MacNoob

It’s official.  Apple is holding a press event (by invitation only) in a large venue one week from today according to Reuters.  The gig is billed as “Lets Rock” and is just in time to announce new Apple gear for the Christmas shopping season.  The scuttlebutt is, this get-together is all about new iPods.  The art sent in the e-mail invites would bear that theory out.

On a personal note; it seems Apple stores in my area (Houston) are running quite low on iPod stock.  That’s typical right before a model refresh.  My 16 GB Touch’s Wi-Fi quit working and according to the Genius at the Baybrook Mall store, there isn’t a replacement to be had at any of the four Houston-area stores.  I asked about other models and she said there were only a couple of 8 GB units and no 32s.  This peaked my curiosity so I followed up by asking about a Nano for my daughter (wink, wink).  Those were out-of-stock also.

What are the odds that a Houston-sized market would run so short on iPods?  Long, unless Apple is shorting stock purposely in preparation for new models.  The only data not supporting an iPod model refresh next week is the fact that I haven’t bought one recently.

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I ordered an iPod Touch the day it was available on Apple’s site. I’m a Verizon customer with a long time left on my contract, hence no iPhone yet. The Touch is a great device, but I quickly became jealous of the iPhone’s e-mail, maps and other features unavailable to us Touch users. When the 1.1.1 jailbreak got stable, I did the deed and had a cool Touch with lots of games, utilities and the like. When 1.1.2 was released, I did the whole 1.1.1 downgrade, jailbroke, ran OKtoPrep and did the 1.1.2 upgrade. Of course, I had to re-install all the apps and then find the 1.1.2 versions of e-mail, maps and so-on and get them back on. I completely skipped 1.1.3 because I was perfectly happy with my 1.1.2 version and saw it as only giving me the “jiggly-icon” desktop rearrangement feature which was of marginal value. With 1.1.4, it looks like the SDK is right around the corner, so I thought it would be prudent to get to the new release as quickly as possible. I did some research, touring the multiple iPhone jailbreak sites and blogs and settled on the Ziphone app to prep my iPod for the 1.1.4 update. I did my due diligence reading all the instructions carefully and followed them to the letter. Guess what? My iPod hung, unrecognized by my PC and endlessly scrolling text across its screen. The really scary part; I was unable after several attempts holding down both <Home> + <Display> buttons to get it into recovery mode! The damned thing just kept rebooting and scrolling white text across the screen. For about 30 minutes I pondered the idea of buying another iPod and wondered if I should upgrade to the 32GB model. “Do I really want to drop another $500? If I ordered it now would it get here tomorrow? Just how far is Fry’s anyway?“, it’s funny what you think about while holding a $400 brick. Finally, after several attempts, the beautiful picture of a USB connector with an arrow pointing to an iTunes icon appeared on the screen…PHEW! Long story short, I restored and upgraded to the legal 1.1.4 firmware. That’s it. I’m done. No more hacks for me. I’ll just have to wait like a good sheep ’til Uncle Steve says it’s OK for me to install apps on my Touch.