For Christmas in 2008, I received an iPhone 3G. By then, the app store existed. It was my first steps into a brave new world of smart phones. At the time, Apple owned the entire market. All was well.

But the iPhone 3G wasn’t necessarily designed to run apps. After all, it was little more than the original iPhone with a new design and a 3G antenna. With the release of the 3GS and its speed upgrades, many apps quickly began to take advantage of the added processing power. The iPhone and iPhone 3G were quickly being left in the dust.

This subtly affected the ways I wanted and expected to use my phone. The GPS app I bought, Navigon, barely ran at all on the phone. Trying to play music at the same time was a disaster. The lack of multitasking was becoming remarkable frustrating.

Then Google released Android.

Android was the first true competitor to Apple’s iOS. Here was a mobile OS that promised to fix many of the problems iOS had. Android featured full multitasking, subtle notifications, more open development, and a feature that really intrigued me. Google Maps Navigation offered full, voice guided GPS directions streamed through Google Maps. Wrap it all together with a voice command system, and I was sold. I wanted an Android phone. And not just any Android phone. I wanted a Google Nexus One.

Since I wasn’t due for an upgrade for nearly a year, the fact that the Nexus One was sold out of contract no matter what did not deter me. It also helped that I had no trouble selling my iPhone 3G for $300 on eBay. The day that phone arrived, I shed the mortal trappings of iOS and completely adopted Google’s new system. And for a time, it was good.

Then I bought an iPad.

Like the iPhone before it, there was no competitor to the iPad. If you wanted a tablet, this was it. And I wanted a tablet.

So now I was in a weird position. I had a MacBook, an iPad, and an Android phone. My digital ecosystem seemed at odds with itself, but I always found hacks and workarounds to get everything working together.

Before long, the Nexus One, like the iPhone 3G before it, started feeling behind the curve. Not only that, but the battery life was getting pretty bad. So when my AT&T contract expired, I decided that switch to Sprint (unlimited data for life and 4G being my draws), and got my Google Nexus S 4G.

Also around this time, Apple announced iOS 5. A new notifications system (seemingly ripped from Android, but improved), iCloud, and more exciting features. iOS 4 on my iPad demonstrated Apple’s multitasking system to me. iOS was filling in a lot of the gaps I complained about.

Meanwhile, I was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Android. My battery life, even on the new phone, paled in comparison to what my brother was achieving with his iPhone 4. The camera was nowhere near as good. The system was sluggish and the best of times and downright unresponsive at the worst of times. Something as simple as opening an email would cause the system to hang. Force closes on Android is a common vernacular. And I was still fighting to get my Nexus S 4G to work in my increasingly closing Apple ecosystem. iCloud would likely be the final nail in that coffin.

So when rumors began to ramp up of a new iPhone that would be coming to Sprint, I decided to come back to the walled yet comfortable Apple garden.

It’s nice in here.

With my new iPhone 4S, I’ve noticed improvements in every category. Battery life is great. Not only does it last longer, but it charges remarkably fast. I can go from 50% battery to full in nearly an hour!

iOS shows the strength of Apple’s closed systems. The OS and the phone work so well together. There’s never any of the sluggishness I had experienced with Android. iOS’s dominance and near developer ubiquity assure that just about any mobile app I’d ever want is on the App Store, a luxury I never really enjoyed on Android.

The list goes on. Siri blows Google Voice actions out of the water (as I’ve previously shown), the camera is amazing, the number of available accessories dwarfs what you find on a typical Android handset, and my MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV all work together in perfect harmony thanks to iCloud, iTunes Match, and more.

But I hear the Android defense force and what they would say to me. “But wait! Android is open. You can mod it with custom firmware and features.” Don’t care. I used to, but I realized that the reason I did this was to make up for deficiencies in the phone itself. It was a hassle to have to root, flash, install, update, backup, tweak, and adjust everything. I was in constant fear of bricking my phone or breaking it somehow. It became less of a fun thing and more like work. I got to the point where I just wanted my phone to work.

Additionally, the fragmentation of the Android install base really bothers me. It’s the reason I always stayed with Nexus phones. But even this became an issue. Nexus phones were always released on different carriers at different times. The upcoming Galaxy Nexus is coming to Verizon, with a model that would work on T Mobile and AT&T available for import. Nothing has even been announced for Sprint.

When you see that only about 50% of Android phones in the wild today operate on the latest version, Gingerbread, I’d risk falling behind the OS curve. Unless of course I root and mod the phone. So why am I and a large group of dedicated hobbyists making up for the carriers’ and handset manufacturers’ deficiencies? An iOS update comes out, and I download and install it. Easy peasy.

Is there a market for Android? Of course there is. If you want a smart phone for under $100 that came out within the last year, it’s not a bad choice. If you don’t want to do too much with it, or conversely if you want to be able to hack and customize your phone like there’s no tomorrow, go for it. That’s what I wanted to do when I was in grad school. But today, I don’t have the time or desire to bother with it. I want my devices to just work. Apple gives me that.

The gameplay is styled after turned based, tactical naval battles. Using ships, subs, and aircraft, you preselect their trajectory and special skills each turn. The next few seconds then play out before you.

The whole game is wrapped up in a steampunk skin. The game is set in a fictional reality where the course of history was changed by the discovery of a new fuel source. It’s equal parts Pirates of the Caribbean and the PC/Xbox cult classic Crimson Skies.

It should come as no surprise since Harebrained Schemes, the company behind the game, is made up of former members of FASA Studios. These are the guys who not only made Crimson Skies, but also MechWarrior and Shadowrun. From the music, the cheesy, sepia toned photographs, and the swashbuckling story, this game definitely scratches the itch left by the lack of any new Crimson Skies games in years.

So get going and give this game a shot! It’s available on iPhone and iPad.

On the tech side, there are many ways of managing your runs with your various, portable electronics. The program works by starting off participants in a cycle of walking and running. As you progress, you walk less and run more. While you could just keep time and know when to do what, that’s no fun! There are pre-recorded podcasts and apps that you can get on your smart phone or iPod Touch to handle this for you.

After looking at the myriad of c25k apps on the App Store, I settled on one called “Get Running.” For an app to have a 5 star review on its current version with almost 1,300 reviewers is pretty astounding. The app allows you to start playing your own music, audio book, or podcast. A nice little feature is the ability to tell it what your listening to. If it’s music, the voice prompts will cause the music to soften but continue. If it’s an audiobook or podcast, the prompts pause the playback so you don’t miss anything.

With the last few episodes of Weekend Confirmed that I’ve fallen behind on, I began my first run on our treadmill (it’s cold outside!). What followed was perhaps the most enjoyable workout I’ve ever had. I felt that I was pushing myself and my body, but not so hard as to feel uncomfortable or pained. The voice prompts provided surprisingly motivating feedback. At the end, I was sweating, felt that soreness one feels after working out, and felt remarkably full of energy. This is significant for one key reason. I’ve traditionally hated running.

To be blunt about it, I was kind of a fat kid in middle school. Not morbidly obese, but certainly not thin. As such, I wasn’t in particularly great shape. Once a semester in gym class, the coach would just send us out on the track with the instructions to “run” a mile. Many of the more athletic kids begrudgingly took off and ran their 5 minute mile.

But there I was. There was no way I could run a constant mile. So I had to alternate between walking and running. Kids were lapping me. 10 minutes later, I was one of the last kids off the track. It was embarrassing, exhausting, and painful. The gym teacher would check “Make the kids run a mile” off of his list for the semester, and the next class we’d be back inside playing basketball or something.

Now how was this supposed to motivate me to become a good runner? The activity was automatically associated with pain, humiliation, and failure. So here comes this $3 iPhone app that actually teaches me and encourages me to become a runner. After that first workout, I felt great. I was confident, energized, and excited. I feel that I can absolutely do this. Just think if 7th grade gym teachers would put this kind of effort into their class. Frankly, it may have meant a healthier life not only for me, but for countless kids across the country.

I’ll update my progress occasionally on my twitter feed, so feel free to see how I’m doing and drop some encouragement if you feel so inclined.

The theme allows you to navigate almost any WordPress.com hosted blog as though it were some manner of magazine app on you iPad, allowing you to swipe the cover over, swipe through pages, and read articles. But before you open up the page by swiping it open, create a home screen link by clicking the share button next to the address bar, then click “Add to Home Screen.” You’ll then get the option to name the bookmark. If you want it to all look near and pretty. I recommend deleting the “the” and calling it Nerdy Dork so it fits nicely. Hey! Check out that swanky app icon!

With the app now on your iPad (or perhaps in your obsessively categorized and alphabetized folders), give it a click and watch the magic. Now you’ve got a slick way to read your favorite new blog on the go!

It's like a real app!

Fast forward to iOS 5, and we finally have WiFi sync! It’s just like I always wanted. I put my iPhone 4S on my iHome or dock my iPad, and the sync starts automatically.

What’s that? iOS 5 sends my backup to the cloud automatically once a day? Well that’s good. Frees up some space on my MacBook. Now I’m syncing songs and apps like a pro. Then iTunes Match arrived.

I love iTunes Match. Once my library was in the cloud, I moved all the music off my MacBook and to an external drive. It gave me almost 30 GB back on my hard drive. Even if I wanted to sync music from my MacBook to my iPhone, the option doesn’t exist. Apple just wants me to download everything from their servers. Fine by me.

Then I got to wondering why I have all these apps just sitting on my hard drive. It’s not like I can run them on my MacBook. They just take up space. I can easily redownload any apps I may delete thanks to iCloud. Save goes for TV shows. As for movies, it’s not something I do too often on my iDevices. After deleting all those apps, I got another 60 GB back on my MacBook.

Then it hit me. What exactly am I syncing anymore? Podcasts, photos, and the occasional movie file. Music, apps, and backups are now all done independently of my MacBook. Suddenly, WiFi sync seems less important.

Sure it’s nice to be able to sync up the podcasts automatically each night. But other than that, movies and pictures aren’t something I need to constantly sync. Nice to have, but not the must have feature that I thought WiFi sync would be a month ago.

But I’m not upset. I think the iCloud stuff works fantastically. Plus I got 90 GB back on my MacBook. Hard to be upset about that. In the biography Steve Jobs, Jobs spoke of originally seeing the computer as your media hub, the center of your digital life. With iCloud, Jobs and Apple are now betting that the cloud becomes that center. All they need to do now is let me subscribe to podcasts within the iTunes store on my iPhone and I’m all set.

Well played, Apple.

“Navigate to (pause) Pittsburgh.”

Voice commands have been in vogue of late. And they’re becoming much more useful than ever. I found myself using them in everyday life.

Then Siri came along.

Suddenly the whole concept of voice commands seemed to evolve in an instant. The rigid vernacular of my Xbox’s Kinect or the Android’s voice actions melted away. I could just talk to my phone. Here’s an example of how I would get my old Android phone to play the new Muppets soundtrack.

“Listen to (pause) The Muppets.”

I found the pause helpful and at time necessary to help the phone differentiate between the verb of the command and the object of the command. Now with my iPhone 4S, it goes like this.

“Play The Muppets,” or “Listen to The Muppets soundtrack,” or “Can I listen to The Muppets,” and it works.

This is significant for a lot of reasons. First of all, it means that I no longer have to memorize some command list. I can jus say whatever comes naturally. Maybe not the biggest deal ever for me, but when I think of someone like my parents using this technology, that’s a huge deal. Being able to just ask my phone to wake me up in 8 hours rather than using the same vernacular to set an alarm at a specific time is both useful and strangely compelling.

This is especially great for using the platform to send texts. On Android saying, “Send text to Chris Minotti saying When will you be home?” would often result in a message composed to no recipient that contained a message saying “To Chris Minotti saying when will you be home?” Even though I followed the rules, it would often not know what I meant.

Now I just say “Ask Chris When will you be home?” and my phone knows that I mean Chris Minotti (since that’s the Chris I most often text) and gets everything right.

Plus, I never tire of asking my phone how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

The CD features fully orchestrated remixes and medleys of classic Zelda tunes. From the excellent Anniversary Medley to the fantastic Wind Waker Medley, most of the series iconic themes are covered. But in my opinion, the hidden gem of this album is the reorchestrated Gerudo Valley. They managed to take what was already considered a classic song from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and give it a fresh spin as an absolutely epic piece.

If you’ve already purchased the game’s standard edition or don’t plan on buying the game (for shame!), hopefully Nintendo will release it as a stand alone disc. Or you could acquire through *ahem* other means.

So I’ve set up this blog to talk about all sorts of other topics. Things like Apple products (which I adore), social media, gadgets, Disney stuff, some gaming (that I don’t get to podcast about), and other Web 2.0 shit.

I’ll be peppering this blog with writing, videos, and perhaps the occasional doodle. Feel free to join the discussion!