It’s been about a week since I arrived in Los Angeles and I’m slowly starting to become acclimated to my new, frantic environment. There’s a strange element of peaceful bliss about getting lost in the chaos of this city. I’m getting a better idea of the city layout and have starting ditching the GPS just to see if I can find my way around the city.
All the grocery stores are completely different on this side of the country. I’ve switched from the Publix, Bi-Lo, Ingles and Food Lions of the east coast to the Ralph’s, Vons, Trader Joes and Bristol Farms of the west coast. The only constant was Whole Foods, but I’d have to sell a kidney to shop there on a regular basis. Ralphs is the most similar to the east coast stores and there is a great one about a half mile away. Definitely caters to the UCLA crowd.
I’ve taken some pictures that need to get up on Facebook and Flickr soon. I’ll try to upload those this week. I haven’t been keeping up with TV and iPhone apps lately, but I have really enjoyed the new Sunny in Philly
season. It’s pretty incredible when a show can consistently stay hilarious season after season. I’m also digging the new version of the Facebook app for the iPhone. I can finally post to walls and return messages without logging into my computer. Yay!
Digsby just keeps better and better. They recently added LinkedIn support to the social networks. I’m not interested in status updates so much, but it’s interesting to see the updates when people change their job. Plus I never have to type in my log-in info anymore.
I don’t typically read Mark Cuban’s blog, but he made a great common sense post about building wealth this weekend. There are too many people living beyond their financial means in this country. I’d love to eat at Whole Foods and drink Starbucks everyday, but I don’t based on the same principles that he discussed.
So I moved again. This time it’s Los Angeles. I bought a new car (Mazda3 sedan) and started planning a trip across eight states to setup a new life in L.A. I said my goodbyes, loaded up the new ride with my earthly possessions and started the road trip.
But before I left, I loaded up a few helpful road trip iPhone applications. Travelocity was good for finding hotels near my GPS location. Gasbag was excellent for finding the cheapest gas in the area. Where was also decent for gas stations and Starbucks. I relied on a separate GPS unit for turn-by-turn directions. It was invaluable after stopping over in Memphis.
If you haven’t experienced Middle America before, there’s no better way to envelop yourself in the rural lifestyle than driving across the country. It was a little disconcerting at times where driving across long, empty stretches of Texas and New Mexico, but still worth the experience.
Favorite Exit: Exit 237 in Oklahoma on Interstate 40W. Do yourself a favor and stop at the Hungry Traveler. The place is in a desolate part of Oklahoma, the epitome of the middle of nowhere. I had a delicious mushroom and Swiss burger polished off with the best slice of blueberry pie that I’ve ever eaten in my life.
Favorite State: Arizona. Perhaps it’s just the northern section, but the slow transition from rocky desert landscape to lush, green mountains is really quite breathtaking. I stayed on Route 66 for one night after passing through Flagstaff. It made me think of the Pixar film Cars. (RIP Paul Newman. He was awesome as the voice of the Doc.) The gorgeous farmland of Oklahoma is in a close second.
Least Favorite State: North Texas. The entire area smelled like cow manure from one end to the other. My overnight stay in Amarillo was incredibly boring.
Favorite Overnight Stop: Memphis, TN. I got to see some old friends and eat two delicious plates of sushi.
I made to L.A. after four days. It didn’t rain one time during my trip. I’m staying on Wilshire Blvd. near UCLA. I might have lucked out with finding an excellent roommate and place to live on Craigslist. Only time will tell. It’s going to be interesting to see how well I can acclimate to the city. It’s overwhelming and exhilarating all at the same time.
I was chatting with a friend about the upcoming 3G iPhone and we got stuck on the topic of GPS for a while. Obviously GPS isn’t a new idea. Plenty of people are perfectly happy with their in-car GPS systems or even the current capabilities of their GPS enabled phones. There’s no real added value for current GPS owners to switch over to the iPhone specifically based on the hardware.
Apple’s strategic advantage will be in the applications that are created with live tracking GPS in mind. Apple already demoed Loopt.com; an app that tells you your friend’s exact location, recent pictures, little messages and alerts you when they are nearby.
The possibilities are so ridiculously intriguing. For instance, imagine twittering, blogging, or updating your Facebook / Myspace status with not only a message, but also your current location automatically.
Locating nearby restaurants is nothing new for GPS, but imagine a one click Yelp.com application that automatically recommends the top 3 nearby Italian restaurants based on user reviews and according to your GPS location.
Imagine a music application that offers a list of upcoming, nearby concerts based on the type of music you keep on your iPhone (or your Pandora.com likes / dislikes) and your current GPS location.
Imagine being in an unfamiliar city and desperately needing to find a public restroom. One button click on the iPhone, your GPS location could be sent to Mizpee.com and a list of the closest toilets (along with reviews if you are a clean freak) would pop up along with directions to each.
Imagine not only all of your pictures being geo-tagged with locations due to GPS, but also tossed into a map-like trip diary documenting vacations as you travel or even the mundane details of your life; all via a one click social networking app on the iPhone.
Imagine sitting at work and hitting a one click Craigslist search that allows you to find nearby apartments (obviously to save on $4 a gallon gas) based on your current GPS location.
The point I’m trying to make is that the iPhone is going to make this type of techy GPS stuff incredibly easy to do. Blackberry already has plenty of GPS apps, but they aren’t for the casual phone user; they are mostly for the tech-heads. Ideally, iPhone users will just load up the App store with one click, download & install a GPS application within a few seconds and away they go. The streamlined process will ultimately increase the number of users and bring these sort of live tracking applications into the mainstream very quickly.
So Steve Jobs and his legion of Apple minions announced the next iPhone for release on July 11th and I’m scratching my head on buying it next month.
The Good:
- The price is reasonable now and within my range; $199 for the 8 gig model. The 2 year contract doesn’t bother me since I’m already with AT&T.
- GPS is cool and actually portable compared to my car GPS.
- Internet browsing is almost 3 times as fast as the older model.
- The App store looks really cool. The games look as good as the stuff on the Nintendo DS and Ebay / social networking stuff looks spot on.
- The new instant messaging system looks great.
- The battery life looks much better than my Razr.
- It’s good to go for international travel.
The Bad:
- The cost would go up another $30 a month for me if I opted for the unlimited internet plan. I hope there are varied tiers of data plans otherwise I’ll have to stick to Wi-fi hotspots.
- The App Store stuff is expensive.
- The picture quality of the camera still sucks and still no front facing camera.
- I’d probably have to install iTunes, something I’ve been glad to be rid of with my Zune.
- I have to wait a bit over a month; I want a new phone now.
So I’m undecided. I can pay less for a Blackberry right now, but not by much. Decisions, decisions.
In yesterday’s snail mail, I received a friendly reminder from AT&T that I can upgrade my phone since my two year contract is running out. I knew those bastards enjoyed my $50 for letting me talk a few minutes and send a couple texts a month. My trusty, but woefully dusty, Razr was a wonderful upgrade for me a couple years ago. I had been carrying around a gray monstrosity from the late nineties that was as thick as a computer mouse, so the super thin Razr was an obvious choice for me. Unfortunately, the poor battery life and painfully directional earpiece has annoyed me from the start. So I’m in the market for a new phone.
I’ve been browsing the blackberries, but haven’t seen anything I’d like to pull the trigger on. I’d love to have an iPhone, but the cheapest model on sells for an absolutely ridiculous $400; that’s with the two year contract discount. So as much as I salivate over the coolness, the price is an extreme deal breaker. But wait, what’s this I hear about a 3G iPhone?!
I’ve gleefully stumbled into a fantastic time to be in the market for an iPhone. On June 9th, Apple is rumored to announce a 3G version of the iPhone at their developer’s conference. I had no idea what this meant until I started reading about what the 3G iPhone will offer. Here’s what I dug up:
• Cheaper Price: AT&T is rumored to trim the price to $199 with a two year contract. They would have the ability to cut the price due to the nature of 3G. Apple would continue to sell the unlocked version of the iPhone in their stores, but service providers would finally be able to offer discounts. $200 is just about my limit for spending money on a new phone, especially one as cool at the iPhone.
• Better Specs: Namely a higher quality camera and built-in GPS caught my eye. The 3G hardware supports up to a 5 megapixel camera and video chat, so one would assume that Apple would upgrade the pitiful 2 MP camera in the original iPhone. It could be a dual camera system if video is enabled. I’ve also read rumblings about a FM transmitter to send those iTunes songs wirelessly to your car radio, voice dialing, increased storage, flash support, and a slightly thinner build.
• Close Release Date: AT&T employees have been issued a memo that they will be denied any vacation time during the period of June 15th to July 12th. The reason? “An exciting product launch”. The original iPhone launched on June 29th, so a late June / Early July launch is feasible for the 3G iPhone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it out on June 15th or the day of the announcement considering that iPhones have been in development for a year.
So it’s time to wait and see. I’ll live with my Razr for another month and hope ole Steve Jobs gives me enough of a reason to upgrade.
