WordSmith = The Magic of Words!

Something about walking into a store with a broken product in hand and walking out with a shiny new one! It's great! I mean sure the feeling of not knowing what's wrong or even if you can get it replaced is tough to swallow, then once the guy in the black shirt emerges from the back room with a new item in hand all is well. *cue the birds*

I had the unfortunate experience of putting this scenario to the test recently. It's been a while since I've been able to use a trade I learned called wordsmithing! But in true customer service fashion I was ready for the product replacement battle! Check my wordsmith resume, I've got history! My craft was first discovered back when I could call Nike, tell em some stitching on my shoes were coming out, nad in a couple days they'd send you a box to send your shoes in and boom! In less than a month you'd have a BRAND NEW pair of Nikes, similar or better than what you sent in. Life at Adam State was great knowing I had a new pair of sneaks either on the way or being processed for approval pretty much at all times!

Then came the good ole Sidekick! Oh the memories! This is where the craft was perfected! Since it's inception the sidekick seemed to be bundled with issues. Sidekick 1,2, and 3 included, none of these were immune to faulty production. I had to make frequent calls to T-Mobile! Not only me, db can vouch that this was nothing out of the ordinary! Between us we probably had around 40+ sidekicks from all generations pass thru our hands. And we learned the lingo, let's get straight to the point! We would call tmo tell them we've already done the soft reset, the hard reset, the press the letter on the keyboard then reset, the resend my system file on the backend reset, we did it all ourselves! We wouldn't even want to waste our time with the Tier1 customer service group, Tier2 also for that matter. Just transfer me directly to the Sidekick Data Group! After repeating everything for about 15mins a new sidekick would be enroute. A great feeling and a job well done (until it had to go back in the coming weeks(days)!

The mastered craft was again tested when we got our Blackberrys and needed to swap them out for whatever reasons. No worries though, we had experience with the tmo folks! Even though they seemed to tighten the ropes on product replace procedures, the proper wordsmithing would net positive results.

It had been a while since I've needed to put these tools to the test. So when my iphone began to randomly reset and lock up I knew a trip to the Apple store was required. Apple has always been good about standing behind their products, I've had to swap out an ipod or 2 (or 5) in my time (sans replacement plan). No worries! I wasn't worried about the phone swap really, I've had it for under a year and recently the phone was locking up expectantly and then the battery all of a sudden dumped and wouldn't hold a charge. With this ammunition I headed to my local AS, wordsmith in tow just in case. A quick appointment/session with DJ at the Genius Bar and then it happened! The guy in the black shirt coming from the back room peeling the wrapping off a new born iphone!! Ahhh.....

UPDATE: i think i spoke too soon.....

Apple Set to Reveal Road to Third-Party iPhone Apps

The iPhone has received acclaim as cellphone, personal information organizer, web browser and e-mail client. Now, it's about to become a remote control, a game platform, a photo-editing platform, a device for remotely accessing your desktop files, and maybe much more.

Four months of rumors, speculation and giddy anticipation will come to an end Thursday, as Apple prepares to reveal how it will transform one of the most-hyped devices in tech into a full-fledged platform.

"The iPhone is the richest mobile platform that we've ever had," says Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin.

And yet, that platform has until recently been officially open only to web developers. To date, Apple has forced developers to create iPhone applications through one conduit: the phone's browser. While that approach simplified development, it never gave developers access to the truly alluring bits of the device, like its accelerometer, voice capabilities and touchscreen. It also forced developers who wanted to create more sophisticated apps -- like a utility that lets you remotely control a Mac desktop from an iPhone -- to go around the iPhone's security with jailbreaking hacks.

Steve Jobs caved last October and said Apple would release a full-blown software developer's kit once the company could ensure security on the phone. Presumably, that's been accomplished, and the fancy apps available only on jailbroken iPhones may soon be available legitimately on any iPhone.

At this point, it's still not clear whether Apple intends to officially release the SDK at Thursday's event or just make some announcement. At any rate, the SDK will be in programmers' hands soon, and analysts and developers expect a wide variety of applications to blossom in the coming months -- everything from photo-editing apps to motion-sensing games that take advantage of the device's orientation sensor.

The possibilities, as Mac developer Daniel Jalkut recently noted, will be limited only by developers' imaginations.

Those possibilities will be also influenced by a number of outstanding questions about Apple's planned app-distribution method, the vetting process it will use, and any iPhone access restrictions the company imposes on developers. The company is expected to provide answers to those questions as well on Thursday.

At the very least, Thursday's SDK event will involve an announcement about new enterprise features for the iPhone, according to an invitation circulated last week.

While enterprise software may not be as sexy as movie and game apps, its inclusion could be huge for Apple's ability to meet its goal of 10 million iPhone sales by the end of the year.

By adding features like push e-mail and cultivating relationships with corporate-software vendors, Bajarin says, the iPhone could become one of the major communication platforms in business, making it much more competitive with the corporate-friendly BlackBerry.

"Ultimately, that's why I believe [Apple is] confident it can reach its 10 million goal by the end of the year," he says. "With an SDK and major corporate-software vendors backing it, we'll see the iPhone finally transcend the consumer business this year."

UPDATE: Here's a quick recap of what was said

• Apple has 28% of the US Smartphone market, 71% (doubtful) of mobile browser usage is Safari.
• Business users? Check. Full Exchange / ActiveSync support is on the way including push email, push contacts, push calander, VPN, security and more.
• Web apps are great, native apps are better. The SDK is here and it’s ready to party… As long as you’ve got a Mac. Developers using Windows and Linux-based systems need not apply.
• Game developers gave demos of native games built in two weeks without ever having seen the SDK prior. EA showed Spore and Sega showed Super Monkey Ball; sweet.
• App developers had a bit more time to boogie. Salesforce.com showed a very good looking native app tied to its online CRM solution. AOL showed a native AIM app.
• All apps will be distributed through Apple’s App Store only. This is great news for big developers that can afford to pay to have their apps featured, ok news for small developers that have a better chance at more exposure, and not so good news for users who are going to have to dig through the inevitable mess of thousands upon thousands of apps. Hey, at least Jobs’ model keeps Handango out of the game.
• Developers get 70% revenue share (score!), no charge for publishing freeware apps (only $99 for payware!) and a nice little $100 million VC fund to help them get crackin.
• SDK is available now, the rest drops in June with version 2.0 software. Free for iPhones, chargeable for iPod Touches.

psp 1.0 jus got smashed!

Ok, so i'm just browsing around like usual and I come across these pics of a fan created psp and I'm literally stopped in my tracks. Look at this man! Why is it that some of the sic'est products to come across are made by some cat named Jeremy next door on his $698 dell? I am in love with this psp! Is it me or would it make sense for companies (we'll use Sony for this example) to team up with these up-and-comers and try to intergrate if not use some of the product concept ideals outside of what their own R/D team creates? Not everything out of the Sony camp is a banger!  More pics of this digital euphoria can be found here. And give some credit to the artist, kid has got some crazy rendering skill.  This looks like a actual photo taken from a product page somewhere.  And please don't tell me it's not possible, I'm sure they could squeeze a psp into USB thumb drive if they wanted to.  Note to Sony: Ya boy is sic! Put him on the payroll!!!