loonyblog.

I play games to relax. This game is not relaxing. Or fun.

I bought Bionic Commando Rearmed and I’m clearly not man enough for that…no way I’m man enough for this one. Now Wipeout HD…I’m there, man.

A little over a week ago, I was given an iPhone 3G (black, 16 GB) from my office as a trial run to replace my Blackberry. A bunch of us wanted them (for somewhat obvious reasons), and I happily volunteered to be the guinnea pig to see if it was a viable Blackberry alternative.

Cost-wise, it’s actually about the same, provided you don’t do much international traveling (which lately I haven’t been). Once you go international, the roaming charges get a bit extreme. But again, I don’t do that much.

Anyway, here’s the breakdown:

Pros:

• It’s an iPhone!
• Games/apps are awesome
• Keyboard is actually pretty good. I’ve adjusted to it. It’s not as fast to type on, but it’s not as slow as I thought it would be. The autocorrect for common mistakes is fantastic. I can almost type without looking after just one week. That said, it’s awkward to type long e-mails on it, and it takes much longer to type anything.
• Web browser is awesome, much better than Blackberry
• Love the contacts management. So much easier than BB.
• It’s a better phone than the BB. Better audio quality, easier to dial, visual voicemail is great.

Cons:

• No notification profiles: on my Blackberry, I had it so it would vibrate when I got an e-mail when in the holster, but make no audible notification when plugged in. The iPhone doesn’t let you do this. It’s either notification or no notification. So if I have audio on, I’ll get an audible nag every time I get an e-mail. There’s no way to turn one off without the other. This sucks. Also there’s no way to change the vibrations, and the e-mail vibration is very weak. It took me a while to get used to it at all.
• No syncing of ToDo lists or notes. There’s a third party app that will sync ToDo lists, but it requires signing up for a (free) web-based program that syncs it online. It’s a pain. There is no equivalent for notes, as far as I can tell.
• E-mail client lacks many major features such as searching of any kind, sorting by sender/recipient, etc. If you’re like me and keep your inbox pretty well sorted, then you can browse the folders to find e-mail. If you’re like some of my coworkers, with 1,000 unread e-mails, you’re probably screwed until they add searching. I also can’t figure out how to send a high-priority e-mail. I don’t think it’s possible.
• Battery life ain’t great. It’s not as bad as I feared – with WiFi off I don’t really have any problems. But I still have to charge it daily. If you travel without the charger, you’re kinda screwed. Be sure to get the 2.1 software update, as it makes it much, much better.
• No copy/paste. This definitely sucks. Hasn’t come up because I haven’t traveled with it yet, but when I’m on the road I used to use copy/paste a lot between e-mails/web browser, etc. Hopefully this gets added in soon.
• This is unrelated to the Blackberry comparison, but as an iPod, I’m not sure it’s superior to my 80 GB iPod Video. When I drive, I have no problem using the Video, as it has dedicated controls for everything. With the iPhone, I can’t skip songs or anything without fiddling with the touchscreen, which is kind of dangerous when driving. Not to mention that if the screen locks, I’m screwed, because I have to passkey-lock my iPhone since it’s tied to my Exchange account.
• …and while I’m on the subject of screen locking, it would be really nice if Apple could display the number of unread e-mails I have on that screen so I can decide whether or not to actually bother unlocking the screen. With my BB, I could look and see if it was worth unlocking. Yes, I usually do anyway, but if it’s a Sunday and I suddenly have a huge number of unread e-mails, I’m gonna know there’s a crisis. It’s a minor issue, but an issue nonetheless.

So what’s my conclusion? It’s not bad. It’s close. It’s really, really close. And definitely getting better. But it’s definitely no Blackberry yet.

Oh, and iTunes 8 is a giant POS. On my Mac at home, Genius keeps telling me to update half the time I try and use it, and shuffling no longer works, a problem that’s surprisingly wide-spread. I’ve resorted to using my iPod or iPhone to listen to music at home, since shuffling still works on those.

Roger Ebert may be off the air for good (at least Roper’s coming back!), but the man’s still got a sense of humor - and the ability to pick a fight, apparently.

While attending the Toronto Film Festival, Ebert was watching a movie, and fellow film critic Lou Lumenick (from the New York Post) was sitting in front of him, and shifting in his seat quite a bit. We all know how annoying that can be, right? Well, Ebert decided to tell him to please stop, so he tapped him on the shoulder.

This, ordinarily, is where you would say, “pardon me sir, can you please stop shifting around so much?” But of course, Roger Ebert can’t speak, as he no longer has that ability following his last bout with cancer. So he tapped the guy again, hoping he would get the picture.

Apparently he didn’t. Here’s what happened, according to the AP:

I cannot speak, I tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and gestured him to move over a little. He said, ‘Don’t touch me!’ and remained in position. I tapped him lightly again. ‘I said — don’t touch me!’ He leaned further into the aisle, as if making a point of it. I tapped him a third time, and he jumped up and whacked me on the knee with whatever it was,” Ebert said.

The Chicago Tribune (by way of the Daily News) says, “[Lumenick] hit him so hard everybody could hear it…Everyone freaked out and turned around.” Whether that’s true or just some sensationalistic reporting of the story, one thing is true: Ebert tapped the guy again, just to show he wasn’t scared of him:

“He had no idea who was behind him when he smacked me,” Ebert wrote. “Now it looked like he was picking on poor me. I have had my problems, but I promise you I am plenty hearty enough to withstand a smack, and quite happy, after the smack, to tap him again.”

Don’t you know by now? You don’t mess with Ebert. Ever. Ebert mess you up.

My lifelong distaste for rap began here:

More wonderful moments here.