With my previous praise for the iPhone, I must of course balance it with some flak. You know me, I’m big on the balance stuff. After all, I did play a Seeker*.
Anyway, the iPhone does not love linux. I knew this though. And this isn’t so much me complaining that the iPhone doesn’t love linux, as it is me marvelling at the grotesqueness of it all.
Look at what I am forced to do, in order to install “apps” from the Apple store onto my iPhone — and no, this is not about jailbreaking the phone, although you might think it is considering all the steps:
1. I have to get Windows or Mac OS. Yep. I read about iTunes in Wine (Windows emulation in linux) and heard it was “garbage”. I do this. I put Windows back on my lap top. For my iPhone. Because it is my master.
2. I have to install iTunes. I do this. Whilst asking myself “why must I…?” I do this. Obediently.
3. I have to confirm my Apple Account, FROM INTERNET EXPLORER. Hang on a minute here.
- I get an email to my gmail address,
- with a confirmation link,
- and clicking it in Firefox
- gives me the Apple “download iTunes for free!!!11111oneneone” page …
- and then when I open iTunes
- I get the “you have not validated your account — please check your email and follow the confirmation link” …
- so finally after many laps of chasing my own ass,
- I try the confirmation link in IE
- and voilá. Beau-fucking-tit-ful. Welcome to Apple Computing. We come in peace from the 1990′s. We mean you no harm.
Thus, finally, I can get on with installing apps on my iPhone. Great hardware, by the way, pity about its maker.
*) Only a select few understand that one and it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.
Bummer, sounds like a bit of a run-around there.
Unfortunately I have no idea about this side of owning an iPhone, as I haven’t run Windows since 2001, and haven’t run Linux as a desktop since 2003 (but still do on all of my servers). I just plugged it into my Mac and it worked. *shrug*.
On a (slightly-)related topic, I downloaded “App Store Expense Manager” and gave myself a shock; that I’ve spent £173 on iPhone applications, including £72 on foreign language dictionaries! Still, well worth it, and still a fraction of what my (now little-used, thanks to the “Japanese” app) Casio EX-Word cost me a year or two ago.
I have a Mac too, but my brother is hogging it at the moment, or I’d just use that. The downside of being out of the country for years at a time is that people tend to not easily wanna hand back stuff they “borrowed” from you those years ago.
As for the Apple store, I’m up at ~80 yen or so so far. *grin* Not anywhere close to where you are and hopefully that will remain so. Though I might grab that Japanese app one of these days. It still pocks at me…
Wow, well it says something that you’d go through *all* of that hassle/punishment rather than fight to get your Mac back. You’re mad!
Definitely check out that app; I guarantee you won’t regret it, as it is superb – the best of all of my dictionaries (I also have Collins Pro and SlovEd). Especially as you likely have the 3GS model, which also negates any speed quibbles I have with all the dictionaries on my 3G.
Finally, to aid you in increasing your spending (haha), if you’re a Google Reader user, check out “Byline”.
*laughs* Well, considering I may be doing iPhone development here in the near future, I may benefit from checking out what is possible on the phone, even if it costs me a little so maybe I’ll bite the bullet.
As for the Mac — you don’t know my brother, or you’d understand.
Besides, my lap top was basically just a repository of my main desktop. Wiping it clean wasn’t that big a deal in the long run. And installing XP again was kind of amusing actually. I walked back and forth between the spot where I’d put the lap top (the eth cord was too short so it was standing on a chair by my door) and every time I’d click either one of 1) “reboot”, 2) “Start > Windows Update > Standard update” or 3) “I agree, Install” repeatedly. Luckily I was hungry that night so I went to the kitchen back and forth a lot. 
Why don’t you just download apps from the app store icon on your iphone and use your cellular connection? I rarely, if ever, use itunes anymore, unless adding in music….
That’s the thing though. The phone requires that I use an iTunes store account before it lets me download apps, and since I had none I had to create one, and in the creation process, I am forced to go into iTunes to activate it … believe me, I have no intention of using iTunes ever again. Though I have a feeling I will be required to do so if I ever want to upgrade the iPhone firmware.
Don’t forget that iTunes also automatically takes a backup of your iPhone every time you connect it with a cable. That way if you lose the phone or it needs repairing, iTunes can restore everything from the backup.
Also assuming you don’t subscribe to MobileMe (which gives you over-the-air ‘push’ syncing), iTunes also keeps your contacts, calendar, bookmarks etc in sync between PC/Mac and iPhone when you connect it with a cable. I keep hoping that eventually Apple will bring out wireless syncing (like Zune), but I guess that they won’t, as it’s one of the (few) benefits of subscribing to MobileMe.
Oh. That’s nice, yeah. I guess I’ll have to start nudging the brother about getting me my Mac back…
Heheh Seeker…don’t stray from the path or the path may stray from you
lol almost forgot about those days 
We were much better than Potter could ever be! (esp. after I took charge)
LOL! Damn. *twitch*