Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

My loving wife, with her birthday fast approaching, caught word of these things and wanted a set for herself. I of course figured I’d get us both a set and see what they were like.

So we’ve had some computers die and were in need of something for a specific purpose: something to sync and backup our iOS devices with. Seeing as how we were originally using Windows for that, you’d think we’d have just gotten a cheap Dell or something. But, no. After some discussion, we got a refurbished iMac from Apple. Given that we were used to how Windows worked, this may have not been the best idea … even for someone who otherwise likes Macs, like me.

So, it took me a while to get around to ordering one and it took even longer for the phone to actually make it to me … but that’s a story for another post. For this post, I’m going to avoid anything too specific to my (new) cell provider, and try to focus strictly on the phone.

Pebble released a significant update to their iOS app and Firmware. However, getting it running properly turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I’d be surprised if you ended up here before somewhere else in your searches for solutions; but in case you haven’t, here’s what you can expect and how I got it working.

Fitbit is a company that makes “activity trackers”: devices that will track your activities and give you an idea of how much you’ve done “something” throughout the day. My wife, owner of a competing product (Jawbone Up), convinced me to get a Fitbit One. Here are my thoughts on the ideas behind an activity tracker, the Fitbit One specifically, Fitbit’s iPhone app, and comparing that app to Jawbone Up’s app.

The first modern “smartwatch” to make it onto my radar, the Pebble has much promise and delivers on much of it. It’s a smart phone companion, but certainly not a smart phone replacement; and even as a companion, it might not do everything someone would want. I got one, and here are my thoughts so far.

I was wondering if I could come up with a quick way to describe my impressions; the best I can come up with: It’s like Apple is trying to borrow from the Android operating systems, but it’s also like they took one of the worst Android interfaces and left out the ability to customize it properly.

Yeah, I’ve drank the Koolaid. But as one of the smartest people I know said, “I drank the Koolaid and I feel fine.” I woke up at 3am on September 14th to preorder the iPhone 5, since my wife and I were both eligible for upgrades to our Samsung Epic 4G phones. We decided to make the jump. Here’s my experience so far.