It's been a month since couldn't resist all the hype and bought an iPhone. And, like most others who couldn't wait, I'm enoying it very much. It's shape, weight and vivid display makes you want to use it again and again and I catch myself several times a day just checking the weather or the stock quotes. No doubt, Apple did an amazing job in engineering the iPhone and one can only imagine how the design departments of the Motorolas, Nokias and Samsungs of this world feel after they were so easily overhyped by Apple.
Of course the iPhone is not perfect, but who could expect that. There's the AT&T network for example. Yes, I'd love to have 3G as anybody else, but I agree with Apple that battery life and form factor are more important. It's a phone after all and not your primary device to surf the web. But somehow it seems that AT&T has found a way to make phones to live up to their "raising the bar" slogan without actually improving the effective quality of the net. Sometimes the phone shows 5 bars, 2 bars and "No service" within minutes without you changing locations. And 5 bars doesn't mean that the data connection is good anyway: it can be still slow or non existent. If everything comes together well, though, EDGE provides enough bandwidth for most websites and even YouTube movies.
Then there are the 4 classical PDA apps: calendar, contacts, notes and todo lists. Only contacts is on par with other PDAs. Calendar misses some vital functions (a weekly overview, more than just the simplest repeat options), Notes doesn't sync with anything and due to the missing cut and past functionality cannot be used for actually taking notes from websites, e-mails etc and todo lists are non-existent. I understand that Apple had to get the iPhone out of the door at some time, but I really hope that we'll see some improvement here in one of the next software releases.
What I really like, though, is rarely mentioned: the home button, which takes you to the home screen in all situations. Whatever the iPhone is doing, pressing that button works without delay. Try that with a Treo - if it's busy then you may have to wait. Even a cancel button often just takes you to a screen saying "Cancelling" and then you have to wait even longer. It seems equipping the iPhone with a modern OS really pays off.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Common Ground
We felt kind of helpless, when our favorite Friday night hangout Bar on A was closed for renovations. It didn't exactly seem to be scheduled, so we guess a certain New York City agency might be involved in this sudden closure. (Later we discovered that Nice Guy Eddie's was closed as well, so maybe there was a crack down on Avenue A last week).
Anyway, something like this is always a good moment to break habits and so we tried Keybar (which was packed with seemingly non-locals), Mug, that went through a recent renovation and served terrific Schneider Weisse from the bottle (for $8 though) and then finally Common Ground, a new pub on Avenue B.
Although Common Ground is new, it's a very traditional place, with chandeliers and a large, dark wooden bar. They have a nice selection of beers, most notably the two brands that make us happy: Brooklyn Lager and Sierra Nevada. A CD-driven jukebox runs the gamut from oldies and brand new stuff and our two last CD purchases, the Kaiserchiefs and The Killers were power-played by others and us. The specialty of this place is the bar food, though. Since there's no real kitchen, the chef had to be creative for the better. No burgers (which we came for originally, because what is a common ground food if not burgers), but quesadilla, french pizza, various dips and everything usually with a nice twist. We enjoyed it very much.
The downturn were the two barkeepers. Both were really nice girls, but they were intensely engaged with some guests, which made us feel like outsiders. With one of the girls we weren't even sure if she was on shift, because she exclusively served two friends sitting next to us. There was not much business, so we cannot complain about being neglected, but the vibe the two bartenders created doesn't really make us want to come back. The food however does.
And another thing (if any bartender reads this): please do not offer "the next one is on me" after we order our third beer. It's certainly meant as a nice gesture, but it also makes us drinking more than we want to.
Anyway, something like this is always a good moment to break habits and so we tried Keybar (which was packed with seemingly non-locals), Mug, that went through a recent renovation and served terrific Schneider Weisse from the bottle (for $8 though) and then finally Common Ground, a new pub on Avenue B.
Although Common Ground is new, it's a very traditional place, with chandeliers and a large, dark wooden bar. They have a nice selection of beers, most notably the two brands that make us happy: Brooklyn Lager and Sierra Nevada. A CD-driven jukebox runs the gamut from oldies and brand new stuff and our two last CD purchases, the Kaiserchiefs and The Killers were power-played by others and us. The specialty of this place is the bar food, though. Since there's no real kitchen, the chef had to be creative for the better. No burgers (which we came for originally, because what is a common ground food if not burgers), but quesadilla, french pizza, various dips and everything usually with a nice twist. We enjoyed it very much.
The downturn were the two barkeepers. Both were really nice girls, but they were intensely engaged with some guests, which made us feel like outsiders. With one of the girls we weren't even sure if she was on shift, because she exclusively served two friends sitting next to us. There was not much business, so we cannot complain about being neglected, but the vibe the two bartenders created doesn't really make us want to come back. The food however does.
And another thing (if any bartender reads this): please do not offer "the next one is on me" after we order our third beer. It's certainly meant as a nice gesture, but it also makes us drinking more than we want to.
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