refunded the money and apologized. This is what I want when something that we've purchased does not meet our expectations.

The Really Good - Pay less and Get more
I'm a huge fan of Costco. I've even upgraded our membership to the $100 executive level. We get 2% of our purchases back each year, last year we got a check for $178. We did have some big purchases last year, but we're trying to shop exclusively (when possible) at Costco. Sure, it does not make sense for everything, especially things like produce or other items you don't want in bulk. Costco is an amazing company, between their warehouses and online store, you can get just about anything.

We had purchased a vacuum at Costco a while back. Recently it stopped working, I was not that upset as I thought it was a cheap one, and it was probably time to step up to a nice one. We were in Costco on Saturday, and looked at their Dyson. It was awesome and had a five year warranty too. The problem? $469, ouch. A random customer walked up and gave his accolades on how great it was, how they couldn't live without theirs now, and the price - though high - was worth it. I'm not opposed to spend money on something if it will do what it's supposed to do, as long as it does it well, and will last a while I'm willing.

I told my wife, let's think about it. We both started to get a little frustrated that our other Vacuum was only a year old. On the way out I hit the customer service desk, inquiring if they could see our purchase history back a year or so ago. The gal at the desk told me she could go back to 2000! Wow, impressive. She said, yes, you bought the Vacuum back in Sept 2005. Ugh. Almost two years old, I guess I can't return it. I was baffled when she told me, "No if it's stopped working, bring it in with all the attachments, manual, etc.... we'll refund your money, you paid $199.99 for it!"

So now, I can return my old Vacuum and essentially apply the refund of that to the new Dyson. Costco rocks. We went back on Sunday, returned the broken one, and purchased the new one. The new Vac is so much better. I encourage you to support places like Nordstrom, Magnolia Hi-Fi, and Costco. I know there are other places that operate like this too, but just remember, you're the consumer, when something does not meet your expectations, it's up to the place that sold it to you to make it right.

One of the things you have to remember when trying to save money on a bigger than normal purchase, is that your time is valuable, it's worth money too, your free time is probably even more valuable than money you save when a purchase goes awry. Keep this in mind, the hours of hassle you experience could cost more than the savings in the long run.

After waiting about six months to get the iPhone, I'll say this, I'm not disappointed. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than any handheld phone/pda I've owned in the past? Yes. I'll break this review into the following sections; Starting out with the iPhone, General overview, and then my likes and dislikes.

Starting Out with the iPhone

Unboxing

It's the typical Apple product packaging. A very high quality, sleek black box with silver lettering and a photo of the iPhone on top. It's small. You kind of wonder if you're just getting an iPhone. Opening the box, the iPhone is cradled in a plastic piece, suspended over the small instruction manual, polishing cloth, ear buds, USB synch cable, and power brick. I must admit that when I open an Apple product, there's a rush of excitement just from the design, aesthetics, and pure marketing behind the package design.

Setup

Once you've downloaded and installed iTunes 7.3 to your Mac or PC, you're ready to go. Simply connect the iPhone, and iTunes walks you through setup and activation with AT&T. I've heard some rumblings of people having activation nightmares, but for me it was simple. In like 3 minutes I was setup and ready to go. I tested my iPhone by calling from our land line, it worked like a charm. Big props to AT&T and Apple on this, no muss and fuss of having to sit in an AT&T store while some new employee struggled with their 'system' and tried to up sell me on services I don't want or need. The only thing I had to add to my existing plan was a $20 monthly charge for unlimited internet/data access. Big props again to AT&T and Apple, as they could have charged more... people would have paid.

Initial Use

The iPhone just works. The first thing you notice is the lack of physical buttons. The only buttons in fact are a volume up/down rocker switch on the side, silence switch for the ringtone and alerts (why don't all phones have this???), a sleep/wake switch at the top of the phone, and the 'Home' button on the bottom center of the screen. The rest of the user interface and interaction occurs on the glorious 3.5" LCD display. When a call comes in, a giant green button below the caller ID allows you to "Answer Call" or you can pawn it off to your voicemail. I can't say enough about how much I like the minimalist implementation of physical buttons, again, it just works out well. The device is sleek, stylish, and more functional than any phone/handheld I've owned to date.

Email, iPod, Safari, Phone & Networking

Email

I am not using Yahoo's push email. I decided that this is something very likely to come to Gmail soon, and decided to route all my mail through Gmail. The iPhone's native email application works with Gmail, Yahoo, .Mac, and AOL. If you have not seen email on this device, I'll just have to say it's as close to a desktop email client that I've seen so far on a handheld. It's beautiful. I have my email set to check every 15 minutes, and while it's not PUSH, it's certainly good enough for me. I'm able to retrieve my mail anywhere now and respond in seconds, now I know why people with BlackBerrys are running around with their heads down all the time.

iPod

Music
Certainly, one of the biggest reasons to own this device is the iPod functionality. The best iPod they've ever made is Steve Jobs' claim, and I'd say I pretty much agree. The iPod works the same way you're used to, but now instead of cycling through a list of artists, we have coverflow. Coverflow is a graphical representation of the album covers in a horizontal scrolling list. Just swipe your finger across the screen in either direction, and you have a fluid scrolling list of albums. Click an album, and it rotates to the back side, showing you all the songs, click a song, and you're listening to it. Forget to plug the headphones in? It will play your music over the integrated speaker, while it's no concert experience, it does sound decent. I like the speaker because I like to show someone a song, or comedian, and don't really want them grabbing my earbuds and using them. The speaker makes it easy to share quick one-off things. You're able to list music, by song, artists, composer, etc. But one thing that is lacking is a search capability like they introduced last year, while not a big deal that it's missing, it would be nice to have. I'd venture to guess we'll get it in a software update some time soon.

Video
Video is simply amazing on this device. I downloaded the latest version of Videora (FREE), they already have built in support for converting ripped DVDs to iPhone format. The 3.5" diagonal screen does video proud. I've ripped two movies so far, The Bourne Identity, and Fight Club. They both look amazing. The perfect thing while waiting in the airport, or sitting and killing time somewhere. The screen is bright, so bright in fact, that I've set mine to about 30% brightness and have found that it is perfectly adequate for watching movies and TV shows. 

Safari

The safari web browser does a great job. The best browser I've seen on a mobile device. Browsing the web is not something you'll probably want to do for hours on end, but if you need to pay a bill, get movie times, or locate a phone number it works slick. The browser allows you to enter any address on the web, and it will load the entire page as it was meant to be seen. No stacked mobile versions here. You can zoom to any section by double tapping or doing the 'squeeze' technique with your thumb and forefinger. The fonts are sharp and crisp, easy to read. I've been able to use the iGoogle page, Windows Live Mail mobile version, MSN Messenger Mobile beta, and a ton of other sites. It's so nice to be able to browse wherever and whenever you want to. One downer is that there is no support for Macromedia's flash, but I suspect this will be available in a software update soon as well.

Phone

The phone call quality is great so far. I have not had a single dropped call nor one where either party had trouble hearing each other.  On a device that has no keys, the phone is a few clicks away. Some people have been frustrated by this, but I'm not having a problem with it. You can make calls one of several ways: favorites, this is a list of your most used numbers you can setup and configure, recent call activity, missed, received, and calls that you've made, the keypad, or via the contacts. All ways work equally well. The contacts synch from Outlook or Outlook express without a hitch. The phone has some cool features that other phones don't have a first glance. The ability to easily put someone on hold, if you're talking on the phone and a call comes in the screen will give the option to put the current caller on hold, and answer the incoming call. Once you have a person on hold, and an active call, you can easily swap between parties or even merge the two calls together, brilliant.

Networking

The iPhone supports two types of networking, traditional Wifi over B and G networks, and EDGE data connectivity over AT&T's cellular network. Speed-wise you see the best performance on Wifi networks. The iPhone will remember networks that you've joined previously and automatically connect to them when you're in range. The speeds you see depend on the Wifi setup, but rival the same speeds you would see with desktop or laptop connectivity, it's fast.

The EDGE networking initially took a lot of flack, especially from Apple haters. 3G is undoubtedly faster than EDGE however the EDGE networking uses less battery life. A day before iPhone launch, AT&T flipped the switch on 50 million dollars of improvements to the EDGE network. I see anywhere between 180kbps all the way up to the 300s, it's faster than dial up, but it's not DSL or cable. The good thing is that it works great with email and browsing. Given the choice of Wifi or EDGE, I'd always pick Wifi, but EDGE is not a bad as people were saying.

Likes and Dislikes

Conclusion

Although I was honestly a fan from day one, that being the day Jobs pulled it out of his pocket, I love this thing. There are some other annoyances, but some of them can be fixed via software updates. The user interface is truly revolutionary, things just work like you think they should. Transitions, visual effects, and multi-touch are a beautiful marriage of hardware and software that all work together like a well oiled machine. The learning curve is small, the wow factor is big. I can't wait to see the developments over the next few years.

 It's kind of funny, I went to the AT&T store a week prior to launch, I wanted to make sure I was eligible to upgrade, etc. etec. The gal convinced me to agree to a new 2 year contract right then, gave me a Samsung flip phone, and told me to bring the 'free' phone in and exchange it for the iPhone. I said sure, didn't really understand why, but she swore it would make the process easier. So on launch day, when I got the iPhone, I tried to exchange the free phone, the guy laughed and said, just keep it. So now that free phone is on ebay, with over 14 people watching it. I should get at least $70 for it, a nice way to offset a small portion of the cost of the iPhone. I also sold my old Sony Ericson phone, I paid $99 for it just over two years ago, it sold on ebay for $89 plus shipping!

A recent post at Engadet entitled "AT&T customers seeing sudden boost in EDGE speeds?"

Someone in New York noticed significantly greater speeds on the AT & T Edge cellular network. Speeds of up to 200 KB sec.

This is awesome news, as one of the biggest complaints about the iPhone to date is the AT & T Edge data access.

Let's hope this kind of performance sticks!

I'm proud to say it looks like I'll finish in the top 10 for the month of June. If I can, I'll be awarded a free month pass for August (I already paid for July) and entrance to an invite only tournament for cash/prizes.

The invite only tournament will have sixty or so players, and pay in the thousands to first place. Wish me luck!

The cool thing, is the higher up you finish, the more chips you start out with in the big tournament. So with only three days left, there are only 3 or 4 people within striking distance of me. So, if they do well, I should still finish in the top 10. It's been a lot of fun, and I encourage you all to come check out the National Poker Challenge.

I love the fact that you're judged on the 10 games you play. It puts everyone on a level field. Unlike the other league that I played in, this league sets that limit.

The number in parenthesis (10) is the number of games that a person has played in a month.