Walt-O-Matic

This will give you an idea of how long it’s been since I’ve used Windows at home.

I had to hook up an LCD monitor to the Windows box, boot the system, and install a pile of updates [1 WGA; 34 express; 2 custom]. However, something else gave me a true sense of the time that had passed: when I moved the mouse, I felt something oily and sticky on my thumb. The plastic mouse had degraded.

Upon closer inspection of my Logitech iFeel MouseMan (M/N: M-UN53b; P/N: 830445-0000), the thumb button had ooze dripping on it.

Where did it come from? The answer was obvious. There was a thumb print above the button, where the hand naturally rests.

Apparently the natural oil in my hand left a finger print on the mouse. Undisturbed for so long, the plastic broke down and started becoming liquid mush in that one spot.

I’ve never heard of a mouse breaking down like that, but I’m holding the evidence in the palm of my hand.

Now, the larger question: do I buy a new mouse? Nah, Windows isn’t worth the pocket change or that level of effort to me anymore.

Shortly after Apple announced the price drop on an existing iPhone product, without introducing a new one to take its place, I wrote about whether or not early iPhone adopters would get screwed. My take on the matter was, no, as Apple has a history of doing the right thing, at least in the long run.

Near the same time, a few people observed that the terms and conditions of their American Express card benefits would allow them a refund. Since it never hurts to go directly to the source and just ask, I did so, writing about my experience with American Express. Again, my take on the matter was that American Express, with no ultra compelling requirement to do could turn this into a massive marketing strategy right before the holiday season.

I learned two things.

First, I learned that there’s actually only a small number of rude people who don’t actually read posts before feeling they have to comment in the most vile language as they make false assumptions. (I’d clearly stated in a colorful sidebar box that I didn’t feel entitled to the refund, but that the opportunity could be used to build good will.)

Second, I learned that American Express came to the same conclusions I did about how to treat its customers.

Today I got a letter from American Express. In it, they explained that my recent purchase did not fall within the normal terms and provisions of the Purchase Protection Plan. However, as they value my business, they are processing the claim as an exception to the rule, and are crediting my card with $105. (They then sent me the actual terms, which covered a lot more than I was aware of.)

That made me, as a customer, feel special. And cared about.

With Steve Jobs’s refund of $100, with American Express’s refund of $105, I’m now $5 ahead.

I think American Express was smart.

They knew the product could have been returned completely, giving them a useless product, and me $300. And with my $100 from Jobs, I could have gotten a replacement phone.

They knew what I really would have liked, in the ideal case, was the $200 difference.

They most certainly knew that I’d be getting a refund of $100 from Apple, so they could just get away with providing $100 out of the kindness of their hearts.

And, but going $5 over that amount, which is trivial to them, it makes them look like the super good guys. The $5 bought a lot in terms of marketing.

At this point, as a customer, I’m so totally impressed with how well American Express took care of me, especially when they didn’t have to, that I’ll be using American Express for every major purchase, as well as now minor ones.

Prior to this I used Discover (for cash back) and Visa (when Discover wasn’t accepted).

American Express – you’ve won my heart this holiday season. Thank you.

Last night I went to the Apple Store in Tysons with a friend who bought his phone one week after me, putting him within the 14 day window. Apple credited him $200 on the spot.

I perhaps have one of the worse case situations, in that while early adopters have had their phone for a long time, I’m just outside of the 14 day window, meaning I don’t qualify for the price guarantee match, nor can I return my phone, nor did I get $200 of fanboy usage from the device.

Apple, however, was helpful and friendly. They looked up on my account and indicated that American Express was used to purchase the phone, and that I should call them. They even printed out a fresh copy of the invoice for me.

In the Jerry Seinfield and Superman commercial shorts by American Express, Jerry tells how, by using American Express, he’s protected from theft, damage, and so forth. Could it be true?

I looked at my American Express card, and found out I was a Platinum Member via Costco. Nice!

After looking up AMEX Best Value Guarantee with Google, seeing that a Gold Card Page mentioned BVG, and discovering Return Protection on Platinum Benefits, I felt it was worth a call to AMEX – given the Apple Store made the same suggestions as this newsworthy blog, this tech news article, and this tidbit.

I called 1-800-297-8019, and after a fairly long time on hold due to an enormous “unexpected” call volume, I reached a human who confirmed I had the right number. He explained that the Best Value Guarantee was discontinued in November 2006 (ah, the BVG article above was from 2003).

Turns out, the non-existent Best Value Guarantee would have meant AMEX would have had to pay $200. However, the “Apple won’t take my phone back [so I can purchase a new one at a cheaper rater] which is in affect puts them out $300 – though there’s the possibly you may have to send in your iPhone.

Follow along, cause this gets weird. Even if you paid $600 for the phone, a $300 credit from AMEX and a $100 from Jobs, gets you pretty darn close to the cost of getting a new phone (say if you’ve damaged yours dropping it or such); in fact, it might be just enough to make a point if you’re mad enough.

If you bought the cheaper phone, you very well could be beyond the break even point.

AMEX knows this, and they are well aware of the iPhone situation.

Because AMEX is getting hammered, they are looking for a compromise. Apparently there are enough people who are willing to return them iPhones that have been bricked in order to get $300 that AMEX doesn’t want to deal with that.

As such, they are looking at simply refunding the price difference (which is actually cheaper), especially if that means they don’t have to refund a larger amount and get stuck with a bunch of damaged phones with nothing in the file system and missing a SIMM card.

American Express took the date of purchase, the kind of iPhone, there price (with tax) of the iPhone, and the total cost of charges for the purchase and opened a case for me.

They claim they will review them individually, but the rep was fairly certain they’d be handled in bulk.

By bulk, I assume that means putting them in groups. Speculating here, I believe one group, will be the whining early adopters who will get nothing, another group will be those that are in the 14 day period and should be dealing with Apple, another group of questionable pro-rated matching, and a group that meets the intent of the policy (which is where I fall in), in that I’m just shy of being able to resolve it with Apple but haven’t had the long usage.

If AMEX comes though for me, then great, I will be using their card a lot more often.

If AMEX does anything, and I mean, anything at all, they come out looking like the heros, and have just secured themselves the holiday season as the card to purchase everything with.
Steve Jobs has one chance left to steal the thunder back, however. Tell people they are getting $100 back, but give a certain portion in the purchasing window $200 instead. Suddenly Apple looks beyond fair, but customer centric again.

I will note, however, that there were more people in line with iPhone receipts at Tysons than there were people buying the new iPods, while I was there. The early adopters are clearly gun shy.

One of the big things holding me back from buying an iPhone in the first place, aside from lack of SSH (which was soon resolved), was an article about the hidden evils in the Terms of Service contract.

Well, not sure about whether to take things at face value or not, I bounced my concern off my friend Phil, who’s extremely knowledgeable about telecommunications.

He wrote me back a wonderful point-by-point analysis, which swayed my decision. Feeling that other people might benefit as well, I sought permission from him to reprint it here.

iPhone Requires a 2-Year Contract with AT&T.
1. True; they make the 2-year contract requirement pretty clear. This isn’t a great thing but it’s pretty standard in the U.S. when you buy a phone.

Expensive: Requires $2,280, Over $1,730 in Wireless Costs.
2. Also true, though he overstates the price. The service plan runs about $60/month ($40 voice, $20 data); if that’s too expensive, the iPhone is probably a bad idea. That’s still less costly than a Blackberry or Treo (both about $80/month when you turn on the features needed).

Double Billing. You and the Caller Both Get Charged for the Same Call.
3. True, but not unique to the iPhone. Every cellular carrier in the United States save for a few Nextel plans will charge airtime on both incoming and outgoing calls. If you call another wireless phone user, I suppose you could call that double-billing (though if that other user is on the same carrier [ATT], the airtime rate is the princely sum of zero cents per minute).

All Use of the Networks Are Always Rounded Up to the Nearest Kilobyte or Minute.
4. Standard practice for the wireless industry. The per-kilobyte complaint is pretty funny, though, since the charge per kilobyte for domestic data usage is zero cents per kilobyte.

Customers Are Billed for “Network Errors” and “Network Overhead”.
5. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but it makes no sense.

Billed Even Though the Call Doesn’t Go Through.
6. Basically untrue. Billing in a wireless system begins when the call is answered, though the timer starts when the call is initiated. In other words, if a call rings for fifteen seconds and then is answered, the clock begins at 15 seconds and counts up from there.

Bogus Fees Added to the Bill: Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge
7. While I agree that regulatory recovery fees are basically bogus padding, I challenge him to find a wireless (or, for that matter, conventional wireline) carrier that doesn’t do this.

$175.00 Termination Fee.
8. The early termination fee is pretty well standard throughout the industry. There are certain circumstances where you can avoid paying it (for example, if they raise rates during your contract term).

International Messages Are Charged Additional Fees as Are Files Over 300Kbps.
9. International text messaging (i.e. SMS) costs extra on every cellular carrier I’m aware of. The picture/video messaging charging he complains about isn’t even relevant to the iPhone. And the “additional fee” for large messages that he talks about is irrelevant to the iPhone. My phone communicates directly with my IMAP server over SSL; there’s no way that ATT can tell how large a message is, let alone bill me for those messages over 300K.

Over Your Quota: Get Gouged: 40¢ Per Minute and 69¢ Roaming Offnet.
10. Once again, he’s whining about something that’s absolutely standard in the industry: if you go over your bucket of minutes, you pay a pretty high rate. He conveniently neglects to mention that UNUSED minutes from your plan roll forward into the next month and can be used to offset high usage up to a year later. If that’s not enough, just call and switch to a higher plan and ask them to make it retroactive to your previous month’s usage.

The Services Are Not Secure and Can’t Block Your Phone Number.
11. “Not secure” is a leftover from the days of ANALOG cell phones, which could be listened in upon pretty trivially. And they’re saying that when calling certain toll-free numbers, you can’t block your caller ID since the recipient pays for the call. There’s a MENU on the iPhone that allows you set the default for whether you send caller ID or not; you can also set it per-call. In other words: JUST LIKE A LANDLINE.

The Current Mobile Email Service Doesn’t Support Attachments.
12. Absolutely false. You can send photos trivially (about the only sort of attachment that makes sense to create on a phone), and the iPhone will read a lot of formats (Word, Excel, PDF, JPEG at a minimum).

Prohibited Uses and “Unlimited” Sales Hype.
13. The prohibited uses language is pretty standard wireless carrier language. I agree with him that the claim of “unlimited” is pretty misleading marketing puffery, but it’s an industry-wide problem. If you use your FIOS connection at full bandwidth 24×7, you’ll soon discover that “unlimited” basically means that you’re not billed per unit of data, but that you can still be cut off if you abuse the service. There’s basically nothing you could do on the iPhone that would cause this to happen, though.

Service Is Not Intended to Provide Full-Time Connections: Unlimited is Hype
14. Same as above.

Wi-Fi Service is Limited
15. I think he’s deliberately misinterpreting this one. He’s talking about a completely different wi-fi service that one can purchase through AT&T that has nothing to do with the iPhone. There is of course no limit at all to the number of times in a given time period that the iPhone can connect to a wi-fi network.

“Offnet” Restrictions
16. Another deliberate misinterpretation, I think. “Off-net” usage refers to areas where you’re roaming. Since cell phone roaming charges basically don’t exist anymore for the consumer (the carriers charge each other, though), what they’re saying is that you can’t buy the phone and then use it full-time where, say, T-Mobile has service and ATT doesn’t.

Plan Goobly-gook
17. He’s so incoherent here that it’s hard to figure out what he’s mad about.

Comparing US and Other Broadband Countries: America Is being Laughed At.
18. Perhaps he should move! He forgot to mention that countries using the metric system think we’re pretty silly too–but I’m sure he would have if he’d thought about it. Seriously, he has a point: mobile telephony is more advanced in other parts of the world (largely due to standardization on one network type–GSM). But I’m not sure why that would be the fault of ATT and the iPhone.

To provide some context here, I actually ended up purchasing an iPhone. The SSH problem I had concerns with was resolved by the new set of software that’s come out by third parties. The iPhone legal rant was adequately rebutted by my friend, Phil.

But that’s not the big news. The big news is that Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone price was being dropped by $200. And, we knew in our heart of hearts that was going to happen sometime, but early adopters who wanted the iPhone to be a success, paid the expensive price.

Now that Apple’s benefited, the real question on the table is: Are the early adopters going to get screwed.

My take is no.

On the surface, I’m not too happy about having a 3-week old phone, which is less than a month old, yet one week past the return point.

Yes, I made the decision to buy it then, so I do take responsibility for that. But, on the other side, Apple also didn’t provide me with data that could have made me make a more discriminating purchase plan. (And, one can argue, why should they?)

Apple now has an interesting choice. Because of all these early adopters, their phone is a success. However, pissing them off would do some serious damage. One, those people are never going to buy into an early adopter program again and are going to spread negative comments. Two, non-early adopters are going to view this as a model of how Apple treats its customers.

THAT SAID, -twice- in the past, when I have purchased expensive software (about the same cost as the iPhone or more), Apple has dropped the price, and upon doing so, wrote me a Snail Mail telling me they appreciated my business and enclosed was a check for the difference. Unprompted.

I’d like to think that Apple will have the foresight to do that now, and the amount of good will this would result in would more than make it up.

At the moment, I have -one- iPhone. My wife is on the fence. If I get a refund from Apple, she’ll be having an iPhone too (and being realistic, if Apple produces a better version with more memory, I’ll be buying the higher end model for myself).

If I’m to eat the difference because of a single week, I don’t have the right to complain, but I’m going to take it out of Apple’s future sales by not upgrading, not early adopting, not evangelizing, and not buy multiple machines. And, let’s be honest, Apple knows this.

True story.

I was standing at a urinal when my iPhone rings. Now, normally I don’t answer the phone while in a restroom, but I was curious as to who was calling me as I haven’t made the number widely public yet. A huge green banner said it was my wife.

It was at that moment I woke up.

Or, more accurately, half-way woke up.

It was the middle of the night, I was under the covers, and when I turned my head, I could clearly see my wife sound asleep, and beyond her, my iPhone sitting in the charger, dark.

Yet, still half asleep, I could still ‘hear’ my iPhone ringing in my dream. Curious now as to what would happen, I decided as an experiment to answer it. I closed my eyes and instantly I was back in the dream in front of the urinal holding the phone.

I touched the answer button, lifted the phone to my face, and crystal clear I heard my wife say, very annoyed at me: “Clearly, you aren’t getting the symbolism here.” And then she abruptly hung up on me.

So, I put the iPhone in my pocket, woke up, and made my way to the rest room.

[Is this the first recorded iDream?]

Having just read an analysis of the iPhone terms of service, what’s hidden in the fine print is a deal breaker for me.

Until some of this settles down, I’ll not be getting the iPhone as planned.

Poop.

Realistically though, this may have pushed me more seriously at OpenMoko, the open source phone.

I’m especially developing the development kit.

So at this point it’s a race. Either Apple drops the price, adds some features, and addresses some pretty stressful points in the terms of service, or enough applications and positive reports come from OpenMoko.

UPDATE: These points have all been rebutted.

As someone who does a lot of photography, and I mean a lot of photography, I decided to invest in something that would do color calibration on my monitor.

A while back I purchased Pantone’s Huey and wrote a review saying just how much I loved it. [Pantone Software Update Page]

Since that review, Pantone has only made things better. My primary wish for dual monitor support has been granted in the form of the Pantone hueyPRO.

Once again, a fine quality product at an affordable price to end consumers rolls out the doors of Pantone. Not only do you get the device, a KlearScreen Starter Kit (with a polishing cloth), but you also get a Pantone Book of swatches of 100 Top Colors.

By simply dragging the application to the corresponding monitor, it’s possible to independently calibrate a monitor. That’s just plain cool, much better than drop down boxes and such.

This is where a new mystery appeared. As I was exploring how to manually calibrate a monitor, by setting the Brightness / Contrast by hand, I was startled to discover that my Dell 2001FP monitor wouldn’t allow me to adjust the contrast. It was like the firmware knew about it, but things were disabled.

Then I found this tidbit in the Brightness/Contrast section of the Dell 2001FP Documentation:

Makes sense. When a DVI connection is used, as I had done, the contrast control is no longer needed. My monitor doesn’t have a problem, all is well with the world.

REVIEW: Walt gives the Pantone hueyPRO a big thumbs up!!!

I’m waiting for the article confirming that the “iPhone has SSH”, because that’s what’s going to push me over the edge. Yes, the iPhone is cool, and if it has a larger display, better interface, and all my iTunes stuff, I’m thrilled. But until I can sit on the beach and fire off remote jobs on my server via a command line, I won’t be as happy as I am now with my current phone.

Currently I’m using a T-Mobile SideKick, and I do few things with it: eMail and ssh to my servers. Web browsing, instant messaging, text messaging, photos, games, then phone come next — and in that order.

Oh, I don’t need super speed either.

In fact, if the iPhone had SSH and didn’t do voice telecommunications, I’d still be thrilled. Then again, we knew I was a geek.

UPDATE 27-JUN-2007: Here’s a list of things confirmed features the iPhone does not have. Songs as rings tones would be nice (or will it!), although I’d want to use my own .mp3 creations. No games; that’s a must as my iPhone may very well become a substitute for my iPod. No instant messaging is a show stopper to me. Not listed, but would be a killer app, would by Skype on the iPhone. GPS would be sweet, especially as it could tie into web apps; imagine pressing the “I’m lost” button. I need a removable battery, for places that insist the phone be physically off. And I don’t want a “real” keyboard, I think Apple got this one right. All the other stuff, I could give or take.

The good news is, according to another source, is that there will be 3rd party Cocoa apps on the iPhone. I think Steve Jobs did a disservice trying to pass off AJAX as the development API, and if the answer was simply that they needed to get some kinks out, work on some more security, and placate the phone providers, that would have been the better, more honest, and up front answer that would have gotten some serious respect.

A friend of mine bought an 80GB iPod at the the Apple Store, but on the 14th day discovered something rather interesting about it. On the back was engraved “who loves you?”, there was debris inside under the screen, the screen was rainbowed when observed at an angle, and it was bowed a bit, not fastened to the back plate.

For those unaware, you cannot buy engraved iPods at the Apple Store, only online, nor can you return an engraved iPod to the Apple Store. If you do opt for engraving, you’ll have a receipt with your engraved message on it.

So, he called in advance and the sales person said he needed to come in and speak with a manager. Like most Apple store treks, I went along for the ride.

We got there and a skeptical sales person listened to the tale of woe, but upon seeing the Apple Store receipt and matching serial number on the device, he quickly got us in touch with the manager. She was wonderful and instantly figured out what had happened by just looking at the sticker.

She noted that the model number started with P, indicating this was a personalized iPod. And, since the store does not have the capacity to engrave or sell engraved iPods, this means someone returned it. Employees at the Apple Store are not supposed to accept them, and because the serial number was on the device, she could tell who’s iPod it was originally was, as well as which store employee accepted it as a return, putting it back in the “new” pile.

From the damage to the iPod, it appeared as if someone tried to pry off the cover near the on/off switch, this accounted for the bowing, the small pieces of dust and debris inside, and the rainbow effect from micro stress fractures in the plastic cover after being pried.

Additionally, she knew from our sales receipt who sold us the iPod and that person didn’t check the model number as well. She stated this was clearly Apple’s fault and that it should have been caught both at the point of return and the point of sale.

Happily, she handed over a brand new iPod (with a model number that started with M). While we didn’t want anyone to get in trouble, she did indicate she was going to re-emphasize that part of the training to the sales staff, and that again, it wasn’t our fault. She also indicated that had the problem even been caught even after the 14-day period, Apple fixes its mistakes.

Now, here comes the extra-cool part. Knowing that the sales person made a mistake, she hand inspected his entire purchase history from the start of time. “Did the sale person treat you rudely at all?” We both affirmed we were treated wonderfully.

There was only one problem though. His home-school machine came with a “free” printer via a $99 rebate, and when he submitted the rebate it was rejected as being purchased with an educational discount.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law, who also purchased a Mac for his home school also got a “free” printer via a $99 rebate. I had the email with me on my Sidekick that the rebate had already gone through and that by the time he was reading confirmation they had gotten the rebate, he already had the rebate check in his hands — impressive.

The manager, again, said she knew what happened. She popped open the purchase of his machine and confirmed it.

Apparently there’s a difference if you are an educational institution, such as a public college that’s buying equipment, versus if you are a student or home school principal doing things on a home budget. The former does not qualify, the latter does. And, yes, the machine and the printer are sold in store at an educational discount by anyone there (unlike software which requires you to go online or a passing manager invoke their whim).

That sales person entered the code for institution opposed to student. Again, another training issue.

“Do you have the receipt for that on you?”

We didn’t. “No problem; bring it with you next time, and we’ll give you $100.” She pulled out her business card, wrote on the back “Entry code mistake; qualifies for educational discount on printer – refund $100.”

She was sweet and extremely apologetic, apparently people have been getting a little lax with the codes, and the wrong code can have interesting downstream consequences. We thanked her and expressed our gratitude, the apologies just weren’t necessary.

Thrilled at the superior customer treatment, we headed immediately over to the games section and started thumbing through titles.