For comparison, or if you just happen to be unfamiliar with the original pop culture horror, you can have a listen to it here. [Brainstorm Tech]

Our Jason Chen discussed this issue in the past and coined the term "com," but here's Pogue's take:

What should we call these iPhone-like, touch screen Wi-Fi phones with music and video, real Web browsers, e-mail, sensors (light, tilt, location, proximity), and, above all, app stores? These machines can download thousands of free or cheap add-on programs - "apps" - and become GPS units, musical instruments and medical equipment.

"Smartphone" is too limited. A smartphone is a cellphone with e-mail - an old BlackBerry, a Blackjack, maybe a Treo. This new category - somewhere between cellphones and laptops, or even beyond them - deserves a name of its own.

I invited suggestions on Twitter. The best came from @mentalworkout: "app phone." Bingo. Apps distinguish iPhonish phones from mere smartphones, so "app phones" it is.

I disagree with both Chen and Pogue and prefer to think of the gadgets as "Things I Can't Live Without," but what do you think they should be called? [NY Times]

While both handle low light pretty darn well (you can check that out for yourself in his gallery), he concludes that the Sony did better than the Fuji more times than not, and it also adds some cool features like a sweep panorama mode and a burst function.

The best part of the review: the video segment where Pogue and his buds go visit a psychic (it is very Mallrats minus the nipple part) and take pictures of her creepy spirit doll in the dim light. Having appeared in my fair share of Pogue productions, I've got to say that psychic should get a Pogie. [New York Times]

The collected responses provide an interesting glimpse of how each carrier deals with problems, and its customers. Pogue's results:

• AT&T is "actively exploring" how to make its messages shorter, and says that visual voicemail, which will make this issue moot in a few years anyway, is a priority.

• T-Mobile says the issue has their "attention," which is either a promising acknowledgment, or just a statement of an incredibly obvious fact.

• Sprint rightly reminds us that you can turn off extended messages on their service already, and explains how. Thanks, Sprint.

• Verizon would very much like David Pogue to shut his stupid face, please, because he said mean things about them on TV Twitter. Everyone else was cool!

You can read the full carrier responses here, but there are two main takeaways here: the campaign is actually working, so, you know, good job everyone; and it's clearly not over yet, until AT&T follows through, T-Mobile clarifies what their "attention" is worth, and Verizon cools down a little bit. A reminder:

Verizon: Post a complaint here.
AT&T: Send e-mail to Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations.
Sprint: Post a complaint here.
T-Mobile: Post a complaint here.

Happy polite haranguing, people! [Bits]

You know the messages: "At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)" That's 15 seconds that you owe every time you leave a voicemail. And it's just as bad when you check your voicemail. And the entire thing is a scam.

These little 15-second waits add up–bigtime. If Verizon's 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. That's your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year, just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again every year.

In 2007, I spoke at an international cellular conference in Italy. The big buzzword was ARPU–Average Revenue Per User. The seminars all had titles like, "Maximizing ARPU In a Digital Age." And yes, several attendees (cell executives) admitted to me, point-blank, that the voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime, thereby maximizing ARPU.

Well that's pretty shitty! So what to do? Harass the hell out of your carrier and get them to quit it. Pogue has links to places where you should yell at all four major carriers. Here they are:

Verizon: Post a complaint here.
AT&T: Send e-mail to Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations.
Sprint: Post a complaint here.
T-Mobile: Post a complaint here.

In the end, will it work? Maybe. But you can't win if you don't play, and these are your overpriced minutes we're talking about here. So I think you know what to do. [Pogue]

Pogue's mainly concerned with the silly fees levied on consumers for certain actions despite said actions not costing carriers hardly any money at all (text messaging, we're looking at you). One that we didn't even realize is the sneaky tactic of keeping users on the line for extra time to hear inane instructions like "When you're done recording your message, you may hang up." If you're out of minutes, your carrier is actually going to charge you to listen to those! That's worthy of a good fist-shake, or better yet, some Congressional intervention. [New York Times]

It's a decidedly critical take on Apple, the people who love the company, the people who live and breathe gadgets (*gulp*), and basically technology in general. Of course, many of you would argue that this list includes Pogue himself. However, as my old personal saying goes, if you can't laugh at yourself, then you suck. [YouTube via CrunchGear]

Just type in the magic words (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter) on the front page, and you will be rewarded. But as Adam points out, an additional 30 seconds of Pogue hamming it up might not juice you the same way as unlimited lives in Contra did back in the day, but our hats are off to you David Pogue, as well as the NYT code monkeys that dreamed this up. [Pogue-O-Matic]

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ has been testing it "for a couple of weeks" and sees that surfing on the faster 3G is between three and five times the speed of the original iPhone. However, Moss found that browsing on the 3G network drained his battery much faster than browsing on the original. Externally, he says the speaker was "much louder" (YES!) for both music and speakerphone, but otherwise pretty much the same as the original. One bug/feature he ran into was that you can only sync your calendar and contacts with either Exchange or your personal accounts, not both.

In Mossberg's own battery tests, he got 4 hours and 27 minutes (short of 5 hours) of talk time, which is three hours less than his test on the original iPhone. Using 3G, he got 5 hours and 49 minutes, which is slightly better than Apple's own claim. He couldn't test any apps on his iPhone 3G, but did on his old iPhone—they worked pretty much as advertised. He concludes with pretty much what we've all known: it's slightly more expensive on AT&T due to the higher price plan, but satisfies people who really need that 3G speed. What's weird is that Mossberg didn't test the GPS functionality at all, so we're left wondering how that is. [All Things D]

Ed Baig of USA Today also tested the iPhone 3G and claims both that it was worth the wait, but still not perfect. His complaints of the first one—no video capture, no Bluetooth stereo and no voice dialing—are still there. Also, AT&T's 3G coverage was nonexistent in his New Jersey home, which kinda negates the whole "iPhone 3G" thing. He notes that the new plastic backing helps reception, and the new flush headphone jack is "a welcome development." Unlike Mossberg, Baig does have something to note on the GPS. He says he was quite impressed by its accuracy when searching for pizza places while driving, and hopes that there will be a third-party add-on for turn-by-turn live directions.

Baig also says that the speaker is improved, but notes strangely that you can't directly charge the new iPhone 3G in some old accessories, such as a Bose SoundDock or a Belkin car kit. There's actually an adapter coming that will enable charging on those. Weird. He finishes up with his wishes for the next generation: Flash, Java and WMV support, removable battery and an expandable memory slot. All in all, a pretty positive review. [USA Today]

David Pogue of the NYT says that the audio quality is much improved, and notes that both incoming and outgoing sound is better than before. "In fact, few cellphones sound this good." The curved back makes the phone feel better in your hand, which is a definite plus. However, he says, the missing "standard cellphone features" from the first generation are also missing from this one. He hopes that the third-party Apps from the iPhone App Store will help fill in the gaps, but some of the ones we've seen—finding parking spots, free phone calls at Wi-Fi hotspots, random restaurant recommender, expense tracker, Etch-a-Sketch and tip calculator—don't exactly make up for the missing MMS, video recording and cut and paste features. Pogue also noticed the GPS does not support turn-by-turn navigation.

Pogue doesn't have much else in the way of benchmarks or impressions, but comes off seeming like he really likes the phone because of the iPhone 2.0 software; something old iPhone owners will be able to get for free. [NYT]

Notes: We have to say that Mossberg's review was the best in terms of completeness (save for the GPS omission). Normally, Newsweek would have a review up for the iPhone along with these three guys, but both they and Wired don't have an early review. This, we think, is because Steven Levy (the old Newsweek guy) at Wired, and Fake Steve Jobs (who hasn't quite started at Newsweek) didn't get the nod from Apple. We had our own hands on with the phone back at WWDC, which covers a lot of the exterior hardware elements as well as some of the software details.

Thanks to the dedicated second image sensor, it:

"focuses quickly as you aim the lens, without ever blacking out the screen...the screen doesn't go on-off-on, there's no loud clacking, and there's no baffling exhibition of mirror calisthenics inside the camera."

The upgrade, due in a month, will also have the clip and post functionality that lets you share clips with friends online, which we heard about at CES. And Pogue's post confirms an iPhone client is coming, which we first heard about in an off hand remark by Om interview with CEO Blake Krikorian before an SDK was ever acknowledged by The steve. Sling rep and TiVo blogger Dave Zatz offered up these words when we sought confirmation: "We're actively researching the iphone platform, and are eagerly awaiting the SDK."

What I wonder is if Sling is WMV-based, and the iPhone streams H.264 natively, does this mean Sling'll start broadcasting in H.264? Or is Sling going to make a WM client for the iPhone? Either way, it's going to be a long stream home on that EDGE connection.

• Pogue's NYT review
• Ed Baig's USA Today review
• Mossy's WSJ review

You need a speedy broadband connection (at least 3Mbps); fast-forward can be wonky; like every other distributor the scope and selection its ever-changing catalog of 5k flicks is at the mercy of Hollywood studios. Stay tuned for own review, but if you're feeling hasty you can go ahead and slap down your $399 now. [NYT]

He also tests two traditionally shaped 7MP cameras, the Optio W30 ($237) and Olympus's Stylus 770 SW ($270). The Olympus is a fully rugged setup, shock and extreme temperature resistant, good down to 33 feet of water; the Pentax is good for 10 feet at two hours. I've used the previous generation Pentax and loved it for hawaii conditions. But I did lose it on a reef and only then did I learn what Pogue points out: None of these damn things float. [NYTimes]

Maybe I'm just taking it personally, because it was a damn good idea. Oh, right, the iPhone music video was an idea we came up with together. I totally goaded him into it by telling him that its the thing that would set his work apart from Mossberg and the rest of the mainstream journalists. He was a former Broadway arranger, you know. There's no reason why he shouldn't flaunt that. If I could do every review on Gizmodo in musical form I would.

What is he supposed to do, hate it just because everyone is sick of hearing how awesome it is? Even the iPhone's hardest critics have to admit its amazing in some ways. (Have you seen our review?) Pogue just feels its worth crowing over, literally. His video still covers the flaws. He's just having a good time. It's gadgets. It's a phone. Relax Pogue critics. There's no nefarious plot to sell more books. There's just a guy who likes gadgets and did a music video about it.

That's where you readers come in. Your challenge is this: make David Pogue as cool as humanly possible. Put him on a Harley with a stogie sticking out of his mouth. Surround him with buxom ladies in a hot tub. You know, cool. Find some pictures of him and use your Photoshop skills and send your best efforts to me at adam@gizmodo.com. Entries are due on Friday, and I'll post the best results early next week.

Oh, and a note:

Unlike the last Photoshop "contest" I ran, this one will be selective. That means I won't post everything that's sent in. So don't just stick some "witty" text over the photo and send it to me. I want sweet Photoshops here, people. Let's see what you've got. I don't have any prizes to give away at the moment, but who knows, if you inspire me enough maybe I'll dig something up to send to the winner. No promises. –Adam Frucci

UPDATE: Here are the images.

He checks out GMail and Yahoo's apps, but faults them for being unavailable on many of the locked-down phones that carriers sell us. He much prefers the teleflip service, which forwards email messages from preselected senders as multiple txt messages.

I see where he's coming from, since most any phone capable of txt messages can work with teleflip, but man, I definitely don't want the flood of my inbox hitting my cellphone like a rain of twittter. Especially when each email gets broken down into 4-5 emails. *Shudder*

Hey, anyone catch his new show last Friday? He's got a schedule up.– Brian Lam

How to Make Your Cellphone Act Like a BlackBerry [NYTimes]

8 pm on the Science Channel! Every Fri for 6 weeks. Also on Discovery HD starting June 7.

Anyhow, here's a video preview worth watching:

THE SCIENCE CHANNEL'S NEW SERIES IT'S ALL GEEK TO ME ALLEVIATES CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY CONFUSION

Hosted by New York Times Columnist David Pogue,
Series Debuts Friday, May 18, 8 PM (ET/PT)

(Silver Spring, MD) - The Science Channel debuts IT'S ALL GEEK TO ME, a new weekly series that brings The New York Times personal-technology columnist David Pogue's expertise on the world of technology to television. In each half-hour episode, Pogue uses his unique brand of humor to help average consumers unravel the mystery behind complex electronic gadgets used in their daily lives. Whether it's choosing the right digital camera, unlocking fun tricks on your cell phone or learning how to edit your own home videos, Pogue's unique knowledge and expertise helps it all make sense. The series premieres Friday, May 18, at 8 PM (ET/PT) and will air every Friday on The Science Channel.

For years, David Pogue has enlightened readers about personal technology in The New York Times and as an Emmy award-winning correspondent for CBS News. Now his unique wisdom reveals the mysteries and special features and functions behind a variety of consumer technology products. Useful tips and tricks, interspersed with quirky sketches - including man-on-the-street segments - ensure that each episode of IT'S ALL GEEK TO ME entertains while informing.

CAMCORDERS
Camcorder sales may be down, but amateur video is way, way up, thanks to the camera phone, YouTube and other developments. David Pogue, The New York Times tech columnist, takes you on a fast, funny ride through the entire process of becoming a home-movie mogul: choosing a camcorder (tape vs. DVD vs. memory card), learning to use it, editing out the boring parts and finally posting the result on the Web for a potential audience of one billion people.

CELL PHONES
Cell phones have gotten less expensive, smaller and more powerful over time, but people still have a love-hate relationship with these little gadgets. David Pogue, The New York Times tech columnist, offers couples therapy for you and your phone. He shows which features are worth shopping for, how to avoid being scammed when signing up for service and how to save minutes and money using voicemail, directory assistance, picture sending and more.

LAPTOPS
Laptops: they're the fastest-growing kind of computer, the road warrior's trusty companion. David Pogue, The New York Times tech columnist, takes this show on the road, literally, and offers advice on getting online, protecting your laptop from theft and destruction, using public wireless hot spots without being eavesdropped and presenting PowerPoint pitches while connected to a projector.

DIGITAL CAMERAS
Digital cameras have revolutionized photography; in less than a decade, they almost completely wiped film cameras off the map. But that doesn't mean they're idiot-proof. The New York Times tech columnist David Pogue demonstrates how to buy a camera, avoid common photo-taking pitfalls, fix up the lousy shots on the computer and finally present the results to your adoring public via slideshow, e-mail, DVD or website.

IPODS
You knew that your iPod plays music. But did you know it's also a stopwatch, alarm clock, Web-page reader, audio book, recipe reader, TiVo recorder, karaoke machine, podcast player, radio, big-screen TV and YouTube viewer? You will, once The New York Times tech columnist David Pogue gets finished.

SAVING PAST DATA
At this very moment, all of your audio, video and photographic memories are disintegrating, slowly but surely. VHS tapes have only a 15-year shelf life before the image begins to degrade; cassette tapes, same problem; and plenty of computer storage formats are no longer playable because nobody makes the programs or the disk drives anymore. In this show, The New York Times tech columnist David Pogue shows you how to rescue all of these decaying or disappearing formats: home movies on film, vinyl records, VHS tapes, audio tapes, data on floppy disks, slides, prints and more.

IT'S ALL GEEK TO ME is produced for The Science Channel by City Lights Television. Dave Noll and Christopher Stout produced for City Lights and Mark Allen is executive producer for The Science Channel.

– Brian Lam
Geek to Me [Discovery]

He tests the recently announced HDR-SR7 and the JVC Everio GZ-HD7, ultimately preferring the Sony's more stabilized shot, better battery life, and more grainy but detailed low light picture. The Everio's 3 chips, one for red, green, and blue, didn't do a damn thing for visual quality.

What's cool is that both cameras can get HD content onto standard def DVDs (even though you can't play them back in most DVD players). The Sony solution works on Sony Blu-ray players and the PS3. JVC has a proprietary burner that only plays back the JVC discs in HD, for $400. Sounds like a pain in the ass.

Pogue also has a list of his favorite gadgets posted on his blog. Worth a read.

Video review of the cameras, post jump.

UPDATE: Most cameras like this require you to use their own editing software, or, if compatible, Ulead's AVCHD editing software. The Sony has a plugin that will let you use it with iMovie. Unfortunately, like we've seen before, Pogue confirms that the transformation from the camera's format to the iMovie compatible one takes about 5x the length of each clip to process. Bollocks!

The cameras are both 1080i, although Pogue let's us know that the important thing differences between two are bitrate video is recorded at, and the format. The Sony cam packs data down to half the size of the JVC, but uses a better codec, so it is actually better than half the quality.

A confusing space, indeed, for the average consumer. – Brian Lam

Your Life, in a Movie of Top Quality [NYTimes]

Sansa's chief ingredient: instant real-time flat-fee access to anything in Yahoo's catalog of two million songs. The spontaneity would put the iPod to shame. The song-requesting feature would put satellite radio to shame. And the Wi-Fi freedom would make the Zune crawl back into its hole.

Unfortunately, no matter what SanDisk says, you do not have access to all of Yahoo's two million songs—because the Sansa doesn't offer any way to find them. There's no Search command, no master list of bands or albums—no direct access at all.

In fact, you can download only a tiny fraction of Yahoo's catalogs: just what Yahoo decides to offer you on three sampler platters.

The first sampler is Yahoo's set of 200 Internet radio stations. These are especially cool ones, because (if you're a paid subscriber) you can hit the Skip button to start streaming the next song in the "radio station's" playlist at any time. More amazingly still, when you hear a song you like, you can download it to your player, or even the entire album, with two button taps.

Second, you can get the songs on Yahoo's Most Popular lists in various genres. Finally, you can browse a list of recommendations that Yahoo calculates on the songs you've rated highly using the Sansa's click wheel.

But worse, even of those songs, there are some that are just impossible to download for legal reasons.

Worse, a disappointing percentage of the songs and albums never arrive at all. Whenever you select a song for download, the words "Request Added" appear on the screen; confusingly, the player doesn't begin downloading immediately, but rather adds your requests to a list that's sometimes downloading and sometimes not.

You have to burrow deeply into its menus to find the waiting list. That's also where you find the folder called Unable to Download.

Yahoo explains that many of its songs are internally flagged as "not downloadable" in a complex copy-protection scheme. Fine, but then the Sansa should identify them up front instead of getting your hopes up.

Did we mention it can squirt songs, like a Zune, to other Sansa Connect players? It can. Also, he shakes his head at the Connect's lame propensity to shut down Wi-Fi if batteries drop below 60%, the lack of video capability in this day and age. What do you think you are, Sansa Connect? An iPod nano? A brutal drop-kick on the Connect, from the Pogue-ster.–Brian Lam

A Music Player That Needs Seasoning [NYTimes]

He reinstalls his OS, tries different laptops, works through easter, and even takes the gear to the middle of a state park to see if interference is the culprit. No dice. Most routers didn't pass the 50Mbps speed. Except Apple's which he gives top marks to. He speculates that the Apple Airport Extreme's N implementation in the 5GHz band (vs the 2.4GHz that the other routers use) gives it its advantage.

So, basically, these dedicated networking companies just had their asses handed to them by Apple's Airport Extreme router. (He also notice the same lack of gigabit ethernet that we did, but fails to mention the incompatibility with XBox 360s's Live network.) Useful info if you're going to buy an N setup anytime soon.

Interestingly, the Belkin got a recommendation, despite the failure to pass the 50Mbps mark. Maybe he's afraid of being called an Apple fanboy and wants to provide an alternative? I wouldn't have.

The video, as always, is worth watching. This week's is done like a bedtime story.

–Brian Lam

A Faster Wi-Fi World Is Coming [NYTimes]

Here's why: In a day of Xbox 360 Elites and marginal iPod upgrades, TiVo is actually upgrading their boxes for little or no more money. TiVo, if you haven't been keeping track, can stream photos and music from your computer, accept programming from a Verizon cellphone, download movies from Amazon's Unbox service, and podcasts, as well as check movie, weather and traffic info. They even have lame guru advice video columns! (Wait a minute...)

Anyhow, the lack of new hardware may make you think that there's nothing significantly new. But you're wrong. But would you rather have incremental upgrades that require you to buy a whole new unit? (Xbox 360 Elite, iPod) or nice revisions every quarter (Xbox Live, Zune.) People, this is a gift! A gift from TiVo. So show 'em some love and pick up a set.

David Pogue, I even I understand why you choose to compare the TiVo to a generic cable box, instead of facing off a Series 3 versus a cable card–equipped media center. (It's a better comparison since most people still can't afford the HD setups.)–Brian Lam

Video and Article: TiVo Plays a Trump Card: Web Smarts [NYTimes]

But maybe you're of the mind to actually buy one, and need to do some hard research. If so, bookmark this post that our sexy librarian friend put together for us: Here's a list of the best Apple TV stories on Giz and beyond from the two weeks since Mossberg launched review number 1.

First, Giz. We've covered the bajeezus out of AppleTV. Here's the first unboxing, some surprises upon grope, a couple of pet peeves, the first setup video, a head to head with Microsoft's Media Center and XBox 360. (And unnaturally, Apple TV versus Tivo Series 3.)And a cable buying guide, as well as the mega gallery of hardware and screenshots. Shoot, I almost forgot our review. Verdict: Good, but not going in the Pants...Although we'd consider this one licked by her Munness.

Of course, Giz aside, there's a whole lot of good Apple TV coverage out there. From blogs, to Mac sites, to PC rags, to the daily papers, here is the best of what our others have been saying about Apple TV.

Mossy's Review at the WSJ: We have to start with Sir Mossberg and sidekick Katie B's 10-day scoop on the AppleTV. I even fantasize that the entire ship date was pushed back so he'd have time to check out the hardware and do a review. The power! His video is average, but the review itself is classic Mossberg: Authoritative, fair, and in language your mom could understand.

The NYTimes and Pogue were 24-hours late, but his charming video, and comparisons to both Netgear's HD capable, complex streamer, and the XBox ecosystem make it worthwhile. Did he have early access? Or did he put the review and video together in 24 hours?

CNet: Their review was detailed, and long, but my favorite piece of CNet coverage came from this extended list of every conceivable Apple TV competitor and alternative. And John "Sheriff" Falcone did it before the Apple TV even launched. Interestingly, they posted it under their Crave, not CNet brand.

Jimmy L's pub, PC Magazine, has the deepest review yet, spanning several thousand words that I find no more appealing to read than a college textbook. But if you want the ultimate in authority and depth, no go further than this review.

Wait. Then there's this Ars review.

iLounge: LC Angell and gang are Apple Journo vets. That shows through in these two nice articles, in top 10 form, listing geek factoids and reasons why you don't need an AppleTV. Concise, and topped with a nice Live Sizemodo-ish Gallery of AppleTV with an iPod and Mac Mini. Did I mention those bastards have TWO Apple TVs?

Wired: Wired's newly designed Gadgetlab, a outlying fort in the Wired Universe that I used to command, is looking goood these days. Robby B. kicks off a nicely hedged list that still manages to have the personality of a polarized rant in his short, bitter, and sweet piece entitled, "5 Reasons Why Apple TV Rules, 5 Reasons Why it Sucks".

What's left to read after you make the plunge? A lot of hacks. Most importantly, the ones that put Mac OS X on the Apple TV. And there's the HDD upgrade, easy as pie.
The geeks have only begun to unlock this baby. So, follow the rest of our eternally ongoing Apple TV coverage right here.

Now, excuse me while I swallow my spit up.–Brian Lam

Apple TV [Gizmodo]

Kind of.

Actually, the video mockingly edits out the fun parts, in response to some blogger with a shitty sense of humor who compared his hijinx to the crap on America's Funniest Home Videos. (The blogger was NOT me, really. I call him a nutjob, but love the work. ) So basically, David Pogue just used the Grey Lady to flame a random blogger. How...bloggerish of him. Can't really blame him, though. What would you do if someone said your jokes reminded them of Bob Saget?

Back to the review. Usually, David Pogue, like other A-listers, only has to get off his butt to check out one gadget a week. (That is jealousy you're detecting, btw.) Given that pace, he usually finds something profoundly useful or cool to write about. The backpack is just underwhelming, as a product. And the accompanying story is a bit of a letdown, too. Nothing sub par, but not on level with the antics we've been treated to the last few weeks. Call us spoiled by the music videos and comedy routines paired with a-grade, up to the minute gadgets. It's too bad this one blogger set him off his pace.

He goes back for a three-peat of stories about converting media, and does the old standby story about how to put old analog tapes and records to CD and DVD. Dude, you did similar stories in November of last year, and you touched upon that not more than two weeks ago. To his credit, this one is more complete, actionable, and broken down by media type. But I hoped for something like a new CTIA phone inside the video. (Samsung Upstage, perhaps.)

Please, ignore the flame bait, drop the junk gadgets, and leave that fuzz to us. Because when you do meta/prank stuff like this, I'm scared for the security of my job. This low-brow stuff is my bread and butter, man. Leave me something to do. –Brian Lam

David Pogue Reviews Random IPod Backpack [NYTimes]

Finally, Pogue's video is here, and as expected, it's entertaining and recommended. Click on to see a full grown man having childlike fun reviewing a gadget. Another nice touch is his comparison to the high definition Netgear streamer, the EVA8000.
The difference? Apple's iTunes won't even supply HD video and those who crave simplicity, while the complex Netgear has compatibility with many formats, in 1080i HD, at the expense of ease of use. Then he compares it to our beloved XBox 360.

For those of you who need deeper reviews — like Mariana Trench deep — PC Magazine has one that'll do the trick. As for the one that tells you to buy it or not, here's our official take: Not quite worthy of an unpantsing.

Rating Pogue's Review:
Timeliness: 8/10
Depth: 8/10
Entertainment Value: 10/10

Rating Mossberg's AppleTV Review:
Timeliness: 11/10
Depth: 7/10
Entertainment Value: 7/10

Rating PC Magazine's Review:
Timeliness: 7/10
Depth: 11/10
Entertainment Value: 1/10

*All get high marks for authority, when you consider their respective target demographics.
Pogue's Apple TV Video Review [NYTimes]

–Brian Lam

First, last week's video. David, who just the week before, wouldn't stop going on about his love for MiniDV video tapes, this week reviews a gadget by Sony that transfers all "old tapes" to DVD. (Aha, you've come around to the idea that rewinding sucks.) He likes it, and reports it burned the occasional coaster. What's remarkable about it is watching the senior gadget journo's setup to his video review. Hit play if you want to see a grown man relive his 7th birthday, his prom, his learning to ride a bike, and even some crib time as an infant. Frightening, but I'm somehow entertained enough to watch it, I don't know, seven or eight times. Yesterday. OK, I'm totally obsessed with the non-standard format. Is this the NY Times?

Then, this week he does a whole infomercial on Grandcentral.com, in the biggest Pogue love fest I can remember.

The service, which allows you to fwd all calls from disparate numbers to all your phones at once, is free (for two lines) and allows niceties such as getting your phone to leave separate voicemails for different callers. The choice quote:

Leave one message for your boss, and anotha for your lovaaaaaaaa

I wish I had a camera crew.

We're still waiting for music videos gadget reviews from the former Broadway arranger.–Brian Lam

Pogue Vids [NYTimes]

Too bad it's almost impossible to get.

It's good enough that the man who can get his mitts on any gadget in the world requested one for Christmas from Mrs. Pogue. He didn't get one.

This is because the lens is so hot, it's been sold out all over the country and even Amazon is marking up its $750 price to the $1000 range in response to the short supply.
David "Piano Man" Pogue goes on to talk about the optical characteristics of the lens, pegging it to the overall trend of image stabilizing cameras. I agree with him on many points, like the fact that there is a trend in IS cameras. But I disagree when he says:

Only *optical* image stabilization counts.

Mr Pogue writes and tells us the sample shots from the lens will be available soon as he gets off that damn love boat. And David, we're still waiting for that iPhone song. –Brian Lam

The Magic Behind the Superzoom Lens [NYT]

Nikon 18-200 VR Lens [Nikon]

These days, its rare to find opinions from Pogue that differ from Mossberg's (and more than often, our own.)

That's why his stand out tech coverage comes in the form of inimitable spoofs on tech put to pop songs.

There's Don't Cry for Me Cupertino, a song about the second coming of Steve Jobs. And a song about Microsoft Word 15 being almost a Gig set to Jingle Bells. And my favorite, the best is his Bill Gates impression during the Stevie Wonder Inspired "I just Called to Say I Bought You."Listen to em here.

But none of the songs are recent. Maybe the Times have David running so ragged, now that he's basically shouldering the rogue Circuits section, that he doesn't have time for these anymore. I'm hoping for a Bollywood music video about the iPhone, set to Journey. –Brian Lam

Tech Song Spoofs [Davidpogue.com]

David Pogue's triplet of iPhone coverage comes in the form of his own hands on, an FAQ, and a video of the phone in his paws. From what I know, he's the only gadget journo that was allowed to film/photograph during his meeting. And it's funny. So this is the vid to watch. (And if you haven't seen it, here's our own, blog-exclusive, hands on.)

Walt Mossberg shows us why he's the highest paid tech journo ever, refusing to get sucked into the vortex of iPhone love: "I attended the iPhone launch event, and was able to use one for a little while. That's too brief an encounter to allow me to write a proper review." He did give a short preview, mentioning the same positives and potential problems the rest of us who touched it had. This is astounding, considering that this was all written in the context of a Samsung Blackjack review. By the way, I met Walt and Katie over the week, and to his credit, he didn't throttle me. A very forgiving man, considering I've photoshopped him onto more than one thonged body, when inspiration called. Cheers.

Of course, when it comes to things Apple, Levy, Author of The Perfect Thing, is the wild man on the scene.

Steven Levy's piece, called Apple Computer is Dead; Long Live Apple is not only headlined wrong, but is remarkable simply for the reason why most of his work is remarkable: Steve Jobs Talks to him. I cannot write more until Two bad jokes are made. This makes Levy a modern Moses, and when Levy calls the iPhone the Holy Trinity ("an iPod, a phone and internet communicator"), I just die thinking of how many times I can use that when speaking in reverence of the Jesus Phone. Anyhow, here's the meat: Levy reveals Steve's thinking on why Cingular ("We decided what the phone is"), why OS X on iPhone won't be open ("Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."), and that real iChat isn't available, and neither is the ability to turn mp3s into ringtones, but that they are both possible. The ringtone issue sexy as hell in a legit device such as this, but fundamentally fucked unless Cingular decides to choose being cool over being rich.

Peter Lewis's piece at Fortune is called "How Apple kept its iPhone secrets". Those who follow Apple's product releases shouldn't be surprised. We all know that the Jobs and Co. have no problem keeping the loose lips from flapping. What's cool is hearing how Yahoo!, Google, Cingular employees were thrown off the track with spy-tastic techniques like 100% software development prototypes (not all that rare), and counterintelligence methods like decoy hardware models.

What other mainstream media iPhone articles have you enjoyed?–Brian Lam and Pchop by Adam Frucci-modo

All Things iPhone [Gizmodo]

Pogue recently complained about the lack of online etiquette found on message boards and blog comments these days, and left the floor open to comments. He went ahead and followed up on this with a bunch of reader feedback, and it's a fascinating discussion to be sure. Go on and check it out, and show Uncle Dave some respect, ya hear? –Adam Frucci

The Netiquette Diaries [NY Times]