Soon to be gone...

Tris that is, gone from the iTunes app store that is for iPhone and iPod Touch users. It will be removed from the app store tomorrow. So let's see what's hot for free games for the iPhone and iPod Touch right now this instant, shall we?

Thought so. Well, everyone's grabbing this while they can because the official Tetris client for the iPhone and iPod Touch is apparently lame. Oh, and $9.99 too. Can't beat free... Even though I do acknowledge that the company that owns the rights to the game does have a bit of a legitimate gripe here.

Macworld keynote impressions...(screw you, Mr. Jobs)

It's a day late, all thanks to Fox's new 168 hours per week of American Idol programming, which is not soon enough for them thanks to the WGA strike.

However...the Macworld keynote recap

The good...

Nice update for the iPhone and AppleTV. I sit patiently by my AppleTV every night waiting for it to tell me that there is new shiny goodness waiting to be sent down the Intertubes to me.

That Macbook Air is also pretty sweet. The sealed battery is cause for hue and cry among those who love to mindlessly hue and cry and are generally irrational Apple haters anyway. Of course they deny it and try to pretend to be rational and call everyone else who disagrees mindless fanboys for not climbing on the "Look, Apple is successful, it is only right that they be hated" bandwagon.

Still, do comment on the sealed battery - do you need another one immediately? Do you not understand that to get the system engineered to be the size and design that it is that it kinda had to be sealed? Do you care in the slightest that the replacement cost doesn't seem that out of line with other laptop batteries, at the very least other Macbook batteries? Or that the cost of labor to replace the batteries is included in that? Or are you too busy frothing over little things to also ignore nice stuff like the recyclables in the product that they were touting. No, no...feel the hate...it's post Macworld keynote and the crazies come out like everyone's favorite Mr. Always Wrong, John C. Dvorak.

Another unexpected surprise, the Time Capsule - I know someone right now who needs one and I hope gets one. A convenient and clever combination of 802.11n router and hard drive to perform automated Time Machine backups. I've got an external drive for Time Machine right now, but I may go for one of these, just for the convenience of it all.

The bad...

Movie rentals - I'd almost side with the haters on this, but the 24 hour viewing restrictions weren't Apple's idea - they were apparently put in to placate cable and satellite companies. These same companies (and let's face it, television networks), who are probably starting the process of wetting themselves as they see the future unfold before them. Television shows and movies on demand for rental/purchase. It's got some hamstrings in there on the rentals thanks to those cable and satellite companies, and only being able to rent HD on the AppleTV is annoying for those without said devices. However, I can see studios freaking out at the thought of an HD movie even touching a hard drive of a computer where all sorts of nasty haxoring can be done to it - because we all know the AppleTV is a deadlock sealed box that nobody can get into...

The ugly...

YOU SERIOUSLY EXPECT ME TO HAND OVER $20 TO GET THE REST OF THE RELEVANT APPLICATIONS FROM THE IPHONE FOR MY IPOD TOUCH? WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE? SCREW YOU, JOBS! SCREW! YOU!

Ahem... I may yet do that - but I assure you, as I hand over the credit card numbers, not a hit of a smile will dare cross my face. I would hope that some reconsideration of explanation will be forthcoming. A clear explanation of accounting rules would actually go far to placate me.

Creature Features tomorrow - American Idol notwithstanding...

My inner 5 year old is smiling...

At last all the legal hurdles have been overcome, all parties have made their agreements and fans across the world can have the one, the only, One True Batmobile. This of course from the very serious 1960s crime drama (to the eyes of a 5 year old) Batman. Apparently this is a very hard to find Hot Wheels edition of the car. Later in the year there will be larger scale versions, which, of course, I will have. But for now, this will go quite nicely on my desk at work next to my Batmobile of 1950, which is a close second for best all-around Batmobile. Admittedly this isn't the best picture, and I blame the equipment. I believe that you should find the overall composition and so on more than adequate. I just couldn't get it to auto-focus on the car. End of excuse.

But man do I love this car...now just please get the tv show on DVD and I'll be a very happy camper.

Meanwhile, in technology news...I just wanted to let the dust settle for a while over the iPod announcements and iPhone fallout. Sheesh - you thought that the world was coming to an end over some of them. So the iPhone drops $200 in price and some are up in arms. Mind you, dropping that fast after 2 months is bound to cheese some off admittedly, and Apple is aiming to get aggressive in the coming months for the holidays, so it is a case of not being able to please everyone. So the $100 credit for early adopters is at least some small way to take the sting out. At least I didn't take the plunge and since I am tied to Verizon for at least a few more months, it's probably just as well.

So how about them iTunes ringtones? Yeah...so you pay $.99 for a song and another $.99 for 30 seconds of that song to use as a ringtone on your iPhone. How about a heaping helping of "NO!" there Steve Jobs? Yes, it's much cheaper than what other carriers charge, and you do get the whole song with that as well. But really...this has got to be the record label's idea there to do this - after all they came up with the brilliant "Ringle" after all. Still, I don't think there is a better recap of the whole thing than what Daring Fireball has to say on the subject.

I'm very happy with the Doctor Who theme that plays on my RAZR as my ringtone...

So then new iPods! Whoohoo! Overall, I'm rather pleased with the changes and were I not immediately enthralled by the iPod Touch, I'd probably be very interested in an 80 gig iPod Classic. The new iPod Nano with its new video playback capabilities reinforces the direction Apple is going with their iPods with just the Classic being the only hard drive based media player. All others being flash memory based now. While the Classic is the most recognizable of the iPod designs, I expect that in the next year or so when Apple can produce iPods of a capacity similar to the Classic without the hard drives, the Classic will simply go away and the Nano will take its spot.

But that iPod Touch - boy howdy...for someone like me who 1) Doesn't want to necessarily want to use AT&T and 2) Stuck in a cell phone contract anyway, this is a dream come true. The iPhone without the phone bits. However, there is a downside to not getting the iPhone - namely the software. No email client like the iPhone is included and with the Calendar app you can't edit or create entries. However, you do have twice the available storage on the Touch than the iPhone (16 gigs vs. 8 gigs). So there is give or take. I think that Apple will eventually add the missing functionality to the Touch eventually so it doesn't completely cannibalize iPhone sales. While I am nearly overcome with lust for the iPod Touch, I'm going to sit this out for the meantime since I'm very happy with my 30 gig 5th gen iPod and it's nearly full with music and a rotating set of podcasts to listen to and videos to watch. So call me when Chairman Steve introduces at least a 30 gig Touch and we'll talk.

That's all for now...time to go load some new images up on Mike's site and get ready to call it a night...

I can't leave yet!

I just realized - how could I leave the US without my iPod, my precious, precious iPod having the Grindhouse soundtrack loaded onto it? Irritatingly, since these are technically two separate movies, there are two separate soundtracks. One for Planet Terror and another for Death Proof. But I've got plenty o'room on the iPod and I'll grab 'em this week.

You HAVE seen Grindhouse already...right?