One of the big feature developments of the iPhone (and the iPod Touch, by extension) has been the use of iBooks as an e-book reader.  I find that reading long-form text on such a small screen to be difficult and tiring.  The iPad is much better suited for that kind of information consumption.  I live out of my RSS reader, and I’m constantly on Twitter, but I don’t think that the small form factor of the iPhone allows for the kind of experience most folks are looking for in an e-book reader.

I service computers for a living, and have done so for a long time.  I am also a barely-there programmer who needs a lot of hand-holding.  In both of those realms, there is a wealth of information stored in PDF format.  iBooks is a great PDF reader with pretty good performance for searching the contents of the stored documents, especially in such a small form factor.  I keep device user manuals, reference documentation, and occasionally download service manuals.  I don’t use iBooks for e-book reading at all.

I enjoy the fast access to information that would otherwise be unavailable or available with difficulty and frustration.  I can’t imagine myself being alone in this reality, and would love to hear from anyone with similar experiences.

If I find an iPhone and find on it a picture of Jesus Diaz, Jason Chen, Brian Lam, or any other one of the cocksuckers over at Gawker Media getting fisted in the ass, you can be damn sure it’s going up somewhere so that I can make a boatload of money from it.

I’ve already edited my /etc/hosts file.  I encourage you to do the same. See Craig’s page for the details.

UPDATE  1: Gizmodo apparently got a letter asking for the iPhone back. Gizmodo says they didn’t know the iPhone was stolen.  Except nobody said it was stolen. Reminds me of the TV show “Cops”: officer tells a perp that someone hit a pedestrian and they are looking for the driver, perp says he was at home watching TV and doesn’t know what happened, officer then says that he never mentioned what time the pedestrian was hit.  FAIL.

UPDATE FUCKING 2: The letter from Apple Legal says “a device that belongs to Apple.”  If Gizmodo didn’t do anything wrong, then it would have had to ask “What device are you referring to?”  I hope that if there are pictures on the internet of a Gizmodo editor being fisted, it’s by some member of Apple’s legal team.  I would make it my desktop background.

UPDATE 3: More good coverage from someone with a brain, Andy Ihnatko.

Let’s review a recent addition to the app store: Cannabis.  The app allows you to find the nearest dispensary in locations where marijuana has been decriminalized.  Currently, Apple has rated this program 12+ for “infrequent/mild” drug use or references.  Personally, I think that telling a 13 year old where to find marijuana, even if he/she cannot purchase it, is probably not a fantastic idea.  Here’s the screenshot if you’re still not sure:

Let’s compare this rating to another app on the App Store: Eucalyptus.  This app, because you are able to access “obscene” texts from Project Gutenberg, has a rating of 17+.  Essentially, even if you’re a minor and reading a PHYSICAL book that Apple considers to be a 17+ bit of content, you have to get parental permission first before running this app on your iPod or iPhone. Even if the kid already has the printed version in his or her hands.  Here’s the screenshot:

Just thought I’d throw some more fuel on the fire that is raging about how apps are rated by Apple and why developers are pulling their goddamn hair out trying to find any sort of logic or consistency.  I don’t envy them at all.  Not one bit.

FIRST: AT&T has the biggest GSM network in the country.  I’ve seen T-Mobile carts selling unlocked iPhones or offer to unlock your iPhone for you for free with purchase of service. Despite their desire to attract folks to their service, T-Mobile still sucks compared with AT&T in my experience.  I’m sure this varies by geography, but the vast majority of folks I’ve spoken with have shared similar experiences, and even my own T-Mobile prepaid SIM gets worse coverage in my W810i than AT&T did before I switched to the iPhone.

SECOND: I consider it pretty unlikely that Apple would build a CDMA version of the iPhone for use within the United States on either Verizon or Sprint and VERY limited use outside of the United States. Building a GSM phone is much smarter, economically speaking, because it works in almost every country with a mobile phone provider.  I’m not going to give you percentages of GSM vs. CDMA, but outside of the US, CDMA is almost worthless.  Plus, it looks like both Verizon and AT&T are going to be moving their networks to 4G LTE technology.

THIRD: The rumor mill is stating that Apple is building a custom version of the iPhone for China that lacks a wifi chipset under pressure from the Chinese government.  I’m not confident that Apple would go so far as to make a nationally-tailored version of the iPhone without wifi.  However, the market in China is much larger in terms of raw population, and may in fact be larger than many major wireless markets currently served by the single physical iPhone build currently being sold.  Regardless of that, wouldn’t it be easier to build, test, and qualify a device with one component removed (that little Broadcom wifi chipset) than with a completely different radio with new and varied characteristics?  This version neutered for Chinese consumption seems much more plausible than the CDMA device, but I still think it’s probably BS. But what do I know.

The main thing I have with all of these dumbfuck technology pundits is that nobody seems to realize that Apple has carefully chosen its preferred wireless carriers based on their common network characteristics: GSM.  Even in Japan, they chose to work with SoftBank instead of NTT DoCoMo because DoCoMo doesn’t operate a GSM standard network.  For Apple to switch carriers to anyone other than T-Mobile (in the US market) would create a fuckload of implementation problems that are completely isolated to the US market. And, I’m sure Apple has studied this, T-Mobile’s network kinda blows.  AT&T is no fucking gem of an operator, but the realistic alternatives are no better.

I don’t understand things like product launches drawing this kind of crowd.  Movies and concerts I get, but all of this hubbub for a piece of Chinese plastic that is WAY better designed, but not completely unlike other pieces of Chinese plastic to hit the market.  It’s insane, and I like it.  A LOT.

Don’t get me wrong: I own some Apple stock and I’d like to see it go up to the 160+ range this summer so I can sell off and relieve my debt ratio that has given me Goatse-like pains the past 2 years.  When Apple does well, it helps out the rest of the “Mac economy” so to speak, and I am just such a member of that economy.  More success is good.  Watching crazy douchebags break their credit cards doing it: priceless.

Just thought of something: they should sell the JesusPhone in vending machines at all Starbucks and Saddleback Church locations.  Please contact me so I can provide a mailing address for commission checks thankyouverymuch.

I want to state clearly that I do not want to stop people from jailbreaking and unlocking their phones.  You bought it, and you’ve got a right to do what you want to it.  However, don’t be pissed if someone at Apple tells you to pound sand because you’re dropping a lot of calls after installing baseband firmware written by a bunch of guys freezing their asses off in Ostrov Rudolfa. Think of it like this: you are a leet iPhone hacker kid, which means you own a Honda Civic (of course) and you put “Nos” in your Honda, not knowing that “Nos” is a brand of nitrous oxide injector systems made by Holley (of carburetor fame), not a genericized trademark for nitrous systems.  You’re driving down the 405 to Irvine (because that’s where all of the kids with modded Civics live) and you crack a piston trying to race a guy from Newport Beach in his Murcielago.  You aren’t going to take it back to the Honda dealer and ask them to fix your engine under warranty, right?

My iPhone works pretty damn well with the factory programs and the few iPhone apps I’ve downloaded from the store.  Unlike most JesusPhone owners, I don’t consider it a way of life nor do I consider it a political battleground.  I consider it a tool, and people will use their tools as they see fit.  I’ve got Chess with Friends, Shazam, TouchCalc, the iTunes Remote, the Weather Channel, WootWatch, and a couple others that I screw around with.  Other than that, my phone serves every purpose I want, and it’s only gotten better with the launch (and later, usability) of MobileMe, the over-the-air information syncing service from Apple.

Last year, I unlocked my phone and played around with the jailbreaking apps, and it was fun for a while, but like my experience with Linux on the desktop, I wanted to actually do something productive rather than just have a novelty toy.  Apple’s development of the iPhone software hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been good and it’s been better than anything I’ve experienced, long term, from a jailbroken device.  Recent jailbreaks require, rather than running a website that exploits security vulnerabilities to crack it (which is sketchy anyways) that you install custom software installation images.  I’m sure that the folks posting those images are not using that medium to spread malware, but what is stopping them?  I’ll trust factory images to run my phone thankyouverymuch.

My iPhone does pretty much everything I want it to do, with the narrow exception of what some of my smaller candybar Sony Ericsson phones do.  But all in all, it’s a nice device that I don’t feel I have to hack and customize to display my uniqueness as a human being.  I have the rest of the internet to do that with.

Plus, iTunes 8.0 has per-podcast, individual download settings.  iTunes 8.0 almost FTW, if I didn’t have to hack the preferences plist to turn off genre in browsing mode.  Why the fuck did they make genre a “requirement”?