John Gruber starts off his terrific review at Daring Fireball with a great summary sentence that could describe just about every other review out there: “It’s the same phone. The only difference is the network. And Verizon’s network is better.” The rest of the review primarily addresses network difference. He ends with a minor variation of the same starting phrase:

So let’s slightly tweak the nutshell summary of the Verizon iPhone: It’s the same phone. The only differences are (a) a brief period of Verizon exclusivity for the Wi-Fi hotspot feature, and (b) the network. And Verizon’s network is better.

Like Gruber, Walt Mossberg finds that where the Verizon iPhone shines most is in call quality and reliability. Mossberg makes a great point, however, for those who spend time outside of the U.S.:

[B]ecause Verizon’s iPhone—like most other Verizon phones—doesn’t work on the world-wide GSM mobile-phone standard, you can’t use it in most countries outside the U.S. AT&T’s iPhone does work on this standard, and can be used widely abroad, albeit at very high roaming rates. In the midst of my testing, I had to travel to Hong Kong, one of the few countries where the Verizon iPhone functions. But even there, it only worked for voice, not data, at least in the areas where I was working. The AT&T model handled both voice and data everywhere I tried it there.

Over at TechCrunch, MG Siegler reveled in the ability of the Verizon iPhone to make lengthy calls without losing service, in case you had any remaining doubts that Verizon’s network is better for call quality. He’s also one of the few reviewers who actually addressed the iPhone 4′s antenna issues:

This Verizon version of the iPhone 4 seems to have none of the same antenna issues. Try as I might, using the “death grip” and every other grip I can actually do, I can no longer reproduce the same attenuation problem that the previous iPhone 4 model had. I death grip the thing, and no bars drop. More importantly, calls don’t drop and data doesn’t stop. Again, Apple won’t comment, but problem, apparently, solved.

David Pogue of the New York Times tested the Verizon iPhone in five different U.S. cities, including San Francisco and New York, notorious problem spots for AT&T’s network. Pogue has almost nothing but praise for Verizon, noting that it dropped only one call during his testing, compared to many for his AT&T device, but he does point out that customers might want to be wary of getting into bed with Verizon:

Even if Verizon’s network is the best in America, its policies and prices are still among the worst. This is the company, after all, that admitted to billing $2 every time you accidentally hit the up-arrow button. (Verizon refunded $52 million and paid the Federal Communications Commission a record $25 million fine.) This is the company that just eliminated its “new phone every two years” discount policy, that just cut its new-phone return policy to 14 days from 30, that doubled its early-termination fee (to $350 if you cancel your two-year contract before it’s up).

Rather than heap praise on Verizon’s network, Macworld’s Jason Snell lauds the arrival of carrier choice for prospective iPhone buyers. His review is a thorough look at not only the Verizon iPhone, but at the iPhone 4 in general, so users new to Apple’s smartphone might want to start here. Snell’s best point is about how the new Personal Hotspot feature shipping with Verizon iPhones seems at odds with CDMA’s inability to handle voice and data simultaneously:

[I]f you’re using the Internet and your phone rings, your Internet connection immediately drops. [...] If this was an issue that only precluded you from checking your e-mail while dialed into a conference call, it would be a minor annoyance. But if you come to rely on the Personal Hotspot feature—say, sharing data with a couple of colleagues while on a road trip—it’s got the potential to be infuriating.

Brian X. Chen joined the chorus of those praising the Verizon iPhone’s superior voice quality over at Wired, but went into more detail about the tradeoffs the device makes regarding streaming media quality and connections speeds:

The AT&T handset on average scored significantly better in speed tests: 62 percent faster for downloads and 38 percent faster for uploads. [...] In real-world use cases, the Verizon iPhone’s slower transfer rates are noticeable. Netflix streaming is smooth on both devices, but on the Verizon iPhone, compression artifacts are more apparent: The video stream is adapting to the slower transfer rate. Loading websites in Safari was faster on the AT&T iPhone, and so was installing apps.

So to qualify my original statement about John Gruber’s summary, he is probably right that for most users the information that the Verizon iPhone 4 is the same phone on a better network will suffice. But for those with special considerations, like globe-trotters and people who seldom if ever leave strong AT&T coverage zones, use their device primarily for texting and rarely for voice calls, or are heavy and demanding mobile media consumers and multitaskers, there’s still ample reason to pause and consider before taking the Verizon plunge.

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The Contenders

I’m narrowing my focus to only two contenders for the title of top iPod nano watchband, reason being that the others I’ve tried didn’t come close in terms of quality and performance. It also helps that both the iWatchz (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) Q Collection and the Minimal TikTok are roughly the same price ($24.95 and $34.95 respectively) and share similar design principles (as you can see in the gallery below).

The iWatchz Q Collection is one of two nano wristbands currently available through Apple retail, and it can also be found at Best Buy locations. The TikTok, on the other hand, is a Kickstarter-funded project currently only available for pre-order directly from LunaTik.com. Based on physical appearance alone, you’d be forgiven for thinking the two are virtually the same, but you’d also be very wrong.

Design and Build

Both these nano straps share a fairly similar design. There’s a notched silicone band attached to a plastic holder for your nano. The Q’s nano clip is made of a thin piece of hard plastic, while the TikTok features a thicker and slightly more flexible hard plastic mount to keep your iPod in place.

But once you get a look at both close up, the differences are instantly apparent. The iWatchz Q has all the hallmarks of a mass-produced product, with poorly finished surfaces on the hard plastic parts that feel rough enough to potentially scratch skin. One reviewer at the Apple Store online even noted that he’d used a Dremel tool to correct this oversight himself at home, and checking other units in-store at both Apple and Best Buy, I found the problem to be far from a one-off.

The TikTok, on the other hand, tells the story of its design chops in the attention paid to fit and finish. Minimal founder Scott Wilson isn’t new to the watch game, having worked with Nike on its time pieces, and he had a hand in the redesign of the Xbox 360 and its Kinect peripheral. While the TikTok is a little more understated than the new look for Microsoft’s console, the differences in craftsmanship between nano straps are easy to spot even for the casual observer.

Both products strive to integrate the nano fully, making the accessory and iPod together look like a watch first and media player second (if at all). The TikTok is slightly bulkier, while the Q does a very good job at approaching maximum minimalism with its “just the basics approach.” The Q also offers many color options besides the black version I tested, while the TikTok is available only in black.

Comfort and Usability

Looking at early nano watchband designs, my main concern was that I wouldn’t find one that fit comfortably enough for all-day use. Both iWatchz and Minimal seem to have anticipated this worry, as the silicone band surfaces and lightweight plastic materials used in each make them quite easy on the wrist.

If either of the two gets the edge, it’s the Q, since it’s slightly lighter overall and really feels almost like you’re not wearing anything at all. Neither design provides cause for complaint in this regard, though. Women and those with slender risks might want to test out any iPod nano watchbands in-store prior to committing a purchase, however, since the nano itself takes up considerable space on the wrist. If you try the Q and find it works well, the TikTok will pose no problems either.

Both watchbands are also easy to use, though this time it’s the TikTok that gains the upper hand. The Q has a two-band system for securing excess strap once you’ve fastened it on your wrist at the desired size, but this can lead to some awkward fumbling, and it tends to get stuck a bit on the strap itself since both surfaces are rubberized. The TikTok uses an innovative and highly customizable hard plastic peg adjustment system that makes right-sizing and securing excess band a piece of cake.

Both provide access to all ports/buttons, so you can actually use the iPod as an iPod while you’re wearing it, though I’ve found that doing so feels clunky at best no matter what strap you’re using. Getting the nano in and out is not difficult with either band, though here too, the additional attention to detail paid in the TikTok’s design process is evident. Snapping the nano in and out of the TikTok makes the accessory feel like it was designed in-house at Apple itself.

Verdict

Is wearing the iPod nano a good idea? Some say not, but I have no problem pressing a button to see the time. It’s not like the nano is the only watch that requires this (see most of Tokyoflash’s line, for instance). And people say the battery is an issue, but I’ve gotten at least a week out of nano, when using it exclusively as a watch.

Whether or not it’s a good idea, if you’re going to wear a nano as a watch, do it with the TikTok. The TikTok is the only watch I’ve been complemented on by strangers (and I have a fairly large watch collection). It feels great, isn’t that expensive, and it’s an example of drool-worthy industrial design that you can carry with you anywhere. At first glance, the Q may look like a worthy competitor, but after prolonged wear and a close look, the TikTok’s emphasis on good design easily carries the day.

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As an example of why this is such a handy thing to have, take Valentine’s Day, a movie well recognized as one of the great stinkers of the year so far. But if you check it out in iTunes, at least here in the Canadian store, the average rating is four stars. iTunes alone would’ve steered you wrong. The Tomatometer rates it 18 percent rotten, and the Top Critics all pan it. Saved from a bad purchase.

The Rotten Tomatoes features will also let you know when a movie is exceptionally good. The screenshot that accompanies this article shows the Rotten Tomatoes box for Office Space, a modern classic by Mike Judge that you really should see if you haven’t already, especially if you’ve spent any time working in a cookie cutter cubicle-farm type office. Note the “Certified Fresh” award icon next to the Tomatometer rating. This is an honor bestowed upon especially awesome films.

You can also click through to see the actual Rotten Tomatoes page for any movie (so long as it’s actually been rated on RT, of course), which will give you access to full-length reviews from users and critics, more information, and the ability to buy it in physical form or add it to your Netflix queue.

Kudos to Apple for introducing a small, simple change that has a significant positive effect on overall user experience. But will it encourage you to buy movies on iTunes?

Related TechUniversity Screencasts: iTunes 101 and Smart Playlists (subscription required)

Once upon a time, anyone who wanted to could post a review of any app available in Apple’s App Store. You could just drop in on the top paid apps list, prepare a number of scathing single-star reviews based on the outrageous prices of each app, and possibly make a significant dent in their overall rating (especially if you were looking at some of the international stores, where there aren’t nearly as many ratings as there are in the U.S.).

It was misleading, it was petty, and it was stupid. Luckily, Apple did away with most of that nonsense when they limited the ability to review to people who’ve actually purchased an app. What remained, however, were all the spurious reviews made prior to the ban, with no way for users to distinguish between the two, and still affecting the app’s cumulative score.

Well, as of this week, those reviews are no more. Apple has gone through and pruned all of the reviews made by non-customers, according to MacRumors. It’s obvious when you look at the number of reviews for an app like Super Monkey Ball before and after Wednesday, which have gone from 4,197 to only 3,710. As a result, the average rating on a number of apps have gone up.

The move is long overdue, and I’m glad Apple did it, although I wonder how they determined which reviews were legitimate and which were by people who hadn’t downloaded the app. I suppose they do have access to the purchasing history of everyone with an iTunes account, in which case it makes sense why it took this long, since that seems like a lot of work. Hopefully now the reviews represent a more accurate reflection of what customers are getting, but it’s still far from a perfect system, and could stand further improvements, like weighting reviews according to latest version numbers. Apple seems to be committed to making it work, though, so we’ll see what the future brings.

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The reviewing process was flawed from the get go. Initially Apple had the idiotic notion that people who had never purchased or used an application should be able give it a review and star rating. Seriously, how could that work out well? The result was people who had no first hand knowledge of a [paid] application or game leaving scathing reviews because they didn’t like the price point. Apple has since fixed this, checking the ability to review an app against the user’s purchase history.

The solution is only partially effective, which is to say, it only works on paid iPhone applications. With the pricepoint of free, the apps that cost nothing are still susceptible of ridicule. Who wants to complain about something that’s free? Well, you’d be surprised. It’s not so much a situation of complaining about the price, but maybe the app, or the social commentary around the app — as was the case with the Barack Obama campaign application. The ‘review’ thread devolved into a Red vs Blue (unfortunately not the Halo machinima Red vs Blue) debacle (before and after the election). Thinking about the silliness of this particular situation, I can’t help but feel like the SNL Weekend Update segment, “Seriously!?!” But I suppose free speech is free speech, be it in a public venue, or an App Store application review thread.

On the brighter side, when Apple released the 2.2 version of the iPhone firmware, they instituted a smart idea to drive more star ratings for apps. If you’ve upgraded to 2.2, when you opt to delete an application from your iPhone directly (rather than removing via a sync with iTunes), you are prompted to give it a rating. It’s similar in feel to the prompt you get from a Customer Service IVR phone system, but with much less fuss — just tap the rating you want to give, and you’re done. If you want to go the extra mile, you can give a wordy review too. But I think the nice part of this feature is that more ratings are rolling in all the time. In fact, if you’ve been keeping score at home, the most popular of apps in the App Store were once maybe around 3000 ratings. Now the in-crowd of apps are surpassing 10000 reviews and beyond. So something Apple’s instituted is driving more people to sound off on the software they use (or don’t use) on their iPhones, which is great, because it only leads to better informed decisions before you click the ‘BUY’ button.

Are there any features of the App Store review process that I’ve missed? Or if you have some interesting ideas on how Apple could further educate potential buyers of App Store software, sound off here.

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Before you make the jump into consolidation of those separate devices with a new AIO printer, you might want to define some simple criteria. What is your budget? What are your needs? Do you know? Well, hopefully this article will set you down the right path. For one, let’s start with a modest budget of $300-400. Next, let’s define some functional criteria.

Recommended Features

• Excellent print quality (documents are readable) even with prints from draft mode
• Network capable (Ethernet), so it can support printing and scanning from the device to a computer and vice-versa
• Automatically copy, print and scan on both sides of the paper (duplexer)
• Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) for multiple page copies/scans
• Separate trays for printing paper vs. photos/envelopes
• Stores at least 150 sheets of paper
• Fax support with memory and auto-redial/fax
• 8.5×14 paper support for printing and scanning
• Color screen for easier readability of device functions
• Excellent customer/technical support
• Great software support for drivers and provided applications
• Six-ink system for more flexibility
• Low total cost of ownership (TCO)

Optional (Bonus) Features

• Wireless network capable
• Printing directly to CDs/DVDs
• Memory card access/support (over the network)
• Photo printing: 4×6, 5×7, 8×10 or larger
• Quiet or moderate noise production

Performance

Printer speed is always subjective, as most manufacturers provide the best specs based upon the lowest quality settings. For example, you will see that at an AIO prints 32 pages per minute in black and white. This seems impressive, yes? Well, this speed example is in draft mode, not full quality.

Until there are metrics that define the entire spectrum of how each unit performs when printing in draft vs. best and color vs. black & white, it just doesn’t make sense to use speed as a realistic criteria.

What are the choices?

Using the above requirements, it probably makes sense to visit your local office supply/big box store and try some of the printers in person. I took the liberty of doing this for you and here are some of the choices available in the specified price range (please note, the prices mentioned are current retail at publishing):

• Canon Pixma MX850 – $199, 5-ink, comes close to meeting the criteria except in build quality as the ADF seems flimsy
• Epson Artisan 800 – $299, New model on the market, ADF does not support duplex copy/scan, print duplexer is a separate purchase, comes with a 2-year warranty
• HP Photosmart C7280 – $269.99 (usually $299.99, although HP has instant rebates now), ADF does not support duplex copy/scan, all other above required features met
• Lexmark X9575 Professional – $249.99, New model to the market, 4-ink, duplex copying and printing (not clear about duplex scanning – although it can duplex copy), comes with 5-year warranty
• Brother MFC-6490CW – $299.99, New model to the market, 4-ink, no duplex support

If you want to stretch your budget by a little:

• Canon Pixma MX7600 – $399, excellent build quality, all criteria met
• HP OfficeJet Pro L7880 – $349.99 (usually $499.99, although HP has instant rebates now), very large dimensions, all recommended criteria met

Getting to one printer from seven

With seven (including the two that stretch the budget) different printer models to choose from, here are some considerations to minimize that choice to one or two.

Let’s take the Brother MFC-6490CW, Canon Pixma MX850 and Lexmark X9575 Professional off the list because they are not traditional six-ink printers. The Lexmark has the option to go six-ink, although there is additional cost.

Printer count: 4

Let’s remove the HP Photosmart C7280 because it neither supports duplex copy or scan. Anecdotally, I really like the form-factor and build quality of the Photosmart. It is a very nice printer with a pretty comprehensive feature set. If duplex is not important, then this model is an excellent choice.

Printer count: 3

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7880 was removed because of its sheer size (it has the largest dimensions at 20.91″ x 19.09″ x 17.48″) and the fact that it is outside the budget of $300. However, with an extended budget, this is a very nice printer as it meets every requirement, including printing 8×10 photos.

Printer count: 2

Recommendations

$300 range – Epson Artisan 800 (full review) as it meets most of the recommended and most optional requirements. It’s only missing feature is the ability to duplex copy and scan.

$400 range – Canon Pixma MX7600 (full review) does meet every recommended and most optional requirements as well. The added bonus is that it, like the HP OfficeJet Pri L7880, has the ability to duplex copy and scan.

Additional Resources

I recommend that you read as many professional and blogger reviews of the products to see if anyone has found any particular issues with the printer you want. Other than some hardware failures, most of the AIOs were reviewed well, so I don’t think you can make a bad choice here. Good luck in your decision making process and toward improving and consolidating your SoHo environment.

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Material/Build quality

There’s only so much you can say about leather – it’s a great material, and obviously has a level of class to it (and adds to the price). If you love the luxurious “feel” to leather (though it’s hard to describe), then you’ll love this case. It has the “rough” texture in the leather, and feels very thick and durable, like a very strong piece of material.

The “toffee” name is embossed into the back, bottom left corner of the case. The inside stitches with white thread hold the entire thing together, and seem to be fairly strong. Now, I don’t know much about fabrics or sewing, but it seems to be built like the Jansport backpack that I’ve had since my high school days. We’re talking a good 8 years. I’d imagine, under fair day-to-day gentle use, this case will outlast the MacBook it’s meant for.

Protection

The durable leather feels thick enough, and from my light tests, seems that it could hold up to what I would imagine would be normal use. For instance, I stick my MacBook Pro into an Incase slipcover, which then goes into a bag with the power supply and a whole array of pens, pencils, and other things which could be pointy enough to damage the case. The Incase slipcover, however, allows for sharp objects to cause damage to the computer – I have a couple dings on my MacBook Pro to attest to that fact. However, it’s good at softening minor bumps, drops, and blunt hits.

The Toffee leather slipcover is the other way around, it seems. My mechanical pencil wouldn’t be able to affect the computer (although the MacBook’s plastic is also better at avoiding that damage). However, the inside of the case isn’t as soft and “spongy” – which means it may not protect the computer from those bumps and bruises. This is just my guess… what, you thought I was going to test this theory out on my perfectly working computer?

Where to buy

I found my way over to the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue here in Chicago, but they only had the Incase and a couple other versions in stock – not the Toffee.

Fortunately, you can find them on Toffee’s site. I got the red one for the MacBook, but they have numerous colors – even for the old iBook and Powerbook models. Not-so-fortunately, the price is a bit more than I’d like – $85. Now, this is a leather case, so the price makes sense. The 17″ cover costs $7 more.

If you like the leather look (it’s pretty stylish), then the Toffee leather slipcovers will be a great fit for you. If you’re looking something cheaper, one of the other neoprene cases out there would probably be better, and are quite a bit cheaper.

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Live Interior 3D provides nearly all the features needed to plan out spaces in two-dimensional blueprints, as well as instantly visualize those floorplans as three-dimensional elevations complete with furniture, carpeting, lighting, and just about anything else you can imagine.

At first glance the tool seems a little too easy to use: Draw the walls in 2D space, click over to 3D and move around. It’s almost like Second Life without the characters. In actuality, it is that easy. With only a few preference settings, such as scale and units of measurement, and basic tools for design, Live Interior 3D really takes the hard work out of your hands.

That comes at a price, though: Some settings that should be user-changeable are not. For example, all walls are the same height. When I tried to build a house that was 10 feet tall with a 12-foot wall around it, it was not possible with Live Interior 3D. Along the same line, I could not discover a means to create a multi-storey layout.

Live Interior 3D snaps to points when layout out elements, and even creates automatic guidelines on the 30-, 45-, 60-, and 90-degree angles like Adobe Illustrator. On the 3D side, the features really shine through. In addition to over 1000 included objects and materials, Live Interior 3D also supports objects created in Google Sketchup. (See, for example, the beautiful MacBook in the TAB Office that I designed based on one of the included templates, in the first illustration.) This is really a great feature for students planning their dorm rooms, because there are nearly 600 IKEA items in the Google 3D Warehouse.

While Live Interior 3D is certainly not AutoCAD or 3ds Max, it doesn’t need to be for most home users. It’s still a fair bit user-friendlier than generic flowcharting and graphing tools like OmniGraffle, Intaglio, or Illustrator. At a retail price tag of $79.95, it’s perhaps a bit overpriced but not terribly so.

Overall, I rate Live Interior 3D as 3½ Tabbies (out of 5).

The manufacturer, BeLight Software, Inc., provided a copy of this software for this review.

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Fortunately for all of us, James Edward Gray II’s book TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac does a bang-up job of making even the most advanced TextMate functions accessible. Gray begins with simple topics like navigating the editing window, creating projects, and easy keystrokes — copy, paste, select all, etc. He wisely instructs his readers early in the book to learn keystrokes for as many commands as possible, but, at the same time, not to fill their memory with the lesser used ones at the expense of the others. Depending on the bundles one has active, TextMate could have as many as several hundred keystroke sequences available at any given time.

Before long, Gray moves into automation: what TextMate does best. Beginning with an introduction to some of the built-in bundles and how to use them, he soon shows us how to define snippets: blocks of text or programming code or bloggery that are automatically inserted whenever a given trigger is activated, like a built-in version of TextExpander, only more powerful.

From there, Gray does an excellent job of leading into macros, bundle editing, the built-in support tools, calling UNIX commands and Ruby scripts, and theme customization. TextMate doesn’t have a bundle for groff? Gray will show you how to build one.

While TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac doesn’t cover every aspect of TextMate, for less than 200 pages it is extremely efficient in providing readers with everything they need to know to accomplish approximately 99 percent of the tasks that TextMate can perform. The other one percent? You’ll just have to ask around on the TextMate community forum.

The old vi versus emacs text editor holy wars are still alive on the Mac in the form of BBEdit versus TextMate, and while TextMate has been called “emacs meets the Mac,” I was a staunch vim user until I met TextMate. I still keep vim around, but it’s collecting a lot of dust — especially since I read Gray’s excellent book that helped me develop all the snippets and keystroke preferences I needed in TextMate.

TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac retails for $29.95 USD / $41.95 CDN / £20.99 GBP / €29,00 EUR.

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