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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

iPhone 4 & Mac OS X Snow Leopard

I got my iPhone 4 in the mail today!  A day earlier than the release date in stores!  I'm a big fan of the iPhone, and when I read about the newest version that was leaked a while ago, I was so excited to get it!  June 15th was the first day that you could start reserving it online.  I seriously considered staying up until midnight on the night of the 14th in order to get it.  But I ended up falling asleep early and had to fight with the massive internet traffic on the morning of the 15th trying to get the damn thing.  I tried so many times, on Apple's website as well as AT&T's website, Firefox and Internet Explorer, multiple tabs, over and over again.  I was at work so I had a PC there.  But if I was at home, I would have been on Safari as well.  But I guess since an unprecedented number of people were trying to reserve the phone, all the websites were crashing.  I kept getting error messages.  I think I tried for about an hour then had an all day meeting.  But during one of my breaks, I tried again, and AT&T's site magically allowed me to order it!  I was so surprised because I was reading so much chatter about how impossible it was to get due to technical difficulties.  I think AT&T even had some glitches where you would log into your account and see someone else's info!  So I must have just got in at the exact brief time that the system was running fine, because right after I ordered mine, it completely crashed.  Next thing I heard the phone was sold out, so the next wave of people ordering would not get theirs until July 11th.  Or they could line up at the stores beginning on June 24th.



I was still pretty nervous about it though, since I never got any confirmation email or anything, and never got an estimated delivery date.  Until yesterday, I finally received an email saying that my phone was shipped out!  Yay!!

It looks and feels so different from the older versions.  It definitely feels less like a toy.  I like the more streamlined look.  It looks more chic.  I love the option of having a camera on the front as well as one on the back, with 5 mega pixels and flash!  I probably use my iPhone camera more than anything else, since it's just so damn convenient.  So that is a biggie for me.  Of course there is also the video feature that I probably won't use much but is cool to have.  I'm really excited about the multi-tasking feature, because I like the option of running an app and also checking my email or text messages at the same time.  I also like how the background picture shows up now on the home screen.  The screen is so different looking too, much more refined and sleek.  You can tell that it's very high quality HD.  I really hope that the battery life is significantly improved because I can't even count how many times my older iPhone has died on me before for running apps too long (a couple hours).

Kind of sucks that there is no protective cover for the iPhone 4 on sale yet.  I hope they come out soon (preferrable Incase) because I don't want to scratch my phone since this one's got glass on both front and back.

I did have a hurdle after receiving my new phone today.  I was all excited and ready to connect it to my iTunes and activate it.  But since my MacBook was still running on an old operating system (Tiger), it would not let me connect!  Now, I understand that Tiger is sooo 2007 and most people are probably not using it anymore, but come on, I never upgraded it because the only thing I ever use my computer for is messing around on the internet and uploading pictures.  I just didn't see the necessity of upgrading so I never bothered with it.  Plus I figured I would just get a new lap top some time soon.  But now, I can't even use my new phone unless I upgrade my operating system (or buy a new lap top) first!  That is pretty BS.  Just another way for Apple to make more money! 

Well being the sucker that I am, I naturally went to the Apple store this afternoon.  The sales associate there was telling me that since I had Tiger which is "really really old" (paraphrasing him), I had to buy some package that includes upgrade to Leopard (a newER system), and then Snow Leopard (the newEST system).  The whole thing was going to cost me another $200 - same price as my phone!  I had a major freak out moment - to be sucked into buying an expensive upgrade, to just buy a new lap top altogether, or to return my much anticipated new phone???

However, there was another upgrade disc they sold there for upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard for only $29.  The sales guy told me that I wouldn't be able to use it because I didn't have Leopard.  I googled this dilemma, and asked some techie friends, and apparently you CAN use the $29 upgrade to Snow Leopard even if you are still running Tiger or any other Intel based Mac operating system.  Apple just won't tell you that because they want to make more money!  So, I bought the $29 upgrade and it was so simple to install and really worked perfectly!  If I had known that it would only cost me $29, I would have done this a long time ago.  Obviously it is a much better system, and it cleaned up my memory by 14g so my computer is running faster as well.



So now I'm running on Snow Leopard and using my iPhone 4!  Plus my awesome work out and blow out from earlier today, and dinner at my favorite restaurant SugarFish where I received some free food for their 1st anniversary, it was a good day!  I should take days off from work more often!

2 comments:

  1. This same thing just happened to my husband. Does your iphoto still work after the $29 upgrade?

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  2. No problems... Everything works perfectly for me! Hope your husband won't have any problems either. =)

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