Check it out here.

~ Jason

A big thanks to these folks.

~ Jason

A dude came in behind me… like 3 seconds behind me, and he offered me money to let him take the iPhone.  I felt kind of bad but I turned him down… And, now I have an iPhone.

Switch from Rogers has been not so good, though, and it’s all my fault.  I’m not going to go into too much detail, but, I’m still waiting for my phone number to switch over to the iPhone (so I now have to carry around the iPhone and my old phone).  And, through a series of bad decisions by me and some unlucky messing around with Jenny’s phone to allow her to use it on the Rogers network, I managed to wipe out her phone’s memory.  All her pictures and her phone numbers are lost forever… sweety, I’m sorry.

It’s a bitter-sweet triumph. Every time I use it, I know that Jenny paid a price for me to use this wonderful piece of technology.  I’ll make it up to her, somehow.

I do like the iPhone, and now I’m pretty much connected everywhere I go, except when I’m on the subway. Go ahead, send me a message… bet you I get it right away.

~ Jason

I’ve never done this before. I’ve never, ever gotten in line for the release of anything other than a movie. I got down to the Eaton Center at Yonge and Queen at about 4:45am and I had to mill about in the dark and the rain until 6 when the Eaton Center’s doors opened.

There were few people at the food court tables across from the Fido store and after a few minutes, we all got in line. I was 8th. I rather enjoyed being in line with these people. They were friendly and it was nice to be around other technophiles. I have a few techie-friends but none as hardcore as these fine people.

We waited in line until about 9:30am when they opened the doors and let the first group of ten people in. Since I was 8th, I was in that group. The staff was friendly and helpful and understandably nervous about a new process. They’ve never done this stuff before either.

My case was a little different than the people around me. I’m currently on a couples plan with Jenny and I had to get out of that contract in order to sign a new contract required to get an iPhone. I went down there in the hopes that they would offer the ability to buy the phone outright so that an additional contract wouldn’t be required. They hadn’t announced that option as of Thursday night but I had hopes.

This was not an option. So, my next option was to get out of my contract. To do that, I have to pay an ECF, an Early Cancellation Fee. This is $20 a month left in the contract to a maximum of $400. Since we have 2 years left on the contract, that’s $400. As you can well imagine, I was not liking the sound of that. My intention was to talk the rep on the phone to wave some if not all of that fee.

So, at 8:37am, the sales rep called the Fido phone support line and asked me to stay on hold until someone answered. I stayed on hold until shortly after 1pm. During this time, their sales system went down and the activation system for the iPhone through iTunes went down. For a few hours there, nobody was getting an iPhone.

There were three occasions where I almost walked out of the store. I went from understanding for servers going down (which is why their sales system went down), to pissed off, to determination. At about 1, I decided to try and call the Fido customer service line from my cell phone. I got somebody within two minutes. The service rep (Wei, Employee No. 642664) was extremely helpful and informed.

His suggestion was instead of canceling my contract, I switch to Rogers. Since I’m on a couples plan, I can switch to rogers and have my Fido contract canceled without penalty. I could then sign a new contract, get an iPhone and be on my merry way.

This is actually good because all my other services (home phone, internet and tv) are with Rogers. Adding wireless, would mean that I get an additional 15% discount because of the combination.

So, I thanked Wei, got off the phone, thanked Mike the sales rep in the Fido store and walked out. I was very disappointed in spending so much time and effort getting 8th in line and waiting around so long but I’m also proud of myself for walking out of the store without spending $400 in cancellation fees.

I also made some lucky son-of-a-bitch, a very happy person. There were very few 16GB phones available and I got one of the last ones being 8th in line. Because I walked away from it, somebody else being 30th or 40th gets to have my phone.

Now… now I wait. I wait for a Rogers store to get iPhones in stock… I wait for a time that both Jenny and I can go down to this store to sign up for a couples plan… I wait… without an iPhone…

sigh…

~ Jason

I haven’t been able to calm down enough to actually read the press release.

I do know that I will be getting up super-early on Friday morning to head down to the Eaton Centre to see what I can get.

Wish me luck.

~ Jason

[Update: 1:27pm] I just found a news release on the Fido Website click the link to view a pdf copy

I am still a little worried, though. Fido and Rogers are still being stingy with details.

I called the Fido support folks today to simply ask if it was possible to get what I wanted. They said that there are add-on data plans but that pricing for them has not been announced. I asked when they would be announced and he said, ‘maybe Thursday’. That’s a little late, in my opinion.

The next burning question was how many iPhones will be in the stores on Friday. I’m planning to head down to the Fido store in the Eaton Center early, early on Friday and I just wanted to get an idea of just how early I’ll have to go down. The dude on the phone couldn’t give me a number but he did say that each store is making a pre-order list so I should go down there and get on the list. I tried calling this Fido store but there was no answer and their general voice mail box was full.

So, I stood up, grabbed my keys and my wallet and headed down to the Eaton Center.

To my dismay, the nice people at the Fido store said that no such list exists and that I should show up early to get in line. Now, the interesting thing is that the woman who appeared to be a floor manager said that they would be getting 170 iPhones for that day. That’s huge news… and you read it here first.

So, I’m going to get up at 4am on Friday to head downtown. I will get a nice Tim Horton’s coffee and hang out. If there is a line up at that time, I’ll get in it… if not, I will wait until a couple people get in the line, then get in. Hopefully there won’t be a line and I’ll be there way stupid early.

On a plus side, I’ve been reading reviews of the iPhone and they have been universally good. The only downsides reported have to do with the cell phone networks that are a requirement for using this piece of technology.

I’m very much looking forward to this thing. I have a funny feeling that this is going to be an iPhone blog for a while.

~ Jason

On Thursday, Rogers and Fido announced pricing for their iPhone plans. They were not good. The only option for using an iPhone is to get one of their four plans that include both voice and data and none of them had unlimited data. I was really hoping that they had an option to simply add data to any existing plan…. nope.

What this means is that I don’t even have the option to get one of the iPhone plans. Since I currently have a couples plan with Jenny (which I’m very happy with), I can’t add data to my existing plan and getting out our current plan would be a huge hassle. I would have to get out of my contract (pay Fido), get a new plan for Jenny (pay Fido) and get the new iPhone plan with the voice and data. The main advantage of the couples plan is that Jenny and I can talk on our cell phones for unlimited amount of time at not extra cost. Doing the plan switch would force Jenny and myself to pay for the air time when we call each other (pay Fido twice).

With a heavy heart, I’ve decided not to get an iPhone. You’d think that they would make it easier for me to give them money. I wanted to give them $200 bucks for the iPhone and an extra $30 to $40 extra a month for three years. Thata’s a total cost of $1280 to $1640!

Well, this turn of events has two separate advantages. One is that I can let Fido and their parent company Rogers know exactly what I think of their pricing through the only way that they are sure to understand… by not giving them my money. Secondly, when my current contract runs out in two and half years, there is sure to be something even better on the market than the iPhone 3G.

*sigh* I’m still sad about it, though.

~ Jason

Technophile Jason: OMG, OMG, the iPhone is comeing to Canada. I’m gonna get one.

Practical Jason: you don’t need one, you already have a phone.

Technophile Jason: but my iPod broke in December and I need a new one. This is actually cheaper. Look how cool it is…. and GPS!!!

PJ: don’t be a moron… you haven’t missed your iPod since it broke. Besides, you can use Jenny’s. And you already have two separate GPS devices already. Do you have any idea how much the monthly plan will be for this thing?

TJ: *pout*, No

PJ: They haven’t even announced pricing yet. It’ll be a fortune! You’ll end up spending a ton more than what an iPod would have cost. This just doesn’t make any sense.

TJ: c’mon, don’t be a jerk. We can use this and you know it.

PJ: but we don’t need it.

TJ: I know, but it’s cool and you know we want one.

PJ: *sigh*.

TJ: iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone.

PJ: Alright, we can get one.

TJ: Hoooray!!!

Hopefully the pricing isn’t too outrageous.

~ Jason

I elected to get the AKG K171 Closed-Back Studio Headphones. Boy am I happy. I’m not really an audio-phile and by no means what-so-ever am I a professional and I even have a little (a very little) bit of a hearing loss in my left ear, but I do like crisp, clean sound when I’m listening to whatever it is that I listen to (mostly podcasts and video games).

Construction
When I first unboxed these little bad boys, they seemed a little more flimsy than I was expecting. Now that I’ve played with them, however, they are a lot better than my initial impressions. They are solid, the cord (which is detachable, hooray) is long and of the highest quality. The band holding the two ear-pieces together is flexable enough to allow you to listen to a single headphone.

Comfort
I’m actually surprised at how good they feel. I was looking for something that would fit around my ear so that the flappy things that stick out of my head (technical term, commonly known as, ‘ears’) won’t get sore after wearing the things for a hours on end. Now, I’ve not worn them for hours on end yet but I can tell you that oh man, do they feel good when they’re on your noodle. The foamy bits that cover your ears don’t actually go around your ears but they are so soft and comfy that I dont think they’ll be a problem after prolonged listening.

Sound
Holy o’ dog shit these things sound great. Again, I’m no great person to judge but they do sound friggin’ awesome. Lots of bass, good high end and mids. The thing that I love the most is that they are closed-back headphones. that means that there are no holes in the back-side of these things. Very little sound gets in which is great for ignoring your co-workers while they’re on the phone or if you just don’t want to hear anything besides what you’re supposed to be listening to. And, your fabulous co-workers won’t be able to hear what you’re listening to either. Even if you like to listen to ExtraLife Radio at full blast… which I don’t recommend.

Overall
Good quality, nice sounding headphones that I’m looking forward to enjoying for a long time to come.

~ Jason

The answer, of course, is to buy a computer that looks good on a desk or table that doesn’t take up a lot of space… Introducing the Mac Mini (introduced to me anyway, thanks Chris). It is small, it is elegant and it’s a good way to get into Mac culture (or do I mean cult?). I already have a monitor and a network and external hard drives and all the extra stuff to go along with a computer so just getting the computer itself is perfect. It’s relatively inexpensive and it’ll meet all our computing needs… surfing, email, managing photos… and we use iTunes already.

Now the question is… Is it worth the money and do we really need it?

 Stay tuned.

~ Jason