blog.ulfw.com

Yes. It is all true. The numerous reports you were able to read on the web:
- iPhone 3G signal and reception complaints pour in
- iPhone 3G: What’s the frequency?
- Some Customers with iPhone 3G Connection Issues
- iPhone 3G Reception Problems? You’re Not Alone - Continued
- 3G iPhone Signal Problems…Post Here!
- or just do a Google search.

I really TRIED to like my white 16GB iPhone 3G, but I just couldn’t. The phone is completely incapable of doing a 3G->2G handover, resulting in 1 to 0 bar coverage and subsequent call drops or ‘No Service’ notifiers. Never in my life had I seen more ‘Call failed’ or ‘No Service’ notifications on any phone (even back in the day on my Ericsson T28 nearly a decade ago).
At home? No possibility to hold or make a call reliably. 0-1 bars reception. No 2G fallback.
At work? No reception.
On the 5 mile stretch to work? Reception, but 2-3 times the call is dropped.
Essentially I had a phone with ‘no bars in more places‘.

Also when the phone was on 3G it barely even lasted till the afternoon, let alone a full day. If there ever was reception, download speeds were barely twice that of EDGE. Most of the time they were pretty much the same.
So I ended up having 3G deactivated the lasts two weeks. Now that I was nearing my 30-day return window, I did the only sensible thing I could do and returned my 3G. This in itself was a horrible multi-hour experience at The Grove Apple store in LA and subsequently the at&t store on Beverly and things are still not worked out right (e.g. they haven’t reverted my 2-year contract extension, even though they should). AT&T says I need proof I returned the phone to Apple. Apple says there is nothing they can do. Their system should automatically do it. So now I’m on a 2-year extension without getting a cheaper or free phone. Just to show my love to ma’bell at&t.
Speculation is running wild on whether it is at&t’s bad network (though other 3G devices allegedly work well), Apple’s secrecy behind developing the phone and thus limited testing or Infineon’s 3G chipset.

Maybe it’s just me and no one else has a problem with this. But apparently it is a fact that I am too stupid to read CAPTCHAs like this and type it right:

Whenever one of these dreadful things shows up on a website (e.g. to add a user on MySpace or change your user info on Yahoo! or change your password on Google etc.) I have to give to between two and three tries on average before I get to the next screen. No matter how thoroughly I try to read them for some reason I always get the wrong at first.

I mean, come on. What do these really mean?

No iPhone 3G for me this month:
Not that I am missing TOO much. After all, (nice but still buggy) Firmware 2.0 brought most of the feature enhancements of iPhone 3G to the old iPhone (except GPS, which is somewhat pointless without navigation) and faster speeds (though how much faster remains to be seen).
The kicker for me though is the arrogance that Apple and at&t show to their loyal customers. Not only have I seen looooong lines everywhere the last couple of days. But no. Apparently Apple/at&t are not willing to sell to me. Period.
Some background info: I am on at&t’s ‘Premier’ discount for Stanford. Essentially you get a 15% discount on your bill. Now, I even forgot I was on that - considering - well - that I haven’t gotten ANY discount the last year or so (’Sorry iPhone is ineligible’). Now that I am still technically on this ‘discounted’ contract though, at&t corporate stores are the only places I am allowed to buy the new iPhone 3G at. Apple will not sell to me (’sorry - no Premier contracts. It’s an at&t rule.’), while at&t continues to treat it’s customers like crap. I have been to three stores today. What I heard was:
- Store A in Palo Alto: No reply. I stood there 10 mins without anyone bothering to talk to me. Then when I asked a store clerk who passed by he said: ‘oh we got only 9 devices in. They are all sold’. 9 devices. Btw - this store was the highest grossing at&t store in the country in 2006/07!
- Store in Belmont: Wouldn’t even let me into the store. ‘Sorry no devices. You can pay NOW and then come back to the store in 10 business days to pick it up’. Same story at store 3.

Now, I am moving in 12 days (9 business days) and the fact is:
- Apple is not willing to sell to me even though they have plenty of devices in stock
- at&t is not able to sell to me directly, only by order and PICKUP instore
- I have to be physically at the store I ordered the phone in (i.e. I can’t order in LA now as I am not in town yet, and I can’t order in SF as I will be in LA by the time the devices get here)
- No mail order. Period. You HAVE to be PHYSICALLY at the store even though they don’t actually HAVE any ACTUAL phones to sell to you.

So - no iPhone 3G for me. No $300 for Apple, no $375 for at&t (the ridiculous $15/month price increase over 24 months). For some odd reason, I don’t feel so bad about this now.

It turns out, my silly Mobile Trick video made it to Germany’s largest newsmagazine and website DER SPIEGEL. See here.
Of course, DER SPIEGEL (The Mirror) being German there had to be a slight negative angle to the story:

which translates into:
“Scrolling-Display

In the video titled “Mobile Messenger” you’re not seeing fantasy functions as before. But the messages in large scrolling type, which can also be read across the meeting room table are bringing true high school behavior into a meeting.”

Whatever… I’m on DER SPIEGEL! Woot woot!
Original video is here.

Today Effie and Lawrence organized a little going-away meeting/party in our Building’s microkitchen. Effie baked an awesome chocolate cake that looked like an iPhone with the sneezing Panda video on it while Lawrence set the whole thing up and took a video or two as well.
Creative as Googlers are, we organized a little round of Four Square to keep us occupied:

Effie’s super awesome cake:

A funny Saturday Night Live skit I found on hulu:

Setup your MySpace page at the Learning Annex

Bill Gates is finally stepping down from his duties at Microsoft. Today a hillarious internal email was published that he sent to a few of his employees depicting his difficulties of downloading and installing Windows Movie Maker.

My favorite excerpt:
“Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

What an absolute mess.
”

Couldn’t have said it better than him…

Today we launched a mobile tricks campaign, where Googlers and everyone else alike is sharing a few (quirky) tricks and tips what they can do with their mobile phone.

I felt compelled to volunteer two of my own. The way those came together were pretty much:
Effie: Ulf, I need you to do at least two videos.
Ulf: Hm ok. No idea. When do you need them?
Effie: Can you come down NOW please?
Ulf: Er… hm.. ok…

Frankly I couldn’t come up with something valuable yet funny on the spot, so I just went with two time wasters.

Mobile Messenger:

I love Pandas:

So I heard there’s a new iPhone coming. I wonder if that’s true. People are mentioning things like GGG and Gee Pee Ess etc. No idea what they’ve been smoking.
Anyways - I feel like I’ll be camping out again on July 11th. Even though I have to say Video iChat and a 3+ MP camera would have been nice. Oh well. iPhone 3.0 here we come…

One thing to mention though: the ‘cheap’ price of $199 for the 8GB model is a lie. Don’t be fooled.
Fact is: AT&T is raising data prices by $10 a month or 24x$10 = $240 over the course of the 2yr (mandatory) contract, thus increasing the total price for the phone to $439 (vs. $399 for the current model). Weird how Steve Jobs completely forgot to mention that…
Update 2: at&t is going more and more ridiculous. So - SMS are NOT included anymore either (used to be 200 SMS included), making a $5 SMS plan necessary and driving up monthly cost for the ‘cheaper’ iPhone 3G to now $15/month extra = $360 over the contract term. Thus the new ‘cheaper’ iPhone is estimated to cost a total of $559 vs. $399 for the older ‘more expensive’ iPhone.

Yay! My new car finally made it to me, after a long 10 week wait and eager anticipation while it crossed the Atlantic and the Panama Canal.
Of course I had to snap a few early pics yesterday in a gorgeous location - the Stanford Oval.