Small world…

It happened when I was reading some gossip magazine in the waiting room of our rental agent. “Alexandra?” I looked up. A couple was standing by the door looking at me, the girl said “I recognize you from your blog! I’m Kim!” All I could say was “wow! what a coincidence” while I thought “wow! people recognize me from my blog! does that qualify me as famous??” (hehehe, maybe I had been reading to many gossip magazines at that point)

Kim is a girl from NY whose husband is going to study for a semester here in Barcelona. She contacted me back in November through Tripadvisor to ask questions about how to rent an apartment and about life here. We’ve chatted frequently since then and I knew she would be coming soon but wasn’t sure exactly when. Turns out she’s been in Barcelona for about a week now and we just happened to walk into the rental agency at the same time ;) Small world… Friday night we’ll go for sushi at Kibuka!!

iPhone: my new consumer dream…

After months (if not years) of speculation, Apple announced yesterday it´s iPhone, a revolutionary new electronic gadget that combines a cell phone, a widescreen iPod, and an internet communications device. No, it´s not just a smartphone. It´s a new product, with a new design, that will change the way we use our phones and connect to the internet in much the same way the iPod changed the way people listen to music. Oh, and the phone bit of it is a quad-band GSM phone and it also includes a 2 megapixel camera.

The new iPhone comes with a sleek new interface, with a touchscreen instead of the usual buttons found in cellphones & smartphones out there. It runs OS X and comes in 4gb & 8gb versions. Steve Jobs, Apple´s CEO, annouced it should be ready to ship in June to the USA market, end of 2007 to Europe & Asia in 2008. Nobody says anything about when it would be arriving in Canada :(

The one drawback is that Apple teamed up with Cingular and the new iPhone will be available only with a 2-year contract with that phone company. It doesn´t look like there will be “free” iPhones out there but I trust someone will come up with a hack soon enough. It´s also unclear, at this point, if there will be similar agreements with cellphone companies when the iPhone is released outside the US. Apple stocks went up 7% after the announcement while its competitors in the smartphone business (like RIM, the maker of Blackberry) watched its stocks go down just as much.

I WANT ONE!!!!!

Go to the apple site for a detailed overview:

Apple site