The conventional directions found online are (1) complete 100 tasks and (2) the app will prompt you in app to share Clear by Tweeting a link.

These directions omit a necessary intermediate step: After completing 100 tasks, while in a list, you’ll need to swipe up and hold to clear competed tasks; only then will the prompt to Tweet appear within the app.  This is my favorite theme so far (with Night Owl #2), so it’s worth creating and completing 100 tasks to get.

Enjoy.

I thought my options (assuming I wanted to continue using iPhones) were:

• Buy a replacement iPhone 4 at full price and wait to buy the iPhone 5 at the upgrade price.
• Buy an iPhone 4S at full price and preserve my upgrade pricing eligibility for the iPhone 5.
• Buy an iPhone 4S at the upgrade price and forfeit my upgrade pricing eligibility for the iPhone 5

Thanks to a clever AT&T representative, I learned of a fourth option: Convert my existing voice and data plan to a family plan, add a second line, buy an iPhone 4S at the new plan price, and preserve the upgrade eligibility on my original line. This was a great option for me because my voice plan included more minutes than I needed, so even with the change to the family plan and addition of a new line, I was paying the same montly fee.

The in-store AT&T activated the SIM chip on my new line iPhone 4S, removed it, removed the data plan from that number, activated a new SIM chip to replace the one I’d lost, and inserted into the new iPhone 4S. Voila! Now, when the iPhone 5 comes out, I’ll still to be able to get it at the upgrade price if I want.

San Jose Mercury News Weather Section 2011-12-18

Picked up the Sunday paper (San Jose Mercury News) this morning for the first time in eons — wanting to check out the coupon inserts for my latest gig at Coupons.com — and it’s amusing to see how the content is both obsolete by the time it hits the newsstand and inferiorly static compared to the Internet.

A few obvious examples:

• Front page and other actual news content:  Just about all of this is online and supplemented by more current and extensive information from blogs, RSS feeds, Tweets, etc.
• Weather section:  Print has a visually-appealing half-page summary of local/national/international weather (above), but Web sites and the Weather and The Weather Channels apps on my iPhone and iPad provide up-to-the-minute snapshots and forecasts from across the planet.
• Ads:  Print ad units, with larger formats (half page, full page) and more variety to unit sizes, catch one’s eye better than online ads — at least for me — but can’t be clicked on.
• Real estate section:  Hello Zillow, Trulia, et al.
  
• Free-standing inserts:  There surely are a lot ‘em, but unless I’m a deal hunter or in the market for a particular item or planning a trip to a specific retail store, these go straight into the recycling bin.  Also, I bought today’s paper to look for clip-able grocery coupons — and I can’t find them!
• Sunday Comics:  I read comic strips a lot less since I stopped getting a print newspaper.  I get my Daily Dilbert in my email inbox but otherwise don’t flip through my favorite comic strips as I once did.  Score one for print.
• Tactile feel:  I’ll always hate the feeling of newsprint on my hands.

No real news here in any of these observations but fun for me to note.  Looking forward to seeing the inevitable day when print newspapers are entirely a format of the past.

2004:  I’d never owned any Apple product.

2005:  I bought my first Apple product, an iPod Classic.

2007:  I bought my first Apple computer, an iMac, through a friend of a friend’s Apple employee discount.

As of today, I’ve already owned and retired:

• That original iMac
• 2 iPod Classics
• An iPod Shuffle
• iPhone 3
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad

• MacBook Pro 13″
• Apple Cinema Display
• Apple Airport Extreme
• Apple Airport Express
• iPhone 4
• iPad 2
• Apple TV
• MacBook Air 13″ for personal use
• MacBook Air 11″ for work
• Apple Thunderbolt Display for work

Having carelessly left my iPad in a Southwest Airlines seat-back pocket in December, I’ve been waiting impatiently for this day to come for months!

I used TaskRabbit to arrange for a runner to wait in line on my behalf. If you haven’t used TaskRabbit yet, try it. Define just about any task — such as buy groceries, drop off donations at Goodwill, pick up dry-cleaning — or even wait in line at an Apple Store for 12 hours on iPad 2 launch day. Then, set a maximum price, and “rabbits” (runners) make offers for how much they’ll perform the task. If they bid under your maximum, you pay less. Pick a runner, and off you go.

Thanks to TaskRabbit, rabbit Katherine D. and her husband Brian lined up as first in line for me at the Apple Store in Los Gatos at 3:00 a.m. PT on the 11th. Which meant that I was first in line when I sauntered up to the store around 4:00 p.m. to join in the opening day spectacle. At the time I took pole position, the line stretched down and around several blocks and easily was 500 people long.

Apple’s launch day retail experience — especially for those first in line — was wonderfully warm, welcoming and whimsical. Just inside the window front, a black velvet curtain veiled the entire store. Waiting outside for that final hour, we heard repeated cheers from within as the retail staff psyched up for the opening. Minutes before the doors opened at 5:00 p.m., Apple folks spilled out the doors, asked those first in line which models they wanted and distributed small white reservation cards with specific SKUs written on them for inventory control. At 5:00 p.m., the curtain dropped, and Brian and I were greeted with a double line of 40 employees inside the store wildly clapping and cheering and high five-ing the first dozen customers permitted to enter the store. With classic Apple retail efficiency, a retail associate greeted me, hooked me up with a white 64GB wi-fi + 3G AT&T iPad 2 (plus another I bought for friend) and a navy Smart Cover, and I walked out the door 10 minutes later to the cheers and envy of the waiting crowd. Felt like Marky Mark in “Rock Star.”

The out-of-box was what we’ve come to expect from Apple: easy to open packaging, minimal contents (iPad, charger) and intuitive set up (plug in, connect to iTunes and follow the onscreen instructions). I haven’t activated the 3G service yet, but that looks to be very easy too.

So first impressions?
- As reported, it feels great. Thinner, lighter (although it’s only marginally so) and the tapered back is more comfortable to hold than the original’s.
- The white looks even better than I expected. From the images I’d seen online, the white looked too bright, and possibly cheap. On the contrary, the color is almost ivory and reminds me of Steinway piano keys. Gorgeous.
- So far, it does seem faster and the graphics look better thanks to the new dual-core processor. I’ve been playing Infinity Blade and Angry Birds on my iPhone 4 for months and didn’t realize what I’d been missing until yesterday. Fast switching is also faster than before and faster than my iPhone 4.
- Mixed feelings on the Smart Cover. Slick design and works great — but I don’t like that the back of the iPad is unprotected, and when using it to type on an uneven surface (my lap), the magnets and cover occasionally detach. I’m eyeing the bamboo and leather cover by Grove.
- The camera quality is noticeably poor as reported. It’ll serve for video calls, and I expect to continue to use my iPhone 4 for snapshots and short video clips.
- One note on FaceTime: Not sure about this, but it appears that if you’re already using FaceTime on one device, say a MacBook Pro, with one Apple ID, then you may need a separate, new Apple ID unique to your iPad. So far, I’ve been unable to verify my existing Apple ID to use FaceTime on this new iPad 2.

Overall, this is the day for which I’ve been waiting like a kid on Christmas morning, and I’m completely delighted with Apple’s latest offering. Fanboy I am.

But I’m not switching quite yet.  Here’s why:

• No simultaneous voice and data — This is a non-starter. I frequently access the Internet while on a call. AT&T allows it, Verizon doesn’t, because of the nature of CDMA.

• Limited international reach — GSM is the global standard, and just a few months ago I was in Korea making calls and going online with my iPhone. With Verizon instead of AT&T, this wouldn’t have been possible — and this is true in many more countries than not.

• Not an early adopter here — I won’t buy the first Verizon iPhone for the same reason I didn’t buy the original iPhone: First generation new products — and granted ostensibly only the CDMA antenna is new — rarely work as predicted.  I’d wait for the kinks to get worked out first.

• No guarantees of network superiority — I love Verizon’s network, especially in the Bay Area, and switched from it to AT&T only when I wanted a more global network for international travel. That said, no one can really predict at this point how the iPhone will perform on Verizon’s network. (Although it’s hard to imagine worse performance than we get with AT&T).

• Switching costs — Not a sole deciding factor, but given the other concerns, no reason to pay early contract termination fees to plunge into another unknown.

Will be very interested to see how Verizon’s network performs!

Early thoughts and observations:

• Mitch Kupchak did an awesome job in the off-season.  I’ve been the most excited about the addition of Steve Blake, a point guard who can run the triangle and spot up for outside shots, and his performance yesterday — well, I hope it’s representative of the whole season.  With Matt Barnes, and, to a lesser extent, Theo Ratliff, added to the existing core, the Lakers are poised to be an awesome, gritty defensive team this year.  Love everyone’s sheer aggression and effort.
• Of course it’s too early to tell, but if Shannon Brown‘s game against the Rockets yesterday is any indication of his off-season improvement — wow, the Lakers are going to be tough.  Love how much confidence and poise he’s exuding — now if he could just learn to dribble with his left hand.
• In general, I just can’t remember any time I’ve been as excited about watching the bench play.
• I’d say the only bummer about yesterday’s game and potential concern for the bench was/is Sasha Vujacic.  I thought I’d imagined it, but Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register noticed it too:  Sasha was ungracious in a ring ceremony in which every other Laker was effusive in his open affection and praise for a teammate.  As a fan, one never knows what’s up with players.  But Sasha surely seems to wear his emotions on his sleeve and seems alternatively insecure, oblivious and petty with regard to his role on the team; his resentment of lost playing time appears evident.  If he could return to his humbler years as The Machine — tenacious on defense, in control on offense — the Lakers would be all the better for it.

Last, check out this cool video of the making of this year’s championship ring, which includes as a component a piece of the championship game ball!

In contrast to all the privacy policy problems Facebook and Google have run into over the past few years, myspace appears to be trying to simplify — I received this email Wednesday:

For the complete policy, click here.  Interesting that they are simplifying but now have much more blunt instruments to tune one’s privacy.  I imagine the discerning user will be miffed at both myspace’s blunt instruments and Facebook’s often fine but confusing tools.