Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - iPhone - Everything that could go wrong did

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iPhone - Everything that could go wrong did

Posted 2007-09-07 10:59 PM in Musings.

OK, so I'm lame. We know this. I'm weak, but I did it. I spent my blog advertising money on iPhone. Sue me. ;) The WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) on this phone is low. Low as I've seen it, so the phone may end up going back to the store - I've got 14 days.

But first, here's what's happened so far.

It doesn't work on Vista 64. At all. You can't activate an iPhone on Vista 64 today. Full stop.
While I was able to get iTunes installed on Vista 64 last week with a clever hack, there was a new update recently and the Apple Software Update will not run. Also, I can't burn CDs even with the existing install because Daemon Tools x64 and iTunes' Gear SPTD Driver hate each other with the heat of a thousand suns. But, this is iTunes, not iPhone, so I digress.
So, I fire up the free Mac Mini and run iTunes, expecting it to prompt for an upgrade. Crash on start. What? A crash on a mac? Seriously, first one for me. I blame iTunes, not the Mac. Reboot, run, crash, reboot, run, crash, uninstall, install (upgrade? waa? I uninstalled...whatever), continue, run, it runs. Whew. Ridiculous.
I plug in the iPhone. I get the Activate screen. Cool.
I have an account from AT&T that I've had for over 6 years. I currently move the SIM card between my HTC Dash running Windows Mobile 6 and my Blackberry 8600. AT&T thinks I have just the Blackberry, bit the DASH gets to use the same unlimited SMS and unlimited data plan I have. Nice...but...
iTunes says "iPhone activations aren't available at this time." Waa? Lame. Try again...
Now I get "We're sorry, AT&T has determined that your current account cannot be used with the iPhone."
It appears (I can't call support because they aren't open 24 hours...seems odd) that AT&T thinks that my old employer still owns this phone and pays for it, which is odd because I paid the bill for the second month in a row after taking over responsibility for the number.
If and when I DO get this thing activated, on the Mac, I have no way to sync my contacts with it.

Will this phone be forever tethered to this Mac? What about my OTHER iPod?
What about my music? Can a Mac iTunes installation share the same iTunes Library with Windows?
What about contacts? I've got 2038 of them, and I'd like them to sync? Perhaps Plaxo to OSX?
What about my Calendar? I use Google Calendar...how's that going to work?

I think my life would be easier with a Windows Mobile Phone sync'ed to Exchange. Sigh. I never thought I'd say that. I am historically not a Windows Mobile fan.

Needless to say all this trouble has frozen my use of iTunes. iTunes 7 become unresponsive and totally unusable upon its release and we're almost a solid year later and my less than 10 thousand songs can't be browsed. I can't use my Audible.com account. I'm screwed. I guess I could copy everything over to the Mac and just keep my Apple interactions entirely in the Mac world because it's clear that Apple and Windows just despise each other. Shocking! ;)

At this moment, this iPhone is a brick. Bummer. Of course, the WAF is in negative numbers as well. Sigh. That's what you pay when you're an Early Adopter. Really Early Adopters pay an extra US$200. ;)

Steve Job really stuck it to me on this one. You should have seen the look in my face when I opened the box. The OOBE (Out of Box Experience) was exquisite. You should see my face now.

Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:37:09 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Sorry to hear about your troubles Scott. While I'm no big fan of apple or its products (despite owning ipods), I can sympathise with your plight of not being able to use something you obviously were looking forward to.

I'm a strong believer in everything should just work out of the box. All this activation and security just makes the casual user dejected with the product when it doesn't work the way they expected it to. I firmly believe in the KISS philosphy (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

I wish you all the best man! I hope you find a way to get that hardware to work properly.

Sushant Bhatia

Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:58:18 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

What is the problem? iTunes and the iPhone do not work with Vista 64bit. It's not listed in the system requirements as one of the operating systems that supported. Quite simple, really. Why post about it like it's some fault of Apple's? It's not. You yourself knew that iTunes didn't work with Vista 64 when you previously tried to install it. So there should be no sympathy given in this case Sushant. Other than being a dramatised blog post, you're trying to fit a square peg in a round whole.

I'm not meaning to be harsh or anything Scott, and here's the obligatory smiley to prove it :)

Diego

Saturday, September 08, 2007 3:56:58 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

For Google Calendar sync on your Mac Mini, check out GCalDaemon, which works well to sync with iCal. I wrote about how I set it up on my blog.

Chris

Saturday, September 08, 2007 5:37:42 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Why bother with Vista 64 bit? I hear the "it doesn't work on Vista 64" number all the time. The hassle seems to outweigh any benefit.

Kevin Dente

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:08:20 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I had a similar problem with the activation. I had to call three times and spent a total of almost 2 hours on the phone. I told that to the CSR on the last call and she gave me 1000 rollover minutes for my troubles.

Ryan

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:08:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

It vista 64bit that is the issue not Apple. Neat Receipts, backup and restore, many games dont work either. At least set up a virtual machine with XP on vista that will give you a place to get things done while vista proves itself to be as useful as Windows ME.

cra451

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:24:35 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Gotta agree with Cra451 here. Vista 64 (hell, all the 64bit os's) just aren't ready for the prime time commercial space. Servers, sure, but users? No.

Pave the machine and stick with XP or Vista 32 (and turn OFF UAC if you want anything to work<g>)

Darin

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:41:24 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I thought you might pick up an iPhone this week. :) I picked one up too.

Could you run iTunes in a VM from your Vista64 box? I've never tried it myself, but it looks like you are in for an inconvenience no matter which way you go, but I'd try for a Windows based solution as the Outlook link is too much to give up.

Al Nyveldt

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:41:34 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

But what about the Mac Mini crashing? And the problems with AT&T? Are we going to blame that on Vista 64 as well?

Frank

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:52:57 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Not supporting Vista 64 by now is a real problem, and an indication of badly written software. Saying that Vista 64 is the issue is just ludicrous. With RAM prices dropping sharply, more and more people will want to use more than 3 GB of RAM, and it's not something you can do on 32-bit Windows (read this). And there are many other good reasons for using Vista 64, such as increased stability, security, and performance.

C-J Berg

Saturday, September 08, 2007 8:13:38 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

it just works... badly.

tito

Saturday, September 08, 2007 8:21:36 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

2038 contacts? That's 1/5th of the town I live in. :-)

Mike

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:06:01 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

It vista 64bit that is the issue not Apple.

Ok! I'm not sure why Apple is not supporting Vista 64 yet so most of this is just postulation. Also, I guess we need to clarify just how easy it is to build for a 64 bit OS.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms952405.aspx

I believe that Vista 64 has been out far longer than the iphone. Let me put forth the theory that the reason you cannot install the software on the 64bit OS is that the software probably looks at the current OS's ID and compares it to a list it has. IF that is the case then it would blatantly be an Apple issue....a BAD Apple if you will, rotten to the Core! :-) However, it could be that Apple may be using a 3rd party component which is not supported in 64 bit Os's. (Out of curiosity, is XP 64 supported?)

For all you nay-sayers about a 64bit OS, please delve into the pros and cons of using 64 bit. Here is a link to start you off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit

Sushant Bhatia

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:13:44 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I had a similar problem and wrote about it yesterday on my blog, although I was able to activate the thing on my Apple Mac Mini without a problem. But, as we discussed in IM last night, what about sync, Outlook data, calendars, and everything else?

I love the interface, for sure. I like the browser and a few of the apps. I can't call anyone because I can't remeber phone numbers, so I have to look them up on my old blackberry and enter them by hand on the iPhone right now, which is freakin lame. Mine might have to go back as well. I have not decided yet...

@Sushant - No, 64-bit XP fails as well. This is just another example of poor choices in programming priorities. Pretty typical.

@Diego - Actually, right there on the box it says it works with Windows XP and Vista. No mention of 32- vs. 64-bit or anything of that nature. You have to dive into the fine, fine print to find a brief mention of the fact that the currrent version of iTunes won't let you activate on Win64.

Greg Hughes

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:19:31 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Sorry! I'm posting back again as I meant to add 2 things.

Diego says:

It's not listed in the system requirements

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html This is the tech specs for the iPhone. It doesn't say ANYWHERE that 64 bit is not supported. It also does not say ANYWHERE that 32 bit is required. I'm not saying that its not said somewhere else because I cannot test for that. However, if I wanted to know about a product, I generally go to the tech specs and expect to find all the info there.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/ Apple obviously knows how to leverage 64 bit technology. Apple OS X supports the LP64 model which btw is also supported by MS. "Microsoft's VC++ compiler uses the LLP64 model." [source is the wikipedia link in my previous comment].

Just saying that after looking into this more and more, it appears to be the case that Apple is purposely not supporting Vista 64. But that is better left to a jury of my peers. I'm just saying, it looks iffy! :-)

Sushant Bhatia

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:34:05 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

If you are having problems burning disks with iTunes and Daemon Tools installed, make sure you upgrade SPTD to version 1.5. The version shipped with Daemon Tools (I think it is 1.43) causes problems burning disks but if you upgrade SPTD, that'll usually fix it.

Try:

http://ellislive.com/tech/2007/07/24/itunes-error-disc-burner-or-software-not-found/

and

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/itunes-t17138.html

for reference. I can't help with the rest of the problems other than to tell you that I was just as frustrated with iTunes until I switched over to my Macbook Pro. The performance difference between the Windows and Mac versions of iTunes is staggering and completely unacceptable. Good luck.

Brian

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:38:16 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Daemon tools driver seems to cause that response in other drivers - in the past I had to re-install Windows XP due to a problem it created...

Adi

Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:49:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Send it back, Scott! I wonder if you would have the same problem with Vista 32bit and the iPhone...or even XP.

I guess that's one of the "nice" reasons to have a MacBook Pro as my laptop, I can always just to into "OSX" to sync up...but the lack of exchange connectivity will be a pain. What about Gmail/Google Apps? Did you try running it with your Google Apps account?

Javier Lozano

Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:12:41 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Lack of 64 bit OS support is the main deterrent for me, A) because I've been running XP 64bit for a couple of years now, and B) because a tech oriented company like Apple *not* supporting 64 bit is just a slap in the face, and downright insulting, so I boycott on principle alone. That and I just have zero interest in the iPhone...I'll give up my Pearl when it is pried from my dead cold hands!

jayson knight

Saturday, September 08, 2007 1:17:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

WAF! :-D That's hilarious! :-)

John C. Bland II

Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:29:11 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

If you ever do get it running and are feeling adventurous enough to hack your phone: http://www.modmyiphone.com/nativeapps/the-list/

What's a phone without running ruby on it?

Jon

Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:31:16 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

It's pretty easy to hack from the mac side. Totally doable on windows but not quite as transparent. Once you do get the installer intalled though, you can add/remove/update applications directly from your phone! http://iphone.macworld.com/2007/09/iphone_hacking_kit_the_next_ge.php

Jon

Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:47:13 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Well, I activated it on the Mac after time spent on the phone with support. I'm syncing the Google Calendar with Spanning Sync and the Contacts with Plaxo, so I've got Contacts and Calendar.

Still working on Music and Photos.

Scott Hanselman

Saturday, September 08, 2007 4:06:50 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I love how everyone uses the excuse, Vista 64 bit just isn't ready, you should not use it, etc. With that attitude it will never be ready, how do you get something ready with no one using it? Personally I have been running Vista 64 bit for nearly 1 year, and I have found very few applications don't work. In fact I am not entirely sure what Scott is talking about with ITunes, I went to Apples website, installed ITunes and it has worked perfectly fine. Granted I had to right click the application and choose "Run as Administrator" or it would not work properly but now it works hassle free, no problems? I sync it with my IPod everyday nearly and haven't seen anything wrong. It has locked up twice, but ITunes has never been the most stable application in the world for me really.

But really the problem here is Apple is being lazy when it comes to Windows support. They could easily compile a 64 bit version that is compatible but they don't and of course Windows gets blamed as it's the easiest target. Instead of bitching and moaning shouldn't we support the adoption of 64 bit? At least that's how it use to be, but it seems lately that most geeks have gotten to be whiny little bitches that complain about everything but do nothing to fix the problem. Don't be part of the problem be part of the solution!!

Note: ITune's patcher does not work on Vista 64 bit at all, you have to download the new version manually. It simply gives an error when running the patches after downloading them, does anyone else find it funny that Microsoft supports Apple products very well but Apple can't seem to support Windows products very well.

Eric Malamisura

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:28:04 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Greg: @Diego - Actually, right there on the box it says it works with Windows XP and Vista. No mention of 32- vs. 64-bit or anything of that nature. You have to dive into the fine, fine print to find a brief mention of the fact that the currrent version of iTunes won't let you activate on Win64.

Technically yes, the system requirements do not mention 32bit Windows as required and they do not say that 64bit is not supported. And yes, I would agree that it could make some people think that it does work on Vista 64bit. But, in this case, Scott is an extremely savvy computer user. As we know by his blog, he's been making Vista 64bit is main OS, posted numerous entries talking about difficulties with running some software under the 64bit OS. So I thought he'd know to check (and ask) to make sure it worked with 64bit Vista. He'd find out and it wasn't and not try and use the iPhone & iTunes on it. At maybe do it but say, hey I know this OS isn't supported but here is what I found when I tried to use it nonetheless. Just for the hell of it I tried it anyway. Instead of talking about Steve Jobs sticking it to him.

Over the years, where system requirements are listed, how many times has Windows 32bit & 64bit been differentiated? Since there's been 64bit version of Windows (at least since XP) have software boxes, hardware device boxes mentioned specifically 32bit & 64bit? Don't most system spec on software, mice, keyboards etc simply say Windows 2000, Windows XP and hardly never mention Windows XP 64bit or that or that Windows 64bit is NOT supported?

By the mere virtue that you're running Vista 64bit you'd be aware that you'd always need to check that something works with your OS. Or do so until that version of the OS is the norm.

I bet that part of the reason why Apple does not support 64bit (at least not yet) is because of economics. I'm sure that in time they will, but there's no real hurry to support 64bit Vista when it's not the majority of iTunes installs.

Diego

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:30:07 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Anyone else notice the browser slowing down when entering comment on Scott's blog? As they get longer the typed letters lag behind? By up to 10 or so seconds.

Diego

Saturday, September 08, 2007 7:57:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

OK Scott, do yourself a favor: return the machine.

You're digging a hole with this thing. You're stretching the WAF and blowing time on stuff that doesn't work. Your time is worth way too much to be playing with that type of crap (unless you really get a kick out of multiple re-installs and waiting on phones, etc.) It's time to cut your losses and spend some of the returned funds taking the Wife out to supper.

Gates VP

Saturday, September 08, 2007 8:09:33 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

It doesn't matter how nice, smooth, fancy and attractive Apples i* products are, you're always going to be nailed by their failings in Windows versions of their applications. As long as iTunes is a required install on my PC, I'll be avoiding all gadgets Apple :)

Saturday, September 08, 2007 10:34:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Sushant: "It doesn't say ANYWHERE that 64 bit is not supported." It also doesn't say that it is. And because it's not mentioned, it's clearly not supported.

Diego

Sunday, September 09, 2007 12:29:11 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Diego. I think the situation can be explained by a simple parent child relationship. Vista is the parent node. Vista 32 is the child node as is Vista 64. Thus when you select the Vista node, you also get the 32 and 64 node as well. :-)

@OJ: Well Said!!

Sushant Bhatia

Sunday, September 09, 2007 12:38:24 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Sushant: If Vista is the parent node to both Vista32 and Vista64, and you select the Vista node - then that being a pointer to the base class - you either have a Vista base or one of Vista32 or Vista64. So it has to be one or the other if you have a Vista reference :)

Diego

Sunday, September 09, 2007 12:39:18 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Sushant: Or instead of explaining it with something like parent and child nodes etc., we could say that Vista 64bit is /not/ mentioned in the system requirements, therefore it does not work with Vista64. Simple really. :)

Diego

Sunday, September 09, 2007 2:57:54 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Apple: beautiful hardware, crappy software. Notice I said beautiful hardware - not excellent hardware, and my company has a growing pile of Apple laptops that have become doorstops and iPods whose life expectancy is warranty+2 months. Seriously - one of the "experts" at my local Apple store actually admitted it. His pile of dead hardware is even bigger than mine.

Then there's the $200 price drop fiasco. That's the most flagrant public screwing of loyal customers I can remember. I firmly believe that few large corporations give a damn about their existing customers, but I've never seen one with the bravado to outwardly pimp them.

Seems the consumer can't see past the shiny surface of Apple's products. There are other options you know.

Glenn

Sunday, September 09, 2007 4:39:26 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Well, Scott.

I hate to say this, again, but I told you so.

How many x64 issues have you experienced thus far? Is it still worth it?

Your x64 Vista box sounds like in about another 3 months it's going to be due for another re-install because of all the crapware that is being installed and patched to make everything work. It's really sad that all of us have to spend so much time playing these games just to get our systems and software to run properly. Did you really save any money on that purchase? How many wasted "Hansel Minutes" did you spend trying to get this to work? This is another example how the software industry and progressing too fast... Next year they'll be something better our and 2 years from now everything you're doing now will be outdated and won't be compatable any longer. Arrghhh

I still think you should have taken my advice and left your x64 Vista as a host O/S for VMware and loaded Vista x86 on its on session. With USB support and all the other niceties, you could have had this working. At the same time, you could have separate VM sessions for Email, iTunes, etc., and another for your development environment.

I know I have installed Vista x64 about 3 times since its release on the same machine due to all sorts of issues. I'm now back with using x86 and everything has been running smoothly now that I have stopped loading everything that I have on the same O/S. No more weekends reinstalling and reconfiguring all my apps just to have another application screw something up 2 months from now.

I don't know what the answer is for all these things, but perhaps all of us consumers should just stop buying all the latest gadgets and warez and demand the manufactures and software companies iron-out their existing products.

When I die, I'm not going to have anything to show for it because it'll be version 40 versions behind and Windows 2040 won't support it and I'll keep reconverting every iTunes files, every VHA, Hi8, to AVI movie that I've ever made to the next greatest and latest format just so I can pretend I can still use it.

Mike Vann

Sunday, September 09, 2007 6:55:13 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

My recommendations especially given that you are now working for the big M is to return the phone, and then pick up a Blackjack. It ties in to the work email a WHOLE lot easier, and you don't have to jerk around with all of this activation bull@#$^, and is infinitely more hackable....

Arthur Strutzenberg

Sunday, September 09, 2007 11:24:34 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

You think life would be easier with a WinMobile phone? Yeesh, dude, how much does it take? After years of using a WinMob device, I gave the iPhone serious consideration. It sure is pretty. But bells and whistles don't get the work done if it doesn't do half the things I've come to expect from WinMob. iTunes gives me enough trouble with my iPods (four at last count; I'm no Apple-hater), in constrast to when I plugged my latest phone (HTC Advantage) into my Vista box and "it just worked".

Take it back. How many flaming hoops do you have to jump through before you figure out that maybe this isn't working out? Go get something for which you can just fire up VS and write whatever gizmo you want. You'll suffer less ridicule from your soon-to-be co-workers, too. :-)

Mike Stewart

Sunday, September 09, 2007 4:09:17 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

"Then there's the $200 price drop fiasco. That's the most flagrant public screwing of loyal customers I can remember"

Fiasco? You mean when companies drop prices on hardware? You say that like it never happens when talking about computers. Or many other appliances, for that matter. Did you think the iPhone's initial release would be the last? Did you think the price was ever going to come down? At what point did you think it would be OK for them to change the price? Are you saying this never happens with computers, phones, TVs, etc? Why aren't people up in arms about the "fiasco" concerning of these expensive large screen TVs coming down so dramatically in price? Answer: Because that's life and that's how it goes. People were happy to pay the initial price for the iPhone, so why complain? They wanted it there and then and got it. Come on, stop whining and get back in the real world. It happens all the time!

Diego

Sunday, September 09, 2007 5:23:18 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Who even installs Vista, let alone the 64-bit version. And then - goes and tries to install an Apple product on it - then to go on blaming apple. It's like you work for Microsoft or something ;)

Barry Gervin

Sunday, September 09, 2007 8:57:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

iPhone sync on 32-bit vista versions isn't that well-supported. A friend got an iPhone and could not sync with his Dell laptop running a 32-bit version of Vista. Well he did not have MS Office and Outlook Express is no longer present on Vista machines, nor will it install. OE has been supplanted by some other MS program (I forget the name). And that program is NOT supported. Well we finally managed to get the contacts into the phone from his old phone, by a rather circuitous process, but Apple had no procedure that would work with Vista unless you happened to have Office installed.

Mike S.

Sunday, September 09, 2007 9:59:42 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I still don't get why you're having problems with iTunes on Vista 64. I've had iTunes on my Vista 64 box for a while now and it works (and installed) totally fine. No hacks needed.

By the way, I'm with you on iTunes becoming unresponsive. I even blogged about it recently too.

Mike Hall

Sunday, September 09, 2007 10:03:06 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Dude, I totally warned you on that... and my T-Mobile Wing still rocks. I use Google Calendar over the web and sync my contacts with outlook. Gmail is being automatically checked every 15 minutes and works great using the ("recent:" hack, which you may be familiar with). It's also the best media player I've ever had and works amazingly with my Napster.

David Betz

Sunday, September 09, 2007 10:13:17 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Mike - It's not iTunes (whick sucks, but does RUN on 64) it's *specifically* the iPhone Activation driver which doesn't work.

David - Ya...I've got an HTC Dash with a prerelease of the next WinMobile that works well...is the Google Calendar thing an app, or a T-Mobile thing? Yes, I use "recent:" (not a hack, a supported feature) thing on my iPhone now.)

Scott Hanselman

Sunday, September 09, 2007 11:43:18 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hopefully this helps,
I've been happily syncing multiple iPods with one library.

Multiple OS’s pointing to one library: My main iTunes library is on Windows, which is set with ‘Keep iTunes Library Organized’. My iTunes on my Mac is pointed to this library but with ‘Keep iTunes Library Organized’ switched off. This seems to work fine, haven’t had any issues so far. Just remember you'll need to activate both machine to play DRM'd stuff. I only sync my iPod with the windows copy though.

Louis

Louis Nell

Monday, September 10, 2007 1:20:53 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

If the system requirements say that Windows Vista is supported (with no further qualification) then it's reasonable to believe that includes Vista x64. It's the manufacturer's responsibility to make system requirements clear and if they don't then you have every right to return their gear as being unfit for purpose.

If you buy Vista at retail then you get both the 32 and 64 bit editions. In the case of Ultimate they're both in the box (other editions you can either send away for the 64 bit disc or download it). So the availability of 64 bit to end users is pretty mainstream, even if the actual take-up is only beginning to rise from a low base; there's not really any excuse for failing to support it when releasing a new device.

Gavin Greig

Monday, September 10, 2007 5:53:10 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Ahhhhhh, sweetness. Finally... an honest and real-life iPhone experience from a computer genius whose lips are not tatooed on Steve Jobs ass. I told you suckers...

Josh Stodola

Monday, September 10, 2007 6:30:58 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

There must be a PowerShell solution around here somewhere . . .

;-)

Dave P.

Monday, September 10, 2007 7:21:13 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

What about my music? Can a Mac iTunes installation share the same iTunes Library with Windows

Yes.

You can't share the library fully, but you can install Firefly and iTunes will recognize it immediately. You manage it from one place, and all other comps will be able to play the music from Firefly.

Aleksandar

Monday, September 10, 2007 12:27:09 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I have really mixed feelings on you picking up an iPhone, Scott. I have been itching for one since they came out but couldn't bring myself to spend $600 on it. When the price dropped to $400 I started having serious issues. I don't have an ipod so $400 for both a pretty new phone and an ipod seemed reasonable. I was looking for an excuse _not_ to get it when I came to your site and found out you had caved. Sigh.
Anyway - my experience has been much better but I'm struggling with whether or not to keep it. Activation went great - no problem. And the $20 unlimited iphone data was cheaper than what I had on my HTC Wizard. Overall, I love the phone. But, I'm stuck on:
1. EDGE - it's ok - not tragically slow like people rant about and what I'm used to from my Wizard, but I feel like I just bought a really flash, but outdated, phone.
2. A2DP - I keep telling myself it's a just a tiny software update away - or maybe never.
3. WPA-Enterprise. The iPhone is fantastic with its Edge-to-Wifi hopping and that makes all the difference. However, most of the grown up places I go use WPA-Enterprise, not just WPA/WPA2. I'm hosed. Again, "just a software update"...
3. (And this is the biggest) the 3G phone coming out and Apple stops adding features to the current iPhone. I can live with being passed by a 3G/16GB version coming out in January, but I really, really don't want to get burnt by not getting any of the clearly missing features addressed because there's a 3G version out there now.

Sigh... day 2 of my 14 day trial. If it wasn't so freakin' pretty.... -- Dan

Dan P

Monday, September 10, 2007 1:37:47 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Dan - dude, I know. I'm *loving* the interface, the smoothness, the crispness, it's magical...truly. BUT.

The lack of support on Windows, the poor battery life, the wifi security, and on and on.

I keep just wishing my Windows Mobile device just had a better interface and screen...

I am 60% for taking it back now...

Scott Hanselman

Monday, September 10, 2007 9:15:09 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott, I use SyncMyCal (NOT the Mobile one-- that one is kinda trippy for me). I found it to be really nice for synch-ing between Google Calendar and Outlook (and therefore automatically my mobile device too).

I didn't realize the "recent:" thing was a documented feature. That makes sense now... I always wonder how someone could just pull that out of the sky.

BTW, my current client-- a hardcore Mac dude-- hates his iPhone. He says "It's the best iPod I've ever had and absolutely the worst phone." As I've said before, it's the greatest piece of technology to come along in a long time, but it's implementation is a disaster.

David Betz

Monday, September 10, 2007 9:24:52 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

David - Ya, I think maybe I want an iPod Touch, rather than an iPhone...

Scott Hanselman

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 2:52:54 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott, poor battery life? Really? I've heard only very good reports about it. Something's up with your iPhone or are your standards much higher than most? :)

Here is Engadget's review of the iPhone (http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/03/iphone-review-part-2-phone-mail-safari-ipod/) and comments pertaining to battery life. Sounds like it is quite acceptable.

The biggest upshot we found on the media playback, though, was the iPhone's Herculean battery life. We've seen other reviews' media playback results vary, but ours seemed to jump far ahead of even Apple's lofty expectations.

Playing relatively high bitrate VGA H.264 videos, our iPhone lasted almost exactly 9 freaking hours of continuous playback with cell and WiFi on (but Bluetooth off). Yeah, we had to pick our jaws up off the floor, too. So by our tests, you could watch a two hour movie and drain off a little more than 22% of the battery -- totally acceptable for trip-taking and the like.

Our music testing showed similarly outstanding results. Playing back 160-192Kbps MP3s, our iPhone pushed about 29 hours and 30 minutes music playback. To put that in perspective, the Apple claims the iPod nano gets about 24 hours playback on a full charge, and the iPod a scant 14 - 20 hours.

Diego

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 7:23:56 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Diego - In a boring meeting recent I surfed and checked email on and off for 4 hours and the iPhone was near dead at the end. Maybe it's the radio?

Scott Hanselman

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 10:23:01 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Ah, someone else that iTunes 7 hangs on.

I have submitted a thread to Apple's forums here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=714993

You can see how much help they've been.

Paul

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 4:04:08 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott - Not sure what it could have been. I know that with mobiles, if there's no reception around phone's go crazy and chew up power trying to find a signal. But I presume you had reception there. Not sure.

Diego

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