All iPhone Cases Suck

What is that ugly thing in that picture? Oh, it’s an iPhone!

It’s crazy that the majority of iPhone owners out there, I’d say about 95%, put their sexy, sophisticated $500-$700 device into a cheap plastic or rubber case. People seem to think iPhones are delicate things that’ll break instantly if they aren’t placed into a cheap, ugly case. iPhones are extremely durable. Cases aren’t a necessity.

iPhones Are A Sexy Tank

Want proof? This person in this video foolishly was taking video at the EDGE of a pool. No, not “near it” and carefully holding it, but actually NEAR the edge turning around like a fool and drops it into the water… and it still works!

This next one is a torture test from PC World. Now, I have to inform you, at the end of this video the guy manages to drop the iPhone 3G from 7 feet straight onto it’s face and, of course, it breaks the glass (after already bein’ dropped five times). It’s not a pretty sight to watch…

But the point is to illustrate how durable iPhones are. They survive falls, water, acts of God, etc. Most “tech” people will scream “Get a case for your iPhone! Oh my God, you need protection!“. Man, ‘freak that.

10 Reasons To Avoid A Case For Your iPhone

Cases are bad because:

• Prevents you from using a dock
• Prevents you from easily rubbing off smudges
• Collects dust, grime, sweat, etc in between
• Removes the amazing “feel” of holding your iPhone
• Gets in the way when using headphones
• Adds bulkiness
• Prevents fitting and slipping into tight pockets, purses, etc
• Some cause overheating and discoloring
• Removes the elegance of an iPhone
• Makes your state-of-the-art iPhone look cheap

Think about all those reasons there. Now what are the reasons to put your iPhone in a case?

• Protects edges from getting scratched from drops

That’s about it. I would say “protects back from getting scratched”, but that’s not true. I’ve seen people show me scratches on the back of their iPhone caused from sand getting in between the case and rubbing scratches over time. Also, the most important area you want to protect (also the most durable) is the screen. Cases don’t protect from the majority of scratches that are caused to screens.

Full Body Screen Protectors Are The Key

The real way to protect your iPhone, front to back, is with a full body screen protector. I’m talkin’ about the kinds from InvisibleShield or competitors.  They offer protection to your device in almost every retrospect. But let’s compare screen protectors against cases.

Full Body Screen Protectors:

• Doesn’t prevent you from using a dock
• Doesn’t prevent you from easily rubbing off smudges
• Doesn’t collecs dust, grime, sweat, etc in between
• Doesn’t remove the amazing “feel” of holding your iPhone
• Doesn’t get in the way when using headphones
• Doesn’t add bulkiness
• Doesn’t prevent fitting and slipping into tight pockets, purses, etc
• Doesn’t cause overheating and discoloring
• Doesn’t remove the elegance of an iPhone
• Doesn’t make your state-of-the-art device look cheap

Full body screen protectors completely protect your entire device. Not to mention they allow the full beauty of your iPhone to show through because they’re invisible. You can even use just a front screen protector without protecting your body. Or you can use nothing at all and, naked, if you have common sense and know how to protect your iPhone.

I’ve dropped the Neocell 3GS without any protection (naked, no gold or wood plating, no full body screen protection, nothing) on the concrete (it bounces three times) and there isn’t a scratch on it. iPhones are a sexy tank.

Here’s a tip for removing the sharp edges that will (not if) form using a full body screen protector.

How I Protect The Neocell 3GS

I have gold and wood plating on the front and back of the Neocell 3GS, and sure… that wood and gold plating will protect parts of the Neocell beneath it, but screw that… what’s gonna’ protect the plating itself? So I use a full screen protector on the front, over the plating and screen, and one for the back (it’s custom shaped to only protect the plating, the sides are actually naked). Without the protection, I’m sure the iPhone itself would be fine, but the gold plating would be messed up or ripped off or bent and look horrible.

So are you going to let people tell you that a full body screen protector  is good enough for a 24K gold plated iPhone, but it’s not good enough for you? Please… It’s more than good enough.

Don’t Drop Your iPhone Stupid

Now please, don’t be stupid and start dropping your phone, whether it’s naked, screen protected or case protected. Just because I’ve dropped my phone, people online have dropped their phone (hey, who hasn’t), dson’t start bein’ stupid and start dropping your phone. Sure, iPhones are sexy tanks, but it’s a ‘freakin’ work of technical art. Treat it that way. If you do, it’ll last a lot longer and have a much higher resale value.

But if you got a rugged lifestyle or know your gonna’ be somewhere that you may possibly drop your iPhone, like mountain bike riding or some other thing, then I recommend you take your full body screen protected iPhone and put it into a full body case. No, none of these crappy “body” cases, a full body case, one that covers everything, including your screen. They aren’t meant to be dropped, they don’t have rubber, it’s plastic all around. If you drop it hard against a jagged rock or something while biking, it will crack the case. But it will hopefully protect your iPhone. And if it happens to fall on a sharp rock directly on it’s face, the front screen of the case will shatter and but hopefully not implode to damage your screen. It could try to gouge your screen, but your full body screen protector would hopefully protect it. The special screen is in direct contact with the screen of your iPhone and allows you to still control the screen with your fingers (but it’ll feel like touching cheap plastic instead of smooth glass).

And most important, when your done doin’ your crazy adventure or done working your construction job, take the case off (make sure to wipe any dust, dirt or sweat out). After all, just because you work 9-5 laying fiber optics, don’t mean you gotta’ have a dirty, cheap lookin’ phone when you head out to dinner that night.

So please, no more crap like this…

Peace, JbB

Google.com Has Gotten Better

One thing I always hated but never realized I hated was how small Google.com’s search box area was when visiting the site on mobile Safari. I mean it’s ridiculously small.

Well they’ve updated their search site to include nice, big, fat text that’s easy to see ‘n’ read. Nice. Also the list of suggestions, although still as weird and goofy as ever (“Why is my poop green”), are also nice and big.

But there’s still a major problem. If you need to add text to the end of a search you already made, but the end of the text was beyond the area you could see, you can’t reach it. This was a problem before, and is still a problem now. At least we have the option now to “x” out the text in the search box, but that can be a big pain for anything long and complex. And the text field, of course, doesn’t support auto-correction, so that can make retyping your text a “orivlem” (problem).

But over all, I think this is a great update. Now I wish they would release an app or mobile site to allow us to edit and create Google Docs.

Peace, JbB

Bring Some More Rain, Baby

Last year, I talked about White Noise Storm. Well they’ve updated White Noise Storm. It’s now even more advance. It allow for randomization of the sound’s volume (distance) and frequency.

It’s a really great effect. The “storm” will start raining more or less, and the same with the thunder. Thankfully, you can adjust the randomization. I personally hate the “wind”, it makes it sound like your in a tropical storm. So I set the frequency of the wind from 0% to 20%. I’m glad they have this feature, because if they didn’t, randomization would be too… random.

You can also change the pitch of the rain, in case you wanna’ suite your speakers to make the rain sound more natural. I leave mine along because the rain sounds are perfect.

What’s also really great is the price; currently it’s only $0.99. ****, can’t go wrong with that. I think it was more last year, but I can’t remember. Point is, I usually don’t recommend app you gotta’ pay for. But this app is something I’d recommend to anyone. $0.99 is an amazing price for all you get with this.

Keep bringin’ that rain, baby.

Peace, JbB

The Result Of Selling The Neocell 2G On eBay

What’s up y’all? Wanted to give an update on how the sale of the original Neocell 2G went. First, though, let me tell you what I had to go through to sell it.

I first listed it up more than a month ago to sell on eBay. It sold fine, but the person who bought it was jack *** from Nigira who phished an eBay account of an American. Of course this bidder was the highest bidder because they were willing to “pay” anything. The SOB then sent me a fake email from Paypal, stating that “you have received the money” from Paypal, trying to get me to send the item without actually, um… receiving any money! Yeah, come on.. of all people, I am not the person to mess around with.

So it didn’t sell. So a few weeks ago, I tried again. This time, within an hour left of the bid, someone accidentally placed a bid too high. No big deal because the person retracted their bid immediately. But eBay’s system decided to… be lazy, and not actually retract this person’s bid, even though it clearly stated it was retracted. So when it came down to the last few minutes, the person who retracted the bid was the highest bidder. Way’ta go eBay, the world’s number one leader and pioneer of online auctioning. Clearly I’m not going to force this person to pay what the item “sold” for, because it was never meant to be sold to that person.

eBay has a “second chance offer” system, where you can offer an item to the second to highest person who bid on it. It gets offered at the person’s maximum bid. In other words, the highest amount they were willing to pay. Fair enough. I offered it to the second highest bidder…

The highest bidder retracted the bid (reason wrong price entered), so you can be the winning buyer for your $***offer if you want.

I sent the message out within 10 minutes of the bid ending, so the person should have been jumping for joy. But what’s the person do? He gives me his answer a day later…

if i do the second chance offer…..will u express mail it to me for free. to ….los angeles california…///??? thanx

The shipping was set for only $5, but not only did he not wanna’ pay the $5 (it would have been about $10 standard shipping to California, he wanted free shipping  which would have been much more expensive). Wow, what a moron. My answer…

No, it will be the standard shipping. I need your answer within a few hours or the item’s going to relisted for a new seven day auction.

Of course the guy doesn’t even bother responding. In addition to this, I had to answer so many stupid questions sent to me via eBay. Questions you shouldn’t even be asking. (I was polite and responded to every one of them.) Questions like “how many 3gs  u have like that for sale”, “i have 2g iphone i want os 3.1.2 how did u do that???”, “Do you have a buy it now price”, etc.

I put it up for a third time, and at this point I’m starting to get really disenchanted with eBay. But by eBay, I mean the people on there. But for the listing, nothing goes wrong and it sells. I go down to ship it out and realize that the shipping from Florida to Massachusetts is more than the $5 shipping. Great. Not only that, but I then realized “Hey, don’t feel safe sending the Neocell 2G out without any kinda’ shipping insurance.”. I realize I’ve now gotta’ pay the extra shipping and insurance outta’ my own pocket. I emailed the buyer, letting him know what the tracking number was, and also that I spent my own money insuring it, etc.

Man, at this point I’m feelin’ really disenchanted with dealing with people. Friend and family that knew the issues I was dealing with also felt the same way. Such a shame…

But today I get a letter in the mail from the person I shipped the Neocell 2G to. I said “Man, I ‘freakin’ swear if this is some kinda’ crap complainin’ about somethin’… I ain’t havin’ it. I’m so sick of this eBay crap!”. The letter…

Re: IPhone

Dear Mr. Baird:

Thank you for the Iphone. Enclosed please find $10.00 too cover the extra postage in mailing the item.

God Bless.

(signed)

And you see what’s included inside the letter. So that makes me feel better about the “human condition”, at least regarding eBay, haha. The person who bought it is a long time reader of theneocell.com (referred to me a “J”, which is what I used to sign these posts on theneocell.com months ago).

So even though I had to deal with attempted theft by international criminals, system screw ups and greedy non-buyers… the auction turned out to be a success. And most important, it seems the Neocell 2G is going to a good home, which is really want I wanted the most. I’ll miss ya baby…

Peace, JbB