I think what Apple has done right with the iPhone that other phone manufacturers haven't is to deliver a product to the market that is relatively bug-free. The iPhone's feature list is tiny compared to the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung's competing phones, for example. But the iPhone nails its small feature list very well, whereas historically, the other phone giants tend to release their featureful phones with defect-ridden firmware, which only matures maybe in a year of the product being in the market.

I've long since been a bit apathetic towards Apple, however, for their flashiness. That is, they often give them impression that they are first to market for everything, when in reality, it wasn't their idea or technology at all to begin with. Perhaps that just shows the distaste of business and marketing at its finest in me... but I digress.

Nevertheless, when reports of the iPhone 4's signal reception issues, I curiously for once paid attention to the iPhone 4. Admittedly, the thought that came to mind was, finally, the apparently all perfect Apple has realized that they aren't so perfect after all. But would the consumers care? Probably not... everyone is in love with Apple. But then of course came the consumer report that actually rather bluntly said they would not recommend the iPhone to anyone, which I'm sure came as a blow to Apple's ego, since they do pride themselves on producing products that are first and foremost for the consumer. And they do a good job at it, for the most part.

So after the whole ordeal, I was pleasantly surprised by Apple's decision to give free cases to all iPhone 4 owners, along with their statement that they had made a mistake and were not perfect. Good on you Apple, I was for once impressed with your public relations.

But then I saw an article on a Symbian news website that reported that Apple actually pulled out some attacks against Nokia for having the same problem as Apple with reception. According to Apple, Nokia's phones have stickers on the back telling their users where not to touch. Admittedly, I have only seen a small portion of Nokia phones, so I can't acknowledge or deny this statement, but obviously the writers at All About Symbian have seen and handled nearly every Nokia smartphone on the market past and present - and they have never seen such stickers.

Nokia's response to Apple's attack is fairly mature and emphasizes that antenna design is something that Nokia prides itself in. They don't say anything more about Apple and just concentrate and talking about what Nokia does.

I don't know why Apple has to compare themselves to other manufacturers all the time. Their cute Mac vs PC commercials are always funny, but they're always selling Mac compared to PC. It's all about what the PC can't do. It's rare to see a modern Mac commercial that speaks to some of the really good points about Mac without talking about Windows. Interestingly, I find that Microsoft's Windows 7 commercials quite refreshing in that they highlight some of the key new features in Windows 7, but without even mentioning Apple whether implicitly or explicitly.

And now when Apple has some engineering errors, they pull all other industry leaders in the same boat and say, hey look, everyone else is doing it too.

It's funny. When Apple has no problems, they tell the world how much better they are than all other electronic companies. But now when Apple so clearly has a defect in their product, they do the exact opposite. In a sense, when its convenient to look like everyone else, they'll try their best to do so. What happen to standing out? Which is the Apple thing to do?

Either way though, they are still comparing and comparing. Which I suppose is how the consumer world works... but I mean, I would have been really impressed with Apple if they just left it as, "we made a mistake, here are some free cases."

It's like when Nintendo had the issues with Wii controller straps breaking. They addressed the issue quickly by offering free stronger strap replacements and free silicone bumpers for their controllers. They didn't go to venture into other territories by saying things like, "oh but look at this other game controller, which also caused damage."

But I digress, Apple still is, and will remain, the most worshiped electronics giant in North America.

I am currently looking for an apartment to rent in Ohio. I have a handful of places shortlisted and will be checking them out in person by the end of this month.

I'll then be moving down to the US at the end of the summer.

There will be a lot of new experiences.

Life is slowly transitioning into a whole new phase. It's exciting and things definitely seem to be moving faster.

And oh cool, I'll get to shop from the American versions of NewEgg and Amazon.

Looking at the letter, I noticed that it actually contains a rough description of what Systems Design encompasses (it is always an on going joke among Waterloo engineers that SYDE students don't know what they do). The description reads as follows:

You will find that Systems Design will allow you the opportunity to explore systems where it is essential that electrical, mechanical and computer components are designed or analyzed simultaneously as well as investigating the business aspects of products.

In some sense, almost every modern engineering project requires these key disciplines.

The letter is full of promise and speaks nothing about the academic challenges that I would encounter during my five years in Waterloo. Nor does it speak to the innumerable amount of good times and friendships that I would form through vibrant campus life.

The five-year old letter looks just as bright as the degree certificate that I now hold, which equally promises an exciting future.

It's been a good five years over all, and I'm excited to see where the next five years of life brings me.

For amusement, I took a snapshot of my degree and offer package side by side. It's all together an end-to-end scene.

But I did enjoy the music video presentation. The only thing is that exclusively Mandarin artists were featured. Granted, the Expo is in Shanghai... but still, I thought that it would have been neat to include some Malay and Indian artists in the song.

Managed to find it online. Now I just need to find that cool background music from the Canada pavilion. Hmm...

Panasonic and Olympus paved the way for this break with tradition by introducing their Micro Four Thirds system two years ago. This new format garnered a lot of praise from some professional photographers as producing a compact imaging format producing near "DSLR-quality" results.

While Panasonic and Olympus have been steadily building up their system by adding numerous quality lenses and bodies, other consumer electronics giants have been working on competing systems as well.

Samsung has since released their NX system, and more recently, Sony has released their NEX system.

I'm very curious to see how this battle ensues given that four major players are now in the market with three competing systems (especially since I've already bought into the Micro Four Thirds camp).

Samsung and Sony have positioned themselves quite well in the consumer world so far. Samsung's NX10 is very comparable in size to Panasonic's and Olympus' Four Thirds-based offerings while Sony has seemingly done the impossible and produced an APS-C-based camera in a package even smaller than what Samsung and Panasonic/Olympus have been able to do.

There are doubts flying around the internet about the viability of Sony's format as a quality imaging system given some apparent optical compromises they have made by choosing a flange-back distance even shorter than Micro Four Thirds while using a larger sensor. The Micro Four Thirds system is more conservative in this regard, which results in larger bodies, but some speculation I've read is that their more conservative approach may allow them to preserve their optical quality over what Sony may be able to do given their very aggressive engineering decision. Clearly for consumers, they may not care about any of these optical engineering decisions, since the bodies will be vastly smaller than Samsung's and even Panasonic/Olympus' offerings. But as a prosumer format, perhaps it will remain lacking.

Samsung? Not being well-known in the photography industry, it's still interesting to see how their format progresses, especially since they are the only player in their system (Sony is also a single player, but they've already proved that they are a viable consumer photographic equipment producer with their Alpha DSLRs).

Panasonic seems very committed to the Micro Four Thirds system - perhaps even more than they had been to the original Four Thirds system. Consider that Panasonic has only ever released two Four Thirds bodies, while since the announcement of Micro Four Thirds, they have already released five bodies for this mirrorless system, along with a respectable array of lenses spanning a range of 7mm to 200mm and soon to be extended to 300mm.

So far, Panasonic and Olympus have had the luxury of being first-to-market and early adopter loyalties. Samsung have had the luxury of being the first system to provide an APS-C-based mirrorless format. Sony have the luxury of being the smallest-bodied system.

Which format will deliver the innovation, features, usability and image quality that consumers demand?

Obviously I hope that Micro Four Thirds will come out on top. But between Samsung and Sony, I feel a bit more partial to Samsung's format. Sony's format appears to be overly-stylish than usable. Early reviews loathe the usability of the camera. Of course, user interface issues are not an attribute of the system format. But it doesn't impress for Sony's first offerings. The apparently overly-short flange-back distance seems worrying too.

But we'll see.

The giants of Canon and Nikon have been very quiet. But there is a neat distinction between Canon/Nikon and Panasonic/Samsung/Sony. The former are leaders in imaging technologies ranging from consumer DSLRs up to laboratory equipment (i.e. Nikon). Panasonic/Samsung/Sony, on the other hand, are consumer electronics giants that are wildly diversified. They also do not have major legacy SLR systems to support. Thus perhaps it has been easier for them to make this break.

If Canon and Nikon entered the mirrorless market, it would certainly cut into their DSLR sales.

But these are all just musings of an average consumer who likes taking photos with a slight gadget affinity.

We arrived in Taipei at 10:45 PM. Our flight out of Taipei is at 8:20 AM the following morning. The check-in counter only opens two hours before the flight departs.

So here we sit in the airport. Waiting for the check-in counter to open.

At least there is free internet access here, albeit very slow and patchy for anything other than basic browsing.

This six-week trip has been both exciting and tiring all at the same time. By the end of the fifth week, I was already ready to go home. But the stop in Hong Kong was a nice one. Our group kind of split up to see different things and people. For myself, I had the opportunity to meet up with a few UWCCF people in their native Hong Kong. It was a very nice change of pace from the previous five weeks. Rather than being worried about sight seeing, I for once was just able to chill without worrying about time.

Looking forward to arriving back in Toronto. For various specific reasons

The trip has been a lot of fun and we've seen a lot of things. Overall China feels more haphazard than Canada. But there's so much rich culture and scenery to see here. Plus the food is awesome and relatively inexpensive when compared to Canadian prices.

Having grown up in Toronto with Singaporean parents, my Chinese food exposure has been primarily Cantonese-style and Singaporean-style. But having traveled to various regions across China, I've been able to expose myself to some different types of food such as some foods in Haerbin and Chengdu, to name a couple.

It's been good! But I'm looking forward to getting home. We'll stop in Hong Kong for a couple days before taking the long flight back to Toronto.