Freyburg

My days mostly consist of hanging out in the Podcast Studio and getting my learn on (now that I have a business that depends on such things), so yesterday I checked out an awesome session on green screens for video podcasts, and later got to meet Stu Machwitz, the guy who wrote the DV Rebel Guide. I later made my way (and not without difficulty, San Francisco is pretty but its organizational skills leave a little to be desired in terms of street layout) to the Final Cut Pro Supermeet, which was a thing to behold. There were at least 500 if not more people there, and all of them knew a hell of a lot more about Final Cut Pro than I do. Well worth checking out. I kind of got lost on my way to the event, and dealt with a surly but ultimately helpful cabbie. Still, what would a working vacation be without adventure, uncertainty, and lots of gadgets?

Ok, let’s get this out of the way….it ain’t worth it to get up at 3 a.m. and stagger to a lineup for a Steve Jobs keynote. But that’s just what I did this morning, since I’d never been to one of Apple’s signature shindigs before. My verdict on the new gear Apple trotted out today? Meh. Canada doesn’t have movies for purchase on the iTunes store, let alone rentals, and we also don’t have iPhones. The Macbook Air is a nice bit of engineering, but it’s nothing I pine for.

Still, getting to see a live “Macbreak Weekly” was cool, as was finally meeting Merlin Mann and Andy Inhatko. Tonight there’s a party for attendees featuring non other thanDevo, and there’s a lot of informative podcast creation sessions over the next couple of days.

This January I’ll be going to Macworld for the first time ever, and I’ll finally get to see Uncle Steve’s medicine show in person. Macworld is traditionally when the biggest announcement of the year comes from Apple, though how they’ll top last year’s iPhone roll-out, I have no idea. However, that hasn’t stopped mad internet speculation from frothing up in in anticipation of new Apple goodies. The top contender is a sub-notebook, or possibly a tablet, built around the same technology as the iPhone. We’ll see…now that I’m doing a lot of video work, I’m more interested in upgrades to the Mac Pro than anything else.

Also, keep an eye on Techvibes while I’m at Macworld, because I’ll be blogging for them throughout the week.

Canada is well known as one of the most expensive places on the planet to use your cellphone, particularly if you want to get on the internet or perform other data-ntensive tasks. But there’s finally a hint of progress in the air, with Telus and Bell changing their data rate plans in anticipation of competition with the iPhone, which can only be carried on Rogers thanks to its use of the GSM band.

There’s also a low-priced iPhone competitor on the way in the form of the HTC Touch, which probably isn’t quite as good as Apple’s device, but at $99 is considerably cheaper.

Canada is behind the rest of the world when it comes to both the level of cell phone technology we get to play with (no iPhone? Bah!) and our outrageously expensive data plans. So it’s nice to see that the CBC, amongst other media, is tackling the issue head-on. There’s been a bit of a groundswell of coverage of the lack of competition between different wireless carriers in Canada, and one can only hope this signals changes on the horizon.

This article in the Globe and Mail isn’t news to me, since I know a few people in the Vancouver tech community who quickly snagged iPhones from south of the border once it was released this summer. But it’s nice to see the mainstream media has caught onto Canadian dissatisfaction with both Apple’s sluggishness at bringing the iPhone up north and the atrocious data rates of Canadian wireless carriers.

So it looks like Apple is finally going to bend to the whims of nerds everywhere and start allowing third party apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch, beginning with the release of a Software Development Kit release in February.

This is one checkmark off of my iPhone wishlist. Now all that needs to happen is for the iPhone to get to Canada, and Rogers to wise up and reduce their frankly atrocious data plans to something reasonable. Not much to ask for, really.