Wow and Flutter

When you're on the receiving end of a headline like this (page B1 of today's Wall Street Journal):

Big Record Labels, MySpace Challenge Apple iTunes Store

Could anyone have predicted such decimation of the music market by Apple, even just a few years ago?

I bought a 1 terrabyte Time Capsule last night- with over 14,000 digital photos, it's nice to know that the pictorial history of my kids' childhoods (so far) is safer than it used to be.

Before I bought it, I googled far and wide to find some comment about how loud Time Capsule was. That's especially important to me since, first, I have an amazing (and amazingly infuriating) ability to pick out white noise from appliances in otherwise silent situations, and, second, the Time Capsule was to be located just a few feet from my bed. Despite my attempts, I wasn't able to locate anything except anecdotal reports like "it's very silent", or "I can barely hear it"- I wasn't able to find an opinion from anyone who said they were as sensitive to that type of white noise as I am.

I decided to take a chance and bought it anyway, thinking I could relocate it (or return it) if the noise proved to be a problem. When I got it home and powered it up, disappointment hit almost immediately because I could clearly make out the noise from the Time Capsule, even when my G5 was powered up right next to it. When I put the G5 to sleep, it sounded like a model plane was idling in my bedroom.

Oh well, I thought, I'll let the first backup run overnight (I'll get to sleep somehow, I thought), then I'd think about where I could relocate the Time Capsule.

This morning, when I awoke, I immediately noticed that there was no white noise. Apparently, the Time Capsule engineers had the good sense to spin down the hard drive after some period of inactivity. So I don't think the noise will be a problem for my sleeping, because all the Time Capsule client machines will be sleeping at night too, so the Time Capsule should be silent.

Just thought I'd write about it here in case there are other noise freaks like me thinking of buying a Time Capsule. :-)

Now that I've lived with my replacement iPhone for half a day, I've got a few impressions of note:

First, the finish on the aluminum case (on the back of the phone) seems more tactile than on my previous phone. This could be just a new-versus-worn issue, but I don't recall the original one having quite the tack that this one has.

Second, this new one is much louder than the old one. This applies to both the speaker on the bottom of the phone (used for UI clicks, speakerphone, etc.), and the speaker at the top of the phone (the one that you listen to when you're on a phone call). I recall that a previous software update was supposed to increase the volume, which it did, but I'd say it's pretty clear that they've made some hardware changes to that same end.

A few days ago I noticed some spots on my iPhone's display. I tried wiping them off, but upon closer examination I could see that they were actually underneath the glass.

Today I went to Apple's website and made an appointment to visit the Genius Bar at the Apple Store that is five minutes from my house. My appointment was for 7:30pm.

I showed up around 7:25, and promptly at 7:30, they called my name. I showed the guy my phone and he confirmed that he could see the bubbles too. He took it in the back for a few minutes, then came out and said "I'm just going to replace the phone". At 7:45, I walked out with a new iPhone.

I came home, put the iPhone into the dock, and iTunes asked me if I wanted to restore the latest backup, or initialize this as a new phone. I chose to restore from backup. iTunes did its thing, and ten minutes later, I had all my data back inside the new iPhone. Bookmarks, contacts, calendar, everything. Even some new bookmarks that I had added to the Home screen (a feature only made available a few hours earlier by a software update) got restored correctly.

Now imagine what this experience might have been like if I had instead owned a Motorola phone, or a Nokia phone. Any other phone, really. Purchased from any other store.

Does anyone still not understand the reasoning behind this?