Dearest Mr. Panic and Mr. MacroMates,

Let me get the formalities out of the way first—I love you both. You bring utility-based love to my computer every day. Even on the weekends, I tinker with your wares. I’m writing this post in your digital orgasm of a program Mr. MacroMates. Ctrl+Shift+W and Command+Enter are as much a part of my consciousness as my first name.

But Mr. Panic, while I dream about being able to converse with you daily, Coda is my Ferrari without wheels, my toast without jam, my web development app without Ctrl+Shift+W. You have so much going for you; you upload my files after every compulsive save, automatically. You organize my mess of websites into a visual metaphor that works impeccably well. You even house all the documentation I could ever need—right in that one gorgeous app. You’re even from my hometown of Portland, Oregon! I live right down the street from you, in fact. And yet, there’s a fundamental flaw that keeps me from purchasing and using Coda. I need Ctrl+Shift+W, Mr Panic. I want to love you, but I need your help.

So this is my open letter to the both of you, my plea that you’ll come to an agreement and make web development on the Mac perfect. Sit down over a cup of coffee, tea, booze, or whatever is necessary, hash out the terms and details for the unison of your apps, and implement—I will love you forever. I mean it guys. Love you forever.

With Warmest Regards and Highest Hopes,
Kyle J. Meyer

This was my first time attending Ignite Portland, the third of which happened last night at the Baghdad Theatre. There were two waves of speakers who each had 5 minutes, 20 slides, and 15 seconds per slide to give a talk on anything they wanted (that was approved beforehand through a selection process). Talks ranged from the history of Cup Noodles, to how to build a nuclear reactor to boil water. The place was packed, the crowd rowdy, and there was free food!

I arrived at 6:15, which was already enough time past 5:30 to be forced into the balcony. Next time, next time…

Nerds watched in unison today at 10 am, pretended to work, took the day off, or kept an auto-refreshing feed of the keynote speech on their second monitor. The keynote lasted over an hour without a single “boom” uttered and without any surprises. The Apple rumor mill has perfected the art of conjecture and piecing together of small leaks and bobbles into product-forecasting science, with the vast majority of details of today’s announcements made known within the last two weeks. For the uneducated, the new iPhone is as follows:

iPhone 3G

• The back casing is now glossy plastic:
  • 8GB model: Available in black
  • 16GB model: Available in black and white
• The prices have dropped severely:
  • 8GB model: $199
  • 16GB model: $299
• 3G (HSPDA) internet is 250% faster
• Now includes A-GPS:
  • The camera app now geotags photos
  • Google Maps utilizes the GPS in addition to Wifi and cellular positioning dynamically.

The only significant, earth-shattering change in the device is the price. The rest of the changes are far more evolutionary than revolutionary, and nothing in that list screams at current iPhone users to upgrade from the first iPhone model, except for perhaps one very non-obvious change: white casing. What the white casing represents is a shift in product aesthetics, in acute differentiation of the product from the first model, of conspicuous consumption. Certainly, when a friend sees me holding up a shiny white device to my face with an apple symbol front-and-center, they’ll know it’s new. This is not necessarily true for the black one. I’m certainly not above the ploy despite being quite aware of the reason behind the white casing; I want a white iPhone for the reasons listed above: because it’s different and because it’s obvious.

There are, of course, other reasons for a white iPhone. The United States and the six other countries that have the first generation iPhones are not the only market anymore. The iPhone 3G is being rolled out to 60 countries this year. Having choice is good. Women, for one, surely would prefer a white phone above a dark, serious, black iPhone.

Despite this, it will be interesting to see how many first generation iPhone users pick up the white one when they upgrade. I’ll be among them.

The idea is simple. Make a food-review website that is for the first time completely relative to your location, your lunch-time, and your work schedule. Many of you, like me, work an eight-to-five job and get stuck in ruts of eating at the same few places every day or every other day for weeks on end. Wouldn’t it be great to have something to recommend you new places based on what you enjoy?

That’s Lunchism. I hope to have a closed beta soon. Visit lunchism.com and sign up for the beta pool—your tummy will thank you. Hallelujah and r’amen.