ColinAke.com…until I write a book.

I’ve got an iPhone, and I clean it regularly, but let’s see if it’s unnecessarily cluttered. Without further ado and without cleaning it first, I’m going to post a screenshot of each of my 3 home pages and tell you how many programs I actually don’t use. Feel free to make fun of me, but don’t get upset when I become quite snarky about it.

Productivity Apps

As you can see, my first page is fairly uncluttered, except I have two Twitter apps and primarily use TwitterFon over Twinkle, rarely use Say Who (voice dialer) and more often blog from my computer than my iPhone. And I rarely use Zenbe, but I keep it there as a reminder that I need to transfer my to-dos there.

Apps Page 2

I never use Jott. Ever. Remote is a rare thing, but I use it from the front porch to control my iTunes library when it’s inside. Useful, that. App store I use for app acquisition and updates, never use iTunes, rarely use Notes and YouTube. I use GTLogin all the time - automatically logs me into Georgia Tech’s WiFi. Palringo? Chat, it’s awesome. Bible so I never have to carry one around. Shazam identifies songs (and is useless, I never need that), Simplify Media lets me stream other people’s libraries, and BrightKite is Twitter with location data, utterly useless cause nobody uses it (seems cool though, let me know if you want an invite). On to the third screen.

Games and Such

This has YET ANOTHER a twitter client (TwitPic enabled), and games. Yes, I lightsaber duel sometimes. Everyone else who has an iPhone has it, even if they lie about it. Stocks is here for amusement as the market plummets. SportsTap is the way to go for a sports application, AirSharing is a program Nathan installed that I’ve yet to figure out how to use, but it costs money now in the App store and you won’t find me deleting something that I could have for free. Zippo is… a bic lighter. Naw, it’s a zippo. Fring / iCall / GrandDialer are for VOIP stuff that I never use, and Word Warp is a great time waster if you’re ever on the toilet looking for something to spend time doing.

There you have it. Does it make me more productive? Maybe. Do I feel more productive with it? Yes.

Make fun of me for it, I’d love to bite your head off, in a gentle way.

Colin

PS - What’s YOUR most useless app?

Well folks, I write this post walking into work from my very own iPhone 3G. It cost far too much, but it is an awesome piece of equipment. After arguing with AT&T tech support for an hour and a half, they were entirely unhelpful and I was left to purchase an iPhone with no discount.

Anyways, I have an iPhone and it is awesome. But AT&T sucks, hands down.

Colin

Written from my iPhone.

Remember how I posted a few months ago that I couldn’t get an iPhone until October because of the equipment upgrade clause?  Yeah.

Here’s the screenshot from AT&T’s webpage.  I’ve removed my phone number and account number.

Now, here’s the same screen after I went into a store two days ago because this CrapJack (the third one in under a year) is making screeching noises at people on the other end.  He told me he could do nothing for me about letting me buy a new phone cause this one is CRAP, but he could sure change out my SIM card (it’s been done before, by the way).

Here’s the same screenshot now.  Notice anything different?  Like the upgrade date?

What the hell is going on, AT&T?  I just try and be a loyal customer and you decide to pick a fight with me?  It’s going down now.  I’m NOT a happy camper.  I wanted to LIKE AT&T, not hate their guts.  I WANT to like them, and they’re trying to screw ME over.

If ANYONE has any clue what’s going on, please enlighten me.  Anyone work at an AT&T store?

Colin

I’ve got the no iPhone blues.  Because I can’t get an iPhone 3G for another three months unless I want to pay $200 more than the $199 list price.

Turns out, the evil empire that is AT&T won’t sell the iPhone 3G to people like me (who don’t have an upgrade credit available until October) at $199.  Nope, they want $399 for it.  And frankly, I’d rather wait three months and spend that extra money to get 8 GB of extra space.

So it looks like I’ll be iPhoneless in Atlanta for another three months.  No, it’s not the end of the world, but I won’t be able to email, browse, and surf the web from my phone on vacation in August from the top of a mountain.  Shafted by the death star again!

If anyone knows how to get around this upgrade credit crap, drop me a line.  I want the iPhone!

Colin

There are no good wireless companies, no, not one.

I needed more than the minimum 450 minutes this past spring while running around crazily planning two trips for 20+ people, one being overseas, the other to Carnegie Hall. That said, I kept my rate plan at the 900 minute level to build some rollover up before switching back down to 450 minutes.

Then I went to switch back to 450 minutes, and they shot me back to the stone age. Apparently when you switch down in minutes you can only take as many rollover minutes as you have anytime minutes. So I got taken from 1500 to 450. Wasted my money, you stinky dumb decision makers. At least make it twice the anytime minutes, so I’d have kept 450.

Now, there are some who say Verizon is so much better, but I don’t think they really are. There are just as many pissed off Verizon customers as there are AT&T customers. And, why would I switch if my family and girlfriend are on AT&T? Well, and the iPhone, of course.

And I want an iPhone. I’ll stick with AT&T.

But why must all wireless companies shaft their users so?