iPhone class-action lawsuit?!?
So, I got your attention… no I do not know of any specific class-action suit against Apple over its iPhone, however I do want to say that there should be one and my story will show why.
I recently purchased an iPhone believing like many others that this device would be the long-awaited device to pwn all other devices. Well, perhaps it’s not a commercial grade HD camcorder, but it does take decent photos for a phone. Anyhow, the iPhone is a GPS navigator, a digital camera, an iPod, a web-browser, an email utility, a gaming platform, and a cell-phone all-in-one. Oh, and it has plenty of add-on applications to keep you up to date on everything from stocks to the weather. So what is the iPhone 3G missing in the midst of all these great abilities?
Stereo headsets. Yep, you heard right. Stereo Bluetooth Headset functionality is not available for the iPhone – while many competitors do and have been offering this functionality for over a year now. Now you may ask why a class-action lawsuit over this? Well for one… one of it’s most pivotal, most primary functionalities is being an audio player (an iPod). Now that in and of itself isn’t worthy of any kind of lawsuit… it’s just evidence of very poor engineering and management of Apple’s flagship product. What makes it worthy of lawsuit is all in the marketing.
Apple markets its product as “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” capable as seen on its Tech Specs page and retail packaging. Now the lay person would look at this and see ‘Bluetooth 2.0′ and think to themselves “Well that must be better than Bluetooth 1.x” as common sense would dictate. Then they’d see ‘+ EDR’ and think, “oh cool, it supports MORE than just Blueooth 2.0 – it supports this EDR thing too – whatever that is”. As anyone can plainly see, the customer now has a stated reason (provided by Apple) to believe that his/her Bluetooth devices should be supported on his/her shiny new iPhone.
The trick is that supporting “Bluetooth 2.0″ doesn’t mean ANY Bluetooth devices are supported at all (it only means the hardware layer is there – I just learned this myself and I am a software engineer and work with technology every day)! The saddest part is that there are so many standards and so much misinformation out there that it is difficult for even me to keep on top of it all (another great example of this is the over-the-air cable switch to occur in February 2009). A device could have a Bluetooth 2.0 chip inside it and state it supports Bluetooth 2.0 right on the packaging (like Apple has done) but not support a single Bluetooth device in all the world, but the packaging would still be telling the customer the truth (however so misleading that truth is).
In adding the ‘+’ in “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR”, Apple has gone so far as to say “in addition to” Bluetooth 2.0 (which in all actuality means absolutely nothing in regards to compatibility) Apple continues… “we also support EDR”. This adds another layer of misinformation to confound the unlearned customer. So what is EDR you are wondering. Well, according to Wikipedia (yes, I had to look this up as I personally do not know what every acronym in the technology field stands for) EDR stands for Enhanced Data Rate (basically meaning faster transfer speeds over Blueooth 2.0). So if you or I were to look this up, there is no inkling to explain that certain Bluetooth devices are NOT supported.
Now the question is – is it Apple’s fault OR the customers fault that the end-user (the customer) doesn’t know what this “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” actually means (which we now know means: nothing at all)? Also, if the customer does know what this means how are they to know what devices are supported? A simple explanation on Apple’s site and packaging stating “Bluetooth handsfree profile supported” and can I go so far as to say “Blueooth stereo profile not supported at this time” would have made this clear to me and the over 1 million other iPhone owners before getting trapped in a multi-thousand dollar deal (you do the math) with AT&T. Apple chose not to state this. The fact that “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” actually means absolutely nothing when it comes to compatibility with other devices (such as headsets, car adapters, headphones, etc) shows Apple intentionally mislead many people to believe their devices were indeed supported when they were not – and to top it off we have no idea if Apple EVER intends to support them.
To summarize: Apple states on their packaging and website that Bluetooth devices are supported by the iPhone. This however is only a half-truth as only the handsfree profile is supported and all other devices are not. This is not stated anywhere in any Apple literature available to a customer prior to purchase of the iPhone and in many instances reported online – AT&T store representatives have actually told customers the false information that stereo headsets do indeed work with the iPhone. Now this can not be blamed on Apple, but the fact that Apple does not have any literature to falsify those claims can be blamed on Apple.
Do the ends justify the means?
I was recently asked why I have a “Peace” bumper sticker that says “Support our Troops”. I thought the answer was obvious… the best way to support our troops is by not being at war (hence putting them in grave danger). For those who don’t know me, I served honorably in the Rhode Island Army National Guard in the infantry for 6 years and I put that sticker on my car when my old unit got called up to go to Iraq. That question though got me thinking about my political views on the war in Iraq.
I always wonder to myself about the answer many give when asked about their feelings on Iraq: “if the ends justify the means, then it was worth it” and “only time will tell”. I will be the first to admit that I have used these phrase over and over when it comes to this war in particular. But being a bit of a philosopher, I have to question my own beliefs continuously to strengthen them.
So, the question is “do the ends justify the means”. But what does that question really mean? We know what the means are, but what ends are we talking about? I would argue most people would say that the ends implies when this war is over and done with and we have a historical record of the events that aren’t muddied by politics (at least not too much, or at least all sides to the story are represented) what was accomplished/what was the outcome.
If that is the case we still have another question… the timeline. When this war is over and done with only gives the time when this statement becomes valid… but it does not take into effect history afterwards. Take for example the fall of the “evil Roman empire”. Did the ends justify the means? Invading hordes, collapse of society, a long lasting dark age on humanity as western cultures new it were the means in this case. The ends were a largely Christian society split into feuding fiefdoms, intolerance of others, and the loss of scholarly works. However, the ends now are quite different.
Now the ends are a return of sorts of Rome in the USA, albeit we are not evil (as I am sure the Romans were not either – just paganistic and fearful of their imagined gods). We have a great civilization, largely free and protected by some of the best men and women in uniform throughout the world. So I would say that in 500AD the ends did not justify the means, but in 2008AD the ends appear to have justified the means. But who’s to say that will be true in 3000AD?
When we say “the ends justify the means” we expect our context to be fixed, but this is not the case. The means are fixed, but the ends are always changing. Their will always have been loss of innocents in Iraq (on both sides) but the ends will keep changing throughout time.
So the next time you go to use that phrase, think about what you are really saying.
Cha-riho
Good ridance! That’s what I say to Charlestown’s latest effort to leave Chariho.
Seriously, we complain about how unfair the tax equalization is between Charlestown and Richmond/Hopkinton. With Charlestown gone, we won’t need to update our facilities to accommodate more students, we won’t have as big operating costs (I’m thinking of heating, etc on top of less teachers and so forth). I’m sure the ratio of operating costs will be somewhat higher, but not high enough to warrant paying millions to build new structures. The kicker is… Charlestown will get hammered with huge up-front costs to build their school system. How’s that for tax equalization?
The one remaing factor to consider is a new name… Riho is just not right – I can think of too many jokes at our children’s expense. What do you think the new bi-town school distract should be named?
216 – the new number for evil
Forget 666 – 216 is far worse.
I was recently driving down route 216 between Ashaway and Bradford/Alton. Now I know how scarred up this section of road is – and I know all the little spots where you have to drive on the other side of the road (the wrong side, facing oncoming traffic) to avoid nasty, deep potholes – but even this knowledge did not prevent me from nearly wrecking my car.
I was driving along to Walmart in the middle of the night (as that is the best time to go to such a place – no fighting hordes of overweight, buck-toothed customers to buy a single item) to buy an airconditioner (It was one of those oppresively hot and sticky nights, and my old AC was just not cutting it). The dummy coming at me had their high beams on and refused to lower them no matter how much I flicked my lights at him/her. Luckily I saw the deer on my side of the road (it was foggy out, but I could make out it was about halfway out of the breakdown lane into my lane) so I swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid it (I still had enough time between me and the oncoming moron) – but immediately felt this huge crash reverberate through my car.
I first thought I must have run over a second deer, but then realized I had steered right into an enormous pothole. Had that popped my tire I most assuredly would have been a sitting target for the (possibly drunk) idiot gunning toward me. I was amazed at how hard my car hit that hole and amazed more that I didn’t pop a tire (thanks to Goodyear Triple-Treads for that save).
The worst part is that this road has been like this since I moved to Hopkinton a few years back – and it’s only gotten worse. I recently found out on another blog that this road is maintained (or rather – not maintained) by the state of Rhode Island/NOT Hopkinton. So what do we do with barely any representation up on Capitol Hill? Are Brian Kennedy and Senator Breen listening?
Public email for our councilors and officials?
I recently wanted to email the town councilors about a concern I had. I went to the Hopkinton town website and was annoyed to find that none of their email addresses were listed. Our town manager’s email address was available, so I emailed him and requested him to email me back to let me know that he forwarded my concerns on to the council members. He never replied to me.
I decided to go on a search for the council member’s email addresses using various search engines and a little ingenuity to weed through all the trash. I successfully located four of the five councillor’s addresses (this was not an easy task) and sent them a copy of the concerns I had sent to the town manager. Unfortunately, one of the councillor’s addresses bounced immediately and the only response to the remaining three emails was from Barbara Capalbo.
She verified the other two addresses I had used were indeed invalid addresses and provided me the correct email addresses of Tom Buck, Bev Kenney, and Vinny Cordone. I then sent another copy of my concerns to the correct addresses and received a pleasant reply from Bev, but I never received a reply from Tom or Vinny.
Apparently Sylvia does not like her email being given out… and I can completely understand this. That is why I propose that the town provide publicly known email addresses for the town councillors and the other town officials both elected and not. They already own the domain name hopkintonri.org and the manager has an address already, so why hasn’t this been already done?
Ashaway library gets long needed raise
I just wanted to express my gratitude to the town council for listening to my concerns as well as many other townsfolk in requesting additional funding for the Ashaway library. The library had not been given an increase in it’s operating budget for three straight years… something in this time of increased operating costs due to inflation and high oil prices… could have crippled, maybe even bankrupted the institution. The library was given a raise of two thousand dollars in the budget and this in addition to increased private donations has really reduced the level of concern we were all feeling. Thank you town council.
A variance… to build a deck!?!
Okay, so I am just amused. The contractor I hired has told me I need to get a special administrative variance to build a 12 foot by 17 foot deck – less than a foot off the ground – off the back of my house. So now I have to inform all my neighbors, run an ad in the Westerly Sun, and pay additional permit fees to build said deck. The best part is – I’m lucky. If the decrepit old deck that I dare not walk out on were not already in existence off the second story of my house (the deck does not have stairs down, it is merely a 6 by 4 foot deck hanging off the upper floor of my house) I would have had to get a full blooded variance.
Why you ask? Something to do with not having 100 feet of land in front of my house. The kicker is… I have a six foot tall fence around the back yard – no one will ever even see the deck I am building from the front of the house (the deck won’t even have railings as it is so close to the ground). The only bit of new construction they will see is the updated/replaced/shiny/new deck off the second story and a stairwell going down to the new deck.
Oh, and when we had the fence built – I was told by town officials that no permit is required for a fence.
