Since being turned on to the idea in a recent Workflows episode with Alex Lindsay, I’ve started using the Cocoon Grid System to organize my tech accessories. The Cocoon comes in various shapes and sizes, but I picked the model that is the same size as my laptop so they’ll always fit together in the same bag. With the Cocoon packed I now only have to grab two things for my various travel bags and I’m to go for most any situation, my MacBook Air and my Cocoon.

So, here’s a look at my travel bag with explanations:

1. Apple USB Ethernet Adapter: This may seem like a silly addition in a world of ubiquitous Wi-Fi, but there are still times when you just need to plug in and the MacBook Air does not have an Ethernet port. Wi-Fi at hotels can be iffy at best and when speaking at conferences, especially tech conferences, there are generally Ethernet ports available for guests and speakers to connect and access content. In fact, at WWDC, the only way you can download the gigantic developer released at the show is via wired connection. For $29, this is a small adapter to throw in your bag and priceless if you need it. The only downside is this adapter does not support Gigabit, but it still is much faster than most Wi-Fi.
2. 3-Grounded Outlet Adapter: There are all kinds of travel adapters, including those that have built in surge protectors. However when space is at a premium I wanted something small and mobile. This 3-outlet adapter is very small and will allow three grounded (or not) cables to plug in to a single outlet. This is great for airports or conferences when power outlets are at a minimum. When the power plugs are already taken, it’s a lot easier to ask to jump in when you have an adapter that will allow you to share the power with your new friends.
3. Callpod: This is one of the ultimate travel accessories. The Callpod allows you to charge up to six mobile devices at the same time. You can purchase specific adapters to match your devices. In my case I have 2 30-pin dock adapters for my iPad and iPhone, 1 mini-USB adapter for my Richard|Solo backup battery and 2 mini-USB adapters for my Mophie Juicepack and other accessories. Item 3a in the photo is the Callpod body while item 3b are the adapters that power my devices. When all connected together it looks like a giant octopus of tech.
4. Logitech Wireless Presenter: I tend to give a lot of presentations both at my local Mac Users Groups and when I’m traveling for work and at various conferences. I previously traveled with an Apple wireless remote (great because it doubled as a remote for the AppleTV) but since the MacBook Air doesn’t have an IR port, I’ve found this inexpensive presenter works well for me. This presenter isn’t the fanciest, but it gets the job done and also includes a laser pointer.
5. Apple Airport Express: This is another devices that is great for travel. These days I travel with multiple network connected devices including MacBook Air, an iPhone, an iPad and sometimes an AppleTV. If I’m traveling with someone else, they probably have their own host of Internet connected devices. For optimal results, these devices all need to be connected to the same network and be able to talk to the other. Some hotels will provide a wired connection in the room (always preferred to Wi-Fi) but that’s only good for connecting one device at a time and not always in a convenient spot. Plugging in the Airport Express allows me to create my own sub-network with an additional level of security to connect all my devices. Even if the hotel doesn’t have a wired port, I still travel with the Airport Express as I frequently travel with an AppleTV and in order to stream content from my computer, iPad or iPhone, they need to be on the same network which I use the Airport express to create.
6. Griffin Mini-Cable Kit: When out and about the last thing I want to do is deal with a tangle of various cables. Griffin offers a pack of mini-cables that are around 3” long. The set includes a 30-pin dock connector a mini-USB cable and a micro-USB cable. That combination of 3 cables covers just about everything I need. The cables do support charging and syncing so I find no need to carry the longer cables when on the road. Less mess, less fuss.
7. Twelve South PlugBug: This is the newest addition to my travel kit but one that I can already tell will make the greatest difference. The PlugBug attaches to the top of the standard Apple MacBook Power Adapter and adds a 10 Watt USB power port. This is good enough to charge an iPhone or an iPad on the road, but used when in conjunction with the Callpod (see item 3) I can now power my Macbook Air and all my mobile devices off a single plug. Of course, the more items you add to the chain, the slower they’re all going to charge, but I’ve found it more than adequate to charge up all my devices overnight. The PlugBug does add a little more bulk to my MacBook Air power adapter, but not too much and it keeps me from having to bring a separate power adapter for the Callpod so saves me space overall.
8. Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter – Nothing fancy here – but if you give presentations and connect your Mac to a projector this is a necessity.
9. Richard|Solo 1800: This is the all purpose battery charger I like to take on the road with me for extra juice. the Richard|Solo will fully charge my iPhone and then some. It will charge just about any device with a 30-pin dock connector and while it doesn’t officially support the iPad because of its increased power requirements, it will work to trickle charge in a pinch. While the Richard|Solo is always in my gear bag, I do carry a Mophie JuicePack Air on my iPhone whenever traveling for more than a day trip or when I expect to be away from power for an extended period of time.

Why Cut the Cable?
Two years ago when I moved to this area I signed up for a cable bundle package that was a pretty good deal, $99 for expanded cable TV (no premium channels), high speed Internet and basic phone service. This $99 bundle was not a special, it was advertised as the “everyday value price” for this bundle. Over the years, that price has grown and now my bill just over $150, that’s quite a price increase in two years.

I’ve used a TiVo since the early 2000s and although I haven’t been happy with some of the recent decisions the company has made, I still love the TiVo service. My current TiVo HDs work with either Cable service or over the air digital antennas.  Looking at my TiVo season pass list, I realized that nearly all of the shows that I record were network television shows that were available free over the air. There were a few non-network TV shows that could easily be watched or bought through other services. I quickly realized the $65 I was paying for the cable TV portion of my bill was really being spent on only a few channels.

As my cost for cable service kept increasing, I didn’t feel like I was getting anything more for my money.  My cost for services went up at the same time my cable company instituted bandwidth caps. Shortly thereafter, they started running television ads boasting “free HD” that were simply blatantly untrue. I was paying over $15 a month for a “digital gateway” and for cable cards with the only benefit being HD service. When I called the company to inquire about these claims and charges the representative was downright rude and refused to address my concerns. That was the straw that broke my back.

Making the Switch
Since I already owned the TiVo HD units and HD TVs the only hardware that would be required was the antenna. Prior to cutting the cable, I wanted to install the antenna and make sure I was happy with the reception. I started my research at antennaweb.org and after inputing my address and some basic information was able to see what channels were available in my area and the type of antenna I would need.

I purchased my $20 antenna from Mono Price and was pleased to find in total, I received 10 channels including all the network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX) as well as several public broadcasting and local stations in pristine high definition, all free.

Installation of the antenna was the only thing that did not go as expected. My initial plan was to install the antenna in the attic and splice it in place of my primary cable line so it would feed all the TVs in my home and be out of sight. Unfortunately, when I got up in the attic I found there was a barrier between my access point and the cable junction box that made the installation more difficult than I was comfortable with. Though I may end up paying a professional to come out and run a line in the attic at some point in the future.

For now, I installed the antenna on a wall in my guest bedroom next to an unused cable outlet and back-fed the signal into my cable junction box, using that line as my new input which feeds the three HDTVs in my home. The solution works perfectly, but means that there’s an antenna about the size of a basketball mounted on the wall in my guest bedroom which is a bit of an eyesore. It’s out of the way and I don’t have guests often, so hopefully they won’t mind.

I re-ran the guided setup on the TiVos to look for the antenna signal and they adjusted their setup and converted all my saved season passes over with no problems. All my regular season passes are recording as they should.

Canceling Cable
After a couple of days living with the antenna and finding everything worked according to plan, I set out to cancel my cable. This was probably the most difficult part of the process. Because of the options in my area, I needed to keep my cable Internet service but could choose between the cable or phone company for the phone service (I have a monitored alarm system that requires a hard-wire phone.)

When I called the 800 number to cancel my cable I was on the phone for no less than 35 minutes with the cable rep who was determined to convince me that I really didn’t want to cut my cable. The misinformation this sales person was spewing was almost entertaining. She first tried to up-sell me the cable company DVR and cable box telling me to ignore the fact my bill was going up, but I was getting a “better value.” Then, she tried to sell me a less-expensive cable package that included none of the expanded channels I actually watched and was nothing more than network television plus some extra junk channels. Lastly, she explained to me how “concerned” she was for me because without my cable I wouldn’t be able to get my local news and weather and after all, it was hurricane season in Florida. After this I lost my patience, asked her if she was intentionally lying to me or if she was really this misinformed? Things went downhill from there.

The cable rep on the phone was not very helpful and told me after unbundling my cable service the price of my phone would double and my Internet service would go up significantly making the savings of cutting cable TV very minimal. I decided to do nothing and later that day went in person to the local cable office and received much better service and better options allowing me to keep my current pricing on both phone and Internet services, just lose the cable. Overall, by dropping cable I’m saving $65 a month off my bill and keeping the same level of Internet and phone service.

Concerns:
It’s only been a few days, but so far from a technical standpoint my antenna only setup with cable phone and Internet service seems to be working well.  Making the switch from cable meant I lost about 70 channels, however I can tell you from my experiences so far, there are less than a half dozen that I actually miss.  My biggest loss was 24-hour cable news programing and a few custom channels like HGTV. I’ll be experimenting with replacements through podcasts, Hulu and other providers and see how this works and if I really end up missing the lost channels. I have a feeling those few lost channels won’t be worth the $65 premium I was paying for cable.

Conclusion
I’m not yet a week into this experiment, but so far I’m not going through any major withdraw. I still miss CNN and HGTV but that’s about it. I expect as time goes on, I’ll find even better ways to fill these voids. I’ve heard from a number of people who have cut the cable in the last couple of years as I’ve been considering this move, and I’ve yet to hear of one person who went back. I’ll check back in a few months to let you know how it goes.

However, after three years of law school, I found that my love of reading faded a bit. While in law school I didn’t have much time for pleasure reading yet I was reading all the time for class. Reading became more associated with work and a chore than with escape and relaxation and as a result, I began reading less and less for pleasure. I can’t tell you how many attorneys I’ve spoken to who have noticed the exact same thing happening in their lives.

As a technology enthusiast I have been intrigued by eBooks and their climb in popularity. However, going back to my traditional book-loving roots, I just couldn’t grasp the concept of reading on an electronic device and giving up the feel of a hardback book in my hands. Books are treasured possessions in my family. I’ve found that when I go to someone’s home for the first time I’m drawn to their bookshelves to see what kind of books they’re interested in and what they’ve been reading. You can tell a lot about a person by the types of books they read, and especially those they think highly enough to keep on their shelf. That’s not really an option with a library of eBooks.

This winter, things changed for me.

It goes back to that silly “rule” in my family about having to read books before you can give them as gifts. I found myself in a bind when I had several books to read before Christmas and I was running out of time. The books were interesting and I was enjoying them, but I just couldn’t seem to make my way through them. I do most of my reading at night just before bed just couldn’t get comfortable reading with the lights on and having to climb out of bed to turn off the lights when I was done for the evening. (Yes, I know this sounds trivial.) I also felt like whenever I had some free time, the book was always somewhere else.

Getting desperate, with two books to finish and less than 20 days to do it, I decided I wasn’t going to make it. So I decided to pony up an extra $9.99 buy the larger of the two books in eBook format. I figured that I could “cheat” and give the hardback book as a gift at Christmas, and finish up the eBook after the fact. The eBook in question wasn’t available in the iBook store (no surprise there) so I ended up buying it from the Amazon Kindle store.

That evening, I decided to try reading from the iPad using the Kindle App rather than the actual book so I could play with my new toy. Thanks to the color screen on the iPad, I was able to turn off the lights in my bedroom and curl up in bed with the iPad. Much to my surprise, the experience was a joy! There was no eye strain associated with reading text off the screen and I was able to adjust various settings including the color of the text, the brightness and size to my liking. Most of my reading has been done on the iPad in the evenings, but there have been a few occasions where I’ve used the iPhone app when out and about to read a chapter or two while waiting for various appointments.

In less than a month I’ve breezed through my two Christmas books using the Kindle app on the iPad (about 700 traditional pages in total) and have started a third. More importantly, I’m enjoying winding down in the evenings reading again.

The biggest problem for me is that that physical bookshelf still means a lot. If it’s a book I particularly enjoyed, I’m going to want a hard copy for my shelf. Perhaps this is a vestige of the old “analog” reading age that I just need to get over. However, I think for the next little while, I’ll probably continue to buy some duplicate physical books in addition to my eBooks. I wish Amazon would offer some kind of “bundle” pack where you can buy the physical book and the eBook together for a significant discount. I would imagine I’m not the only one with this preference.

I also think the pricing of eBooks is still artificially high. The hardback version of the book was $16. The eBook was $10. However, my eBook book didn’t have to be printed, bound, affixed with a cover, shipped to Amazon and then shipped to me. I’m all for authors, publishers and distributors making a profit. However, $9.99 for a book that I’m going to read once, that I can’t loan to my friends and that I can’t put on a shelf after the fact seems a little high.

All in all, I’m enjoying my new found love of reading on the iPad. While the iBooks app seems a little more polished, the Kindle app is very good and the selection of the Amazon Kindle store is far superior to the iBooks Store. I’m very happy with the iPad experience using the Kindle App. I’ve read the debates about which reading device is better, Kindle vs. iPad. For my use, the iPad is the right device for me. Most of my reading is at night in the low light where the Kindle (or even a traditional book) would not work for me without some kind of book light. On very rare occasions do I read outside or in bright sunlight where the glare screen of the iPad might present a problem.

Make no mistake, this is how our children will read books in the future. On one hand, that makes me a little sad. But on the other, I welcome this technology that has renewed my love of reading and make it easier to open up the endless fictional worlds to others.

Apple has called a last-minute press event on Friday, June 16^th to discuss the iPhone 4 and this seemed like a good time to share my experiences.

General Observations:

First, I seem to be having two reception related problems with my iPhone 4, it’s unclear whether they are related or not. The first problem is the well documented “death grip.” Both on my Microcell at home and out around town when using the iPhone without a case, I am noticing a significant decrease in signal to the point where my calls become garbled or dropped as soon as I pick up the phone. In this case my signal strength and call quality starts out good, but then drops off suddenly once the gap of the antenna is bridged. This issue seems to be fairly well documented around the web, so I’ll spare the details.

The second issue is that I am having is problems with low signal and dropped calls in general. Even when using the iPhone in a case or sitting on a desk my iPhone 4 has significantly poorer reception when compared to my iPhone 3G. Calls will drop or become garbled in areas where I’ve never had any problems before. This is obviously amplified when using the iPhone without a case by the “death grip” but exists as a baseline poorer signal. This issue has not resolved, even with the purchase of a bumper.

Here are couple of examples from my everyday use while using the Apple Bumper. (This is pre the iPhone 4.0.1 update.)  In my office, I have always had 4-5 bars of signal strength on my iPhone 3G and have been able to successfully hold conversations for an hour or more. With the iPhone 4, I consistently show only one bar of signal strength, and calls may drop out or become garbled even with the bumper. Without the bumper, they drop within minutes. Around my house while connected to my Microcell has the same problem. My upstairs bedroom is directly above the Microcell. Again, I was previously able to hold a conversation for hours with 5 full bars of signal strength on my 3G. Even with the iPhone bumper, my signal is showing somewhere between 3-4 bars, and it is not uncommon for the audio quality to stutter. Without the bumper, calls drop audio regularly, and will eventually drop. These are both cases where I have had excellent results with my iPhone 3G. I’ve also noticed a general increase in the number of calls dropped when driving around town talking on my Bluetooth speakerphone.

Enter AppleCare

The problems with the iPhone 4 reception were immediately apparent and I began my own troubleshooting techniques which included:

• Powering on and off the iPhone
• Hard reset of the Phone
• Restore to clean iOS 4 from a backup
• Restore to a clean iOS 4 without a backup (re-sync and reconfigure)

The problems persisted and I placed my first call into AppleCare on June 25^th, within 2 days of receiving the phone. The first level support walked me through all of the steps above and then added the additional suggestion of pulling out and re-inserting my SIM card. When none of that worked, the AppleCare tech advised me the iOS 4.0.1 software would be coming out that day and I should try that and call back in a few days if it did nothing. Of course, iOS 4.0.1 was not released until three weeks later. But we’ll get to that shortly.

Enter AT&T

When I couldn’t get any relief from my first call to AppleCare, I thought it best to also log an incident with AT&T. My first question to AT&T was whether they were experiencing any network outages that might explain my dramatic reduction in signal at my office. AT&T reported no problems with their network in my area and blamed the problem on Apple and referred me back to AppleCare.

Escalated AppleCare

I called AppleCare back on Tuesday the 29^th and after confirming I had already tried the prior troubleshooting tips, I was escalated to the most senior level of iPhone support under the engineers. At this point, I have my own AppleCare rep assigned to my case, let’s call him Carlos. (Not his real name.) I had a very nice conversation Carlos and he gave me his direct contact information and hours and advised that he would be taking care of my issue personally until it was resolved. I gave him my story and passed along screen shots of my speed test results while holding the phone and while not. He advised me to go to AT&T and get a new SIM card and if that didn’t work he would dispatch a replacement phone.

On the 29^th I went by AT&T store and got a new SIM. This turned out to be an interesting experience as that was also the day AT&T was able to sell the iPhone to people who had not pre-ordered. It was a zoo, but because I already had my iPhone I was able to get through to a rep who swapped out my SIM.  The AT&T agent who helped me claimed to know nothing about any reception problems. His only response was “sounds like it’s a bad phone.” Unfortunately, after using the new SIM for a couple of days I couldn’t tell any difference. I’ve read reports online indicating that some issues are being resolved by repositioning the SIM or trimming the edges of the card slightly. Because of the size of the microSIM, the contacts of the SIM card sometimes touch the tray of the SIM holder and cause issues. I played with mine a bit and even trimmed the edges, but couldn’t see any noticeable difference in the reception.

I also read reports that resetting the network settings on the phone could help the problem, unfortunately it did not help me.

A New Phone

I called Carlos back with the results on July 1^st and after a little discussion over the logistics of the swap, a new phone was ordered.  We had a brief disagreement over how the swap would take place. Initially they wanted me to mail my phone back and wait for a replacement (which would take about 7 days due to the 4^th of July Holiday) or drive 90 miles to the nearest Apple Store to do the swap. Finally, they decided to ship me a replacement phone, put a hold on my credit card and I would mail back my old phone. My new phone shipped same day and arrived the next day on Friday, July 2^nd.

I used the new iPhone over the long weekend and early the following week and saw no difference between the old phone and the new phone. I also went out through the same series of troubleshooting steps as outlined above with the new phone. Power cycled, reset, restores, reset network settings, manipulate SIM card, etc. Nothing seemed to make any difference.

The Ugliest Case

I have never used a case with any of my previous iPhones and prefer to use my iPhone without a case and only use an Invisible Shield for protection. I don’t like adding extra bulk to my iPhone and I also like to use several iPhone docks and accessories with built in docs that won’t work while the iPhone is in a case. Given the continued problems, I figured I had no choice but to go out and get a case for the iPhone and see if that offered any help.

I ran around town to both Best Buy and AT&T only to find that there was a serious run on iPhone 4 cases. I finally ended up with one of the only iPhone cases available, Best Buy’s house brand case which has to be one of the ugliest silicone molded cases you could possibly find for the iPhone. Nevertheless, I swallowed my pride and bough the ugly case hoping that it would only be a temporary need. Thankfully it was fairly cheap, only $15.

I immediately noticed that the case helped the “death grip” problem. However, the problem with generally low reception continued. Although I wasn’t dropping nearly as many calls, I was still having problems with some garbled calls and poor voice quality in places like my office and upstairs bedroom. Although the case was clearly helping, I wasn’t dropping calls. Remove the iPhone from the case in one of these locations and the call dropped within minutes.

My Free Bumper

Given that the case helped the dropped calls, I resigned myself to the fact that if I was going to keep the iPhone I would have to use it with a case and keeping the ugly Best Buy thing was not an option. When I ordered my iPhone I also ordered a couple of docks and dock adapters. Those items shipped separately so they arrived after my iPhone. I haven’t even opened the box because I wanted to see how the reception issue resolved.  At this point, a couple of the accessories were still with FedEx. My hope was that I could just refuse delivery of the docks that I wouldn’t have to pay the return shipping back to Apple.

I called up the Apple Store to inquire about the return and the rep asked me to explain why I wanted to return the items so I recounted the short version of my problems. Without my prompting, he offered me an iPhone bumper free of charge and asked me to keep the dock and dock adapters for now and see how things went with the bumper. He said the bumper was very easy to remove and I could still probably use the docks. He said he’d note my file and if after the bumper arrived I decided I wanted to return the docks that would be no problem. This was an unexpected surprise, especially because there are rumors of an internal Apple memo that specifically says not to offer free bumpers to people. Maybe my guy didn’t get the memo, but I’m thankful for his assistance.

The bumper took about two weeks to arrive but it’s here. Although it doesn’t offer a ton of protection, I really like how it custom-fits the iPhone and doesn’t add much additional bulk to the phone. Once installed, the bumper looks like it was part of the iPhone and has a very nice feel.

Unfortunately, the bumper didn’t seem to do quite as good a job as my ugly Best Buy case for my reception issues. The bumper is still significantly better than using the iPhone unprotected, but I am noticing a small drop in bars when holding the phone as confirmed with speedtest.net  as well continued problems with poor call quality in areas I’ve never had problems before. Using the iPhone with a bumper keeps most of my calls from dropping, but even with the bumper the reception of the iPhone 4 is noticeably worse than my iPhone 3G.

The other problem with the bumper is that it will not work with many accessories, including Apple’s own iPhone 4 dock and Universal Dock Adapters. It also doesn’t work with older iPhone/iPod cables and many third party accessories including my car stereo dock connecter. Although I like the bumper and got it for free, it’s still going to cost me more than $100 to buy adapters and compatible accessories to use my iPhone as intended.

If I had my choice, I wouldn’t use any case at all. But to keep the iPhone 4 (which I love in every respect except for the reception) it’s a compromise I’m willing to make.

Fun Times with Carlos

After the 4^th of July weekend I touch base with my friendly AppleCare rep Carlos again and report all of the above. Carlos seems at a loss, but we continue to press on towards a resolution. At one point Carlos and I conference with his counterpart over at AT&T, and as suspected AT&T places the blame squarely on Apple. That was a particularly interesting conversation. Talk about awkward!

Over the course of the past two weeks Carlos and I have stayed in touch every couple of days and spent several hours working on this issue together. Carlos walked me through enabling Baseband logging on my phone so that I can send him a record of my phone’s reception. We also perform several experiments with the iPhone connected to my computer using the iPhone configuration utility to live-capture what’s going on with my iPhone and make several test calls with and without cases from various areas of my house.

Carlos shows me how to download my baseband logs from my phone and every couple of days I zip up that file (which can be several gigs) and upload it to my iDisk overnight for Carlos to retrieve the next morning. Carlos analyzed the data for himself and reported to me that my phone was defiantly showing some “unexpected inconsistencies” but advised that he would have to forward the logs on to the engineers for further analysis. However he was able to see several instances of calls dropped and fluctuations in signal. As of the writing of this blog post, we’re still waiting on the engineer’s report.

Over the course of several hours of troubleshooting, Carlos and I start to get a little more comfortable with each other. He realizes that I’m a fairly advanced Mac user and have done my homework regarding this issue. I realize he’s a really good guy and is committed to helping me. He still carries the “company line” that there is no design flaw with the iPhone. He admitted to me that holding the phone can cause the signal to drop, but held firm that it doesn’t cause the call to drop.

I do have to commend Carlos for his responsiveness to this issue. He has always called me back as promised, he has worked diligently towards a resolution to the issue and he has never given up. He assures me no matter what the outcome that he “will take care of me.” One of my concerns all along has been that I only have 30 days to return the iPhone before I’m stuck in a new AT&T contract for the next 2 years. That clock is still ticking, but given Carlos’ assurance and the fact that Apple has some kind of press announcement scheduled for Friday, I have hopes that one way or another a resolution is coming.

4.0.1 [Updated]

Just today, on Thursday, July 15^th, Carlos called me within minutes of the iOS 4.0.1 being released to tell me that it was available and to update my phone. I told him I would update tonight when I got home from work and he promised to check back in with on Monday after I had a weekend to play and see if it helped. I asked Carlos if this fix just changed the representation of the signal bars. We previously discussed that changing the signal calculation and bar representation alone would not be a solution to my problem. He simply told me that “it does more than that, but I can’t disclose any details.”

Besides showing fewer bars in more places, I really can’t tell any difference with iPhone 4.0.1 in terms of my iPhone’s reception. I’m not noticing any difference with regards to call quality or the number of dropped calls.

If we are to assume that 4.0.1 is now showing the “true” reception of my iPhone, I am quite disappointed in the ability of the phone to hang on to a signal and AT&T’s network. In my own home, I’m seeing my bars drop when I move more than a few feet away from my microcell. Instead of having whole house coverage, I now have to be in the same room as my microcell with a direct line of sight to have 5 bars. Move to the kitchen or the office on the same level as the Microcell and I drop to 4 bars. Move upstairs directly above the microcell and I drop to 3, 2, or 1 bars, even though I may only be 10 – 15 feet away from the device. I was really disappointed to find that even after buying a microcell the coverage in my home was still not great.

Around town I’m seeing many more instances of only 1 or two bars of service compared to seeing 3, 4, or 5 before. This is probably a testament to just how sub-par the AT&T network is in my area. Having a more accurate representation of this is a good thing. However, I find it hard to believe that Apple didn’t know it was being more than a little liberal with it’s bar calculation for so long before. Of course it would be to Apple’s advantage to erroneously display a stronger signal than was actually available.

The Response [Updated]

I wasn’t thrilled with Apple’s press conference, but it was a start. Of course Apple tried to sugar coat the issue to the extent possible, but I personally felt that the marching out of the other cell phones and demonstrating that they too had problems made them appear a little desperate. While I will take Apple at their word and believe everything they said to be factually true, they are going to put a spin on things.

A couple of thoughts in no particular order:

• While it may be true that the iPhone 3G was also susceptible to antenna attenuation in 2 years of using the iPhone 3G, I never noticed it. I noticed it within 2 hours of using the iPhone 4.
• While only 0.55% of people may have contacted AppleCare about antenna reception issues, I think that number does not accurately represent the number of people actually havening problems. How many people simply didn’t call in or saw the press coverage of the issue and simply decided not to bother calling since it seemed clear there was nothing Apple could do for them.
• Apple acknowledged that he iPhone 4 drops < 1 call per 100 more than the iPhone 3GS. I thought the wording on this quote was awkward. So let’s put it another way. The iPhone 4 drops about 1% more calls than the iPhone 4. That’s a statistically low number, but in reality, it’s a lot of calls. All this from a phone that Apple still claims has significantly better reception than any prior iPhone. The data would seem to suggest differently and that there is in fact a problem.

Free bumpers are nice, and while the bumper has helped my problem, it has not solved my problem. Even with the bumper, my iPhone 4 has worse reception than my iPhone 3G. It really irks me when I hear people say that a case is a solution. It is a help, but not a solution. The real solution will come through possibly (but doubtful) a software update and/or a tweak in the hardware design.

I would have liked to hear Apple assure users that they were continuing to work on the problem and that they would do whatever was necessary to make things right.  Whether it be a software update or a hardware swap-out program down the line for those down the line who continue to have documented problems with their phones.

Final Thoughts

If you don’t have any problems with your iPhone, I’m thrilled for you. But please don’t tell me that there is no problem or that people who claim there are having problems are making much ado about nothing.

As an Apple fan, I have found Apple’s response to this issue thus far to be disappointing. The alleged emails from Steve Jobs telling people to hold the phone differently and the non-response response about being “shocked to find the signal strength calculation was wrong” is embarrassing.

Responses like “buy a case” or “don’t hold it that way” are unacceptable from anyone, whether it be an Apple fanboy or Steve Jobs. Anyone who seriously thinks this needs to take a step back, they’re far too close to the reality distortion field for their own good.  It is not the consumer’s responsibility to buy a case in order to correct a defect in a product. It is poor design to have such a critical antenna junction in a place where phones are commonly held. I should not have to alter my usage or buy a case to make my phone function properly.

I know a lot of people are fed up with reading about “antennagate,” especially those people who aren’t having problems. Therefore, I’m going to do one more post on this issue before I drop the subject. I have until June 23^rd to decide whether or not I keep the iPhone 4. I’m going to give this some serious thought between now and then. I’ll do one final blog post to let you know how it turns out.

I also noticed the steel antenna band wrapping around the phone. At first glance, this seemed a little odd and out of place. It gives the edges of the phone a rough and industrial feel compared to the smooth edges of the iPhone 3G. Because the iPhone 3G had a curved back, it also felt a little more comfortable when cupped in your hand. After a few hours with the iPhone 4 I quickly got use to the new form factor.

I turned on the iPhone and was immediately blown away by the screen. I’ve never had a problem with the iPhone 3G screen. I thought the iPhone 3G had a gorgeous display. But the iPhone 4 is phenomenal, everything Apple cracked it up to be. Crisp text, smooth lines and a bright display. Even with the brightness turned down to about 50% the iPhone 4 was just as bright, if not more so, than my iPhone 3G. It’s like the first time you look at the new LED screens on the current generation MacBook Pros when you’re use to the older style LCD screens. There was really nothing wrong with the old LCD displays, but the new ones are so much better. Maybe it’s like the difference between watching standard definition and HD TV? Standard seemed just fine, until you started watching HD.

Durability and Protection
I don’t usually use my iPhone with a case, but this is the first time I may consider doing that to offer additional protection. I really like using the iPhone dock and have a number of devices that I dock my iPhone into. Unfortunately, using a case (even Apple’s overpriced bumper) will ensure that the iPhone no longer fits into the dock. Though with the antenna issues (discussed below in more detail) I may need to make an exception to my usual policy. In my previous experience, usually you can get an iPhone with a case to fit in Apple’s Universal Dock by either removing the adapter or using an adapter for a larger product. Unfortunately, the universal dock is much more expensive than the standard iPhone dock so even if this is a solution to my iPhone with a case dock problem it will be an expensive one.

I can also see scratching being a problem, although Apple claims the screen is fairly scratch resistant. Nonetheless, I very quickly applied an Invisible Shield for the front and back glass panels. I’m a big fan of the Invisible Shield product and have used them on all my iPhones, iPods and iPad whether I decide to use a case or not. I have a hard time getting the invisible shields installed just right so I usually opt to take it to a Zagg retailer and have them apply the shield for an extra cost. Because the Zagg retailer near me recently closed I opted to go with the “easy install” kit which includes protection for only the front and back of the device. While the kit was true to it’s word and very easy to install, I wish now that I had opted for full body coverage and made a special trip to a Zagg retailer to have it installed. (There’s one about 2 hours from here.) So, I think I’ll probably do that next time I’m in an area that has a Zagg retailer or booth. Another benefit to the invisible shield is that it really cuts down on fingerprints and makes the iPhone much less slippery. Less slippery = fewer drops.

I also opted to buy a SquareTrade warranty for my iPhone. They were running an iPhone promotion where the warranty was $100 for two years of coverage and included accidental protection. Again, the glass front and back make me nervous. I haven’t had insurance on my previous iPhones, but this one feels like it needs it. In the past I’ve bought AppleCare for my iPhones, but never used it, except perhaps to have a battery replaced near the end of the coverage. I decided to spend the extra $30 on the SquareTrade warranty compared to AppleCare because SquareTrade covers some accidental damage (with a deductible) as well as manufacturer problems.

Camera and FaceTime
I’ve never been one to use the camera on my phone all that much, but the improvements to the iPhone 4 camera are quickly apparent. A few sample photos and movies I’ve taken have all turned out to have significantly higher quality than the previous iPhone. For once, there are photos taken from a phone camera that I would actually consider having blown up into prints. The video quality seemed comparable to my old Flip Mino HD and I’m sure there will be an occasion or two where the video camera will come in handy. The LED flash is very bright and seemed to light-up nearby objects well.

I initially wrote FaceTime off as being a gimmick that I would never use. I will probably use it rarely, but it’s a nice treat. I had my first FaceTime call with Allison and Steve Sheridan and was pleasantly surprised by the audio and video quality. While on the call Allison took me on a mini-tour of her house and introduced me to her son, Kyle. I had another call with Victor Cajiao and while the quality was just okay, I noticed there was a little lag in the audio and the video wasn’t quite as crisp. So your mileage may vary. I’m the only member of my family and my immediate circle of friends who has an iPhone, so for now FaceTime will have to be the occasional treat between me and my podcasting buddies. I think this is a feature that will take off far more than I anticipated, especially when Apple brings FaceTime to the iPad, iPod Touch and iChat. Phone manufacturers have been promising video conferencing for decades, but it’s never really taken off. If anyone can make video calls work, it’s Apple.

Speed and Battery
I skipped the iPhone 3GS so my basis of comparison is a two year old iPhone 3G. I can tell you the iPhone 4 is fast. It’s no doubt a combination of the 802.11n Wi-Fi, the faster A4 processor and the doubled RAM capacity. Web pages load faster, applications launch faster and overall the iPhone feels quite zippy. The regular syncing and backups with iTunes are also significantly faster. I should note that the 802.11 n Wi-Fi is only 2.4 GHz so if you don’t have one of those fancy new dual-band Airport Extreme, now might be a good time to pick one up so you can keep your network traffic segregated for maximum speeds.

My results with the iPhone battery have been very good. Granted, my two year old iPhone 3G had probably lost some of it’s battery life over the years so my frame of reference is probably skewed. I’m able to get through a full work day of 10-12 hours with normal usage and still have about 50% of the battery or more by the time I get home. I still charge my iPhone every night but I’m trying not to charge it constantly at work in order to try to preserve overall battery health. I am also making a conscious effort to let the battery run down completely at least once a month to try to keep the battery in good shape.

I’ve had some people comment that the iPhone 4 battery life is less than their prior iPhone, but I think this is primarily a matter of usage. I don’t use very many apps on my iPhone and I rarely use apps that take advantage of multitasking. I rarely have music playing in the background or apps that are constantly accessing data.

iOS 4
I won’t say much about iOS 4 since it’s not specific to the iPhone 4. However, I will say that I am generally enjoying the upgrade. The funny thing is that the upgrades I’m appreciating the most are folders and integrated inbox. Multitasking and fast app switching is nice, but I’m finding I’m not using the features all that often. Perhaps it’s because I’ve gotten use to not having multitasking all these years I’ve grown accustomed to not having the ability. Perhaps as more applications update to take advantage of multi-tasking this will become a more useful feature.

I’m finding that the unified inbox is encouraging me to deal with my email more quickly rather than letting it sit for a while. My great wish is that we would gain the ability to customize our email signatures to the specific email accounts, but that’s an easy software fix that will hopefully come soon. I’m also really enjoying the threaded view as it tends to cut down on a lot of the email clutter.

Using folders has allowed me to consolidate my iPhone from six screens to three. I’m also able to find my applications more quickly and am enjoying the reduction in clutter. Home screen real estate is at a premium so I’ve setup one folder in the bottom left corner of my home screen with 4 of my commonly used applications that wouldn’t otherwise fit on my iPhone screen. I call this folder “launcher” and when I click on it the four applications inside form a single row of my commonly used applications. I limit this to only four icons so they line up neatly in a row. I can’t have everything in a luncher on the home screen, but this approach seems to work very well.

iOS 4 seems more evolutionary than revolutionary upgrade for the iPhone, I think the bulk of the changes were made “under the hood” for developers to take advantage of. Though I still hope we see features like wireless printing and over the air syncing come with an update to iOS 4 rather than having to wait another year for iOS 5.

The Phone
This is where things turn sour. I’m sure you’ve seen online the “iPhone Death Grip” phenomena. I’m sorry to say that my iPhone has it bad. I don’t pretend to understand the engineering behind the new iPhone or whether this is a problem that can be totally resolved by a software update or whether it’s a fundamental design flaw. I can share with you my experiences.

I have two problems which may or may not be separate issues. First, my iPhone signal strength meter drops when the iPhone is held in my bare hand without a case. As has been demonstrated by others, the issue is much more pronounced the further away you are from the tower or in an area with weaker signal. I can replicate this out around town on 3G and Edge towers as well as when using a Microcell and moving from room to room.

For example, in my living room, where I’m only a few feet from my microcell, the signal may drop only a bar or two, or may not drop at all when I hold the phone. However, moving upstairs to my bedroom, where I’m probably 10 – 12 feet from the microcell and with an interior wall between us I can consistently cause the signal to drop from 5 bars to 1 or none just by holding the phone normally for 10 – 15 seconds. When the bars drop, so does the call. When downstairs in the same room as the microcell I’m able to hold a call with no problems. Upstairs, a few more feet away from the Microcell the audio quickly becomes garbled and spotty. Using the SpeedTest.net application, I can verify that I am effectively stopping network traffic when holding the phone vs. letting it sit untouched. The screenshots I’m posting were all taken from my 2nd floor bedroom within a few minutes of each other. In one shot the phone was sitting untouched, the other the phone was held in my hand casually for about 10 seconds prior to starting the test.

The second problem I’m having with my iPhone I believe may be an issue separate from the “Death Grip” and that is that I’m generally having poorer reception compared to my 3G. For example, I would consistently get 4-5 bars of reception on my iPhone 3G and could carry on a conversation for an hour or more when sitting in my office at work. With the iPhone 4, in the same location I have 1-2 bars of service and regularly drop calls or experience garbled audio. This occurs both when I’m holding the device in my hand or sitting it on the desk and using it hands free.

I’ve had similar problems elsewhere. When out to lunch with a friend who had a 3GS, her phone showed 4-5 bars of signal strength where mine consistently showed 1-2 when the phones were sat side by side on a table. I’ve checked this in a few places with a few different people and my results are fairly consistent, my iPhone 4 tends to show less signal strength than other model iPhones. I’ve also notice that just driving around town, I’m dropping more calls than I did before in areas where I don’t usually drop calls. I’m hoping the reception issue is defect in my particular phone, because there are other reports where people are finding their iPhone 4 holds signal better in weak areas.

There are a lot of unknowns at the time I write this blog post. Is this a software or hardware issue? My guess, is that it’s a little of both. Holding the phone and watching signal strength drop before my eyes appears to clearly be a design defect. However, I can see how this is amplified by bad baseband software that may be interfering with reception? I’ve read Apple’s statement about being “shocked to find they calculated the signal strength wrong.” This is really a non-answer to the issue. I don’t care how many bars my phone shows, I care if I can make a call. My experience is thus far that regardless of bars, I was able to make calls and hold them longer on my iPhone 3G compared to the iPhone 4.

There are reports around the web that indicate that there may have been something with the baseband programming of iOS 4 because some users are reporting problems with older model iPhones that have been upgraded. I only have 2 days of experience with iOS 4 on my 3G so that’s hardly a basis for comparison. However, I can at least tell you that the reception with iOS 4 and my iPhone 3G in my office was sufficient such that I did not have any trouble with dropped calls or a decrease in strength on the signal meter in my office.

There are also varying reports as to the severity of this issue. What I’ve pieced together is that if you live in an area that has strong AT&T coverage, you’re less likely to see the impact of these problems. However if you’re in an area that has spotty or sub-par AT&T coverage, and I think pretty much my entire city qualifies, then you’re going to have more trouble. I’m not expecting AT&T to reengineer their network and build a bunch of towers in my town to solve my problem (although hat would be nice.) However I do expect that the iPhone 4 have the same basic ability to make and receive phone calls as the prior model iPhones.

Responses to the Reception Issues:
I’ve gotten quite a bit of grief online from people who say that this is really a non-issue or that I should just get over it and buy a bumper. I apologize if my tweets or this post come across as “whiney” as that’s not my intention. This is a very real problem for many people, myself included. If you’re having no trouble with your iPhone 4, I’m thrilled for you. Just because you’re not having trouble doesn’t mean that my issues aren’t real.

I should not have to spend $30 or more on a case to make my $300+ phone work. As wonderful as the iPhone is, it’s a phone first. My phone should work at least as well as prior model iPhones, and in fact better since Apple touted the antenna design as one of the revolutionary features of the iPhone 4. I’m sorry, but responses like “get a case” and “you’re holding it wrong” are simply unacceptable. Even a fervent Apple Fanboy should get this is wrong. I’m really offended and embarrassed by Apple’s response thus far and hope that they will change their tone.

Apple has announced that they’ve sold 1.7 million iPhones in the first three days with more devices being sold as fast as they can get stock. I promise you, Apple will not conduct a worldwide recall of their phones. If they do, I’ll eat my iPhone. My guess is Apple will quietly make some minor modifications to the iPhone and we’ll see the iPhone 4’s that come off the assembly line will have some kind of additional clear coating over the antenna and will not be as prone to this problem. Unfortunately, any hardware modification will take time. The question is what will happen to early adopters of the iPhone? My guess AppleCare will quietly take care of these issues either by providing bumpers or replacing out iPhones for those who complain.

I already have a ticket in with AppleCare that is being actively worked. There’s too much to go into on this post, so I will post a separate entry with my experiences dealing with Apple on the issue and if I’m able to get any resolution.

Unexpected Surprises
Moving back to more pleasant things, I ran into a few unexpected surprises with my new iPhone 4 that may end up saving me quite a chunk of change. One of my biggest gripes is that I have multiple iPods that I have to keep updated. My iPhones never worked in my car so I have a 5th Generation iPod for the car. I have an iPod Shuffle for the Gym, iTunes library on my home computer streaming to multiple speakers and an iPhone for listening everywhere else. Since most of my listening is podcasts, keeping everything in sync was quite a pain.

When the iPhone 4 arrived, my plan was to upgrade my car stereo to eliminate the car iPod from the mix. This raised another problem because I have a pair of cheap unshielded speakers in my kitchen that I regularly connect my iPod so I can finish listening to a podcast while I’m cooking dinner. The GSM buzz from the iPhone was overpowering to those speakers, so I also planned to buy a mid-range portable speaker system for my iPhone that would live in the kitchen.

Much to my surprise, the iPhone 4 has negated the need for me to spend the $400+ for these additional devices. On a whim the other day, I plugged my iPhone 4 into my car audio system. I have an old JVC KD-AR370 system that was installed in my car to replace the factory unit back in 2005 or 2006 before the iPhone existed. The JVC system has a dock connector but no auxiliary port. I thought this was fine because the dock connector would both charge iPod and play my audio. This speaker set has never worked with any model iPhone, but it works with my iPhone 4.

I don’t know if this has to do with the iPhone 4 hardware or the iOS 4 software or a combination of both. There are a couple of caveats. First, the iPod application on the iPhone has to have been opened before the iPhone is plugged in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the active application, but it has to have been used and something played since the last time the iPhone was power cycled or synced. A minor annoyance, but to save the $200+ of having a new in-dash system installed, I can deal with it. Also, the iPhone will play audio but will not charge. This is because the old system was setup for FireWire based charging. A $30 PASSport adapter will solve this problem. Again, a small price to pay. (I plan to post a review of the PASSport once it arrives.)

Also to my surprise, the iPhone 4 has not produced the expected GSM buzz to distort speakers. Using my cheap kitchen speakers, even getting my iPhone 3G near the speakers would immediately set them off. I have the iPhone 4 plugged into the speakers for a couple of hours at a time and haven’t gotten a single blip. Nice!

Closing Thoughts and Buying Advice:
If you don’t already have an iPhone 4 and in hand, and aren’t in a position where you need to upgrade right now, I would say wait a bit. Let’s see what happens with iOS update 4.0.1 and if the reports of these issues subside. I also think after a few more product runs, you’ll start to see the issue become less pronounced due to Apple’s modifications. If you’re in an area where you always have good AT&T reception, especially if you’re planning on using a case, you’ll probably be fine. Still, make sure you’re aware of your return options.

Reception issues aside, the iPhone 4 is a great upgrade to an original iPhone or iPhone 3G. It’s a less compelling upgrade if you have an iPhone 3GS and are happy with your current screen and camera quality. iOS 4 already brings a lot of improvements to the iPhone 3GS.

The biggest question for many will be whether they want to commit to AT&T for another two years. With the increased early termination fees, leaving AT&T becomes a lot more difficult. Just today, I read a report from Bloomberg saying that Verizon was going to come out with an iPhone in early 2011. I take all these Verizon iPhone rumors with a grain of salt, but it has to happen at some point. If you’re happy with AT&T, this is a non-issue.

So it’s a mixed review for the iPhone 4. My hope is that a combination of AppleCare and future software fixes will resolve my problem. However, I am keeping a very close eye on the 30 day return window for my iPhone. As a last resort, if I’m not able to resolve my reception issues reasonably, I may opt to return and downgrade to a 3GS. I’m not happy about that prospect, for now I will hope for the best and cross that bridge when I come to it.

About a year ago, I made a job change and moved back to my hometown. While I love my new job and being closer to family, I’ve been plagued by poor AT&T coverage. My current city has multiple dead zones in highly populated areas and in general suffers from poor connectivity. It’s quite common to be in an area with 5 bars of coverage yet calls go directly to voicemail or text messages are delayed, sometimes hours. Making matters worse, I live in one of those dead zones and literally have no service inside my home. Outside isn’t much better, I can usually only maintain a call for a couple of minutes before it drops.

My AT&T contract is up on July 11th and I knew that a new iPhone would be released about that time. With AT&T unable to provide me any kind of answers, I was really struggling to decide what I was going to do. Short of the iPhone changing to another carrier, something that I think will happen but will be later rather than sooner, my only hope was the promise of the AT&T 3G MicroCell. I watched the WWDC keynote with mixed emotions. Lured by the appeal of the iPhone 4, but at the same time dreading signing a new contract and committing myself to two more years of cell phone purgatory. But something else happened on June 7th that was perhaps more appealing to me than anything Steve Jobs had to say in his Keynote address, the mythical 3G MicroCell came to my city.

What is the MicroCell:
I’m not going to get into all the technical specifics of the MicroCell. I’m sure there are data sheets you can read. In short, the MicroCell is a mini 3G tower for your home. The MicroCell uses your home broadband connection to connect your call to a local AT&T tower. From there, your call is sent out on the AT&T network. It’s using a broadband connection to bridge the coverage gap between your home and the tower.

The device needs to be connected via Ethernet to your home network. There are various ways to connect the device depending on your home setup. It also has a GPS chip inside that is used to confirm the location of the MicroCell. AT&T says this is a requirement for the e911 service so emergency responders will know your location.

Requirements:
The MicroCell only works with 3G capable phones on the AT&T network. If you have a first generation iPhone or other non-3G cell phone it won’t do you any good. You are also required to have a broadband internet connection to connect the device. Lastly, AT&T’s network must also be ready for the MicroCell. In order for the MicroCell to communicate with the towers, there must have been an update to the towers in your area. The MicroCell isn’t available everywhere, but interestingly, availability opened up to a slew of new areas on June 7th, the day the iPhone 4 was announced. Coincidental? I think not.

You can check AT&T’s website to see if the MicroCell is available in your area. If not, you’ll be prompted to enter an email address and they will supposedly notify you when the MicroCell arrives. This didn’t work for me. The MicroCell has been available in my area for a week now, but I haven’t received AT&T’s email message. The only way I knew the MicroCell was available is because I’ve bookmarked the availability website and make a point to check it every day. So, don’t trust the email system to notify you.

Cost and Plans:
The MicroCell costs $149 to purchase from AT&T and must be associated with an active account. You can buy the device outright to use with your current plan. Without an optional MicroCell plan, any minutes used will be deducted from your minute package.

AT&T has an optional $20 a month plan that will allow all calls made from the MicroCell to be free. If you’re the type of person who makes a lot of calls from home, then this might be worth considering. I’m already on the lowest cost voice plan and have plenty of unused rollover minutes, so the extra expense is not worth it for me.

However, at the time I bought the MicroCell AT&T was running a promotion where you would receive a $100 rebate if you signed up for the $20 monthly MicroCell plan. I quizzed the store manager and read all the fine print on the brochure I was given and could not see any requirement that you have to keep the plan. The manager at my local AT&T store assured me that I could sign up for the plan for one month, send in my rebate and cancel the plan once my rebate came 4-6 weeks later. I’m not sure I believe him. But I got all of his information and decided to give it a try. My guess is this will come back to bite me, but I’ll let you know. If you decide to try this, make sure you fully investigate the terms and conditions and are comfortable doing this.

There was also another rebate option for customers who used AT&T as their home ISP. This didn’t apply to me, but check your area to see if there are promotions that may reduce the cost of the MicroCell.

Setup:
Before setting up the MicroCell you must register it online with you AT&T account using the device’s serial number and your address. You also must register the numbers of the phones that you want to allow to access the device. The MicroCell allows you to register up to 10 AT&T phones that can have access to the device. Up to four devices can be connected at a time. So you’re not sharing your MicroCell with the neighborhood, only the friends and family you choose. You can register any AT&T phone number, it doesn’t have to be someone you share a plan with and you can modify the numbers as needed.

There are a couple of ways to connect the MicroCell to your home network. If you don’t use a router, the MicroCell sits between your modem and your computer. It has a port to connect to your modem and a port to pass through the connection to your computer. If you use a router, you can plug the MicroCell into any open ethernet port just like you would any other connected device. Lastly, you can plug the MicroCell in between your modem and router.

If you don’t have a router, or you don’t have a router with any wired ethernet ports, then you don’t have much choice in the setup, you have to connect the MicroCell between your modem and computer. However, I think most people have some kind of wired router in their home. In this case, you want to give a little thought to about how you want to connect the device to your network. When active, the MicroCell works just like another device on your network, it’s going to be sending and receiving data and will impact the overall speed of your network.

By connecting the MicroCell in line before your router, you give it priority over you other connected devices. When you’re on a call, your network speed to your other devices will suffer, but your call will take priority. The only problem with this setup is if the MicroCell has a problem, it will bring down the entire network. If you connect it just as another device to your router, it will share bandwidth with your other devices and if you’re doing any heavy downloading or file transfers while you’re on a call, the call quality may suffer.

In my case, I opted to setup the MicroCell before my router so it would have priority. I figured that I would want my phone call to take priority over any file downloads if they happened to be going on at the same time. However, the first day I setup my MicroCell I had some kind of hiccup that brought down the MicroCell and my home network and required a restart of everthing. I should note that this happened during the initial setup of the device. The MicroCell has now been running fine for 5 days without any type of problem or network interruption. I haven’t noticed any kind of slow-down to my network while the MicroCell is in use, although I don’t usually check the status of my file transfers while I’m on a call. But while idle, I haven’t noticed any network hit.

From time to time you may need to reset the MicroCell just like you would any other router or connected device. Be aware that the device takes some time to power up and connect to AT&T’s network. Although subsequent restarts don’t take as long as the initial setup, you can expect it will be 10 – 20 minutes after restarting the MicroCell before it will be ready for use.

Because my ISP doesn’t have any way to check my bandwidth usage I can’t speak to how much data the MicroCell is using. I would imagine that data usage would be in line with a VOIP telephone service like Skype or Vonage. If you are on an ISP that caps data usage, you’ll probably want to keep an eye on this.

When first connected, the MicroCell can take up to 90 minutes to activate. AT&T says that you need to place the MicroCell near a window so it can get a GPS lock and that this is the cause for most activation problems. Once activated, you can usually move the MicroCell to another location within your house, but AT&T says the it needs to be fairly close to a window so it can transmit GPS information.

In my case, the MicroCell was about 6-8 feet from a large window with a clear path to the window and I was able to acquire a GPS lock without any problem. I’ve since moved the MicroCell a little further away from a window to sit behind my TV on my entertainment console and it still seem s to function without any problem about 8-10 feet away from a window.

The initial setup of the MicroCell took me about 45 minutes from the time I plugged it in until it was fully operational. There’s probably another 10 minutes or so of time to register the device and plug in the appropriate phone numbers. The first time your phones connect to the device may a while. Once the device status showed as ready, it took my iPhone 3G about 10 minutes to find it. Sometimes turning your phone off and back on again will force it to go out and look for a connection to find the MicroCell. Your phones will have some kind of icon indicating they’re connected to the MicroCell rather than a standard cell tower. Mine displays “M-Cell.”

Finding the right placement of the MicroCell can be a bit of a compromise. It has to be in a location relatively close to a window, that has power and a wired connection to your router or modem. You also want to place the MicroCell in an area of your home that is centrally located to make sure that you can cover your entire house. One more complicating factor – the MicroCell is fairly big, and it’s pretty ugly. The device is much larger than a standard wireless router, it’s got an odd “upside down Y” shape and it’s bright white and orange. I ended up putting my MicroCell on my entertainment console in my living room and hid it behind the TV.

Usage:
Now, for the part you’ve all been waiting for…does the MicroCell work? In a word…yes. I live in a 2,500 square foot townhouse with two levels and a rooftop terrace. I have 5 bars of coverage throughout my entire house and on the terrace. I also have MicroCell coverage on my porch and out in my garage and driveway. It’s about the same coverage area as my wireless router.

I also setup a MicroCell in my parents home. They have about the same square footage as me, except their house is spread out over one floor and their square footage is more “horizontal” where my square footage is more “vertical.” In my parents house they have coverage throughout the house, although it does drop to 3 or 4 bars on the outskirts of the house. Still, much better than their prior level of service.

I have made several calls on the MicroCell in the past week and have never dropped a call. One call was over two hours long. I am very pleased with the coverage, as far as I can tell the MicroCell works as advertised. Of course, it’s going to be susceptible to interference so the build of your home will make a difference.

The MicroCell is supposed to hand calls off to the local cell towers when you leave the range of your MicroCell. Just like cell towers hand calls off when you’re traveling. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. Calls transfer out, but don’t transfer in. Calls initiated on the cell tower do not transfer to the MicroCell. So I can’t start a call on the road and then take it into my house. (In my case it only takes a few seconds of walking into my house before a call drops.) However calls started at home should transfer out to a tower. This is the only problem I’ve found so far with the MicroCell, hopefully it will be resolved with a future software update.

Conclusion:
Overall, the MicroCell seems to work as advertised and has solved the bulk of my coverage problems. I’ve gone from no service to 5 bars within my home and haven’t noticed any negative side effects of having the MicroCell connected to my network.

I’ve heard from several friends across the US that the MicroCell suddenly became available in their area on June 7th as well. If you’ve been waiting like me for a MicroCell, you may want to re-check your availability.

Editorial:
I’ve tried to be very objective in my review of the MicroCell, but I do need to throw in some editorial comments here, both good and bad.

I have been angry for a very long time about the situation with my AT&T coverage. I spent nearly $100 a month on cell phone service that I couldn’t use. I understand that AT&T can’t guarantee coverage inside buildings, but my issue is outside as well. Additionally, AT&T’s coverage maps clearly show that my area should be blanketed by excellent 3G coverage. That’s just not the case. When investigating this issue with AT&T last year, they even sent out network testers who verified that despite the coverage maps, my area was a dead zone and the only solution was to build a new tower. Of course, the maps still show this area as having excellent coverage despite AT&T knowing better.

Quite frankly, the idea of me having to pay AT&T $150 for a MicroCell and having to use my own broadband internet connection to compensate for their poor service that I’m already paying for, is offensive. If I had excellent service outside my home or if the maps showed poor or no coverage, I would have no problem with AT&T. But that’s simply not the case. My fear is that AT&T will use the MicroCell service, at the expense of their customers, as a reason not to beef up their network. The MicroCell works great in my home, but it does nothing about the poor network service around town.

On the other hand, I’m very happy to have the option to use a MicroCell in my home. It’s an a lifeline for people like me who otherwise wouldn’t have service. I understand that AT&T can’t cover every square inch of the US with a reliable network. I’m sure if they could do so in a manner that was reasonably cost effective they would. I also don’t have to stay with AT&T. I could switch to another carrier, but I don’t because I love my iPhone. So I’ve made a choice to tolerate a sub-par network to have my preferred phone.

Currently, AT&T’s official line is that they are not discounting the MicroCell under any circumstances. I had more than one AT&T rep read me that official policy over the last week. The store managers claim that they have no authority to discount a MicroCell and the first line telephone support apparently doesn’t have the authority to do so either. That being said, and in full disclosure, after a little “gentle pressure” and refusal to accept no for an answer, I was able to work my way up the chain and explain my situation. I received a number of credits on my bill from AT&T that will just about offset the price of my MicroCell. (I never once played the “do you know who I am?” card or told them I was a podcaster or blogger – I doubt that would have made any difference anyway.)

One thing that helped me was using AT&T’s “Mark the Spot” iPhone app to report network problems. Much to my surprise, the higher level AT&T rep was able to see how many reports I had logged of poor service. So AT&T is at least paying attention to the reports it generates. Of course, your experience may vary. I’ve always found polite persistence to be the key in obtaining help from customer service. Please don’t yell at the salesclerk who has no ability to help you.

My feelings towards AT&T would be much more positive if they had some kind of official program in place to provide MicroCells to customers either free or at a greatly reduced cost if they had a documented and legitimate coverage issue. My hope is that they’ll change their current “no discount” policy and help other customers who are in situations like mine.

All things considered, the MicroCell has changed my daily life. I can’t even begin to explain to you how nice it is to have a working phone again after living a year with this constant frustration. As I said, I had been angry with AT&T for a very long time, and after about 5 minutes of starting at my phone with 5 bars, I felt a lot of that anger lift away.

AT&T’s network still has much to be desired in my area. But the MicroCell has just about resolved my issues with making and receiving calls at home which takes care of most of my problems. The availability of the MicroCell has made up my decision that I’m okay with staying with AT&T for another two years and I plan to upgrade to the iPhone 4 on day one.

Thanks for reading my monster MicroCell review. I’d love for you to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Before this review can be of any use to you, I must explain how I manage my finances on the Mac. The reason this is important is because I am not a personal finance “power user.” Quicken Essentials is just that, the bare essentials.  So while this product works for me, it will be a disaster for others. It’s important that you judge your own needs and expectations of this product to see if it’s the right fit.

I manage my finances exclusively through my computer using electronic bill pay, e-statements, Quicken, and other tools. I try not to have any statements or paper come to my house as it only serves as clutter and a potential for identity theft. I do my banking with Bank of America and most of my monthly bills are paid directly through their system. (Bank of America has one of the most advanced and inclusive online bill pay systems I’ve ever used.)  I have a handful of standard charges that are debited to my credit cards and then a few expenses to smaller organizations (like a homeowners association) where I have the bank automatically draft a check on my behalf on a regular basis. I hardly ever touch the checkbook, in fact, the only check I write is to my hair stylist and I’m trying to persuade her to take online bill pay too.

I’m a little obsessive and I like to know what my current balance is on all my accounts at any time as well as my anticipated income and expenditures so I know when I need to move money around. I like to be able to glance and see that my current balance is X, I have a bill due for Y and a paycheck that will be deposited for Z. I use Quicken to keep current ledgers for each of my checking, savings, and credit card accounts. I also like to track my spending so I see where my money is going every month and make adjustments when necessary

During tax time, I have a number of deductions I take for business expenses. I need to be able to run reports on payees and categories. For investments such as IRAs and 401ks, I try not to look at those too regularly (it’s depressing these days) so I keep those separate through their respective institutions. As you can see, my needs in this area are fairly basic, so Quicken Essentials works for me. I don’t need the software for any type of bill pay, check printing, or investment management. That’s good, because those features aren’t available.

Now, back to the review. Quicken Essentials fits all of my needed tasks better than any prior version of Quicken. The user interface is gorgeous and for the first time ever, it has the look and feel of a Mac application. The included Quicken Importer program successfully imported over 10 years of history that I had stored in the prior version of Quicken without any hiccups, what a huge relief.

The entire application is contained within one window without any floating pallets or toolbars. There is a toolbar that runs along the bottom for Common tasks such as entering or editing transactions. There is also a sidebar that provides access to accounts, reports, and tools for budgeting. There are some basic budgeting and management reports that are available to show you an overview of where your money goes in any particular month, a listing of all expenses or reports on various categories.

My biggest gripe about the UI is that I can only resize the width of the Quicken window so much. For example, I have a 13” MacBook Pro. I usually like to have my Quicken window open with a web browser window in the background so I can compare transactions to my online statements.  like to view the two windows side by side to see where there may be inconsistencies. Even if I hide the sidebar and remove certain columns, I can only shrink the width of the window so much and it still fills more than 3/4 of the width of my 13” screen. So if I’m trying to go back and fourth between Quicken and my web browser, I have to constantly move the windows around and can’t look at them side by side. This is a silly annoyance that I hope will be an easy fix in an update.

For the first time ever, I decided to use the feature to automatically download and sync transactions from my accounts. Implementation of this feature was a little convoluted in previous versions of the application, so I avoided it. Because of my obsessive compulsive desire to know my balance to the penny at any given second, I usually had already manually entered data and didn’t really need the sync function. I can get lazy from time to time and miss transactions so the idea of being able to pull down transactions is appealing. Much to my surprise the data sync was easy to set up and worked well.

The process of finding my institutions and setting up the account sync took only a few minutes and my history was downloaded. (For what it’s worth, I have accounts with the big institutions, so your mileage may vary with medium and small sized banks.)  The amount of data that is downloaded depends on your bank. I especially liked that Quicken would attempt to match data it pulled down from the cloud to data I previously entered. The results were surprisingly accurate and I only had a couple of transactions that didn’t match up. They’re easy to identify because Quicken indicates newly downloaded transactions with a blue dot, so you can see where the transactions are that don’t have dots and then find the appropriate match. You can also teach Quicken how you want your data to be named as it imports. For example, “FRSH MKT ID 1286583” can be taught to come in as “Fresh Market” and is appropriately categorized as Groceries. Quicken seems to learn so with subsequent downloads I’m finding it’s able to make better matches.

In my three weeks of use, I have had two transactions downloaded from my two different banks that showed incorrect amounts. This is a serious problem as it throws off my account balance and can be difficult to catch without going through my online statement or receipts. My guess is the error was on the part of my financial institution and not Quicken, but the fact that it happened with two different banks is troubling. This is something I will keep an eye on and investigate further if it continues.

I also regularly use the ability to schedule transactions that have fixed occurrences and amounts.  Quicken will let you track this information and decide at what point the data should be entered. I’ve set mine to notify me of upcoming transactions 15 days in advance, so I can budget and project my monthly spending. While future transactions show in the register, they are a different color so that you can easily distinguish your current balance from your upcoming transactions.

While Quicken has always had some basic ability to budget, the feature is enhanced in the newest release. It’s very similar to the budgeting tools that are available on Mint.com. (And it should be as Quicken has since acquired Mint.) Tagging is also introduced in this version of Quicken which may or may not be useful. I already make extensive use of categories in Quicken, so tagging seems to be one more thing. Very few of my transactions are tagged, but I can see the usefulness in certain occasions. For example, I had several expenses for Macworld (food, lodging, airfare, hotel) that were all in different categories but tagged under Macworld 2010 so they could be easily identified.

The reports feature in Quicken Essentials is more limited than in Quicken 2007. For example, in Quicken 2007 I used the quick reports feature to make sure that I had all my expenses for a particular item or payee accounted for. After playing with Essentials for a while longer, I realized that I was still able to accomplish all the searching I needed but had to go about it a little differently and it wasn’t as easy. Creating reports based on category works well, but I couldn’t find a way to create a report by payee. However, I could do a search for a payee and bring up all the transactions within a particular date range. While I wish I had more customization options when generating reports, it’s workable.

So far, we’ve covered everything that Quicken Essentials does, but there’s a lot this version of Quicken does not do when compared with previous versions. Quicken Essentials is appropriately named, essentials. While the product will work well for most new users who have similar needs as I do. Those who have been long time users of the Quicken products and use the more advanced features will be upset, possibly enraged if the reviews and Quicken forums are any indication. The Quicken for Mac team seems to apologetically acknowledge this, and then change the subject to talk about how this version was designed from the ground up and does what it claims well.

While I suggest you check out the Quicken webpage and other reviews for more information, there are many seemingly basic tasks that some users will need that Quicken Essentials cannot do. For example, there is extremely limited tracking of investments. You can see investment accounts, but do not have a way to track buys or sells. There is no ability to export data to Intuit’s own Turbo Tax program. There is also no bill pay and no check printing. Intuit says that next year they will release updated version of Essentials as well as Deluxe version, but those will surely be paid upgrades and it’s frustrating to have to pay for an upgrade to a product to add back in functionality you had in a previous version.

Finally, there is the issue of price. At a retail price of $69.00, Quicken Essentials feels overly expensive compared to the feature set. I couldn’t find any information about upgrade pricing for previous owners of Quicken, which adds insult to injury given that current users are giving up core functionally by updating to the current version. This feels like a product that should be priced at the $39 or $49 price point with a $19 upgrade option. I also couldn’t find a demo version of the product, although Quicken says they have a 30 day money back guarantee. I have no idea how hard it is to actually get your money back if you hate the product.

Now there are many more options out there for Mac users in the area of personal finance. Quite frankly, given my limited use, there are several other applications out there that would more than suit my needs. The problem is, this is my financial data that I have been collecting since for more than 10 years and plan to use for the foreseeable future. Like it or not, the fact is, Quicken is the standard. It gives me great peace of mind to know that I’m using a program that I believe has the staying power to be managing my financial data, in some form or another, 10 years from now. This may not be a legitimate concern, and I realize there are many who say this is short sighted and unnecessary, but given the type of data I’m dealing with and the potential consequences of not being able to access it, I feel more comfortable staying with the standard.

I would encourage prospective buyers to carefully examine their usage before deciding to upgrade. Quicken has said that they are planning to re-implement some of the lost features in future versions of the product and that they will continue support for Quicken 2007 knowing that there are features available in that version that are not available in Essentials. All things considered, this is a product that I will continue to use, and a product that I am happy with given my needs but I understand the anger out there towards this product.

When I went to MacWorld 2008, the talk of the show was MacSpeech Dictate. As I’ve discussed on the show in the past, I tend to have some problems with carpal tunnel syndrome and have tried dictation programs in the past. Granted, I haven’t tried dictation program in the last several years, but I’ve always been disappointed with the results. When MacSpeech was released, I had high hopes that it might finally be the solution I was looking for. However, as someone who can type upwards of 80 words a minute, I was skeptical. In most cases, I could type a lot faster, and with a lot less frustration, then these dictation programs. That is why was so excited to have an opportunity to demo MacSpeech.

This review that you are reading was created with MacSpeech after no more than 10 minutes of training. As such, this is intended to be a preliminary review. Expect a much more comprehensive review in the coming weeks. However, for this culinary review, I have intentionally not corrected any mistakes made by the MacSpeech Dictate software. Though as you can see so far, it is surprisingly accurate.

The retail boxed version of MacSpeech includes a USB headset, quick start guide, an application disk, and a data disk. Installation took less than 20 minutes, and with another 10 minutes of training, I was able to dictate the short review.

I was also able to use the program to perform simple tasks. This includes opening Microsoft Word, and using commands such as select all copy, and paste.

In the less than 30 minutes and I’ve been playing with MacSpeech Dictate, I’m already finding it light years ahead of other programs I’ve used in the past. I have no doubt, the more that I use the program, and become familiar with all of its features, but I will find even more accurate and useful. Of course, as is usual, I have not read the instruction manual. Although, with the program as complex as MacSpeech Dictate, I’m sure that would probably be a good idea.

This includes mine “mini review” of MacSpeech Dictate. Again, this review was written entirely with MacSpeech Dictate after approximately only 10 minutes of training. I have not made any edits or corrections to the Texan MacSpeech transcribed. Which probably explains why the word “Texan” Was Used Instead of Text Just Now. I Look Forward to Working More with MacSpeech Dictate in the Future, And Look Forward to Providing You with More Comprehensive Review Soon.