Monocle ranked Vancouver the number 15 best place to call home. If you have not seen it, Monocle is the new mag from the creators of Wallpaper (so 90s of a mag 
Another reason why Microsoft is opening an office here (well, Richmond)
Here are some shots of buying the phone. The store people were hyped to be part of it all.
I have had my iPhone for 88 minutes. Setup was pretty easy. Here are a few photos. More here.
I have yet to manage to get it to connect to my email, and getting weather is really slow. The phone is a work of art though!
Also, looks like the visual voicemail treats vmail as data — so I might be able to pick up vmail over WiFi — much easier mechanism when I am in Canada trying to get my US vmail.
The news crews are all over the AT&T store now. Can’t imagine what the Apple store is like. I have started taking photos of the camera crews.
Here we are live from the line at the AT&T store at 3rd and Market in San Francisco.
I lost my US phone a couple weeks ago and got a loaner phone from some colleagues, but needed to get a new SIM so that I could use it. I was in Seattle for some meetings and popped into a Cingular store, dreading the customer experience and anticipating it taking 30 minutes given my previous encounters with Cingular. Suprisingly, there was a clerk available when I walked in who introduced herself and asked how she could help me. I told her I had lost my phone and she started to see where I was in my contract to see if they could give me a credit. I said I just needed a SIM. She got me a SIM after checking my ID and then ensured that the phone would work. I added data to my plan and she explained what I needed to know. I asked about a wired headset and she was very useful and I bought one. The complete interaction took ten minutes and was very pleasant.
My initial thoughts were, well. This is Seattle, where McCaw started — so this was an exception — but a great one!
Prepping for getting my jesus phone tomorrow, I walked down to the AT&T store on Market expecting to wait around and have my patience challenged getting them to help me access my online account. Surprisingly, there was a clerk available, who was very knowledgable and solved my problem. She then assisted me in figuring out data equipment and plans for my laptop. Once again a very pleasant, quick experience.
I got back to my hotel room and tried to create an online account for my cell plan. I got an error, called 611 and after a few annoying layers of IVR, got a pleasant customer service rep. I explained what I had done. She sent me a password to my phone. Rather then end it all, she asked for another phone number so that I could get the SMS message. She called my on my canadian cell which was great since the passwords sent did not work. She talked my through getting another password sent and I successfully logged on. I had a couple other questions about the jesus phone plans and she was knowledgeable. Wow! Another great experience.
Given those three experiences, it looks like AT&T has ramped up their service. Couple that with what they are doing with Apple, and they could do really well!
For a number of unclear and obtuse reasons, I have a cingular phone with a US number in addition to my Rogers phone with a Canadian number. Being an Apple junkie even though I think the cult of iSteve is somewhat senseless, I was thrilled that I would actually be able to get an iPhone and use it.
Even better is that I am in San Francisco tomorrow, June 29th when the phones are going to come out and am staying in SF over the weekend, so *if* I get a phone and *if* I can set it up with my Canadian credit cards, then I will be able to play with it for a couple days in SF.
I went to the local Apple store in downtown SF and of course the line has started already. I chatted with Allen Scott (pictured below). Great guy who is #3 and #4 in line and we have a gentlemen’s agreement that I will get one of his phones for a relatively reasonable fee. Allen is promoting his Peepshow Minigolf performance — brilliant move as of course the media are checking out the iPhone lines and this is a nice way to get additional exposure.
You can find out more from http://peepshowminigolf.com
The idea is that you try to make a put while being distracted by dazzling acts. He has a little putting green setup. You gotta love the entrepreneurism! I’ll report later what the show is like!
I just wrote the longest post ever on my blog and while my poor web server was digesting it I looked to see what the page rank was. Well, to my surprise, my blog now has a page rank of 9/10 from Google. Not sure what that means, but it is much higher then it used to be!
6:00 AM Wake up. Ouch
7:00 AM We are on our way to Moscone West and arrive to see the line heading off down the alley from around the building
8:00 AM We are standing in the “holding pen” on the first floor
9:00 AM Stand in line beside gay programmer from law firm in NY that have no Macs. Nice enough guy, but clearly at WWDC for the boondoggle. We make jokes about very large man in green shirt behind us, hoping he does not hear. He must be 6′8″.
9:30 AM We are let up the escalators to run around finding good chairs in the auditorium that already is half full with media and VIPs.
10:10 AM obligatory screen telling us that we can’t record the talk. I have my Sony DSLR and am happily shooting photos like lots of other people.
10:30 AM Steve comes on stage. I have been awake for 4.5 hours already and only had a juice. Ready for exciting news!
To see photos of keynote (you can skip the ones above, go here.
Summary:
11:45 AM I walk out of Keynote underwelmed. Jobs ends Keynote on a low note. Developers are not excited about either iPhone development or Safari. Developers don’t get early access or preferred access to iPhone. Apple is rolling out a new platform, but only they can do the power features. A big let down for a developer conference.
2:00 PM I attend State of the Union talk about OS X. We are reminded that this material is under non-disclosure. I am hopeful that my pilgrimage will prove fruitful after all. Some cool Leopard tech is discussed. Nothing shocking. It will run faster. Not exactly a surprise. Some of the address is just the same material that Jobs reviewed. Yawn.
4:00 PM I am determined to get my money’s worth. I go to the OS X labs to find out if Safari 3 will support extensions so that we can get a version of Sxipper for Safari. Hey, it would now run on a PC and on iPhone! Unfortunately, no, Apple has not seen the value of the addon market that Firefox and IE have. Apple plans to increase their browser share because their app is 2X faster. Wow. 2X faster then instantaneous is irrelevant. Pages are slow because of the connection, not because the browser is slower. We have people switching to Firefox from IE or Safari because they want Sxipper. I just don’t see why people will switch because ti is faster. I do learn the name of the guy in charge of Apple web tech and that there is a Webkit party later on.
7:00 PM I visit the Apple store that is over on Stockton to see what it will take to get an iPhone. They are selling them at 6PM on Friday the 29th. Might as well be Friday the 13th for how crazy it will be. No love from Apple here either.
8:00 PM I go to the Thirsty Bear for the Webkit party. Usual crowd of open source geeks. I collect a Safari sticker and find the man in charge. I ask about extension support. After 10 minutes he finally understands what I want and defers me to someone else. I walk away feeling I have cast my one little vote for a feature request. I talk to some other developers and get the same sense that Apple is not really listening. Too bad. Was hoping we could get Sxipper on an iPhone. Likely not for a while.
Summary:
This was the most attended and least interesting WWDC that I have been to. No iPhone love. Leopard is cool but late. Games are nice, but most of what was shown has been already seen. Given that one can watch a video of the Keynote already from Apple’s site, I don’t know if I will make this annual pilgrimage next year. Will I buy an iPhone. For sure. Will I get Leopard and continue to use Apple gear. Definitely. Am I an Apple fan. Not really.
The NUS Design Incubation Centre was won by the group that designed the Dandella
From the (press release):
The NUS DIC team emerged the top winner, beating 424 entries with their design, the
Dandella. Dandella is a hand-held GPS tracking device designed to help and guide the
lost by always physically pointing towards the destination. Its name is derived from the
metaphorical image of a dandelion in flight, floating towards its destination. The form is
kept minimal and humble, likened to holding a flower in the hand. Inspired by how
young sunflowers always point towards the sun, Dandella simplifies the complex
interface of current GPS devices to a simple notion of ‘just follow where it points”.Combining existing GPS and robotic technology, Dandella units can be programmed to
track each other and their buds response by pointing towards one another. This intuitive
design feature allows users to locate each other by following where the bud points,
making it suitable for people of different ages from different walks of life.Attuning to the theme of the competition, the DIC team touched on the concept of people
to people interaction and location. As the team’s industrial designers put it:“Getting lost is a common global issue, especially for socially vulnerable people like
young children and elderly in today’s rapidly growing urban jungles.
Dandella’s design is intuitive without any complex interfacing, making it suitable for the
young and old. We wanted to solve a common social issue by first focusing on people’s needs and
behaviors, then proposing a user-centric solution with the use of existing technology.”
There is a new section in today’s National Post (a Canadian newspaper) entitled Entrepreneur. A dorky picture of me with a decent write-up on the Canadian Tech sector. Unfortunately the paper is not freely available online.
