Live Earth and Incipio

Today is the day the biggest names in music reached out to the rest of us in an attempt to bring light to what I think may be the most important issue we face as a population, Global Warming. The climate crisis we all face and how we can do simple things in our everyday lives to better our chances of survival.  That’s right – I didn’t say “guarantee our chances” or “maybe prevent global warming”  I said to better our chances for survival – I’m convinced that we as a species, are on our way out and the only thing we can blame are ourselves.

Fun stuff huh?  Not really – It makes me angry to see what we – yours truly included, have done to everything around us.  From the products we buy to the way we make those purchases, from the homes we live in to the vehicles we drive and to the way we care for and dispose of these items.

See, we are in the business of producing accessories for devices that we as a population feel are “indispensable” – many of the accessories we make are designed to prolong these gadgets life by protecting them from the elements.  Most people purchase accessories because they made an investment in a device and they don’t want to see that investment go to waste prematurely .  I would say very few people purchase our cases because by prolonging the life of their mobile phone or MP3 player it’s going to keep the landfills that much emptier.  But it would be nice if that’s how it worked and that was the way people viewed the devices they owned.  Now, I speak mostly for the people in the US.  This job, what I do, has afforded me the luxury throughout the years to travel extensively.  With that said, I’ve seen how people in Europe, the UK, Asia, South America (basically everywhere) make purchases and live their lives.  We, in the US and A like to buy multiple this and multiple that and dump our perfectly fine stuff in the trash as soon as a new one comes out. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else.  

People in other countries own one   “1”   device - Not and MP3 player, a phone, a digital camera, a video camera, a PDA and an alarm clock.  It’s weird to see people in other countries make purchases of mobile devices – They take time, ask questions, read and get help from an in store expert and use their devices till they are basically dead and then get them serviced.  We in the USA run through Best Buy and grab whatever is on ad or the newest thing on the shelf and if it gets a scratch or begins to act funny, we toss them in the trash.

I don’t want to preach at you or anyone for that matter, but I do want people to know that it’s something we should think about and consider as we make purchases and decisions.  Throughout the years I’ve done very little to lessen the impact of my ways. Like I said before, I’m just as guilty as anyone that’s ever walked the face of the earth.  However, reducing my “Carbon Footprint” from this day forward is something that is going to be a priority for me and Incipio.  We will work towards less packaging, reusable bags, more “earth first” products like our eco|CASE for iPhone and hopefully a few products aimed directly at the issue of global warming. If this, or the day has had any affect on you, I commend you and hope we keep in mind what’s really happening around us.

A few days with the iPhone

Its been a couple days and I’ve been using the iPhone as my secondary device.  I have to say that it hasn’t been an incredible experience.  Its been nice – but not incredible.  I hate to admit it but Ti is right about the keyboard or lack there of. My dad liked it  - Its funny seeing an old dude that isn't great with computers pick it up and in a few seconds checked out every feature and gotten a hang of the basics.  One thing that he doesn’t do and wont is text so, he didn’t care about the keys – he pointed out something though – Which I thought was pretty interesting – Once you set everything up – you get all your info in one place – He wont input into the device at all – For him its just a portal, and reference, much like a TV.  Which may be how many people use the iPhone.

Now, I think I’ve gotten the hang of the keyboard  - Speed isn’t bad – probably about the same as the Pearl and just about as accurate so I would say on par with anything else out there without real QWERTY keys.  What’s a bit annoying is that I make mistakes tapping on icons and things of that nature that never happen with a device that has keys and a few buttons. What I think happened here is that its too clean, to beautiful and way to minimal.  I really think that 2-3 more buttons on the thing wouldn’t kill it aesthetically and I think would have really enhanced basic functionality.  

Also.....It gets hot – Really hot!  I’m used to phones warming up a bit and my laptop doesn’t run cool either – But for a phone that I’m supposed to hold up to my skull?  That’s a bit freaky!

I’ve heard some comments comparing the Wi-Fi to the Dash or other devices, but the way the iPhone hands off data is really nice – Makes you wonder why others cant get it right. Every time you access any type of data feature, whether its Google Maps, Mail or Safari it looks for an access point,  In fact, the antenna on the thing is pretty impressive  - I was picking up networks that I hadn't seen before on my laptop.

Now for the work stuff – What I’m really happy about is that all of our cases fit and work great!  All the sensors are open and work fine – The volume and vibrate/ringer button work great and the sleep button is easy to get to as well.  I spent some time this weekend looking through some eBay and Amazon listings – I wanted to see what the all hacks out there had to offer and I was really disappointed.  There are so, so many people that are going to get there  $5 case from the garage operated eBay business and be ticked off cause the iPhone’s screen doesn’t want to come on or that you cant get to the buttons or that they just bought the pimpiest phone in the world and put hubcaps on the thing – Come peeps – what’s the deal?  Spend a few extra dollars and buy from a reputable company that has done some testing and makes accessories as their primary business.  More on this later....

I love this! - ʇxǝʇ uʍop-ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ

Source: http://www.revfad.com/flip.html

First iPhone Take Apart - Disassembly Video

I've never seen such amazingness.

Just like the other One Million loyal apple fans out there I just got my iPhone.  Instead of getting off my blackberry that I love so much I thought I would just activate a new number with a new contract through AT&T. Which means I had to go through the entire process of establishing new service which is normally a bit of a process. NOT THE CASE with the iPhone. It couldn't have been easier and quicker. Even on iPhone Day it was easy. You would think that during this mad rush of activating we would see some slow downs.  But I didn't. Amazing.

About the sync process.

See, I have like 80 gigs of music movies and pictures on my laptop and I was a bit worried about how the sync process would go down. So I just sync'd up one playlist 2 movies all my pics, 2500 contacts, a monster calendar. All without a hitch.
Before I noticed it the iPhone had found my wi-fi and jumped on. The first thing I did was open google maps and I have to say.  I was so so impressed at the speed in which it launched and how fast it was rendering (zooming) into my neighborhood on satelite view that I couldn't believe my eyes.

Now you have to remember that I'm blogging this on my BlackBerry 8300 and that I use google maps all the time and the 8300 is awesome. It really is. The text input on the iPhone was surprisingly easy and it seemed to have a natural layout of sorts. Like my super strong geek instinct took over and I just knew how to work everything as if it were with me for years. Now that may have something to do with all the apple ads I've seen or that I have watched all the videos of the iphone. But let's chalk this one up excellent planning and a super slick OS.


I'm going to spend the evening dining texting browsing and showing it off. Expect an update in the morning.... 

Incipio Making a good Show at the NYC 5th Ave Apple Store Courtesy myItablet.com

Our good friends at http://myItablet.com made the long trip out from
Arizona to the NYC to Camp out in line at the 5th Ave Apple store for an
iPhone. Now they could have just gone down to the local store for one.
But not these guys - they live and die Apple. We thought we would show
them and the first 10 in line a little love, Incipio Style! Staying
true to our "Made for You" attitude we hooked up these loyal fans with
Custom made Incipio Shirts numbered 1-10 for the first 10 people in
line. The shirts were awesome! Individually numbered with little
iPhones in the background. Ben got these done in literally 20 minutes
and we barely got them into FedEx in time and . We also hooked them up
with Brand New Hipsters and Ranger Cases as well as our awesome 2 Step
Cleaning Kits. Needless to say these guys were stoked.

I want to personally thank Vincent from myItablet.com for putting in so
much effort and sitting out there all night in the rain. Also, if you
caught today's Good Morning America Show on ABC you can see our Shirts,
Vincent and a few of the loyal campers in the background.

Service above all....

Now, those of you who know me, know that I love Apples – Both the delicious and nutritious variety as well as the stylish battery operated type.  Don’t get me wrong  - I love my PC even though its been acting up the last few weeks.

One of the reasons that I love the latter is really about the service – I’ve owned Macs for years and I haven't had a horrible experience yet – Now, I’ve had hard drives go out “Damn Fujitsu!!!!” But I have yet to have even a less than excellent experience from Apple.com sales or from the Apple Store - (Fashion Island is my favorite). Since its only 2am and I am waiting on some much needed information from production I’ll let you in on what's happened in the past few weeks....

I used to own a 13” MacBook till I lost a hard drive (as mentioned above) - So, I took the thing into the my local and favorite Apple Store and the nice people back there took it out tested and concluded that it might be dead and we there’s nothing they can do and that I should call a data recovery service – or just swap it out for a new one (now I don’t have a receipt or anything) – They stock Toshiba now (excellent)!!  Fujitsu is just crap.  I told the dude there that I would give the data recovery a try and if it didn’t work out I would come back for an exchange.

So, I couldn’t wait  - I bought a big fat 150gig Toshiba drive threw it in there and sold the thing to my cousin that night – who seems really happy with it by the way.  So about a week later I went back into the Apple store and picked up another MacBook – It was ok and I used it for about a week then took it back because it just felt slow – Now I don’t know why – but it did.  I got a 15” MacBook Pro – You know, cause that’s how I roll....Pro!  (the nice people there were more than happy to accommodate me, mind you without a receipt)  It was a sweet deal for me and my out of pocket was really minimal.  So, a few weeks go by – actually 4 of them and sure enough Apple decides that they want to update the MacBook Pro line with all kings of goodies that I actually want – See, I got the 13” for battery reasons.  These 15” suckers love to be plugged in.  So – needless to say I called the store and they were more than happy to exchange my 4 week old now discontinued MacBook Pro for a brand new LED backlit, Santa Rosa, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT sporting version with 2 gigs of RAM for the same price (that might hopefully run 30 minutes longer).  Now, they could have just told me to “F” off but they didn’t  - they knew that the new one was so much better and that I would be so butt hurt if they didn’t let me exchange it.  So, I roll in there and worked out the exchange (sans receipt) and they were even nice enough to throw in a new iPod.  Not that I need one – Cause, we have like 20 of them. Meanwhile they are totally cool and helpful about the whole thing – Have you ever been to BestBuy or Circuit City?  Its nuts in there and they kinda don’t like you to return things....
Remember that hard drive that I sent off to the data recovery service?  Well it came back -  There was nothing they could do for me and my stuff was lost!  Did I mention that Fujitsu is crap!!!  So, I roll into my favorite store again and find my favorite Genius (who will remain unnamed) and show him the drive – he says, “where's the computer?”  ahhhh.....I sold it  - So, with no more than a few seconds of cajoling he heads into the back (with my now out of warranty opened and loose hard drive) and brings me out a new Toshiba 100 Gig replacement for my dead Fujitsu Crap drive – Just like that!  Easy!

Thanks to Ti’s wiley eBay ways we got a 2.5” SATA hard drive enclosure for .99 cents and I now have a new kick ass thoroughbred notebook that rocks some killer specs and and an external 100 Gig drive that  is going to provide me with years of trouble free service.  This could have gone south several times – Think about it – the first one was shot, the second return was legit but I could have been charged a restocking fee and the third one was way out of the allowed time for a return. Not to mention the hard drive thing at the end of it all -  Wow!! Am I a happy kid!