Apple 3G iPhone in Hong Kong, originally uploaded by Lawrence Wii.

Five reasons to fear the coming of the iPhone 3G:

1. Your iPhone is totally going to be lame now, loser.
2. Watching There Will Be Blood and driving may actually prove to be more dangerous than cell phone talking and driving.
3. Ted Rogers will soon have enough money to finish his doomsday device which he is calling, as per his usual naming methodology, Rogers Destrocto Beam.
4. Canada gets the “Jesus Phone” that means America now gets Jesus. The end times are near.
5. While trying to play the new Maroon 5 song you accidentally call your mother on her birthday. A three hour conversation filled with guilt and accusations results, teaching you never to try to listen to Maroon 5 again.
6. Bonus: You actually listen to Maroon 5.

Broken iPhoneOriginally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson

I’ve blogged here about the iPhone before, so with the big announcement earlier today I figured an updating on what’s going on might be in order. So after the jump is all that we know about the iPhone, as of today. I’ll give you a few credentials before the jump and two disclaimers.

I’ve covered the cellular industry as a tech writer for the past several years for publications like IGN.com, The Kelowna Daily Courier and eVent! magazine. I’ve owned an Apple computer since the Apple IIe, and have an unlocked iPhone from the US which I’ve managed to break twice (see picture above). I am currently employed by a Rogers Wireless dealer, so that while I do not work directly for Rogers I am not fully neutral either. I also own shares in Apple, but not enough that I’m going to totally lie to you so that I can retire to my own personal island.

And now the iPhone. (more…)

We’ve been following the rumours and development for years now, but finally Vancouver’s first Apple Store is open in Pacific Centre Mall.  The long lines died off once the 1,000 free t-shirts were gone, but it’s been packed with customers since with a ton of cross-over with the new H&M next door.

I skipped out on the opening since I was to tired from R.E.M. and the late show of Indiana Jonesthe night before to go, but I swung by a little after 6 and it as still full of shoppers.  It’s a small store, similar in size to mall stores in Phoenix and Toronto, and is not quite the accessory mecca that I had hoped that it would be.  Maybe I’m just cynical from being in Apple Stores in other cities or maybe I’m still disappointed I never got a second interview [jks] or that Apple had tried to hire two of my references instead of me [mbv], but it’s sort of underwhelming.

Oh I’m going to be spending way too much money there, though I’ll probably continue to get my computers via the online site if only for customizing options, but it’s just not as much of a must-go-to store as other Apple Stores.  Anytime I’m in Seattle you’ll find me in the University Village Apple Store, and if I’m in a city with an Apple Store I’ll go out of my way to go there.

Meanwhile the Vancouver one has only been open for two days and I’m already taking it for granted.

The thing with the big cellular companies is that once you’ve signed your contract and gotten your cheap/free phone it’s going to be a wait until you get another deal on the phone again. Between the getting of a phone and the end of a contract shit can happen and repairing phones is not cheap, especially if you’re like the fairly large portion of Vancouver whose got a grey market phone brought in from Asia or America that none of the local carriers will repair.

Some local repair places have stepped in to fill the need for a more flexible repair centre. Working with one of the big carriers I’ve regularly directed people to local shops for non-warranty repairs. When I managed to break my iPhone screen I went to the Bill Tan (contact information after the jump) who had a reputation for being both good and not too expensive.

Any other recomendations for local phone repair shops in the lower mainland.

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More Free Comics than Table space…lol!, originally uploaded by ELFSAR COMICS.

We’re poised on the edge of summer movie blockbuster season it’s clear that once again some of the biggest movies of the year are going to be based off of comic books. Iron Man, The Dark Knight and other all began as drawings on a page sold from comic book racks and newsstands. While a movie based on a popular novel will boost sales of the novel, comic books rarely experiance the same post-Hollywood bump. Attracting new readers is vital to the industry, which was why the major publishers got together and created Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) [fcbd].

It’s a yearly event and this year FCBD falls on Saturday May 3rd.  That’s this Saturday.  There is no need to buy anything, you will not be called at home at all hours of the night by Stan Lee trying to up-sell you into a Spider-Man subscription and best of all these are some really good books specifically designed to be new reader friendly.

Some stores go through a lot of trouble to make FCBD a really fun event, and worth coming in for. Elfsar in Yaletown especially seems to go out of their way every year to make things interesting. The full list of comic book stores in Vancouver that are participating is after the jump.

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CAF’s Megan Bennett and Environment Minister Barry Penner 3, originally uploaded by DBarefoot.

Tip from Darren Barefoot [db]:

If you’re looking for a few ways to be a little extra environmentally friendly this year one place to start is by taking a look at what’s in your garage. No not your car, that’s obvious, but your lawn mower. That’s right, if your lawn mower is an old gas powered model it can be doing a fair bit of polluting every time you trim your grass.

If you think it might be time to be getting a new mower, then this is a good time to trade it in since The Clean Air Foundation [caf] is running a trade-in program called Mow Down which is offering a $100 instant rebate if you bring in your old gas powered pollution machine to Home Depot and buy a “new push-reel, electric, rechargeable or low-emission alternative mower or trimmer.”

The program was launched with a photo-op staring Barry Penner, Provincial Minister for the
Environment on April 17th and is going on until the 27th.

Canada Line Construction Cambie St, originally uploaded by Stephen Rees.

I have been avoiding Cambie Street for a while now. But since I was at the CBC this morning, and I was in no rush, I thought I would see how they are getting on. The short answer is, they are not finished yet. Not by a long chalk. But the traffic is back - I think because people like Jane Bird have been talking up how much progress they are making.

If, like me, you just want to have a gander, you probably won’t mind too much. I had plenty of time to get my camera out, wind down the window, and try for a shot of the first Save on Foods in the City. And no one was held up while I did it as we weren’t moving anyway. The single file traffic starts on Cambie Bridge and goes all the way up to 16th with no left turns. And the road surface also acts as a traffic calming device - better than pavé and speed humps.

This development looks like a welcome change from the single floor retail that has been the norm on major streets in this city for far too long. Not only Save On, but Home Depot and Winners too - with a lot of small stores on the road frontage to let - and residential on the top. So chalk up another victory for dense mixed use. Though I have my doubts about how many car trips will be drawn to this corner once it opens up. The store is open. The street not so much.

I had to see for myself what kinds of items were available at the Winters Farmers Market today. I was happy to support our local farmers by picking up some Russian Blue Potatoes, a big bag of carrots, apples, honey and some free trade coffee. I have plans to make some whipped blue potatoes for Easter dinner tomorrow.

The farmers market will be open a few more times at the Wise Hall at Adanac between now and the end of April. There are more details about the dates on this newsletter at the eatlocal website.

Have a good long weekend…

Turning Robson Street into a Pedestrian Mall was listed as No 5 of the things we could do. I think No 1 would be where I would put it.

Streets and squares have been pedestrianised all over the world. The image I chose for this piece happens to be Harbin in China. But there are many others I could have chosen - Monmouth (Wales), Lima (Peru), Las Ramblas in Barcelona Spain, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod - I could go on for pages like this but you get the idea.

But for some reason Vancouver doesn’t. We seem to be highly reluctant to close streets to traffic. Vancouver only had part of Granville St as a bus only mall, and I am pleased that when Canada Line construction finishes, it will be again. Wider sidewalks, and a straighter alignment for the buses, but also places for permitted vehicles to park out of the way. So it may work a bit better.

But I still do not see it as the equal of any of the huge variety of pedestrian streets around the world. I have started a flickr group just to collect images of such places. This was partly inspired by Jan Gehl’s recent lecture in Richmond. He is the Copenhagen based architect who early on in his career decided that it was the spaces between the buildings that made the difference between wanting to be there or to get through it as quickly as possible. I cannot imagine a better plan than one that reduced the amount of space in Richmond devoted to cars.

Many places use pedestrian streets to help established retailers compete against modern shopping malls. Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t have pedestrian streets is that developers and retailers here have been more successful in protecting their shopping centres. There is no doubt in my mind that for a long time Pacific Centre was winning their battle with Granville Street. But a good pedestrian street is about much more than shopping. It is about having a good reason to stop and look around. To enjoy the place and the people there. The place becomes a destination, not just a thoroughfare. And somewhere to sit and people watch turns out to be the common denominator of all the really good places without cars.

As as others have noted there are other places we have where removing cars would be a huge improvement: Granville Island for starters. CMHC may even put in an extension to the heritage streetcar to serve it.

Is there a more left coast product than a toothbrush with a body made from recycled wood fiber?  If you’ve got a better example leave a link to a picture of it in our comments.