Tech of The Town
November 23, 2009
The Apple Store at Town Square.
Ground zero in the Vegas Valley for metrosexuals and a black hole for testosterone. Forget the expensive vasectomy, fellas … ten minutes in this place and you’ll never impregnate another woman for the rest of your life. Hell, you’ll never have coitus with one either. Trust me, I know.
The Apple Store at Town Square
The Apple Store at Town Square
One of the reasons I make fun of Apple users is because I am one of them.
Some people like to make derisive comments about Walmart shoppers while holding themselves above the same ridicule … but if you are familiar with Walmart shoppers, it means that you are a Walmart shopper. Do everyone a favor and cut the elitist bullshit.
Personally, I never shop at Walmart, but I am a self-loathing iPerson. I dislike Apple the company, and I detest almost every Mac user I have encountered, but I simply cannot use Windows. I’ve been a UNIX user for the past 15 years, and right now, OS X is the best commercial distribution on the market.
This being the case, I do avail myself of the Apple Store every so often, and today was one of those days.
Since my Blackberry Curve is getting a little long in the tooth, I decided that it was time to update my smartphone. Both the iPhone and the Droid were high on my list, and I decided to check out each device in person.
For the last ten years I had to have every cool new gadget that came out, and the more portable it was the better. I have not had a wired phone in my home since 1998 (seriously), and I had a “smart device” before most people had ever heard the term. As a matter of fact, I had the very first consumer wireless PDA ever invented … the Palm VII, which I began using in 1999. It was painfully slow, and the screen was monochrome, but it worked for me.
I remember sending “Happy New Year” emails from the street in Times Square when the 20th Century turned into the 21st Century, and some people didn’t believe I was there because “I got an email from you at 12:05am”.
Look how far we’ve come.
I wasn’t just an early adopter, though, I was a frequent adopter. For the next several years, I had to have every new wireless device that came out. The Treo 300, Treo 650, Pocket PC’s, Blackberries, you name it.
“Gee Rex, I’ve snorted three lines of Ritalin and I still can’t figure out what any of this has to do with Las Vegas?”
Hang in there.
A frequent question I have received since I started the practice is “What do you use for live blogging?”, and I will answer at least part of that question today.
In addition to adopting devices, I may very well have been one of the first people to “Live Blog” on a regular basis. I began posting live shots on my blog in real-time in 2005 or 2006, before Twitter or Posterous was a gleam in anyone’s eye. The practice is all the rage now, but back then it was tricky and rare … and in a weird way, that was half the fun.
With everyone and their grandmother grabbing a Blackberry or iPhone these days, the genre is quickly becoming over-saturated. “Here’s the 300th live shot of the Bellagio to be posted on Twitter in the last hour!” is starting to lose its appeal. Just because you pull a bandwagon for a couple of years doesn’t mean that it won’t eventually run you over. You need to hop on or grab hold of a new one. Even to this day, it’s damn near impossible to crop, edit, resize, or watermark cellphone photos.
All of this occurred to me while I was screwing around with the iPhone today.
You see, I already have a 13” MacBook Pro, a 17” MacBook Pro, and more recently … a 10” Toshiba netbook with 9 hours of battery life, a full-sized keyboard, a 160GB hard drive, and a webcam.
The cost for the 10”? $399.
As I sat and stared at the $299 iPhone, I openly wondered what in the hell it would do that my netbook would not.
While I like to say that I am able to do so, I just don’t spend that much time surfing the web on a 3” screen. Sure, having Google street view in the palm of my hand is great, but I can’t think of one time I’ve actually used it.
“I just pulled up directions to the furniture store at Oakey and Decatur, but let me see what it looks like from the middle of the road before we drive over there. If the awning is green, I don’t want to give them my business.”
Has the preceding line ever been uttered?
I’m also more of a mobile content provider than a consumer. People who spend the majority of time consuming information, such as reading or browsing, can easily live without a keyboard on a device such as an iPhone. People who spend the majority of their time providing content cannot live without a decent photo and text editor … and they certainly cannot do without an actual keyboard of some kind. I can’t even afford to follow people on mobile media sites because it eats my battery and clutters my miniscule Blackberry screen.
Screen size and keyboards are not the only reasons that smartphones are reaching a point of obsolescence here in town.
Even though Las Vegas is a backward third-world armpit in many ways, we are one of the only cities in the USA that currently has 4G “Wimax”.
I don’t want to sound like an advertisement because I’m sure the Clearwire corporation is staffed by a bunch of inept dickheads who will eventually ruin the product (they are a U.S. company after all), but I’ve been using 4G all over the city for months, and I’ve averaged anywhere from 1.5Mbps to 5Mbps depending on my location.
To put this into speed terms that most people will understand … I have DSL everywhere in the Las Vegas Valley. This includes cabs, the Monorail, the Deuce, sitting on the sidewalk, and even walking around.
A few weeks ago I took someone in Brooklyn on a real-time virtual tour of the Planet Hollywood casino by opening a video chat session and walking around with my laptop in front of me. After aiming my screen at the Pleasure Pit dancers, security asked me to stop, but they were fascinated enough to ask for a demonstration.
My MacBook at Serendipity 3
I sent live write-ups and photos from the Monopoly Championships via 4G. For the last several weeks, I’ve been the most consistent patron that Serendipity 3 has ever seen because the weather has been nice and the tables next to the restaurant have become a de-facto office for yours truly. I’ve replied to blog comments on this very site while playing poker live, and I’ve watched Hulu shows while waiting for a table to open.
All things considered, I have officially made a decision:
I’m not getting an iPhone, a Droid, or anything similar. It’s all about laptops and netbooks now. It’s been a great ten year run, but I am officially retiring from the latest-and-greatest smartphone market. Sure, there is a “gee-whiz” factor with these devices, but from a content creation and delivery standpoint … everything they do, they do poorly, and the current crop of netbooks are just too compelling to justify anything less than an actual computer.
Of course, just because I am not getting an iPhone does not mean that I will be going to the Apple Store any less often.
I certainly don’t want to deprive myself of the pleasure of browsing overpriced products while enjoying the company of my fellow Mac users and their dogs:
iPerson and her iDog at the Apple Store in Town Square
Fuck this, I’m going to Walmart.
Written by HuskerBB on November 23, 2009 at 3:06 pm
So I assume you have to sign up and pay for this 4G Wimax internet access? How much is it? Just seems unusual because for tourists free wifi seems hard to come by in Vegas and every strip hotel insists on charging for the internet access you get for free at every Comfort Inn in the country.
Written by Rex on November 23, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Yes, it’s $40/month for unlimited usage.
This is better than some smartphone-only data plans, except that 4G can only be used in Vegas, Portland, Baltimore, and a few other cities.
Written by BigRedDogATL on November 23, 2009 at 4:44 pm
The Clear Wimax is also available in Atlanta, the second city was made available in. Most people don’t know that there is a behind the scenes business relationship between Clear and Sprint. Eventually the two will merge. (They may even change the name to Clint (combo of Clear and Sprint) and take on the giants in the wireless internet game)
Written by forest park on November 23, 2009 at 5:59 pm
“Roaming” is available on the Clear network. It requires a dual band USB modem, about the same size as the current USB stick. The service is through Sprint’s network.
The cost of the “roaming” model is over $200.00
HTH
Written by Chuckreis on November 23, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Time Warner is also partnering up on the Clear Network. It launches here in Raleigh soon, but the prices are higher than $40 a month. Soon we will have Sprint, TWC and Clear all selling the same network.
Written by JamesAt15 on November 24, 2009 at 4:20 am
For what it’s worth, I love WalMart. I always visit one whenever I am back in the States to pick up cheap jeans, toiletries, socks, and other basics instead of hauling them across the Pacific. (Well, I do haul them back afterwards, but that’s still better by half.)
Written by ColinFromLasVegas on November 24, 2009 at 6:46 am
I’m not a computer geekoid lizard wizard, but I feel for you having to go to Town Square. I’m not meant for places like that. It’s like mixing ketchup with vanilla ice cream. It just don’t work.
I went there once with a friend and we ate some kind of metrosexual fancy sandwich at the Whole Foods. It was okay, I guess, but not enough MSG in it for me. After we got up to dispose of the trash, I had to put the plastic in the plastic bin, the paper in the paper bin, the glass in the glass bin, etc. They had so many bins, it confused the hell outta me. When I left, I expected to see two doors; one pointing for the obese people to leave through this one and the thin anorexic ones to go through this one.
Anyways, while sitting there eating healthy, my friend told me that Joe Perry (the guitarist from Aerosmith) pulled up with his bus once and they went into Whole Foods to shop. I just shook my head in disgust. My friend looked at me and asked what? I said, damnit, he’s a rock star! Cannot have rock stars eating healthy shit. Bad for that sex, drugs and rock and roll and life in the fast lane, die young and make a good looking corpse image. I mean, come on! Rock stars are all supposed to look like Keith Richards when they get older. IF they get older.
Well, anyways, we finished and he said you wanna go. I said, yeah, let’s get the hell outta here, this place is too damn healthy for me. Bad for my image eating healthy shit. Stick around in there much longer, I’ll be accused of being like Yool Gibbons and eating bark off of trees and turn batshit nature squirrelly hug a tree and turn Wiccan all of a sudden.
So much for me at Town Square.
And you just confirmed it, Rex. If I was there in an Apple Store at Town Square looking down at an ugly ass blue poodle, I would have puked. WalMart does sound exciting after that horrific image.
Written by bingosuitedotcom on November 25, 2009 at 9:46 am
I love Walmart…and once you loved it, you’ll always go back no matter how hard you try not to…