maramine blog

Among other things: I just commuted home from Manhattan to Bergen County, NJ. It took about an hour. In that period of time, I streamed Pandora without a single jitter, hiccup or other interruption. I listened to Pandora through a pair of Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800 Bluetooth headphones and I was able to control playback volume on the Pre (the IS800 headphones don’t have on-device volume controls and the iPhone disables volume adjustment when connected via Bluetooth). I browsed the Web, sent a few emails, checked in with Twitter and installed two new apps, all while Pandora was streaming in the background.

It’s the same old story. The iPhone is an amazing device without any equal at this point in time. That said, Apple’s stubbornness in withholding key functionality and AT&T’s travesty of a network in New York City hold back an otherwise unrivaled handset. My solace? The combination of the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre will certainly help me whether the storm until something better comes along.

If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend following these instructions:

Step One: Visit http://htmlblock.co.uk/anonymous_web_browser/

Step Two: Visit “spotify.com” using the above proxy

Step Three: Sign up for a free account. Enter in all real information except for birthdate. I’m just paranoid is all (yet publicly blogging about it). For postal code, use “EC1M 3HN” (thanks, Fabric London!). Finally, enter the captcha, which is extremely difficult to read, and don’t sign up for any of the partner newsletters.

Step Four: Open a new window sans proxy. Go to the “download” section of spotify.com and download the OS X or Windows client, login and enjoy. No need for a proxy once you have the app.

[instructions from The Venziani Journal]