August 5, 2009

Fail.

This is a tech-related post but I have to vent about something so I’m putting it on my regular blog instead of posting it on one of my tech blogs.

The other day I posted that I started using an iPhone app called “TrailGuru” in tandem with my cycling. The app promises all sorts of geeky wizardry to accompany my cycling regimen by allowing me to track how many feet I climbed, how fast I went, how many calories I burned and the like. It even allows me to map my route to share with the world. The screen looks something like this.

trailguru.jpg

You will notice that in 1 hour, 10 minutes and 51 seconds I averaged 2.0 mph and traveled 2.38 mi. That’s riding _really_ slow.

Here’s the thing. Apple says that they give the premium computing experience to their users. They are the chicest of the chic, the finest of the fine and the shiniest of the shiny. This is why they have the power of approval on their app store; they don’t want anything installed on the iPhone that is going to compromise the iPhone experience. This fact has never been so prevalent than when Apple denied the addition of a Google Voice app, saying that it duplicated too much of what was already offered on the iPhone.

I guess I can get that, though I don’t really agree with it.

While TrailGuru promises the world through it’s application, it can’t really handle the iPhone very well. For two days in a row now the program has crashed whenever a text message is sent to my phone. The little pop-up comes up saying that I have a text message and then all is lost on TrailGuru. Everything but the timer comes to a halt, the battery drains and the phone gets really hot.

It’s a good thing this app is free.

There has been a small wave of iPhone abandonment in the tech world since the denial of Google Voice being added to the app store. I haven’t jumped on that bandwagon yet; for the most part I love my iPhone 3G dearly and I often find myself marveling at what I can do on this little technological wonder. However, I find it hypocritical of Apple to allow apps such as TrailGuru in all it’s crashing glory to be added to the app store fine and dandy when it can be crashed by something so obvious as a text message when they won’t allow better apps to be added because of a purported compromising of the Apple experience. That is kind of big brotherish.

In short, do I love my iPhone? Yes. Would I buy another one? No.

5 August 2009 by Geek 1

Talent.

So there has been some really big news today. Yes, two Americans were released from North Korea and there story is quite important, yes yes yes, but the big news today is more in the history making, monumental category.

Paula Abdul twittered that she is not returning to American Idol for it’s 9th season and Fox confirmed the breakdown in contract negotiations.

Sacré bleu!

Naturally, the failed contract negotiations are all about the money, with Ryan Seacrest reportedly making $45 million over the next three years while Paula was asking for around $12 million per year. News flash for Fox: I find Paula Abdul infinitely more entertaining than Ryan Seacrest and quite frankly, I think a lot of people agree with me.

There is the misconception that American Idol is about the talent and the next big superstar. Please. For much of the show’s run the talk around the water bubbler has been about Ms. Abdul and her erratic ways. While Ryan is doing his best to look butch…

Ryan Seacrest
Please note stubble. This is always a sign of a butch man.

… Paula always beat him to the punch, by looking like a Klingon.

paula20060221

While I love me some Paula Abdul (I still play “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” off my iPod), we have to admit that there is a sizable portion of the audience that doesn’t give two hoots about who sings the best and who is pitchy, what we want to see is some Paula meltdown with the hopes that Ryan will announce what number to dial on our AT&T phone to get some of what Paula is taking.

060124_Abdul_vmed_8p.widec

Randy “the Mad Dog Dawg Dawg baby Dawg Dawg” Jackson goes on and on and on and on and ON about how this is a talent show and how every year the talent is getting better and it’s all about the star quality yadda yadda yadda (when in fact the winner will be turned into a record company’s bitch for a year and be subjected to more auto-tune than should be legally allowed) but we know what it’s about. Yes, we agree with Simon most of the time and snicker at his staff written zingers. And we wonder where this Kara DioGuardi came from and really wish that she would take her poorly written songs home with her but in reality American Idol is the train wreck, the car accident, the scene that we can’t turn away from.

sanjaya070313

I mean the only way to distract yourself from what Ms. Abdul is up to is to play that fun game of “Remember Who They Used To Be Before They Went Plastic!”

priscilla20060509
An now-defunct blog, “Rotten Ryan”, once commented that Priscilla wouldn’t be identified as human in the middle of “It’s A Small World” at WDW. If I ever meet you Rotten Ryan, I will bow to you.

So while there will always be people that claim that American Idol is the showcase for what Old Glory has in the way of talent (hello? Carmen Rasmussen? Chicken Little Kevin Covais? Scott Savol?), many will claim that American Idol is just pure, trailer trash entertainment at it’s very best (and remember, I grew up in a trailer so I can say that), and much of that was because of Paula Abdul.

paula_abdul_drunk

Paula, we will miss you and I’m sure Fox will see a good-sized decrease in ratings. Let’s hope you continue to dance like there’s no tomorrow.

5 August 2009 by Everyone's A Critic. 3

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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