APPLE San Francisco

Dear Rich,

While you were in there reviewing for your BAR EXAM, I roamed the Market and Mission area of San Francisco on Sunday. What should I happen upon but The Apple Store, San Francisco! At the front door, I told the greeter I had a question about a problem I was having with I-Tunes. He directed me to the "Genius Bar" at the top of the steps on the second floor. I headed up that way.



But before I made it to the GENIUS BAR--a long service counter with blue-shirted Apple staff on one side and customers with appointments on the other side--my body gravitated as if by laser beam to the amphitheater straight ahead at the end of the room. A young unruly-looking kid (like the pictures I've seen of Steve Jobs at 17) was giving a lecture about the MacIntosh "desktop." I hovered near the back row a minute and then slid into an empty seat.


Well, it turns out that this is only one of two Apple stores in the United States that has an amphitheater that gives ongoing lectures about Mac and I-phone, I-pad, I-pod features continually... seven days a week, all day, drop-in style. I sat in on the rest of the first lecture, went to the Genius Bar afterward, and then drifted back for another lecture on "the newest I-phone features."

Though I don't have an I-phone, I know someone who does! This summary is for you, guy!

1- TEXTING - When your text message is BLUE it means your receiving it free because it's from another I-phone/I-pad user. If most of your friends and colleagues own I-phones, you can save about $7 by switching from the Unlimited Text charge.

2. CALENDARS - If the dot next to your appointments is blue, you have probably never synched you phone to your desktop. Get with it! You have the option of setting up separate calenders for work and home and gym classes...whatever.

WEEKLY CALENDAR - You can see the WEEK VIEW of your calendar by turning your I-phone on its side. It scrolls across over a 7 day period.

If you add ATTENDEES to your appointment meetings, and change the time, the I-phone will automatically send the change to their phones.

CAMERA - You can sort and file your pics into "albums." You can also SHARE them by pressing the arrow in the upper right corner. You can ROTATE, ENHANCE COLOR, FIX RED EYE, and CROP your pictures using the 4 icons on the bottom of the screen.

ZOOM CONTROL - They switched zoom control from a tap to a two finger pinch.

HDR - It means Hyperdynamic Range (barf). With it on, you HDR on it you ge two pictures with different lighting so you can choose the better of the two. Otherwise, you'll get duplicates of everything. He recommended only using it on non-moving subjects because it takes 3 images in succession. (I may have that wrong, otherwise why wouldn't you get three of everything...)

MAPS- You can do category searches like with your Garmin GPS, e.g.: Touch Maps. Touch Search. Touch again to get your keyboard. Type in PIZZA. Maps will drop little pins on the map showing the nearby pizza places. Just Touch the pin or press the Directions button to go there. Oh so cool!

LOCAL WEATHER - You can save weather screens for different locals but you can also turn on LOCAL WEATHER which shows the temp and forecast of wherever you are.

REMINDERS - The alarm for the reminders can be set to go off at a certain time or at a certain location, when you arrive or leave the location. E.g. "Remind me to water the plants when I get home." The location has to be an entry in your address book.

Well, that's what I did part of the day on Sunday. Fisherman's Wharf? Coit Tower? The Comic Book Museum? No... Apple San Francisco!

Later dude!

Mo