Apple Store + O2 + IE = FAIL!

It can't have escaped anyone's attention that today ushers in the new Apple iPhone 3G!

To insulate myself from indulging in an act of rampant consumerism (thereby reinforcing the status quo). I've kept clear of Apple Store Princesshay and the O2 Shop, Exeter! Not that there was any real cause for concern...

In a deliciously ironic twist (as noted by Twitter peeps @marceatsworld and @babblestorm), Apple Stores were unable to process activations due to O2's online shop only 'playing nice' with IE and, well, surprisingly the Apple Stores only use Macs and Safari! D'oh! How old school is that? We're living in a so-called platform-agnostic age people! Allegedly... Ask the developers behind Google Lively if you don't believe me (requires Windows XP or Vista)!

If you did succumb to the charms of a new iPhone, please post a comment and fuel the envy! I'm cutting this post short as MobileMe continues to FailMe!

Updated with added coolness!
Yesterday, in a most shocking development, my 'coolness' was cast into doubt! As a Mac-owning blogger that's unthinkable!

Danny Franks linked to this blog in his post Why I Refuse to Blog! Little did Danny know that my legion of peeps would alert me to this disturbance in the force!

I've always been a good sport and there's no such thing as bad publicity in my book! Therefore in the spirit of goodwill and Danny's subsequent genial e-mail. I'd like to sincerely wish Danny every success with his blogging (or not as the case may be)! I'll be keeping tabs. However, rest assured that blasters will be set to stun!

Special thanks to Google for ranking Generation Star Wars so highly in "Star Wars blog" searches!

WWDC 2008 AKA The Day the Earth Stood Still

The title of this post is somewhat overblown and pretentious! It's not entirely without some merit as an in-joke; Twitter has been electric with, witty, sci-fi references regarding announcements beamed from the Apple mothership, I only needed to mention that Exeter was thundery and my Twitter peeps were inspired to alude to ID4 amongst others.

My initial reaction to Steve Jobs keynote is mostly positive, mostly!

The new iPhone 3G looks most compelling. I'm sold on the 16GB model (in limited edition white) and will be contacting my O2 Shop in short order: as soon as tomorrow. Assuming O2 can offer a good pay-as-you-go plan, alongside the £269 price tag, for an iPhone 3G, July 11th can't come soon enough! An iPod touch 32GB is on order for wireless browsing around the home.

.mac is to morph into MobileMe and e-mail addresses can be transferred, if desired, to @me.com. However, a free service would've been welcomed! Apple's e-mail solution looks like a poor investment against highly featured, and free, services such as Google's Gmail! I'll review MobileMe once it becomes available, from July, and make it known whether or not subscribing for a fee-based service is worthwhile in the long-term!

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was previewed: “We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Breaking news: Aliens have invaded Apple Store Princesshay...

Apple + Twitter

Follow tomorrow's Apple WWDC 2008 breaking news on Twitter and discover whether or not I'll be buying an iPhone 2! It'll be up to Steve Jobs to convince me!

Friend me on popular social networks: claimID.

The O2 Arena

The halo of geek chic is in full effect and WWDC enjoys a public profile comparable to Macworld!

The buzz surrounding next week's WWDC 2008 is bordering on the feverish! Only a brand with Apple's mindshare could garner such frenetic excitement, from the mainstream mass media, for what is, arguably, exclusively a 'developers delight'!

Not only is there incessant talk of the iPhone 2/3G, there's Mac OS X 10.5.4 (didn't we all just download 10.5.3 last week?), Mac OS X 10.6 codenamed 'Snow Leopard', and a much-needed .mac makeover! The latter holds the most compelling secrets, and may convince me to renew my subscription in October!

Everything hinges on the iPhone 2 and whether or not O2, the exclusive UK network carrier, offers Apple's second generation mobile device at a compelling price point alongside pay-as-you-go deals! If so, I'm sold and it'll be goodbye Orange! Readers who watch Channel Four's Dispatches series will appreciate the pay-as-you-go bias!

Further to the iPhone and .mac refresh, I'm predicting that there'll be an announcement regarding a new portable device called Mac nano...