So, I hid it. 

Here’s how (until they do their next interface change tomorrow or something…):

Click on the ‘”Gearwork” (I think?) symbol and there’s a “Hide Sidebar” option. 

Fair warning: some friends have expressed that this might be a little buggy as sometimes they see it when they log back in.  I’m assuming this has to do with mass roll out of this feature.

-cct

iphone 3gs from Flickr - ntr23

When Apple announced the iPhone 3GS earlier this month, along with the ooh’s and ahh’s were some hefty fees for AT&T’s bevy of current iPhone 3G users if they wanted to upgrade.  While LA Times Tech Blog recently reported that ‘AT&T Relents on iPhone 3GS upgrade pricing‘, the situation itself reveals that the iPhone has changed expectations and is waiting for things to catch up.

Trolling through some online articles, I caught many comments left by those who felt that the “irate” iPhone user was being grouchy over nothing.  Legitimately, the iPhone user signed a contract and AT&T was providing the circumstances to get out of that contract and into a new one, i.e. a costly fee.  While the above is true, it’s a perspective bounded by the understandings of a traditional cellular phone plan.  The problem fundamentally becomes that the iPhone isn’t a traditional cellular phone.  Ironically, the iPhone is only marginally seen as just a phone.

Don’t get me wrong, the phone aspect is definitely more useful than my Tap Tap Revenge 2 Application, but the reality is that the opportunity to have a decent phone and make phone calls isn’t why a customer purchases an iPhone in the first place.  It’s that desire to have a mobile online device at one’s fingertips.  With the recent roll-out of the iPhone 3.0 software, I’m reminded that no one talks excitedly about how many minutes are in their plan or how much their data component is a month.  We’re happy that we can copy-and-paste (while having better calendar synching, more applications, and landscape typing)!

In all honestly, I’m not riding from the wave of a desirous early adopter.  I have an original Edge-network phone and am swayed not to get a 3GS because of the additional monthly cost (not swayed for now anyway…).  As an electronics-minded consumer, I understand the extra cost is to change to a different internet network with better options.  In the case of 3G to 3GS, from the iPhone user’s general perspective, the desire to purchase a 3GS is simply a matter of getting a better device – like paying for a new computer.  No one demands that the person who buys a new computer has to upgrade their internet connection type too.

In a world of twitter and facebook, where people can geocode their location to upload photos on the go and in the moment, there’s still a technical divide – of old ways of thinking that don’t fall in line with changing/shifting expectations.  And there always will be this divide, but at Round 3 for the iPhone, it’s a little sad to see – even if they answered to the bedlam…eventually.

-cct

Having completed my recent whirlwind trip to Washington DC, the following is a slideshow of my Flickr photos.  More about my trip later when I’ve had time to gather my thoughts.

I’m mostly doing it this way first because my brain is all scrambled.  I went to so many places!

iTunes 8 (from the apple.com website)

This post is off of a twitter exchange I had with greenlagirl (who runs that awesome greenlagirl website).  While it’s inefficient (among other things) that iTunes currently doesn’t have streaming of its online content, a little research told me that it might not be this way for long.  Engadget.com, off a CNET posting, noted in February 2009 that this might be the wave of the iTunes future.   It makes sense after all that iTunes would adopt streaming (evenutally), what with netflix streaming and hulu.com‘s popularity.  My friend Julius remarked that he had recently caught up on his tv shows (while in a sick stupor) and it had almost made him think to cancel his cable (before remembering that it didn’t carry some cable shows).

The main point of my exchange with greenlagirl is, “who really wants to download those files when you can stream them?”  Currently iTunes has movie rentals that you can download for 3.99.  How about charging me a dollar (or nothing!) for me to see the content through streaming?  It might also be a great business venture with hulu if there’s overlap of content (which there probably will be) and competition if there’s content hulu (and others) might not have available. 

 iTunes 8 was released September 2008 and iTunes 7 was released September 2006.  But if you’ve followed the history if iTunes 7 and iTunes 8, it doesn’t really take a new “version number” to have a whopping lot of changes.  Much of the different changes in the last couple of years reflects the introduction and life of the iPhone. 

This then makes me think beyond just iTunes. YouTube streaming is a mainstay feature on the iPhone (mainstay ’cause it gets its own button when you buy it – at least my first generation iPhone did) and you can watch your YouTube content on your iPhone.  Maybe the next thing isn’t just streaming on iTunes, maybe it’s on the iPhone as well.  If they don’t do it, someone else has probably done it and if not, probably will.

Screenshot: Facebook Sidebar (4/07/09)

Now added to my “Inefficient” Web Commentary* series is Facebook.  Facebook recently underwent a design change that caused quite the uproar with its users (not that it stops them from using the service, but like the current theme, we do somehow seem okay with living life with a marginal amount of dysfunction and a healthy dose of hope – or ability to complain).   In any case, this series will just be about things I think would make Facebook work more efficiently.  We will start with something I noted today about the Home Page.

I could go on about the insanity of the Friend Feed, but I’m not as bothered by it.  What I want to focus on is the sidebar.  See the screenshot to the left.  It’s a lot of stuff and I’ve even cut out like four boxes from my “highlights”.  I don’t really mind that they’re telling me all this stuff.  What I do mind is that I can’t tell them how important this stuff is to me.

If I had my way, I’d order it
1) Requests
2) Events
3) Highlights and
4) “People You May Know”.

I understand entirely not being able to move the advertisement (they have to make money, right?).

What bothers me a bit is that it’s not like Facebook doesn’t let me do this in other places:

Facebook Profile - Moving Boxes

For now, I guess setting the precedence of my Fluff Friend is about all the power I have.

Next Inefficient: Facebook?  Profile Feed.

-cct

*To be fair, I will have some “Efficient” posts up.  Found one I really liked today on facebook actually.