iPhone lawsuit seeks over $1 billion in damages

Lawyers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T seeking $1.2 billion in damages because the iPhone is locked to AT&T’s wireless network. The suit also notes that Apple will not allow unauthorized applications on the iPhone.

First of all, give me a freaking break. You knew that iPhone would only work on AT&T and they are in a partnership for a few years. Eventually, it will not be locked to only AT&T. If you knew this ahead of time, why sue? Should I go into Burger King and sue because they do not sell McGriddles? Should I sue Honda because my car will not run on BioDiesel when I knew I was buying a hybrid to begin with?

Secondly, this is a new product. Apple will eventually open up the door to developers to develop all kinds of apps on the iPhone, which will make the iPhone a even more valuable tool. There is already VoIP and Messaging on it via the Safari browser. These people just need to give it some time and eventually you will have a iPhone not locked down to the AT&T network and all kinds of apps being developed for the iPhone.

Our legal system is already locked up with silly lawsuits. Instead of whining about AT&T and trying to sue, why not do something useful with your time? What about building a house for Habitat for Humanity? Why not volunteer at a hospital? Why not go after auto manufacturers and the government to start making better fuel efficent cars? We have the technology to do so. We need to cut down on our emissions before we do more damage to the world that we have already done. Life is too short to be locking up our legal system with preposterous lawsuits like these. These people need to redirect their energies to do good in the world instead of wasting time and money.

New iPhone

I was lucky enough to get a free 8G iPhone today. I have not really had a chance to use it much because you would think moving one address book to the new phone would be easy and painless, right? NOT!

First of all, I spent about 3 hours trying to get all of my contacts over to the new iPhone. It first synced my contacts with what was on my MacBook, which I did not want. I then went in and deleted everything. You would think after saving the contacts to the SIM card, I would be able to use them. I finally called AT&T and this guy did try his hardest to try and help me. His answer? The Apple Servers to activate are down. I explained that trying to pair bluetooth between the 2 phones are totally independent of that. I tried pairing the 2 phones together and then sending the contact file over and my old phone would not connect with the iPhone at all. I then tried taking the Outlook card file and trying to import it into Outlook 2007 and then have iPhone sync with Outlook. Outlook would only see my first contact in my list and nothing more. I had to once again delete and restart. I finally went to my address book on my MacBook, emailed myself the Outlook card file from the Memory Stick from my old Sony Ericsson and deleted all the contacts already in that address book. I then went in and and imported that file into the Mac Address book, synced and PRESTO! It worked!!!

I would love to see an easier way to manage contacts in the iPhone. You can not delete them inside iPhone, you have to update them using the Address Book and syncing. I am sure there will be a piece of software or another software update that will allow me to do all of that.

Overall, I am impressed with this thing. I heard one guy review the iPhone and he complained about it not having an expansion slot. My respond to him is, "Give me a break, it has 8 gigs of space. How much space do you need? It is a phone for crying out loud." I did see a guy who had put the new Casino Royale movie on his iPhone and it looked great. It was better than the iPod Video. I might have to load up with some movies for my flight to California and I would not have to pull the MacBook out to watch movies. This phone definitely blows my old Sony Ericsson W810i out of the water. I would get frustrated with that phone because you would try to hit back and it would bring you into Walkman mode. That was a pain. My only real complaint other than the address book syncing nightmare is that the keyboard is a little small for me to touch type. (I have fat fingers, so I find myself constantly trying to correct my typing.
) I look forward to using this device, especially having the ability to VPN into my office through it using the WiFi connection. That would be sweet being able to check stats on the fly.