Do Not Fold

It’s generally known that laptops are outselling desktop PCs. People tend to buy a laptop over a desktop PC because it’s portable. But they don’t want to step down in screen size, people want at least a 17″ screen or if possible, even larger. When I walk through the computer department of a store like Media Markt I’m amazed by the ugly-ness and —most of all— the size of laptops!

But since a year or two there is something happening. It seems that people realize that big, heavy laptops aren’t that nice as they thought. Small, mini-laptops (Netbooks) like the ASUS Eee PC are in the lift. You don’t really need the cd-player and with WIFI or 3G connections you can be online, everywhere. I have the feeling we are going to a situation where people use a full-blown desktop PC for all the video and photo editing, etc. at home and a netbook for browsing the web (from anywhere, probably even on vacation).

The evidences of a small Apple netbook are growing so it feels that I’m correct about this. It’s clear that Apple scored with the iPhone, I wonder if they do with a netbook too. Speaking of the iPhone… that 3GS video quality is awesome! The quality on those small pocket video cameras like the Flip and this brand new Kodak Zi8 is probably better, but still… the iPhone video quality is really good too!

Don’t forget: resolution is not the same as quality! It’s not because you have a 8MP camera that the picture quality is better than a 2MP camera. That’s something loads of people don’t really know. The quality is depending on the lens and the quality of the sensor. The number of megapixels of your sensor define the size of the picture.

Check out my first iPhone video test of my cool nephew, Seth. Or this video of the petable (numb) fly that was sitting on my desk this afternoon.

It’s back! I’ve bought myself *another* iPhone. Yes, I know, it’s my third one already. It’s not a secret that I’m an Apple lover, but honestly, I’m not that guy who buys every new Apple product that’s on the market right away. Let me explain my iPhone story…

I bought my first iPhone in December 2007 in London. It was the first generation iPhone and it was great! I had to hack it and jailbreak it to get it working, but that was no problem except for the fact that I wanted to create my own iPhone apps. Back then it was not possible to deploy self-made iPhone apps to your iPhone if it was jailbroken. So I bought an official (not hacked/jailbroken) 3G iPhone in September 2008. I did that mainly because the iPhone back then was still worth quite a price. I bought it for €380 in London and sold it 10 months later for €360 euros!

Everything went well until, on some evening I went to the pub, got a bit drunk and forgot to take out my precious iPhone out of the pocket of my jeans. The next morning that jeans and my iPhone ended up in the washing machine. Terrible looking pictures, no response, … I thought it was dead. I opened it, used a hairdryer and left it dry. After a week things started working again. The water from the screen started to disappear and it looked like everything —except for the camera— was working again.

Until recently, during a sync, it just crashed. I tried loads and loads of times to restore but it didn’t work anymore. In the beginning I got the pink screen of dead, but after a while it totally stopped working on me. Meanwhile, Apple announced it’s 3th generation iPhone, the 3GS. In Belgium, €575 euros for the cheapest one (16GB). Way to expensive! But when I found out that I would get €180 for the 3G iPhone if I’d buy a new one I *had* to do it :) The iPhone 3GS arrived yesterday and I’m really happy with it… it looks the same, but it’s blazing fast, it can take movies, much much nicer pictures and has a digital compas in it. But I didn’t buy it because of these new features, I bought it because my life was a mess with that Nokia. You don’t use the calender on those devices, the camera sucks, syncing with the computer is a pain in the ass, etc.

I now have an insurance with my iPhone. Something I can recommend everyone with a mobile phone above €400. On top of my monthly €30 subscription with Mobistar, I pay €6 euro for the insurance. When I drop it, wash it, … I get a new one right away. As long as it doesn’t get stolen by a pickpocket! So that’s my iPhone story, I really hope it ends here ;)

Now that my iPhone is broken, I’m thinking about buying a new one. But… as every other Apple-fanboy out there, I’m dreaming about the third generation iPhone. It’s high likely that Apple will introduce a new iPhone model in June 2009.

What would be new? Better specs: more battery life, 3MP camera, more space for your music (probably flash memory). On the visual aspect: not much. Possibly a “matte” finish in stead of the “glossy” finish and I’m guessing that the curved, silver rim will be gone. The screen might be a bit like the new MacBook Pro: black glass where it’s not very clear where the screen starts/ends. Check my concept picture iPhone below. If it’s going to be like this, it’ll probably will be made in loads of colors too.

These are all guesses of course. But I’m not sure on what to do now… the buyers guide says: don’t buy.

This morning my iPhone ended up into the washing machine. I let it dry for a couple of hours and it (incredibly) still works, but the screen is all messed up :( Maybe things get right again if I let it dry for a couple of days, I really hope so! But I think it’s a total loss, because the home button doesn’t seemed to work and it kinda freaked out on the SpringBoard. More pictures here.

QuadCamera is the 4th camera-app by Art&Mobile. This is their best app, imo. It’s inspired by the Lomo Oktomat and loads of fun fun fun!

UPDATE: Some first experiments. Best app ever!

The guys from taptaptap.com have made a crazy mosaic iPhone image to congratulate Apple for the 10.000+ iPhone apps. Check it out in large or original format.