Crisis Averted!

Last year I left sunny California to pursue a job in the rainy Pacific Northwest. The company was young, private and had a ton of potential. I was ready for something new. The timing was just right, and it was a great adventure.

Last month I left the rainy Pacific Northwest to pursue a job in sunny California. The company is mature, public and has a proven track record of success. I was ready for something new, and also something familiar. The timing was just right, and it will be an even greater adventure.

So long, Portland. Hello, Yahoo!.

After a month of iPhone ownership, I can honestly say I'm pleased with the device. While it's true the iPhone is flawed in several ways, it is simply the best cell phone (and iPod) I've owned.

If I were to lodge a single complaint against the iPhone, it would not be about the lack of a native IM application. It would not be about how EDGE is painfully slow. Or how the camera lacks zoom and brightness controls. Or the lack of voice dialing. Or Bluetooth limitations. Or the various UI inconsistencies. Or poor voicemail sound quality. Or MobileMail's automatic resizing of photos. Or the error-prone keyboard. Or the lack (so far) of an official native SDK.

In fact, nearly all of the above limitations I can happily live with. They are mostly software-bound and can (and hopefully will) likely be remedied by a future update. Yes, EDGE is slow but it's decent in a pinch.

If I were to change one thing about the iPhone, it would be the headset. Their one size fits all construction means that they do not fit my ears and their size cannot be easily changed. They easily fall out, and since the tiny speaker sits so far away from my ear canal when not falling out, they produce a very hollow, tinny sound and let too much outside noise into my ear. For a device where two of three major features lean on the headset, the included set is unacceptable.

What's more, the jack won't accept most off the shelf headsets without a separate adapter. Even if it did, those sets wouldn't have the built-in and oh-so-handy microphone and button anyway. Only the V-MODA Vibe Duo comes close to being the perfect iPhone headset. It's too bad they aren't $50 to $70 cheaper and have an iPhone-compatible button. It's also too bad I'm not the hacking type.

The folks over at iPhone Web Dev, a great resource for iPhone web application development, have forked Lace with a few little tweaks and made it play nice with the iPhone.

They've set up a live demo to play with (it works damn well), and have released the modified source to boot.

According to this Microsoft KB article, memory leaks caused by circular references or closures in JavaScript have been eradicated from IE6 on Windows XP.

After all these years dealing with this problem, it sounds almost too good to be true. via