Buzz is a fickle thing. It can carry you away on waves of anticipation, promising the fulfillment of all your dreams. But buzz can turn on your just as easily. Nothing can be as good as pre-launch hysteria will make it out to be, and when that new device we’ve been waiting for with such yearning doesn’t turn out to be the cure for all the world’s ills, it can get ugly.

Apple is very familiar with the changeable nature of buzz. Anyone remember the Newton? I do. I wrote two books about it. (No really, two books.) I’m sure somewhere in Apple’s collective hind brain lurks that traumatic memory. Just as I’m sure more than a couple of Apple execs enjoyed some truly epic night terrors on the lead-up to the iPhone launch, probably involving iPhones morphing into Newtons on the store shelves and angry mobs of disappointed consumers hurling globs of egg freckles at Apple’s corporate headquarters. (more…)

It took three fruitless pilgrimages to our local Apple Store before The Geek Beat could achieve iPhoneness, and even then an insider tip was required (a tip which allowed us to bypass the lines altogether and didn’t even require we beat the sunrise – see below).

In the last 24 hours we’ve done little else but play around and take some photos (Exhibit A to your right). Our initial impressions? Wow! I mean, it’s not perfect – lack of an instant messaging client currently tops our list of complaints – but still, wow! (more…)

Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law states, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And if there is a downside to being a tech geek, besides the whole not-being-able-to-get-a-date thing, it’s that this is an almost impossibly high standard for most technology to reach. Nothing is magical to us, because we know how it works.

Except for I-Tech’s Virtual Laser Keyboard (VLK). (more…)

I have several devices that I depend on every day: my MacBook Pro, my Garmin StreetPilot 3270 GPS, my iPod. And while I can think of ways all these devices could be improved, there is only one device that I would gladly chuck into the ocean and never touch again, if not for the one vital job it does marginally well.

That device is my cell phone.

So when Apple introduced the iPhone, I had a geek-gasm right on the spot. Finally, my prayers had been answered: a handheld device that’ll connect me to people by phone, mail, IM, and to the Internet like a computer; and to my music and videos like an iPod.

Finally, a smartphone that’s actually smart. (more…)

Updated November 30th, 2006

The BlackBerry 8100, better known as the Pearl, truly is a thing of beauty. Sleek, black and compact, it’s one powerful mobile communications device that weighs just 3.16 ounces and will fit comfortably in a shirt pocket.

But while the Pearl is an amazing feat of miniaturization – perhaps too much so for users with large hands – Research in Motion’s Blackberry operating system is just now playing catch-up with the smartphone marketplace it helped define. And while the Pearl’s long-overdue feature face-lift is welcome, it still falls a bit short of competitors when it comes to multimedia capabilities. (more…)