So I made a little project this past Saturday. I came up with the idea at Blizzcon when I picked up the Limited Edition MegaBlocks Battlecruiser kit, but have been putting it off since I got back. I finally had the time to sit down and work on it this weekend, and got everything in place for what I thought was going to be a 2-3 hour project. 6 hours later at 1:30 am in the morning I was finally done however. Feast your eyes on the fruits of my labor, my best time lapse project yet!
There is someone I have been faithful to over the years. Someone I love, someone I have always stood by. I was pragmatic, when they did something rash or silly I did not blindly defend them to my friends, I listened open-minded to their opinions on the matter, some times I even agreed, but I understood that what they did for me was in the end rewarding. I stood by then through thick and thin, and today I learned I have been burned by them harshly, and I cannot forgive them.
This person? Apple.
(granted they had some help from AT&T who I have always hated with a passion).
The iPad 3G. It comes with the option of a non-contract data plan with AT&T you can pay by the month. The rate? 29.99 for unlimited dat. (Same as the iPhone). You pay it month to month and can turn it off an on at will, with no contract.
Today it was announced AT&T is moving to a new data tiered method. (gizmodo link) The new method maxes at 2gb of data a month for 25$ and includes tethering. Alternatively you can keep your old data plan and be grandfathered into the old rates. The catch though is that you cannot have tethering. If you ever change your dataplan at all then you get locked into the new rate. Fair enough, ok then.
This also applies to the iPad. Ok again, fair enough. It’s the price you pay for a non-contract data plan. No guarantees.
The catch? It takes effect June 7th. This now makes crystal clear why my iPad 3G order, promised to ship in 7-10 business days, was delayed for 14 days to ship on, surprise, June 7th. If my iPad arrives after the 7th, which it will, then I am not elligible to be grandfathered into the old ipad data rate. I am locked into a max of 2gb of data usage, after which it is 1.25 cents per meg.
Now, I have checked my old iPhone data bills. I have never exceeded 700 megs to 1gb ever, EVER. I am not terribly worried about that, yet. (not to mention I plan to rely HEAVILY on the wi-fi already anyways). What irks me, what is a down right insult and slap to the face, is that Apple OBVISOULY withheld shipments of new iPads at AT&Ts request to prevent as many people as possible from being grandfathered in once this was decided upon. Its clear, and it’s insulting. Let me be clear. I understand the new pricing model, fuck I even support it. Truly. What is so insulting though is the whole “withhold my shipping date a week to make me not eligible for the old plan” by apple. Mark my words, my current iphone 3gs WILL BE MY LAST IPHONE. I dont give a DAMN about this new “4g” phone being announced. Once my contract is up this fall or winter I am moving to an Android phone on Verizon or Sprint. This was just too much. Apple has made it clear they are no longer the counter point agaist AT&T. They are obviously willing to work with them to some degree, and that degree burns.
************UPDATE************
6/2 @ 1:40PM PST:
So i just spent 50 minutes on the phone with apple customer service. Long story short they told me to fuck off. I spoke to a very nice young lady at first who agreed the entire situation was unpleasant, but I was the first caller to bring it up to her so she had to review the internal corporate email about the situation first.
Afterwards I spent about 25 minutes on hold while she tracked down a manager for me to speak with. I was transfered to a gentleman named Tim who was a “management representative” who was extremely professional and courteous, but made it clear there was nothing they could do for me. At the very best they could locate an iPad for me at a local store, have it held, and cancel my order and let me pick that one up. This would be perfect for me, except it was purchased as a gift for me from my father on his credit card and I had no way to pay for it in store at this time.
He kept wanting to shift focus to the fact the change in plan was AT&T’s doing, and not theirs, and that really 2gb was a lot of data. I had to keep shifting focus back to the fact I dont care about the plan itself, but the fact from a consumer point of view it is impossible to treat this as a ‘coincidence’ that sooooo many peoples orders were held till June 7th, and then the announcement comes out today that is when the plans change. He also insisted that he was told this was in no way shape or form the case, and Apple would never do something like this to meet AT&Ts requirements, although I told him that while I believed he THOUGHT he was telling the truth, I cant accept that somewhere high up in Apple this decision wasn’t made with this in mind.
In the end I took down his contact info and politely and respectfully let him know my battle was not over and ended the call. As it stands though I am unsure where to take this from here without making it a legal issue, however I am hesitant to threaten legal action before my order is shipped. At the same time I just want a damn iPad in my hands before June 7th so I can have the peace of mind of unlimited data, perhaps that might make that happen? :\
************UPDATE************
6/8 @ 7:43pm PST
So just a bit of a followup, my iPad ended up shipping a few days early and arrived on the 7th. At the same time AT&T out of the blue decided to honor the unlimited data plan for all unit purchased prior to 12:00am June 7th. (Me thinks apple had a hand in that due to bad publicity). I’m still pretty annoyed at things but now I’m more apt to believe the delays were a hardware shortage and not apples full intention. I LOVE my iPad, and am actually writing this on it on the train home from work 
I do however, still plan to buy an Android phone soon on a non AT&T network. Sorry apple but there is nothing about the iPhone 4 that even comes close to making up for the pain for 2 more years of AT&Ts excuse for “service”.
So I’m still on the fence about wanting to watch the new Dr. Who. This Matt Smith guy just doesn’t look right to me. I have a hard time accepting a Dr who is the same age as a fratboy… also, I openly admit I have a total man-crush on David Tennant and his version of the Dr.
In the meantime however I have decided to indoctrinate my friend Amelia (no pun intended!) into the show. So far in the last 2 weeks we have banged out series 1 and 2, and are now 1/3rd into number 3. She seems to be loving it so far, which I am not at all surprised by. Lets face it, if your a geek (and she is) this show is the pinnacle. Watching them all over again for the third time since they first aired is just as great as the first and second time, especially being able to watch someone experience all of it for the first time. I do feel bad though when in order to preserve the integrity of the drama I couldn’t warn her about the end of series two, so I had to watch her cry a little.
I do think I’m ready to give Mr. Smith a chance once we are caught up though, someone I know told me their friend, who has the same opinions on the 11th version as me, said the following about the new premier of the 11th doctor: “In the last 10 minutes of the episode Matt became my new favorite Doctor.” Now I dont expect to feel the exact same way, but hearing that gives me hope at least…
Soooo I just found out my friend Kate has a YouTube channel of her own now, called the She-Geek Show. Its pretty damn good actually. She is about 4 episodes in so I request you go and catch up right now, then subscribe for more of her awesomeness.
http://www.youtube.com/user/shegeekshow#p/a
Oh and if it helps any did I mention she is hot? 
Nothing major to share, just that after some prompting from Morgon, (apparently my blog is a result if you search for MyGamerCard) I have replaced the basic wordpress midget I had for a gamercard with a hard coded one. It took a lot of tweaking due to the bastardized theme and adjustments I have made over time, but was worth it. The MyGamerCard.net Sliverlight gamecard is friggin bad ass and looks awesome, doesn’t it? Also it has hover over/click through controls that open up some fun features. Add one to your blog toda! *thumbs up*
So it was time again for the annual Video Game Awards last night. Its a strange affair. The general populous looks upon it as an “oh, neat” kind of thing, I feel. Us in the industry and hard core gamers alike however seem to be a bit divided between “dear god not this again” and “sweet, something else to help boost the industry’s image!”
Sadly the cast of the train wreck that is Jersey Shore trying to banter with Mike Tyson does NOT help our image :\ Especially when it follows Snoop Dog performing.
I have to admit each year the presentation has gotten a bit better. At first it pandered to the stereotypical audience they expected that would watch this on Spike.. and it was embarrassing for the industry really. In the last few years though it has really turned around, something I credit Geoff Keighiley with having a hand in. Still it needs work. For starters there is a fairly hefty list of categories, this is a good thing. However they seem to bookend a single award with a trailer/reveal and another of the same or a musical performance, followed by a commercial break. Now this isn’t to fill the 2 hours… no… because twice in the show they rattled off a list of award winners for several categories with no mention of the other nominees. If they would just cut out all the big hype marketing bullshit, and only cover the awards we could fit it all in. I mean you don’t see this shit on the Oscars!!
Now I know your thinking “Well they HAVE to put all that in there to generate interest to make enough people watch it!” well I understand that, but I don’t care. If the show cant stand on its own they they need to just keep adjusting until it can, but they need to phase this shit out slowly as they do it.
Also some of the categories though need work. They have best sound track and best score. This makes sense really, one is geared towards the selection of mainstream music, the later is which had the best in house music. A good divide if you ask me to split games like Halo and Dragon Age who have incredible original music from those like Brutal Legend that have amazing sound track selection. The problem is all of the nominees except one for “best Soundtrack” were RHYTHM GAMES (Rock Band Beatles, DJ hero, etc) WHAT THE FUCK???!!?? There is already a “Music Game” category, so why put this shit here as well? I mean is there really a quantifiable difference in the songs between Rock Band 2 and Band Hero, and Lego Rockband? A totally wasted and ruined category if you ask me. Also we have the category “Best DLC” which is a noble cause, but the 4 nominees were 2 packs for GTA IV and 2 packs for Fallout 3. That’s kind of stupid, because its essentially down to 2 possible winners really.
My last major gripe is the timing, I don’t think the show should be on in mid December when the holiday blockbusters are still fresh and the early year super-hits (I’m looking at your Arkham Asylum) are growing dust. They need to be in the spring for the prior year if you ask me, that way there are no just-release-last-week titles contending for space when everyone is still riding high on the PR.
One good thing to come out of it all though is the general populous has far less if any impact on the winners now, and its entirely industry based on he voting, this is good, and how it should be. All in all, the show is getting better and I hope in two years time its where I want it to be, at which point I plan to attend
So I love my iPhone, I really do. I left Verizon after 7 years of happy service, and jumped to AT&Ts world class shitty service when the first gen iPhone launched. That little phone was the first ever to last me more than a year. Until that point I upgraded phones annually, coughing up the full phone price almost every time since I was only upgrade-eligible every 2 years. This summer the 3gS launched, and that little work horse was finally traded in, after 2 years of round the clock abuse, and the 3g has been a strong little phone ever since as well.
I have recently had my hands on the Droid and Droid Eris (henceforth referred to as Eris here) from Verizon, however. With the ever increasing frustration I have been getting from the Bay Area AT&T network, that seems to degrade weekly, I am beginning to have doubts how much longer I will be on the iPhone train. The Android app store now has versions of every iPhone app I can’t do without, plus amazing things like Google Goggles. (until you have used it, like I have, you cant understand how cool it really is!). Also the native support of google voice, something I have but am slow to adopt due to the iphone’s clunky support of it, is a big tipping point for me as well. I now have a bay area phone number on GV, and I would like to use it in tandem with my 502 number on a more regular basis.
At this point I am facing a tough decision. Convert my iphone into a powerful ipod, by deactivating its phone service and using it as my day to day ipod as well as it’s wifi powers to run some apps, and switch over to an Android powered phone or ignore all the hooplah and stick to my Apple love. To be honest it’s not looking good for my ex-girlfriend’s stock options at Apple.
Both the Droid and the Eris are enticing. The Eris’s pebble like shape and size is, in my opinion, superior the the physical design of the iPhone in many ways. At first I felt it lagged behind the Droid due to its using the Android 1.5 OS and not the newer 2.0 and due to the fact it runs the HTC SensUI, however I have now learned Android 2.0 will be available for it in January once HTC is done updating SenseUI for it. Even better, you can turn off SenseUI in the settings and use the base Anndroid OS if you so choose. (Although the SenseUI has a lot of improvements the Android can benefit from). The Droid however has a slightly larger screen (0.4 inches) and a slide out keyboard. Using it though is NOTHING like my keyboard experience from when I owned the Verizon 6700 due to its small size and quirky feedback. Also did I mention the Droid is $199 and the Eris is $99?
After spending time with both.. I am finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to go to the store later this week and jump back to Verizon, $175 AT&T termination fee be damned.
