Sorry, been gone for a while.  Spent a lot of time swinging back and forth between blinding rage and abject apathy.

That said, I love my new iPhone 3GS.  The internet speed is insane.  A few days ago, we were having WiFi issues and switching to the 3G network was much better.  With Edge, it was a real pain to check email sometimes, and, of coure, it created some static with other electronic devices in the immediate vacinity.  Not so with 3G.

I’m pretty pissed that I can’t tether to the phone from my macbook and use the 3G network.  I had assumed that this was an issue with AT&Ts network setup, but that is not the case.  Following the instructions here:

http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/06/gadget-how-to-iphone-tethering-without-jailbreaking.html

got me tethered and using 3G via bluetooth, which was tres cool indeed.

However, I lost visual voicemail.  Undoing the change by removing the profile returned visual voicemail, but, alas, I’d forgotten my password.

I got it reset by dialing 800-331-0500 and going to the voicemail section and reset password.  So no big deal.

Also, tethering stayed a setting from the network screen, which I didn’t have before.  I’ll have to play around with this more now that I know how to undo it.

I probably won’t use this feature, as a rule, but I may bookmark the page in case I do need it.  Most importantly, this shows that the real issue is that AT&T hasn’t figured out how to charge us for this.  I believe there’s a hack you can get to that also shows you how to set up.

Anyhow, I really can’t recommend this device enough (like you haven’t heard that a million times this month).

edit: oops.  I went to turn tethering on again (without installing the profile) and the option vanished.  Oh well, still, well worth knowing.

Oh, yeah…

best thing about iPhone 2.0 release: “I like to think that my bricked phone gave me access to a cool new app
that helps me learn to say “emergency” in 10 different languages.”

worst thing about the iPhone 2.0 release: the 2.0 firmware.  Jeez.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is being listed at EBWorld etc. as shipping 4/01/08.

This is a horrible, horrible lie, as best I can tell. Its going to be sometime this summer, I believe (though I can’t check at the moment thanks to the needlessly restrictive firewall here at work and the serious EM interference that prevents my iPhone from doing much other than email).

This is simply a cruel, inhuman tease.

Damn you.

Well, we’ve been waiting for this since day 1.  While I am particularly excited about the 3rd Party App SDK, the Exchange support is even more important.  Without that, there’s no corporate email (as such), and without corporate email, there’s no market outside of personal use.

Apple adds Exchange support to iPhone, unveils SDK

March 6, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. announced on Thursday that it has licensed protocols from rival Microsoft Corp. to add Exchange support to its iPhone.The company also unveiled a software developer’s kit (SDK) that hands over the tools third-party developers need to write native, rather than Web-based, applications for the smart phone.

However, both new functions — Exchange support and the ability to install non-Apple applications — won’t be added to the iPhone until June, CEO Steve Jobs said.