Noah

After about three weeks of waiting, my Nest thermostat finally arrived. Well, three of them to be exact. One is for my house and the other two are for my Dad (one for my parents’ house and one for his office). So, with Valerie’s help, I set out to unbox and install my new Nest thermostat!

Step 1: Open the FedEx Package containing my new Nest thermostat. Looks like the guys at Nest did a good job of making sure these little guys didn’t get damaged in transit. Can’t ever have too much brown paper!

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Just yesterday I was comparing the new Android OS-based HTC Evo and iPhone 4G’s hardware specifications and features as my 2-year contract with AT&T is up. With the supposed announcement of the iPhone 4G at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, I wanted to determine my best course of action when purchasing a new phone (as it would most likely lock me into another 2-year contract).

As I was digging through a few news articles online, I found a few that mentioned AT&T had changed it’s pricing model for data plans. Wait WHAT?! For the past few years AT&T and Apple had touted the fact that you could pay $30 a month and have unlimited data on your iPhone (and subsequently iPad as well).

Today I found an article that pretty well sums up my feelings on the matter. Per Gizmodo: AT&T Just Killed Unlimited Wireless Data and Screwed Everybody in the Process

To recap AT&T’s new data plan structure: The $30 unlimited iPhone/iPad data plan is killed/gone (but existing subscribers will still be able to keep their existing unlimited plan/be grandfathered in). In its place, DataPlus w/200mb for $15/month, DataPro w/2gb for $25/month. This chart from Gizmodo’s article may make it easier to understand:

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Apparently the suspicious knockoff iPhone that was found in a bar in Redwood City, California, is the real deal. It is the ACTUAL iPhone 4G!

For more info, see Gizmodo’s post here: http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone

Per Gizmodo, here’s whats new:

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before?it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

Read more, including the changes from the current iPhone 3G norm

For quite some time I have had issues with my iPhone 3G’s battery life. This week it had gotten to the point that even with my Mophie Juice Pack Air that I would be getting the dreaded 20% battery warning around 7-8pm each night (after taking my iPhone off the charger around 8am). So I took it to the Apple Store to have them look at it. I also took it there due to having cracked plastic near my headphone jack. This was causing audio to drop out when listening to music on my iPhone via headphones.

The Genius I worked with hooked my iPhone up to one of their MacBooks and asked me to accept an agreement that “would send a bunch of 1s and 0s to Apple about my iPhone.” I was assured that no personal information would be transmitted. Yeah, OK (I don’t fully buy that)…

But that’s beside the point. The first thing the Genius said is that he saw a lot of unresponsive apps on my phone. The second thing he indicated was that an update to the new 3.1.3 version of the iPhone OS would possibly cure my battery life issues. I’ve heard that song and dance over and over again and wouldn’t believe it for a minute. They’ve said that about every single iPhone OS update but none have delivered any significant battery life improvement, IMHO.

Then came the surprise. As the Genius scrolled down in his “Behavior Scan” report of my iPhone, up came a section entitled “Third-Party Apps.” What did this show? An entry labeled “Cydia_”… Oh, crap. The next thing I know the Apple Genius turns to me and says “There’s your battery problem. You’re using third-party apps.” I replied by telling him that I had jailbroken my iPhone once a while back and that I indeed did see a slight decrease in battery life which then prompted me to go back to a stock version of the iPhone OS. He replied “Well when we see that, we typically won’t do anything for the customer. Jailbreaking voids the warranty and after that, Apple won’t honor it.” First thing that went through my mind was “Oh, crap…” especially since I had purchased AppleCare for my iPhone (as it has been beneficial on my other laptops, except for my latest one. I’ll tell that support nightmare some other time). Read More