Worth Your Consideration 012 - A GF5 Linkdump

• I really, really, really hope that Marco Zaldivar wins his lawsuit against T-Mobile over “mandatory” text-message fees. I think it’s ridiculous that the company told Zaldivar that turning off text-messaging was “impossible,” especially when, according to Red Tape Chronicle writer Bob Sullivan, “Verizon, AT&T and Sprint allow consumers to shut down delivery of unwanted text messages.” Me, while I’ve sent and received a few text messages in my time, I wish I had known I could turn them off altogether. I think they’re relatively useless when free alternatives such as e-mail, instant messaging, and Twitter exist. But maybe that just means I’m old.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine star Hugh Jackman made an unannounced appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, and he brought footage from the forthcoming film with him, footage which apparently included a fan-favorite from the comic books who has thusfar not appeared in the X-Men film-franchise: Gambit. I’ve never been as nuts about Gambit as some of my contemporaries, but Newsarama’s description of the trailer as a whole does have me excited. I really dig the X-Men film-franchise (including the oft-hated-upon third installment), and I can’t wait for this one.
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog thinks apps for the AppleTV are a good idea and I wholeheartedly agree. I probably wouldn’t turn on regular cable TV at all if my AppleTV could tell me the weather and get me some other basic information like that. And I would be giddy like a schoolgirl if I could watch Viddler videos on my TV (a suggestion that TUAW makes). Apple, are you listening?
• ...apparently not. Apple continues to face major problems with the rollout of its new MobileMe service. While MacWorld gives MobileMe a relatively good review, known Apple enthusiast David Pogue (New York Times) has some serious concerns about the way that Apple is handling a crisis that’s affecting some 20,000 MobileMe users: “This is an airplane that’s stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom. And the pilot doesn’t come on the P.A. system to tell the customers what the problem is, what’s being done to fix it, how much longer they might be stuck, and how he empathizes with their plight. Instead, he comes on once every three hours to repeat the same thing: ‘We apologize for the inconvenience.’” I intend to give the new service a spin over the weekend, despite the bad reviews, but I’d been hoping that Apple would bowl me over with this service, and I’m not so sure that’s going to happen now.

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Worth Your Consideration 011 - A GF5 Linkdump

It may be a good long while before I am able to buy an iPhone 3G. I have the money, but when you’re looking to establish a family plan with one iPhone and one non-iPhone, a trackful of hurdles come into play. First, my wife and I need to be in the same place at the same time for something other than dinner or sleep, and that might not happen again until sometime toward the end of the month (she’s got meetings on two evenings this week; we don’t get home until 7:30ish each night anyway; and I’ve got PodCamp Boston this coming weekend). Second, we can’t go to an Apple Store, where it appears that there are plenty of iPhones in stock (there was a line forming outside the Apple Store in Boston this morning, three days after the initial launch, but I’m guessing that’s just excitement and not people trying to snatch up a limited number of devices). Instead, we have to go to an AT&T Store, where we may or may not be able to get an iPhone, because they’re totally sold out.

Ugh.

So, since getting back from camping this weekend, I’ve been living vicariously through others. Here are a few of the most notable links I’ve come across.

• News Askew has released a new iPhone-optimized version of their site. I’ve been thinking a lot about coming up with a mobile version of Geek Force Five, and I’m curious about exactly how News Askew is redirecting people to the iPhone-optimized site.
• Apple’s MobileMe can apparently sync bookmarks from a Mac to a PC. According to the screenshot featured here, you can sync bookmarks into Internet Explorer, if you see fit. I didn’t know that it was going to be capable of doing this, so I’m very excited. I’ll be much more excited if it’ll sync with Firefox instead, since that’s what I’m using on my PC. Me, I’m trying to decide whether or not to give MobileMe’s free sixty day trial a try now instead of waiting until I get an iPhone. Maybe the coolness of that would tide me over.
• The iPhone App Store opened on Thursday afternoon/evening and Jason Kottke opened up comments on his site to ask people what the “cool” iPhone apps were/are. I, of course, cannot wait until I can actually contribute to this conversation. Sigh… Until then, I’ll have to live with things like the visual previews being provided by AppleInsider and others. The Unofficial Apple Weblog believes that the App Store will change the world, in case you hadn’t heard.
• On a much happier note, Apple released an update for my Apple TV in conjunction with the iPhone 3G/MobileMe launch and it’s improved the already-impressive device significantly. Aside from the updated feature list enumerated Apple TV Junkie, I am most pleased to note that browsing my purchased movies by genre has gone from glacially slow to incredibly zippy. TUAW has a gallery of screenshots.

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Worth Your Consideration 007 - A GF5 Linkdump

• News Askew is reporting that NBC will re-air Saturday Night Live’s inaugural episode this Saturday night, an episode which was hosted by the recently departed George Carlin. The classic episode will apparently be aired in its entirety, which, according to News Askew, doesn’t happen all that often on NBC.
• I’m embedding George Carlin’s take on the Ten Commandments above because it’s criminal that I didn’t embed something of his when I posted my initial thoughts on his passing.
• On a much lighter note, Gary Vaynerchuk has posted the episode of Wine Library TV that was filmed in Boston recently, an episode that I made it into the city to see last week. I think it’s a perfect “entrance” episode for anyone who is mildly interested in wine and in seeing what Gary does. There’s a great blend of humor, education, and flat-out thunder here.
• Apple will apparently be releasing a free remote control application for iPhone and iPod Touch users which will allow them to control iTunes from anywhere in their house. This is something I’ve seen quite a few people clamoring for on the Apple boards across the Web. The real key, for me, and for a lot of others, will be if this works with the Apple TV. I loves me my simple two-button Apple TV remote, but it would be nice to have something a little more robust when I needed it.
• Lastly, for the comic book fans out there, be sure to check out Newsarama’s poll of what titles the pros think we consumers are missing. The Walking Dead, which Brandice recommended to me recently is one book that gets mentioned as a must-read.

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Apple TV DVR - So What?

Electronista asks whether Apple is developing live Apple TV recording in an article posted today. I’ve included one of the mock-ups that Apple included with their recent filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Personally, as an Apple TV owner, I’m not too bothered or too excited by this. I’m sure that it’ll be hardware upgrade if it ever happens (as opposed to the recent software upgrade), meaning that my current generation unit will become “irrelevant” or something, but I’m not sweating it. I’ve never been too excited about DVRs. I got into the whole craze with the HP Media Center PC that I bought back in 2003, but that thing’s TV tuner crapped out on me within a year, and I was always trying to come up with ways to cut commercials and get the video onto my TV. It was too much damn work. I likes me the iTunes Store, which delivers commercial-free copies of my favorite shows direct to my TV with just a few button clicks. I don’t have to worry about poor broadcast quality, irritating commercials, or figuring out where to store my shit. And I don’t ever have to buy the DVD, because I already have the whole season on my hard drive, long before the DVD is even in stores. 

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Geek Force FiveCast 001 (Video)

The first episode of a semi-regular show/podcast from GeekForceFive.com. Today, we cover 1) What GeekForceFive.com is; 2) Accidental AppleTV Purchases; 3) Lost Dueling Analyses; 4) The Beatles on iTunes; and 5) The Incredible Hulk Teaser Teaser.

You can watch the video here, and on a couple of other video sharing sites across the Interweb. And, if you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com. I hope to get it listed in the iTunes Store soon, as well.

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