vsatips

How to Be One of the First to Order the New iPhone

Posted on September 11, 2014 by vsajewel

Updated Sept. 2017

Introduction

I happened upon this technique right around the same time I first began this blog. This post is one of my earliest, so I keep it for posterity’s sake despite the fact it’s a bit of a mess. But the technique itself now has a proven track record for me…it’s one I use a lot. I’ll be using it again this year for both my husband and myself…because both of our phones have a lot of problems and desperately need to be replaced. I sort of just remembered that I wrote this, so decided to share it again for the iPhone 8.

My Story About the Night I First Discovered How to Be One of the First to Order a Brand New Apple Device

I accidentally became one of the first people to order the original iPad Air. When it and the iPad mini Retina were first announced via Apple’s September livestream event…no actual dates were given for ordering it. I’d been waiting for a very long time for the retina mini because my eyesight was too poor to to read with the regular mini.

In the dead of night a few months later (it was November 2013,) truthfully it was morning already because it was around…say, maybe 2:00am. I just happened to visit Apple’s online store to check on something and discovered that it was ‘shutdown‘ for ‘Maintenance’ or ‘Restocking’…I forget which.

I was really annoyed because I really needed whatever bit of information I was searching for at the time,..so I just kept trying to access the store every few minutes.

Approximately 2 hours after I got that first message, the store came back online. I decided to check out availability of both iPads again (I’d been doing that really regularly too for weeks.)

At first I was a bit stunned, but that quickly changed to excitment as I realized that the Air had just been made available!!!! So I immediately ordered one. I truly believe that I was one of the first orders in the entire country, if not the world!!! It arrived a few weeks later, and it the was the best iPad I’d ever owned until the ios 8 update. :-) I still have it because it has some unique and fabulous characteristics making it hard to part with…but I really don’t use it much and more.

A few weeks after that first purchase, almost the exact same scenario repeated…but this time I knew what was happening. So I stayed up late again (actually very, very, early) until the website came back online and voila! there were the mini’s on sale!!!

Below is a Hodge Podge of Bantering Which Occurred During That First Revelating Experience…it’s all easily skipped!

The paragraphs below are of my recording of a live Twitter feed during the online ordering process for my new iPhone 6+ literally moments after it 1st became available. Reading this feed from the top down takes you through a reverse chronology of the events. Scroll down to the heading ‘On Sale September 12th 2014’ for my how to tips.

First Sales Numbers Reported

(Reuters) – Apple Inc said many customers will need to wait until next month for their new iPhones after a record 4 million first-day pre-orders were logged, double the number for the iPhone 5 two years ago.

The company said demand had outstripped supply of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which feature larger screens and longer battery life. Deliveries of pre-orders will begin on Friday and will continue through October

Update 4:30 am CST

2nd Success

OK…so the Apple Store site still shows closed. But I Googled preorder iPhone 6+ contract free, and one result was a link to the Apple store. Which opened when I tapped on it! So finally I was able to order the contract free version…which in the US is T-Mobile!!!

One person on Twitter said that the site opened when he used Private Browsing…but that didn’t work for me.

Update 3:35 am CST

Well, the Apple store, for me continues to be down…but someone from Canada posted on Twitter that they did order a SIM free 6…apparently it wasn’t easy…and can only be done there. No SIM free 6’s at the app store…or even new contracts for CDMA networks :-(

But the upside (which I also saw on Twitter) is

I’m learning how to say

‘We’ll Be Back’ in 199 (or is it 119?) languages!

Update 2:45 am CST

1st Success

The Apple site still is showing unavailable, but I went to the Apple Store app and ordered the 6+!!!

There is limited availability for the 6, and so far it’s only available in the 128GB model…the carriers are Sprint, Verizon and AT&T. No T-Mobile or ‘contract free’ appear to be available via the Apple Store app.

I ordered the AT&T version but I really want the ‘contract free’ or T-Mobile one, which is essentially also ‘contract free’ so I continue to search for that version using Twitter as my guiding resource.

Update 11:30 pm CST

It’s happening now…the Apple Site is shutdown…here’s the message:

The new iPhone 6 & 6+

On Sale September 12th 2014

The 2 newest iPhones are going to be available for preordering on September 12th. They’ll be available in retail stores on September 19th…which may also be the date that the presale iPhones are supposed to shipped. That’s not entirely clear.

How I Stumbled Upon My ‘Be One of the Earliest to Order’ Method

I happened upon this technique to be ‘one of the first to order’ when the iPad Air and iPad mini Retina were first announced via Apple’s September livestream event, but no actual dates were given for ordering. One night a few months later (in November 2013,) it was pretty late…say maybe 2:00am…I went to Apple’s online store to check something out and found it was shutdown for ‘Maintenance’ or ‘Restocking’…I forget which.

I was annoyed because I really needed whatever bit of information I was searching for at the time,..so I kept trying to access the store.

Approximately 2 hours after I got the first message, the store came back online. I decided to check out availability of both iPads again (I’d been doing this somewhat regularly for weeks.)

At first I was a bit stunned, but that quickly changed to excitment as I realized that the Air had just been made available!!!! So I immediately ordered one, and I truly believe that I was one of the first orders in the entire country, if not the world!!! It arrived a few weeks later, and it the was the best iPad I’d ever owned until the ios 8 update. :-)

A few weeks after that first purchase, almost the exact same scenario repeated…but this time I knew what was happening. So I stayed up late again (actually very, very, early) until the website came back online and voila! there were the mini’s on sale!!!

Shortage Rumors

Because the mini was rumored to be in very limited production at that time, I ordered 3 of them. That was the maximum one person was allowed to purchase. I was excited to know that I had just accomplished the vast majority of my Xmas shopping that night!

The 2 new iPhones
iPhone 6 & 6 plus

Happy Shopping!!!

Posted in Apple, Apple Products, How To Be One Of The First To Order The iPhone 6, ios, Uncategorized | Tagged Early iphone 6 ordering, iPhone 6, Order iPhone 6, order new iPhone | Leave a comment

Apple’s New iPhones, iWatch and ios 8 Announcements

Posted on September 10, 2014 by vsajewel

On Tuesday, September 9 Apple aired a livestream to

announce their new products for the Keynote Event 2014

Recap Some of the Major Announcements at Apple’s Keynote 2014

There were ‘Technical Difficulties’ with the actual stream

Although I’ve been an Apple fan for many years, this was this first livestream that I’ve watched in it’s entirety. I was referring to Twitter feeds simultaneously because I was having a problem even receiving the feed. Apparently, according to others on Twitter, a similar problem occurred during the 2013 broadcast.

The Apple livestream began at 10:00am Pacific time, and it was streamed through their website to viewers with Apple devices. Initially the technological problems getting the stream going were substantial, and there was a lot of Twitter chatter regarding this. The most significant problems included choppy footage with a difficult to follow audio track because there was, what sounded like, a Chinese overlay running alongside the regular English audio.

As the stream progressed this eventually was eliminated, but when really significant news was announced later on (the Watch announcement) the stream became choppy and jumbled with various different segments interspersed among the regular broadcast.

The iPhone 6 and 6+ Were the First Big Announcements

The introduction to both new devices was the first major item on the agenda. Both new iPhones will gone on sale at Apple’s website on Friday September 12th. They will start sending them out on the 19th. This is also the date they will be available in retail stores.

The iPhone 6 has a 4.7″ display and the 6+ is 5.5″

There are three colors to choose from: Silver, gold and space grey

One aspect that is huge news for Apple fans is the new, much larger storage size for both phones. Apple has listened and finally provided users with a much larger hard drive alternative …essentially doubling the amount of media you can store on you phone. 32GB’s was previously the largest size offered. The two new phones will come in a 128GB version!!!

Here are some of the most important details for each:

iPhone 6

4.7″

$199 for the 16GB model

$299 for the 64GB model

$399 for the 128GB model

iPhone 6+

5.5″

$299 for the 16GB model

$399 for the 64GB model

$499 for the 128GB model

The Next Announcements Were About ios 8, Apps and Games

I’ll be writing more detail about ios 8 in a second post, and the games section was very choppy so I won’t discuss that here.

The Major Announcement was the iWatch, Officially Called Apple Watch

Rumors surrounding the iWatch have been prevalent for quite some time now. So it was exciting to see that the rumors were true and it will be coming to market in early 2015. The name, iWatch, is actually a misnomer, because Apple is calling it simply the ‘Watch’. I haven’t personally been all that excited for it, and didn’t really get why the massive amount of speculation continued for so long. Well, I’m thrilled to discover I was completely wrong…this watch is truly revolutionary and I want one!

What makes it so unique?

Well the fact that this announcement was actually the main feature of the event, and almost everything else was tied to it in one way or another should give you some clue. The integration of the ‘Watch’ to the Apple ecosystem is spectacular. It will be sort of the ‘missing link’ for many Apple users I think.

Some Watch Details

I made a YouTube a few YouTube videos, which were aren’t great technically, but give you a feel for what occurred.

Link to my YouTube video showing a large portion of the Apple Watch announcement

The Watch is promised to be available in early 2015. There are 3 collections, or categories for the new smartwatch and 2 case (watch face) sizes.

Watch Collection 18 models

Watch Sport Collection 10 models

Watch Edition Collection There are no photos of the Watch Edition but from the description given for Apple’s signature 18 karat gold collection there will be 5 models including, Midnight Blue, Black Sport, Rose Gray, White Sport, and Bright Red Modern.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO Invites U2 on

Stage to Perform a Song from Their New Album

One last exciting event of the livestream was Tim Cook’s inviting U2 to perform a song from their new album ‘Songs of Innocence’. Following their performance, banter ensued between the Apple exec and U2’s exec, leading to Apple’s decision to give away the entire new album for free to anyone who’s an iTunes user.

Link to their banter and instructions for downloading the new album

Overall, it was quite an exciting day for Apple and their huge fan base alike!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Are Smart Rings the Next Big Thing?

Posted on September 6, 2014 by vsajewel

Staying on top of the ever changing technology front is one of my favorite pastimes. As I was researching things like video surveillance options (we think racoons are nesting on our roof) and drones today, I happened upon a concept which was new to me, the emerging market for wearable smart rings. I’ve always held a certain fondness for rings and I’ve focused much of my silversmith training towards that end. So I decided to present a sort of overview of the current smart ring market.

Smart rings are one of the newest ideas in the wearable technology craze. These cutting edge designs are generally only available on a pre-sale basis through crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter and indiegogo as of September 6, 2014 (with one exception), but the prototypes shown below seem to offer huge promise!

Smartphone Companions

One Prototype of MOTA

The first type of smart ring I discovered was the MOTA which is intended to be a cell phone companion device to allow you to receive alerts and even texts unobtrusively.

MOTA $65 – 175 currently on presale at indiegogo

Link to the MOTA presale

Link to a great Engadget article about the MOTA ring

Another MOTA Prototype Image

MOTA Smart Ring

Ringly $195 – 260 Ringly is perhaps the least feature-laden of this new subgroup of smartwear. But what it loses in functionality it makes up for in design. It is perhaps the one ring that might have broader appeal for ‘nontechno-geeks’.

Link to the Ringly preorder site

A couple of photos of the Ringly

Ringly Smart Ring

NFC Ring $48.97 Limited functions and nfc technology (meaning it’s for Android devices not ios) but the NFC ring is already available and it requires no battery…it’s solar powered!

The UK Kickstarter Campaign for NFC Ring was in August 2013
Link to the initial UK Kickstarter campaign for the NFC ring

Link to the NFC Ring Store

Gesture or Remote Control Rings

This second category of new-wave ring-controllers offers compatibility with many different types of devices such as, Android and iOS devices, Windows PCs, Macs, GoPro cameras, Roku boxes, newer LG TVs, Google Glass, Oculus Rift, and even high end smarthome technology such as Phillip’s Hue lighting and Nest thermostats.

Smarty Ring $175 Two cool features the Smarty ring will have are a builtin clock and the ability to alert you if you’ve ventured too far away from your cell phone.

Link to the Smarty ring product page

Link to the retired Indiegogo campaign for the Smarty ring

Link to a YouTube video showing the key features of the Smarty ring

Smarty Smart Ring

Smarty Smart Ring

The Ring by LogBar ~ $165 the blogger below says it doubles as a magic wand

Link to a nice blog written about the Ring

One unique feature of the Ring is the ability to write with a preloaded font set:

Video demo of the Ring

A few images of the Ring

The Ring

The Nod $149 It is the first one to launch into the market without a crowdfunding campaign like Kickstarter, or indiegogo!

There are 80 different components at Nod’s core, including two powerful CPUs and a superior flexible circuitry. Every trace is routed by hand, then optimally placed for the strongest possible signal, giving Nod’s antenna an impressive 30-foot range.

The Nod ring inside

Link to preorder the Nod

Link to a reviewer who says the prototype was exceptionally smooth and accurate, as demonstrated in the video

Wired article discusses the multi-interactivability feature of the Nod ring

The Nod’s Design

The Nod Smart Ring

It comes in S, M, L and XL

The Fin $110

The Fin takes a slightly different aim at the market by incorporating kid’s video games.

Link to an article about the Fin

Here are pictures of the Fin’s sporty design

The Fin Smart Ring

The Fin Smart Ring

Gizmodo Weighs In

Gizmodo, the popular tech publisher wrote an uncharacteristically pessimistic article on the topic recently.

In a nutshell, the Gizmodo article makes some very good points about this technology being not quite ready yet.

Link to Gizmodo’s article quashing the concept:

In it they discuss the current state of smart watches, which are also still ‘cutting edge’ and their technology is far from perfected yet. Therefore as a practical matter, they question if the expertise and/or technology is advanced enough to produce a miniaturized version of the smartwatch right now.

They also point out some practical concerns such as, most of the rings are fairly big and clunky, and probably not all that comfortable. They still require use of the device they are connected to, since they can’t perform functions entirely on their own. Furthermore rather than simplifying users lives, they suggest just the opposite. Even the simplest interface requires a learning curve, and the more sophisticated ones naturally have greater ones. This alone which may present the biggest obstacle to future adoption by new users.

The negative perspectives Gizmodo presents are well argued and they draw some extremely valid conclusions. So, while my initial enthusiasm my be slightly hampered, it’s not crushed entirely…just perhaps put on the back burner for a while, until technology can catch up to our imaginations.

Wall Street Journal Article

One more interesting article I read by the Wall Street Journal gives a bit more information about the current state of technology for a few of the rings mentioned here:

Link to the June 2014 WSJ article on smart rings

Conclusion

I guess I agree with the points made in the Gizmodo article, but for me the appeal is still there…probably because I have a bit of a ring obsession. So I guess I’ll wait to see if any of these actually hit the market, and if they do I’m sure I’ll try one (or more) of them out!

Posted in General Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged Smart ring, Smart rings, Wearable smart ring, Wearables | 1 Comment

My First Encounter with a Splog

Posted on August 9, 2014 by vsajewel

Follow @vsatech

I think I had my first encounter with a Splog today.

The site I’m referring to is called StreetWiseTech

Initially I linked to this site as an example for readers, but upon further research decided to remove the active link because it’s not good for a real blog to link to bad web content.

This great article from ‘Wired’ explains why.

What is a Splog, you ask? A Splog is apparently a sort-of spammy blog that’s written for purposes other than to impart new or useful information to it’s readers.

It may contain real information…but that info may be inaccurate or skewed for a specific purpose. The purpose may be for the blog to host ‘affiliate’ links, where the blogger receives a small percentage of each sale that may occur as a result of a reader following the link and then actually purchasing a product or service as a result.

Now, don’t get me wrong, affiliates as a general rule aren’t evil or even frowned upon in the blogging realm…at least I don’t think they are.

I’ve learned a bit about affiliates and I suspect most bloggers utilize these in some way if ads appear on their blog pages. In the big picture, this isn’t really percieved negatively. I think it’s just a very common business practice in the digital world of the internet.

What is less common, and is certainly frowned upon however, is blogging solely for this purpose, by creating a ‘venue‘ so to speak, for broadcasting affiliate links. Without actually adding any value for readers in terms of helpful information or cutting edge news.

I could be wrong, and I’m still learning, but I think that the blog I referenced above, is actually a splog. I’m not 100% sure yet though. So I need to investigate this further to decide.

As I learn more, I’ll try to remember to post what I’ve learned in the future. Tick tock tick tock…overtime, I did learn more and I’ve shared some of the results of my findings below.

WordPress Information About Splogs

I ran across this great explanation of Splogs at WordPress on a site that’s written for those who are new to blogging.

Lorelle on WordPress is a blogger who writes a lot of extremely helpful posts about virtually every aspect of blogging on WordPress. I run across her blog from time to time when I’m researching how to do something. IMHO she’s considered an expert on WordPress topics. Her posts are both informative and exhaustive…meaning if she’s written about a topic I’m researching, after I’ve read her work my questions are answered…there’s usually no need to research anything more on the subject. The reason I’ve written this long introduction is because I discovered an excellent post she wrote about Splogs, which helped me understand much more than just the smaller picture. If you really want to understand the finer points of Splogs you can read her post entitled ‘How to Spot a Splog‘ too.

Back to My Original Question About What is a Splog

After quite a bit of research I decided that the odd site that I encountered was a Splog for sure. This is how I arrived at that conclusion. The article I didn’t link to above purports to be a comparison of hardware features between the iPad mini and the Samsung Galaxy 3 8.0 tablets. While some of the data and specifications may be accurate, the perception of accuracy begins to crumble when reading the last few sentences, which state:

If you are looking for a solid Android Tablet, then Apples’ iPad Mini 2 is the right choice. However, if you are price conscious and wanted to have a Samsung device, choose Samsung Galaxy Tab 3. It might not be of the same quality with Apple, but the features and everything you need is still there. You just need extra care when using this type of Android Tablets since it is of low quality compared to Apples’ iPad Mini 2. Make your own choice and get the best worth of your money.

Since when is an iPad considered an Android device???

While there are no obvious affiliate links on this page, at least not in the mobile rendition of it presented to me on my actual iPad mini, the poor grammar and highly inaccurate information make it extremely suspect. I think this is a Splog!

Update January 2016

I’ve been researching inexpensive tablets and ran across another great example of a Splog. I was tired when I first began reading this article so it took me a bit of time to catch onto the fact that what I was reading here was all nonesense. This webpage looks to me like it was mechanically manipulated using keyword stuffing…which just means that popular keywords were crammed onto the text resulting in a jumble of halfway real halfway nonesensical verbage.

Here is the WordPress form to report a Splog

Update January 2020

Reporting Splogs

If you’ve run across a Splog that you feel should be taken down there are ways to report the spammy content. Prior to this I didn’t know that many Splogs originate on Blogger. This is apparently because Blogger is more lenient about providing personal information than most website hosts are. You can read more about that here.

If you run across a suspected Splog in a WordPress site they’ve provided this handy form for readers to use to report Splogs and other spammy or harmful content.

When I first wrote this post it was one of the first I’d ever written for my new website vsatips.com. I thought you might be interested in knowing that it’s now 2020 (I’m actually writing this on New Year’s Day,) and Splogs are still in existence and are as much of an annoyance today as they were 6 years ago!