Archives for September 2007

The only time I've ever seen a black widow spider has always been in pictures and on TV. The other night I finally saw one in real life. As Nicole and I were going out, she noticed a spider web in the corner of our front doorstep. Upon closer look, she saw the tell-tale sign of a black widow, a red hour glass shape. As soon as she said that, i quickly went back in to grab the camera. I think the picture turned out really good. I like how you can see a recent victim of the spider just to the right of it.

Today Apple announced a refresh to the iPod lineup.

iPod Shuffle

- New Colors

- Who cares. The iPod shuffle is pretty much useless for most people.

iPod Nano

- Now with a bigger screen and coverflow

- The new video screen makes the nano look short, fat, and ugly.

iPod touch

- iPod with the iPhone touch interface and UI.

- This is the iPod everyone has been waiting for. It's aweomse looking and finally a truly new iPod.

iPhone 8GB

- $200 price drop.

- WTF?!

Hold up, you mean the $600 phone that I bought from Apple last month is now only $400? This is riduculous. Now I know that electronics get price drops from time to time but this just unheard of. The phone is less than three months old and Apple has dropped the price by 33 percent. Apple has essentially kicked every one of their early adopters, those people that stood in line for the iPhone, in groin. Makes the first few months of the phone's life seem like a user beta test.

I'm glad I didn't stand in line the night it came out. I waited a couple of months at least. I was buying a new macbook for Nicole and figured, what heck, I'll just go ahead and get Nicole and I iPhones. So now I'm out $400. Thanks Apple. I don't know who I'm more mad at, myself for being stupid enough to be a new product so early or Apple, for saying, “Thanks for the $200 sucker!” I was very close this morning to saying screw you Apple and seling off my Apple stock. But then my brain kicked back in and I realized that they'll be selling a boat load of the new iPod touches and iPhones. Plus Leopard, the next Mac OS, is due in October. The stock will only go up because of the announcement today (though it dropped today) and Leopard. I've also made more than $400 in Apple stock since I've bought it so I guess Apple and I are even.

You'll have to excuse me now. I'm off to Cupertino to punch Steve Jobs in the nose

09/05/2007 Update: Turns out that Apple was planning this price cut from the beginning. Again, thanks a lot Apple.

On Wednesday, Apple executives insisted that the price cut had been planned long ago and that the strategy had been conceived in part to keep the iPhone’s pricing in line with its new iPod Touch.