very simple

and…the apple store is open (a few days early). The place was totally packed with people, and it seemed a bit more rationally dispersed upstairs, but downstairs there appeared to be two apple employees for every customer. as an added bonus, I got to annoy lots of people by stopping halfway down the spiral staircase to take this picture.

warning…annoying crowds to descend on my neighborhood in 10 days. Otherwise known as the latest apple store.

As I wrote about a month ago, my Internet connection died for about a week, and then miraculously started working again the day before my tech appointment. I figured at that point that the issue was done.

Until last night, when I got home, eager to go out for a bike ride before it got too late out, only to discover that I was having the same problem, where my (new) cable modem indicated that there was no signal coming into my apartment. So instead of a pleasant sunset ride along the Hudson river, I got 40 minutes on the phone with the cable company.

But this time there was a marked difference in my tone – I was practically zen about the whole thing. Completely understanding when the earliest weekend appointment wasn’t for a week and a half.

And I chalk it up, in its entirety, to the fact that this little device (on which I’m writing this blog entry) has the best Internet capabilities of anything that’s not an “actual” computer that I’ve ever used. It makes my work-provided blackberry look like a commodore 64.

This is really just a test. I’m writing this on my iPhone, using the just made available wordpress for iPhone app from the app store.

For good measure, here’s an attempt to post a photo directly as well.

Yes, I actually got up super early this morning, got on line at the apple store in midtown, and got a new iphone.  I’d like to point to the fact that I never bought the first one as some sort of proof that I don’t immediately jump on every apple bandwagon that comes my way, but…who am I kidding.  In any event, there were massive problems at the apple store, which I got to experience firsthand.  In addition to the activation problems there was a big problem with the AT&T servers that allowed us to sign up for accounts, so I probably ended up spending over 2 hours in the store once I had gotten inside (that was after waiting on line for two hours).  It wasn’t unpleasant though.  I basically hung out with the apple nerds (ahem, i mean “geniuses”), who were stuck not being able to do anything because they couldn’t access the iTunes store.  They spent a non-insignificant amount of time trying to get me to go get their manager to let them download movies off of itunes so that we could at least “entertain” all of the people stuck in the store.  I didn’t do it, because I am a pill.  The guy behind me on the activation line though – seriously needed some stress management classes.  Little hint to those people who “need” their phone immediately?  Don’t decide to port your number on the first day of the friggin’ launch.  You’ll be much happier waiting a few days until they work the kinks out.  Anyway, I think the nerds liked me so much because I was extremely calm and patient about the whole thing.  It helped that I had nowhere else to be.

And then…

about 30 seconds after I walked out of the store, I decided to take the iphone out of the box because it was buzzing (most likely with ‘welcome’ texts from AT&T), and the phone slipped out of the box and landed face down on the cobblestone sidewalk of central park south and the screen cracked into about a gazillion pieces.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

But I calmly walked back to the store, got the security people to let me cut the line (after showing them the devastation), and the store people were very very very nice and very sorry about what happened, and exchanged the very damaged phone for a new one.  It took a little while, because we had to re-port all of my account information, and they said I was actually pretty lucky that it was launch day, because tomorrow they might not have been allowed to do this, but in the end, I’m home with a shiny, fully functional, non-broken iphone currently syncing with my computer.  And I’m keeping it in the soft-sided pouch that I used for my iPod Touch.