For the last year, Daring Fireball and other blogs have kept a close watch on all the phones that are not iPhones. And for the last year or more, there have been a plethora of tech sites where reviewers have pledged, “Here comes the iPhone killer…” and yet, not a one has (as far as I know) ever said, “better than the iPhone.”

Well, this latest comes straight from Wired (Tired?).

Danny Dumas spent a few minutes with the Samsung Instinct and determined, “it’s definitely good enough to rank as a solid second-tier player in the smartphone space.”

I have to assume that Danny didn’t write the headline for his article and whoever did either read only his first paragraph, or has never actually used an iPhone. The headline gives the reader hope… at least, that’s what I think about when I hear “run for the money”.

That means that the runner-up came damn close and actually threatened the winner.

But then, pretty much the entire sub-500-word article whines about how incredibly sucky the Instinct is:

• “it’s … not quite as polished” (which, from the text, seems a bit of an understatement.)
• “The web browser shows some terribly rough patches”
• “the narrower body … really cramps page size”
• “typing on the Instinct can be rocky”
• “Call quality is fair”
• “No WiFi”
• “Clearly cellphone-quality photos”
• and my favorite: “Includes a stylus … but provides no slot to stow it.”

I don’t have an iPhone (DAMMIT!), but Meredith will be getting the new one when it starts shipping (JEALOUS!). Even with the fact that we’re Mac fanatics, there’s the beauty and the ease of use that makes the iPhone the top choice for a truly wonderful device. I get the “mac bigot” ridicule pretty frequently, but at least 6 friends who’ve ribbed my Mac-headedness are now contemplating Macs because their iPhones "are such a joy to use."

Despite the fact that they do look mechanically very similar, which one’s icons look like crap and which one’s icons make it instantly apparent what the task is? Which one would you rather use? The iPhone is so simple to use… whether you’re surfing or reading e-mail or listening to music or looking up directions, it just makes sense. I haven’t used an Instinct, but I’m guessing it uses the same tired point-y-click-y that all the other crappy smart phones use.

That’s what made the iPhone so perfect (well, as perfect as you want to admit a block of metal and silicon should be) — it’s been designed with the people who are using it in mind. If you ever have used an iPhone, then take a second to re-read that abridged list of Dumas’ complaints.

Duh. Seems pretty simple really…

“Run for Its Money”.

Har.

I think the real headline should be, “Another Tired Knockoff Misses the Mark Completely, Despite Attempt at Near-Infringement Level of Mechanical Copying.”

So, I haven’t begun to dig, but I’m about to start hunting around. See, the thing is, I have this Linux server on my home network that occassionally needs access to Casper.

Casper is my laptop. It’s a mac. A very nice, pretty MacBook Pro.

It also uses DHCP on the network, so on any given day, my server (call him Vader) doesn’t know what Casper’s IP is and I don’t really want to have to force it.

And that’s where Bonjour comes in. Hopefully.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Ultimately, I’d like to be able to type something along the lines of ’ssh casper’ from a terminal on vader. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

I’m at the Apple store writing this post on an iPhone. It is very cool but the pricetag is a bit much. The technology, however, is most wicked!

Howard scoops!

I read Lindzon religiously. He’s an investor in a friend’s company (Lifelock). This scoop is amazing. I can’t wait to see the direction of the iPhone now!

I know that two posts in one day is COMPLETELY unprecedented, but this is Big News. There’s a new Apple Store coming to town. And it’s less than ten minutes away from my house. Between that and the Ikea store — also ten minutes away — I am never, ever moving.

[T]he relative ease of computer animation has taken the medium out of the rarefied hands of, say, Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men and plopped it in the lap of any yutz with a Mac.

Flush the Awful Animation