The End of the Mac As We Know It (Reflections Upon Snow Leopard)

This blog entry was originally posted on September 8, 2009, on the original This Lamp website and has been moved to this location.

 

You realize, of course, that with the advent of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), the Mac is dead.

Bear with me.

I left Windows for good in 1998. I was promised by other Mac users that I was entering a computing nirvana. I was told that Macs never crashed and life would be so much more productive once I made the switch. Well, there was mixed truth in that. I do believe I was more productive--not because Macs never crashed, though. Rather they simply crashed less than Windows machines did.

But Macs had problems of their own. Memory management on the Mac was a mess, in my opinion, in 1998. The Mac OS at that time still used cooperative multitasking, something that Windows had already graduated from by then. And programs on the old Mac OS had set limits from RAM. So, if a program regularly crashed or ran out of memory, you could go into the properties for that program and set the memory to a higher limit. The problem, however, was that once that higher limit was set, the program would use that much memory even when it didn't need it. I heard longtime Mac users talk about this ability to control a program's upper limit of memory as a feature of the Mac OS. You couldn't do that in Windows, after all! But really, in Windows, you didn't need to. I wondered why the Mac OS wasn't smart enough to adjust its own memory.

Nevertheless, I stuck with the Mac, and I've never looked back. I don't stay simply because I'm heavily invested in Mac software (and hardware) at this point. I was heavily invested in Windows software (and hardware) in 1998. I really do believe I'm more productive on a Mac. In fact, I have this little daydream that if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, and do things over with, I'd have simply used Macs from the beginning. At what point could this have become a reality?

During my freshman year in college, I had a professor warn us during orientation not to use computers for our papers. He said that he and a number of other instructors simply would not accept computer typed papers because they were too hard to read. Those nine-pin dot matrix printers really were too light, you know. So in spite of the fact that I'd been using a computer (a TRS-80 Color Computer) at home since I was 14, and in spite of the fact that I had taken the first computer class my high school ever offered, when I had completed my first quarter in college, I asked my folks to get me a typewriter for Christmas. Sounds pretty lame now.

But hey, it was a great typewriter. A Smith-Corona with spellcheck. Whenever I misspelled a word, the computer beeped alerting me to my error. Then I was able to back up, slip a piece of white correction film between the keys and the paper, retype the misspelled word and then type the correct one. How convenient! Not really.

So, what if for Christmas, 1986, instead of asking for a typewriter, I had simply asked for a Mac Plus? Our campus bookstore carried them at the time. And back then Apple gave significant student discounts. That would have definitely been a game changer.

Or what about 1991? I was about to go off to seminary, and my stepfather informed me that a friend of his said every seminary student needed a good computer. He asked me what kind of computer I wanted. I settled on a 20 MHz CompuAdd 386sx running DOS and Windows 3.0. We bought a copy ofWordPerfect 5.1 for DOS so that I'd be ready for school.

But what if I'd asked for a Macintosh II or a Macintosh LC? Again, it would have been a game changer. To this day, I still have files nearly two decades old that I have to go through all kinds of hoops if I need to open them. Most of them, I don't really need to open, but I'd like to be able just in case. Or occasionally, I become determined to try to update them, but really, who has the time?

Yet, as I entertain my little daydream now and then, I realized one day that there's very little continuity between the Macs of the eighties and nineties and the computers called Macs today. You see, none of use running current computers called MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros are really using Macs in the original sense of the word. Actually, we using NeXT machines with the label "Mac" on them.

Consider the following quick timeline:

1984: Apple releases the first Macintosh computer using the Motorola 68000 microprocessor.

1985: John Sculley removes Steve Jobs from the Macintosh division which prompts Jobs to leave Apple and form NeXT, Inc.

1989: NeXT releases its first workstation using the NeXTSTEP operating system and a Motorola 68030 processor.

1993: NeXT gets out of the hardware business and NeXTSTEP is ported to Intel's 486 processor as well as RISC and SPARC platforms.

1994: Apple transitions to the RISC PowerPC architecture.

1996: Apple buys NeXT and with it the NeXT OS, now called OpenSTEP.

1997: Steve Jobs regains control of Apple.

2000: OpenSTEP, now renamed "Mac OS X" is released to Mac users as a public beta.

2001: Mac OS X 1.0 is released. Older "Classic" Mac applications can be converted to run on OS X's Carbon layer.

2002: Apple official declares end of development for Mac OS 9 ("Classic").

2006: Apple discontinues use of PowerPC architecture in favor of Intel processors.

2007: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") which does not allow any older Mac software to run in "Classic" mode, even on computers on which it previously ran.

2009: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"), the first version of OS X which will only run on Intel architecture, thus ending any upgrade path for PowerPC architecture.


What this means, my friends, is that none of us using current "Mac" (quotation marks on purpose) computers and software are actually using Macs at all. Actually, we're running NeXTSTEP machines that have simply been labeled as Macs. The transition didn't come all at once. It started with the move from OS 9 to OS X. Then we saw a transition away from PowerPC processors (which Apple claimed for years were superior to Intel processors). And now we see NeXTSTEP, I mean OS X, running only on Intel processors.

So, let's go back to my little daydream. If I had it to do over, what is actually the actual straight path to current Macs? Is it the actual Macintosh line beginning in 1984 or is it actually the NeXT platform launched in 1989? From the perspective of the current OS and perhaps even the processor architecture, and if one considers the evolution of NeXT itself, it's the latter.

This isn't a recent revelation for me. Rather, I first pondered it while watching the documentary Macheads. As I watched people obsess over "Mac culture" and old Mac computers, I thought to myself, that entire platform exists no longer. We're all running NeXT machines.

However, I don't really wish I'd bought a NeXT machine back in the late eighties or early nineties (not that I could have afforded it!). If you look at something as basic as a word processing application, I don't know of any word processors written for NeXT that are still around. There was a version of WordPerfect available for NeXT, but WordPerfect doesn't even exist on the Mac anymore as it once did. No, in my daydream, If I had it to do over with, I'd still get a Mac instead of the Windows machine that I actually began with. Ultimately because Apple (under Jobs' guidance) transitioned Mac users so efficiently from the classic Mac platform to what was once called NeXT OpenSTEP and now OS X, most of us were never even overly aware it was happening.

Ultimately, I don't care if it's a Mac or a NeXT machine that's being called a Mac. I'd rather be here than stuck in Windows (no offense to those of you still there).

And there's some irony here as well. In the end Jobs got the ultimate revenge. He got ousted from his company, so he started a new one. His old company buys the new one and then his new one takes over, ridding itself of all vestiges of the original buyer. And with the release of Snow Leopard, all of what was once the original Mac is now gone--Classic OS, PowerPC architecture and the rest.

Thus, it's the end of the Mac as we know it.

...and I feel fine.

"Revised" HCSB Printed Texts Slated for 2010

This blog entry was originally posted on September 4, 2009 at the previous This Lamp location and has been moved here.

The information below is the sum of an email exchange I had this afternoon with Jeremy Howard at B&H Publishing. He unexpectedly (from my perspective) contacted me in regard to the post I wrote a year ago about the Disciples Study Bible revision in the works. Howard gave me permission to present the material below to readers of This Lamp.

First the bad news...

Evidently, we will not see the 2009 copyright Holman Christian Standard Bible in print this year as originally planned. It will be available beginning in 2010.

And the good news? I have a list of upcoming "2009 text" HCSB releases.

February, 2010: The Apologetics Study Bible for Students. This will mark the first "2009 text" HCSB in printed form. This Bible is edited by Sean McDowell, son of Josh McDowell. 



October, 2010: The HCSB Study Bible.



2013: The Disciples Study Bible will be published completely revised from the former edition with many new features and with numerous new contributors. It will probably be released under a different name.

Undoubtedly, other editions may fall in between those dates--especially before the 2013 release--as B&H Publishing transitions between the old and new texts.

A few notes:
(1) At this point, there are no plans by B&H Publishing to refer to the new edition of the HCSB as either "revised" or as a "second edition." I've used "2009 text" above for clarity, but that's merely my designation. Once the new editions are in print, the copyright page will be the primary way of determining the newer text.

(2) If you want to get a copy of the 2009 text HCSB right now, you may want to consider purchasing the text in WORDsearch where it is already availble:



I do not know of any other way to obtain the 2009 text HCSB as of this writing.

(3) On a personal note: in recent years, I’ve said that I recommended three different translations for primary Bibles: the HCSB, TNIV, and NLT. I felt those three translations provided a broad spectrum for Bible readers on numerous levels. With the events of this past week, I’m no longer recommending the TNIV, and I certainly don’t recommend the NIV as a primary Bible either as it is too dated.

I am still enthusiastic about the HCSB and NLT, however. The HCSB is, in my estimation, unsurpassed in technical accuracy above and beyond any translation on the market. And the NLT contains the most conversational English of any contemporary translation.

For anyone considering an alternative to the TNIV, I’d recommend looking at both the NET Bible and the NRSV as the TNIV fell somewhere in between these two.

Thoughts & Predictions on the 2011 NIV (and a Requiem for the TNIV)

This entry was originally posted on September 2, 2009, at the original This Lamp website. It has been relocated here.

I'll admit... I gave up on the TNIV a while back. Yet, in spite of that, I still used it. A few months ago, I'd begun teaching from the NLT on Sundays. This class I teach on Sunday mornings has on average 40 or so in attendance each week. I believe the NLT is a great translation, but honestly, unless everyone has the NLT with them, it takes more work to use it in an interactive forum. So, in the last two or three weeks, I went back to using the TNIV more. There really is great value in a median translation.

Today's announcement of the 2011 NIV honestly didn't surprise me, but it did sadden me a bit. I feel like the TNIV never really got a fighting chance. I realize some people sincerely opposed some of the changes in the TNIV, but at the same time, some took this to the zealot level and created a disinformation campaign. Charges that it removed masculinity with numbers counting the fewer times that man occurred is one example. Really, let's compare the ESV and the RSV and see, if on that standard, the ESV has created a less masculine Bible (by that standard, it has: man or men in the RSV--4028 hits; only 3354 hits in the ESV).

And I can still remember a friend of mine, whom after hearing my suggestion to buy a TNIV said, "I don't want any Bible that refers to God as mother." An anti-TNIV zealot had told him as much.

Such charges were nonsense. Nevertheless, they kept people from buying the TNIV. A few years back, I wrote about the owner of a Christian bookstore who told me that she couldn't carry the TNIV because a prominent pastor in town told her that if she carried it, he'd tell all of his congregation to boycott her store. Major chains and up to 50% of CBA stores refused to carry the TNIV. Yet, at the same time, they'd carry the NLT, the Message, the NCV and others that also had gender accurate/inclusive language. It was clearly a double standard.

Further, neither the International Bible society (now Biblica) nor Zondervan could make themselves part with the NIV. The NIV has continued to be promoted by both entities to the neglect of the TNIV. And perhaps this is the real reason the TNIV just couldn't take off. There was simply too much money in the NIV. The TNIV was supposed to be more accurate. Yet recent promotions talked about accuracy for particular generations. In spite of the nonsense about the TNIV being aimed to an 18 to 34 year old crowd, Zondervan never did make the kind of logical steps necessary to transition to the TNIV, such as to refit the very popular Student Bible text with the TNIV. Such a move would have made sense by Zondervan's own promotional copy about the TNIV, but it never happened.

I've long maintained that the standard for transitioning to a new translation was set by Tyndale House when they released the New Living Translation in 1996. At the time, the Living Bible was still in the top five selling translations. I've never been told for certain, but I would guess that Tyndale probably took a financial hit at first when they decided to completely stop production on all but one edition of the Living Bible. IBS and Zondervan simply never could bring themselves to take the painful step.

So, will they be able to do it now? Yes, I know the promises were made today that they would. But what happens if the editors of the very successful Archaeological Study Bible decide they don't like the 2011 NIV? Will Zondervan stay true to their word and remove a bestselling Bible from the market? I can tell you right now, that if they aren't willing to make the hard moves, the NIV 2011 won't have any more success than the TNIV did. Zondervan has to stick to its guns, regardless of criticism. And there will be criticism.

When it comes down to it, if you like the TNIV, you can keep using it. No one is going to stop you. There are so many English translations out there, and updates seem to come so quickly these days, is there anything wrong with simply sticking with one, regardless what others use?

Nevertheless, here are my predictions for the time being.

(1) Get your TNIVs while you can as they will become more difficult than ever to find. Yes, I know that it's promised that the TNIV won't be phased out until the 2011 NIV is in print. But come on. I put 2009 and not 2011 on the tombstone above for a reason. For the most part Zondervan's never been that keen on the TNIV. They certainly can't be found in stores. Do you really think that as supplies dwindle, they'll crank up another print run? No way. Who knows--they may even be collectors' items one day. It kind of makes me regret deciding to start writing in the margins of my TNIV Renaissance Leather Reference Edition.

(2) The 2011 NIV will be more gender inclusive than the ESV, but less so than the TNIV. Keep in mind that the ESV is already more gender inclusive than the 1984 NIV--compare Matt 10:41 in both the NIV and ESV, for instance. And the ESV regularly includes inclusive renderings in the footnotes, but avoids them in the text (see Matt 5:47; 23:8; 25:40, etc.). For verses like these, the 2011 NIV will continue to use inclusive readings in the text. So the 2011 NIV will readily render ἀδελφοὶ as brothers and sisters and put in the text what the ESV translators are content to keep in the footnotes. Having said that, however, expect to see more controversial readings such as those found in Psalm 34:20 and 1 Tim 2:5 retreat back to traditional readings.

(3) Say goodbye to the Singular They. This is an easy compromise. I've always grudgingly accepted the singular they because I recognize its purpose and near ubiquitous use in informal communication. Yet, as I read from James 5:13-15 at church this past Sunday, I cringed internally. I imagine this will be an easy fix. Whether or not the CBT will decide to use a lot more second persons or retreat to masculine universals, I cannot say.

(4) Regardless of how much the progress of the TNIV is compromised in the 2011 NIV, it will still be controversial. The CBT is simply not going to satisfy some of the detractors out there. That crowd actually dislikes the NIV, too. The TNIV was simply their excuse to rail and promote "other" translations. Most of these folks will do the same thing to the 2011 NIV. However, if Zondervan can get Lifeway and other CBA stores to carry the 2011 NIV where the TNIV was forbidden, they will have at least made some progress.

(5) As we wait for the 2011 NIV, expect the 1984 NIV to keep on selling. I've already read some speculation that announcing the 2011 NIV so early might keep people from buying the current NIV. There's nothing for Zondervan to worry about here. You and I may be aware of the 2011 NIV, but for the average person in the pew, it will remain off radar--perhaps even after it's finally released. For the average person, the NIV will still be the NIV. Thus, sticking with that name may be the best idea yet.

And as for me, I'll always remember the TNIV with great fondness. It was surely the best translation that nobody ever read.

When the 2011 NIV finally reaches my hands, I'll be glad to evaluate it on its own merits, although it will be difficult not to compare it to the TNIV. Nevertheless, if I decide I do, in fact, like the 2011 NIV, can I finally get a real wide margin edition for the love of Margaret?!

This Just In: the NIV to Be Updated as "NIV 2011"; TNIV to Be Discontinued

This entry was originally posted on September 1, 2009 at the original This Lamp website. It has been relocated here.

Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society) has just announced that the 1984 NIV Bible will be updated in terms of both language and scholarship as the "NIV 2011."

From the press release:

The global board of Biblica today announced its intention to update the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, the first time it has been revised since 1984. The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), the independent body of global biblical scholars solely responsible for the translation of the world’s most popular Bible, is slated to finish its revision late next year, with publication in 2011. The announcement was made at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill., the site of the historic first meeting of the CBT in 1965.

I watched the announcement this morning live via webcast. Presentations were made by Keith Danby, CEO-Biblica (former IBS-STL Global); Professor Doug Moo, Committee on Bible Translation and Moe Girkins, President and CEO, Zondervan.

Above: Douglas Moo speaking about the new NIV 2011

During the Q&A, Moe Girkins announced that the TNIV would be discontinued and there would be no more TNIV products released. More specifically, she stated that after the release of the 2011 NIV, no new 1984 NIV will be published either. To be clear, in the longterm, Zondervan plans to eventually discontinue publishing both the 1984 NIV and the 2005 TNIV, but how long of a transition between the current NIV and TNIV remains to be seen.

Also during the Q&A, Girkins confirmed that the 2011 NIV will simply be called the "NIV."

The second question responded to during the Q&A was submitted by myself. I wanted to know the relationship of the TNIV to the new 2011 NIV as I had understood that the TNIV was the update to the NIV. Doug Moo fielded the question. The relationships between the NIV and the TNIV aren't exactly clear currently as the entire 2011 NIV Bible is under revew.

For more infomation, see the NIV Bible 2011 website.

I Saw a Good Mother Today

This entry was originally posted on August 25, 2009, on the original This Lamp website. It has been relocated here.

I saw a good mother today.

Often I remind people that since I don’t have children of my own yet, I consider myself an expert on parenting. Granted that’s a joke. But there is some truth to it nonetheless. Why? Because I watch very carefully how other people parent their children. I don’t overtly set out to do this, but it just happens. And I think it happens for two reasons. First, I really do want to be a good parent myself one day, and I often learn from example (or bad examples). Second, since Kathy and I have not been able to have our own children (we’re now in the adoption process), I pay close attention to how parents relate to their children. Do they appreciate them, or do they take them for granted?

You’re in a social setting with us. Your children are there, too. Am I watching you? Yes. I’m sorry. I’m also drawing conclusions. I try not to be judgmental, but I am sometimes. Do you have any idea how lucky you really are?

Do you?

So, this afternoon, I was having an early dinner at a fast food restaurant before the class I would teach tonight. There weren’t too many people there at that time of day. It was not my goal to watch others’ interactions. Like always, it just kind of happened. I had brought my Mac in with me, but I never opened it. The mother and her little boy two tables in front of me were much more interesting.

Since they were in my line of sight, I ran less of a chance of getting caught staring. A couple of times, the mother’s eyes met mine. Both times, she smiled pleasantly. I smiled back, and she resumed her attention to her son. For that moment of the afternoon, he was her world completely, and she was his. She was not preoccupied with a phone or text conversation, a magazine, or any other person or thing. Just him, only him.

The mother talked sweetly to her son the entire time, and yet she never talked down to him. When she walked across the room to get a straw, she said to him, "Watch mama's purse." Of course, in his high chair he could do no such thing. But he looked at her and smiled nonetheless.

She did not feed him fast food, but had a little box of the circus animal crackers. She used a basic snack as an opportunity for learning. She pulled each of the animals out and placed them on a napkin before the little boy, naming them as she went. And it wasn't just a bear; it was a koala bear. The little boy tried to repeat each animal after her, smiling with delight at saying the names.

When he reached for her soda, she said, "Oh, no, you can't have that. It's pure sugar. Here, drink your water. "

This young woman wasn't just the boy's mother; she was his first teacher. I thought of my first teachers. I don't remember it, but I'm told that in a week I spent with my grandmother at the same age as this little boy, she purposefully sang the alphabet the entire week--while she was cooking, cleaning, and playing with me. She said she did that so that by the time my mother picked me up, I was singing it, too.

I do, however, remember sitting in my mother's lap as a child while she read to me--Bible stories and Little Golden Books. She didn't just read to me; she interacted with me, much like the mother I watched today with her little boy. My mother used to point to the pictures and ask me questions. She eventually started pointing out the letters in the words. By the time I entered elementary school, I already knew how to read--often to the exasperation of my first teachers, one of whom complained to my mother "You left me nothing to teach him!"

There's always more to teach--if one is a capable teacher.

I have no idea if this mother devotes her attention to her little boy so exclusively, all the time. She probably doesn't. However, I thouht to myself as I watched them talk and look into each others' eyes, that if this was even the average kind of time they spent together, then that little boy would have every opportunity in the world to do well.

Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 2: Printing

This entry was originally posted on August 7, 2009, on the original This Lamp website. It has been relocated here.

Who needs to be able to print from Bible software? They’re all electronic documents anyway, right? Well, I believe I can, in fact, defend the need to print and attempt do so in this second comparison between Libronix for the Mac and Accordance. Due to the length of this video (23 minutes), I had to break it up into three segments for YouTube. However, you can see a high-def version of the video in its entirety from my MobileMe Gallery (recommended).

Segment A



Segment B



Segment C

---

See also
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1: "Speed" Search
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1.1: Speed Search Revisited

And if you haven’t read the newest review of Accordance, “Accordance 8: the Best Just Got Better” by Rubén Gómez, by all means check it out now.

Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1.1: Speed Search Revisited

This entry was originally posted on August 3, 2009 on the original This Lamp website and has been relocated here.

Before moving to the next part of the comparison, I thought it might be worth revisiting the initial speed search comparisons between Libronix and Accordance. A number of folks suggested that my computer was running Libronix (and presumably Accordance, since it was under the same conditions) a bit slower than it should have been. I removed a particular application that had been making my core temperature run hot as well as spinning my fans up on average of twice what they should be. As you’ll see in this new video, Libronix is, indeed, faster but still significantly slower than Accordance, and slower--in my opinion--that Bible software ought to be.



For high-def versions of this video, go to my MobileMe Gallery.

And if you think that speed is not that big of a deal, I’d encourage you to read this post on the Accordance forums, “How Important Is Searching the Bible?”

---

See also
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1: "Speed" Search
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 2: Printing

Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1: "Speed" Search

This entry was originally posted on July 31, 2009, at the original This Lamp website and has been relocated here.

Logos just released version 1.2 of its Libronix Digital Library System for the Macintosh. Included in the update is a feature called “Speed Search,” which is already on the Windows version.

In the video below, I pit the new Libronix Speed Search against its original Bible search as well as an equivalent search in Accordance.



Click here for a high-def version of the video.

And before you say otherwise, yes, “mind-bogglingly” is a word!

---

See also
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1.1: Speed Search Revisited
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 2: Printing

 

Accordance vs. "PC Bible Software Ported to the Mac"

This entry was originally posted on June 26, 2009, on the original This Lamp and has been moved to this site.

From Joe Weaks:

Thoughts on the New iPhone & What's Still Missing

This entry was original posted on June 18, 2009, on the original This Lamp and has been moved to this site.

 

Tomorrow, the iPhone 3GS will be released, essentially the third itteration of Apple’s iPhone in two years. I had the first generation iPhone. I stood in line outside of an AT&T store on the day it was released, not out of impatience, but for the sheer fun of it. I even literally got the t-shirt (you can see it here). I had no plans to buy the second iPhone, the iPhone 3G. Yes, it had GPS built in which the first iPhone did not have, and it had faster internet connections when away from WiFi, but that wasn’t reason enough for me to upgrade.

However, I have an iPhone 3G anyway. A few months ago, a friend of mine (you know who you are) needed my first generation iPhone so that he could hack it to run on TMobile (evidently, you can hack the first generation phones to run on other carriers, but not later models). So, I told him if he bought me the iPhone 3G, he could have my first generation iPhone. Done.

Now, I don’t plan to buy the 3G S any more than I intended to upgrade to the 3G. However, like last time, if someone wants my current one and wants to buy me the new one, I’m not going to refuse that offer. The advantage of the new phone? Well, it has a better camera, video capture, digital compass, voice control, a faster processor and more RAM. Really, this is a more compelling upgrade than the previous one, but not compelling enough to make me go out and spend the money for the new one.

In fact, my current iPhone, the iPhone 3G is going to remain on the market at a reduced price of $99. That says a lot for the fact that it still has a lot of life in it.

Plus, Apple had done something that is not typical on most smart phones--they’ve allowed the user of previous phones to upgrade to the new features of an updated OS. Yesterday, iPhone 3.0 firmware was released, and I updated both Kathy’s first generation iPhone and my 3G iPhone to the 3.0 software. There are lots of new features, and you can see most of them at this link. There really are some compelling features in the update, including some that should have been there from the beginning (copy, cut & paste for instance), so I get a new iPhone experience without buying the new iPhone.

Another friend of mine emailed me a few days ago. He had noticed the reduced price on the current iPhone to $99. He said, “Is there any reason to get the new iPhone, as opposed to the old one? They put the old one on sale for $99.00.” I explained to him the differences I mentioned above and suggested the current $99 3G is just fine.

He replied, “If you were buying the iPhone for the first time, which one would you buy?”

My answer? “The new one. I never buy last generation.”

Two years ago, I wrote about the convergence of technologies brought by the iPhone. It has not been all that long ago (2003 to be exact--before buying a Palm Treo) that I carried three devices: a Palm PDA, a cell phone, and an iPod. The Treo combined two of those, but the iPhone combined all three.

I began carrying around a PDA device in 1998. That year I bought a Palm Pilot Professional with 1 MB of RAM. This was back in the day that Palm PDAs still has “US Robotics” on the case. Over the years I had a series of Palm PDAs (my favorite being the Palm V) before moving to the iPhone.

I have never stopped using a PDA in one form or another. It is really the most valuable aspect of my iPhone. In the old days I had to physically sync my data with my PDA using a cable between the PDA and my computer--something was a daily task performed religiously. In spite of all the problems with the release of MobileMe last year, and despite the fact that the service is somewhat overpriced, I have to admit that it has really served me well. I don’t have to physically sync my iPhone to my computer to keep calendars and contacts the same. It’s done wirelessly, sometimes seemingly instantaneously. Not only that, but MobileMe keeps my MacBook Pro and my desktop G5 in sync as well. I can still remember years ago, using a Palm device as a means to sync two separate computers.

And yet, it’s still not an all-perfect world. The new iPhone 3.0 firmware released yesterday finally brought copy, cut, & paste as well as global searching to the iPhone. To its credit, I had both of these on my Palm Pro in 1998. Plus, I’m still not convinced that a finger is always superior to a stylus. The iPhone makes for a slick demo when you show someone how easy it is to maneuver with just the swipe of a finger. But occasionally, an optional stylus would allow for movements needing a bit more precision.

As the iPhone continues to improve, here are three things I hope will be implemented in the future. The fact that my list has grown much shorter gives me great hope.

1. Sync my To Do List! iCal on the Mac comes with a To Do list feature. I’ve grown to use it pretty regularly to remind me of the things I need to get done during the day or in days to come. But there’s not an equivalent app on the iPhone! This is in spite of the fact that it’s a pretty standard feature on other smart phones and was on my Palm over a decade ago! Right now I use Appigo’s ToDo app on the iPhone. I may write a separate review later. It is pretty good, but there are some drawbacks. I don’t understand why a To Do app wasn’t on the iPhone from the very first day.


2. Pocket Quicken. I’ve been using Quicken on my Mac since 2002 and I’ve never even been one penny off when I reconcile my accounts--not once in seven years! I swear by it. On my Palm Tungsten T and then my Palm Treo 600, I had Pocket Quicken. I could enter transactions from my checking account/debit card during the day and sync them to desktop Quicken when I got home. This may very well what I miss most from my Palm days. Now I have to tuck receipts into my shirt pocket during the day and keep myself disciplined about entering them into Quicken as soon as I can. LandWare, the makers of Pocket Quicken, never say they aren’t going to make an iPhone version; they merely say they aren’t planning anything at the present. Yes, I know that Intuit offers an online version of Quicken that has an iPhone friendly screen. However, the online version cannot import desktop Quicken files. I’ve got too much information in here to start over.


3. I know this will sound extra geeky, but I’d really like to have a foldout bluetooth keyboard for my iPhone. Years ago, I had the Stowaway Portable Keyboard that I used with my Palm III. I still remember the first day I had it, unfolding it in front of an individual who worked on computers for a living. He said, “Man, you just out-geeked me.” Yes, it often looked to some as being over the top, but it was so handy when needing to simply use something less than a laptop for hammering out text for longer than 30 seconds. Just the other night, I was at church taking minutes in a business meeting. I was using my 15” MacBook Pro which is what I’m writing this on. The back of the screen was pinched up against the seat in front of me. My laptop, handy as it is, was too much. I needed something smaller. I’ve thought about getting a cheap netbook and hacking it with OS X, but that’s hard to justify, too. I really just need a keyboard for my iPhone--especially since Documents to Gowas finally released this week for the iPhone (another app I had for years on the Palm platform).

Some days I actually miss my Palm. But I also like the convergence of devices that the iPhone represents. So, I’ll be patient. With some things, you just can’t go back. And in truth, we’re all so spoiled regardless in the big picture.