That wasn’t just today. This EXACT same thing happened in 2009 when Steve Jobs let Phil Schiller introduce the follow-up to the 3G: the 3GS. And people had the exact same reactions (from engadget):

2009: “so basically every leak was a lie. i really wish they changed the design. we have known all this stuff for months now (video, autofocus camera)” -(Unverified)
2011: “All the rumors, all the leaks, all the time wasted….and it all boils down to this….” -yumax_phl

2009: “Oh, and Apple shares are down by $4 …..” -bluefootedboobies
2011: “apple stock down 5.4%…” -Lionboy

2009: “Well, like many others, I was waiting to see what Apple offered before deciding between Pre and iPhone. Luckily, Apple made that decision easy for me. I will be picking up my Pre tomorrow morning ” -metric
2011: “What happened to all the rumors about thinner body, bigger display? All those Chinese iPhone 5 case that didn’t fit iPhone 4? Is iPhone 5 right around the corner? I’ve been weighing between iPhone 4+ and Galaxy S2, waiting patiently for Apple to announce the new phone.. Looks like I’ll be ordering Galaxy :/” -ikoss

2009: “Looks like I’m getting a pre!” -R V
2011: “Nexus Prime ” -Joseph30

2009: “!?!?! WTF. Guess it’s a good thing I was on the fence about upgrading my 3G, cause it ain’t happening now.” -sford56
2011: “Yup. Not wasting my upgrade on this.. Love you, Apple, but I think #WP7 may be getting my business this fall.” -Jon Malone

2009: “My balls on yo face.” -(Unverified)
2011: “Hi, iPhone 4S. Go fuck your mother.” -Orris B.

The phone everyone kept comparing the 3GS to—the Palm Pre—sold about 400k units in 5 weeks. The iPhone 3GS sold 1,000,000 in its first weekend. And, suffice it to say, Apple’s stock was fine. The Pre made it 3 iterations before all WebOS devices were killed off by Palm in August.

Admittedly when Apple didn’t announce a new phone this last June and instead added the (super-delayed) white iPhone 4 and brought Verizon on-board, I had hoped that meant there actually would be an iPhone 5 this fall. But then where was the leaked info from China? The blurry pics of naked iPhone guts? Hidden model numbers in firmware? I quit hoping for a new design about a week ago.

But this looks to be the new release cycle: Complete re-design every two years with a processor (and OS) revision in between. And I’ll bet October is the new announcement/release month. I guess I’m OK with that. It’s kind of insane to ask for a total overhaul of a really nice design every year, especially when our contracts are 2-year agreements.

Long story short: if you’re not an Android (or Windows Phone) person and you still have a 3GS, get on this. If you’ve got an iPhone 4 already, you’re happy with it, and it’s working fine, just hold out a year for the iPhone 5. But make sure you’re ok waiting. Don’t be one of those people that suddenly needs/wants a new iPhone mid-cycle. That’ll mess up everything.

I’ve actually been thinking about Windows Phones lately. If someone made a nice looking handset with the Windows OS I might jump ship, but so far they all look like plasticky garbage.

What do you all think of the iPhone 4S? Total let-down or reasonable upgrade?

A lot of journalists seems to be pretty excited about iCloud, but I’m left wondering why I should care at all. iCloud allows you to seamlessly sync all your files (docs, photos, videos, music, etc) and accounts across all your devices. Photos and music won’t count toward the 5GB iCloud space limit. The cool thing (from an “Apple are a bunch of RIAA stooges” perspective) is that for $25 you can have music you DIDN’T get from iTunes “authorized” in the iCloud and it will be available for download from the iCloud to your iDevice.

Well guess what, with the upcoming iOS5 all my iDevices will sync wirelessly with my iMac every night anyway. Are you trying to tell me I’ll be out and about with my iPad, realize I forgot to put that Kids of 88 album on it that I got since last night and need it so desperately that I’d have to download it from my iCloud on the spot? Not to mention I didn’t get it from iTunes so I’ll have to pay $25 a year to authorize it?

What if I’m working on an iWorks document on my iPad and I immediately need to work on it on my iPhone? Isn’t it cool that they sync almost instantaneously to each other? No. Not at all. Who the hell needs that? I don’t even use iWorks. Or do any content creation on my iPad or iPhone.

And it syncs your mail. So what? Don’t we all have Exchange or at least IMAP email at this point? If you have gmail you’ve had email and contact syncing across all sorts of devices for ages.

Apple makes two weird assumptions:

• One, that people primarily use their iPads on the move.
• Two, that people actually want to create content on their iPads and iPhones.

Everyone I know uses their iPad mostly in their house. It’s the ultimate couch computer. If not there, then in bed. Or maybe in the kitchen. Some people bring it to the gym. But even in that case you don’t have away from your house for very long. You don’t leave it at work. Syncing every night isn’t a problem, especially now (well, this fall anyway) with wireless sync (which was a LONG time coming).

And as to content creation, who the hell wants to write long documents on their iPad? Or edit movies? Or create music? Those things are all cute diversions, but they’re all much more suited to actually sitting down with a real PC with a real OS (unless you’re Damon Albarn and then you can create an entire sub-par Gorillaz album on an iPad).

I think Apple is looking to create an ecosystem that allows for people to no longer have computers. You won’t need to have a central PC to sync your iDevices to. Which is nice, don’t get me wrong. But who the hell is that customer? It’s not me, that’s for sure. And not any time soon. Until the iCloud allows for streaming all my files and a hell of a lot more space than 5GB (seriously, I have single movies bigger than that), I just don’t care. Sorry Apple. When’s iPhone 5 coming out?

(thanks to Quellipsis, Wallerama, and CCap for the email thread today)

“Our remote descendants, safely arrayed on many worlds through the solar system–and beyond–will be unified: by their common heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that whatever other life may be, the only humans in all the universe come from Earth. They will gaze up and strain to find the blue dot in their skies…”

This guy deserves a Carl Sagan high five.

Update: Durrrr, it IS Carl Sagan. Should have known that.

SCIENCE! This is F’ing incredible. Came out a few days ago, but I thought I’d throw this up just in case you missed it. ICP needs to write a “Miracles” follow-up about this. How does it work? Speaking of ICP, that’s a post that might be over due…

Well that’s it but this teaser for Motorola’s Droid X (called “See You Tomorrow”) is more interesting than 99.9999% of movies. Where’s all the kick ass sci-fi these days? Especially after Avatar. I want another Aliens damn it!!!! I want more movies that start with a mysterious phone call to a scientist/military guy telling him that he’s just been activated and he needs to see something. And then you see what he sees for the first time and you shit your pants along with him/her.

How rad are these spacesuits? Right? RIGHT?!