Image courtesy Tony the Misfit

A recession, as those who have taken an introductory macroeconomics course know, is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Some might claim the United States is "in the midst of recession," however, the numbers are not there to support such an erroneous claim. Yes, GDP growth in the United States has slowed as of late. But, as our GDP has grown every quarter for the last seven years, the United States is hardly in the midst of a recession.

As Mr. Gramm said to CNN, many politicians, "blame speculators and oil companies for our problems, instead of presenting concrete programs for using energy more efficiently."

It's almost unfortunate John McCain did not endorse Mr. Gramm's views. They make far more sense than Senator McCain's loony economic strategy.

While the new iPhone 2.0 software has yet to formally go online, Apple put up a downloadable software restore package, which, unsurprisingly, the hoard of Apple-obsessed people online late last night managed to discover. As such, I downloaded the software and upgraded my iPhone to the version 2.0 firmware.

The third-party applications for the iPhone are nothing short of amazing. They add a tremendous amount of value to what was already, far and away, the best mobile platform. I've used the Palm OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Nothing on any of those platforms comes close to replicating the experience on the iPhone.

But rather than jabber on in vague generalities, I've written up a few short reviews of the iPhone applications I've had a chance to take for a spin.

Especially on an EDGE data connection, The New York Times' website takes ages to load completely. Thus, when I spotted a Times logo on the App Store's homepage, a few pixels away from the word "Free," I tapped the install button.

The Times application, though, has an unfinished user interface. It just does not look quite like an iPhone application. The article summary page, for instance, renders article summaries in Georgia — like the Times' website — rather than Helvetica, as most (if not all) other iPhone applications do.

Not surprisingly, the Times places advertisements in the application. The advertisement's presentation, however, is kludgey and unpolished. Rather than embedding the advertisements inline with the article, the Times application pastes a relatively large ad awkwardly across the bottom of the screen. The undying ad drives me crazy, but, more importantly, it presents a potential user interface problem. By obscuring the bottom of an article, it might suggest to users — as it did to me the first time I used the application — the article has not finished loading, even though the article has downloaded completely.

Still, the Times application makes reading the Times on the iPhone a cinch. What's more, even as the least polished iPhone application I've yet used, it still trumps even the best Palm OS or Symbian application I've tried.

Facebook

Facebook's team of software engineers did a much better job of making the application feel at home on the iPhone, while still providing subtle user interface notes that put a distinctive Facebook fingerprint on the software.

As one might expect, the native Facebook application provides a much richer experience than Facebook's web app for the iPhone. The native application, for example, allows users to use Facebook's instant messaging system. Other functionality already available to iPhone users responds more quickly and more elegantly. The search function, which I could never coerce into working on Facebook's iPhone web app, works flawlessly in the native application.

Super Monkey Ball

Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone has convinced me the two dominant mobile video game platforms — Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP — should be quaking in their boots.

Visually, the game looks stunning. The stages look just as good as they do on the GameCube or the Wii, perhaps even better, given the iPhone display's high pixel density. Though, I do take issue with the flat two-dimensional rendering of the monkey characters trapped inside their plexiglass spheres. But I suppose the iPhone must have some graphics processing limitations.

More importantly, the game is a joy to play. The controls no learning curve, since it uses the iPhone's accelerometer to control the monkey's movement. That said, the game puts up a challenge. It takes time to master the unique method of gameplay.

The game is a lot of fun. A bargain, I would say, at just ten dollars.

The App Store has made the iPhone into more than just a mobile phone. It is now, without a doubt, the premiere mobile computing platform. Everyone else should be very, very worried.

Image courtesy B Tal

For my part, I do not plan to snap up the new iPhone. Given AT&T's spotty 3G coverage — especially in not-on-the-cutting-edge Lewiston, Maine where I go to school — I cannot justify spending $299 for what is essentially the same phone, on top of the $15 rate hike I would sustain on my already insane monthly AT&T tariff.

Nevertheless, I read some of the early reviews, which by and large echoed my thoughts: faster Internet, better location via GPS, way more expensive in the long run, not terribly different than the original iPhone. At least one reviewer, though, resurrected the MMS issue. Since the day Apple began peddling the original iPhone, many members of the digerati have bemoaned the iPhone's lack of multimedia message or MMS functionality.

But I cannot understand why. I have never sent an MMS in my life. Nor, for that matter has one of my friends ever remarked, "Oh, let me send you an MMS of that photo." As far as I can tell, no one actually uses multimedia messaging. The MMS is essentially an email, with the difference that most carriers charge some outrageous per-use fee for each one sent. Especially on the iPhone — with unlimited data and all — it makes far more sense to send a plain old email.

I see Apple's omission of MMS as a well-planned feature, not a glaring omission. By not even including the ability to send multimedia messages, Apple gently nudges people away from spending 40 cents to send a photo via MMS. Instead, people use the convenient "Email Photo" button integrated in the iPhone's Photos application. Anything that helps consumers escape from the nickel and dime lunacy of America's wireless carriers is good news — and good choice architecture — in my book.

First, as a constant advocate for the active voice, I could hardly contain my rage to see facebook restricted my facebook Status to the verb, "to be." To be ranks, at least in my mind, as one of the most dull verbs in existence. A very useful verb, to be sure, but quite dull. I mean, "Bob is thinking the sky looks amazing," sound a lot more kludgey than, "Bob thinks the sky looks amazing." Fortunately for me, and for the ghosts of William Strunk and E. B. White, the facebook folks changed that. I can now list my status as, "Joseph bangs his head against the wall in frustration."

Second, facebook seems to have failed, at least in a grammatical sense, in its efforts to remove gender bias from certain elements of the site. Whenever a user changes some element his Profile, for example, facebook's magic feed-generator slips a little notice, such as, "Joseph added 'Alphabeat' to his favorite music," into my "News Feed."

Sometimes, this is not a grammatical problem. When users have specified their gender, facebook generates a grammatically correct sentence: "Sean added 'Casablanca' to his favorite movies" or "Gwen added 'L'Amant' to her favorite books." But, when the user, out of cowardice, laziness or indecision, leaves the gender box blank, facebook spits out a message such as: "Elizabeth removed 'skiing into trees' from their activities."

I suppose the previous sentence could be correct, if Elizabeth were a team, organization or some other multi-person group or organization. Suffice to say, however, "Elizabeth" usually refers to a single person. As such, it needs a singular pronoun! "Elizabeth removed 'skiing into trees' from his or her activities," would work, and it serves as a gentle reminder to users to step off the fence and declare a gender.

Services like instant messaging and text messaging have done a lot to degrade language, though mostly through their technical constraints. When a message must contain no more than 120 characters, people must make sacrifices. Facebook, however, has none of these technical constraints, and, more grating still, it actively reinforces an error many people already make — substituting "their" for "his or her" — as correct and acceptable. The facebook team, though, deserves kudos for changing the status options. It makes my life read as much less static.

Image courtesty Jurvetson

Just about every phone sold in the last two years has a Bluetooth radio. This Bluetooth technology enables devices — such as a computer and a cell phone — within 30 feet of one another to talk, wirelessly. Thus, just about everyone who has purchased a cell phone in the last two years could backup their phone — names, addresses and phone numbers included — to ensure they needn't reenter their hundred zillion contacts using one of those painfully cramped numeric keypads.

But almost no one does. And, for the longest time, I could not figure out why. In the last five years I have gone through five cell phones. (Four of which have been iPhones. Apple keeps giving me duds, though they have replaced them all free of charge.) With each of those five phones I have never spent more than five minutes loading all my contact data onto the device, thanks to Bluetooth.

It occurred to me, however, as I restored my latest replacement iPhone yesterday afternoon, how much easier it is to load contact information onto the iPhone, and how much more difficult it was for me to coerce my old Nokia to do the same.

At that point I realized it all comes down to human interface design. First and foremost, most PC manufacturers do not include a Bluetooth radio in the computer by default. Thus, for the vast majority of the Windows-using world, it's technically impossible to backup its phones via Bluetooth!

This is a tremendous oversight. Many, many people want to backup their cell phone. Many, many people also own cell phones with a Bluetooth radio. Finally, a Bluetooth radio costs a computer manufacturer a whopping two dollars. That two dollar addition can make a person's computer a whole lot more useful.

Of course, the problems don't end there. On the Windows side, most cell phone manufacturers use proprietary software to sync their phones with users' computers. This proprietary software may, or may not, be included in the box with the cell phone. Either way, the user has to actively install the software from a mysterious CD in the box with his or her cell phone, or go online, hunt down and install a software package.

And, inevitably, those software packages do not make it easy for the phone and the computer to speak with one another.

On the Mac, it's a little easier. First and foremost, just about every Mac sold in the last four years comes with Bluetooth. Most cell phones also communicate with Apple's iSync software out of the box, without any additional drivers or downloads. But even on the Mac, for the mythical "average" computer user, setting up the sync is complicated. One has to first pair the phone, which, depending on the cell phone can be tricky, and then setup iSync, a program Apple says little about, thus reducing the chances the "average" user knows about it.

The only phone I know of that makes backup truly painless is, of course, the iPhone. I plug it in, iTunes opens and, voilà, synchronization.

But that begs the question, why doesn't everyone make syncing so simple?

If the technology companies decided to worked together, they could easily come up with some standard protocol for making cell phone sync painless.

Computer manufacturers could include a Bluetooth radio with every computer sold, and Microsoft and Apple could develop some kind of system, integrated with the operating system, that "listens" for nearby cell phones with Bluetooth. Then, when a user powers on their cell phone in proximity to their computer, it could prompt the user to setup sync.

There are some rather obvious problems with such a simple solution — I can easily see myself sitting in an airport terminal and going insane as hundreds of prompts to "Sync with Bob Smith's Cell Phone?" crowd my screen. Perhaps cell phone manufacturers could include a prominent "Sync" button either in the phone's interface, or on the phone itself to put the phone in its discoverable mode.

Collectively, people waste thousands of hours reentering millions of phone numbers, simply because technology companies cannot make phone sync simple. At this point, I say everyone should just buy an iPhone. Which is a great reason for everyone else to think about making the synchronization system simpler. As for the toilets, waterproof phones would just be too bulky and clumsy.

My two visits to the AT&T store to activate other phones took what seemed like an eon. I had to wait as other consumer asked the salespersons simple questions about phones and rate plans, which the AT&T reps seemed unable to answer in a way that gave the consumers any real guidance. I had to cajole the salesperson into giving me the phone I wanted, rather than some lesser model that gave them a higher commission. I had stare blankly at an unattractive wall of replacement power adapters while the inept salesperson spent half an hour activating my phone.

Needless to say, it was not pleasant.

Buying my iPhone, on the other hand, was as close to cell phone buying bliss as is possible to be. I strolled into the Apple Store, asked for an iPhone, paid and left. At home, I connected the iPhone to my laptop, and, within about five minutes, I had everything up and running. Veni, vidi, vici. So simple.

If AT&T's marketing copy is to be believed, their new policy aims to make consumers' lives easier. Yes, of course! For I so enjoyed spending my Saturday afternoon cramped in an AT&T store waiting for a sales rep to activate my phone.

Of course, the AT&T people would argue that I, a sophisticated computer user and gadget addict, represent a tiny minority of iPhone buyers: the "average consumer" could not possibly navigate the iPhone activation process, with its Byzantine twists and mad Visigoths waiting to take the first-born children of all those who fail to check the correct box.

That, however, is as ludicrous as their unlocking policy (i.e., completely insane). Consider Apple has sold well over 100 million iPods. That represents over 100 million people who successfully plugged their iPods into their computers and downloaded music to their devices.

The first-generation iPhone, I will admit, was not quite as simple as to setup as the iPod. I had to enter some contact and billing information to pay for the AT&T service. But the process is as simple as they come. Anyone capable of navigating the financial transaction required to buy an iPod could handle the extra mental strain.

No, I suspect profits provide the true motivation for AT&T's tyrannical policy. Like the original iPhone, the net price of the new iPhone 3G probably sits around $400. This time around, however, AT&T subsidizes the cost of the phone, such that consumers need only pay $199 for the device. AT&T, then, recoups from the $200 loss through the tariffs consumers pay for their wireless service.

By allowing consumers to simply walk in and buy the device for the subsidized price of $199 without committing to a two-year contract and wireless plan, AT&T runs the risk that the consumer hacks the phone, exports it to an excited Chinese cell phone user and costs the company $200 in revenue. It is, then, understandable that AT&T would want to take steps to avoid this.

But that is not to say AT&T could not have accommodated those who wanted to activate their iPhones in their homes or offices. AT&T could have sold the phones for $399 in the store, but provided a $200 service credit to those people who took the phone home, activated it from the comfort of their Aeron chair and agreed to a two-year contract.

I still love my iPhone, my Mac and just about every other product I own that bears the Apple logo. (The $29 iPod photo connection gizmo was not worth the money.) I am, however, coming to realize how much I dislike AT&T.