So far, the new iPhone software released on Friday doesn’t look good. I’ve had two problems in as many days.

Yesterday, the bluetooth headset did not deactivate after a call ended until after I unlocked the phone with the slider dodad.

But the worst happened today. I was driving down the PCH enjoying the day and a listening to a podcast when my phone decided to stop playing the podcast and dial a friend. At first I thought he was calling me, but after an akward confused silance I realized what had happened. Needless to say, this is very bizzare and totally unacceptable. Imagine being in the middle of a personal conversation when your phone decides to call a random contact!!

So, 2.0.1 is still looking pretty good.

… and if you do, don’t upgrade to 2.0.2 if you can help it.

I upgraded to the 3G about 2 weeks before 2.0.2 was released, then upgraded the software shortly after it was available, so I don’t know which to blame for the problems I have.

In addition to the 3G call dropping and other issues that seem to be more AT&T’s problem than Apple’s, there are major problems with the stability of the software. It hangs unexpectedly at inconvienent times, and apps seem to crash with alarming frequency. We have come to count on Apple for products that “just work” but this version seems to break that confidence. A couple of examples: The SMS application seems to take forever to load (ok it’s just a few seconds, but enough time to be annoying). The contact manager seems to suffer from the same problem, plus it can stop responding and hang for several seconds instead of scrolling through the contacts as expected. Other built in apps (such as Safari) seem to have the same problem. In a final bit of irony, www.apple.com is almost impossible to use from the iPhone (good luck trying to find an Apple store on the iPhone).

One begins to wonder what is going on over at Apple. If their product is going to live up to its promise, these bugs must be fixed. If not, Apple is going to lose its position in the phone market to cheaper competitors that are just as buggy, in the same way that Apple gave up the OS market to Microsoft; a crappy but cheaper system winning out over a better designed but somewhat behind the curve OS + hardware combination.

So, I would go back to 1st generation iPhone if I could, but the screen is cracked so that isn’t really an option.

But, I’m still alive.

After my own server died a few months ago, I finally have my website moved over to laughingsquid.net. As far as I can tell everything is now back up and running.

Most of the outage has been due to my own laziness. I haven’t been motivated to keep the site up lately. But, Laughing Squid seems to have very responsive servers, which is far more than I can say about godaddy.com.

I returned to SoCal today to find it hot and burning. Quite a change from the 1-2 inches of snow on the ground in Denver. We flew over one of the fires where more than 100 homes have burned. The smoke from another fire (near Santa Clarita, I think) fills the whole Ventura/Oxnard area. In daylight, there is a strange orange glow and this evening the sun disappeared about 40 minutes early. It just sort of faded into red and then was gone. The smoke comes in to all of the buildings at work and my apartment, making my eyes itch.

I didn’t get any pictures today, but maybe tomorrow.

I have been living in Ventura, California (where’s that?) for about two weeks now. I love it so far. The weather is a perfect 65-75 and Sunny every day so far. It cools off into the 50s at night.

When I leave my apartment, if I turn left on the main cross street, it’s only about 10 minute drive to this beautiful beach. While I was there on Sunday I watched a school of dolphins about 100 yards offshore.

If I turn right on the same street, I am in the hills in about 5 minutes, where there are great views of the whole valley after a short walk. From there, I can look out across the city and see fields of strawberries, oranges, lemons, peaches and other crops. (I have been enjoying unbelievably good fresh strawberries every day.) Beyond The fields are the harbors & beaches. Out near the horizon are the Channel Islands, which are a National Park.

I have posted some photos from the drive and my first week here.

I am looking forward to starting work on Tuesday.