May 2007: Monthly Archive

There’s a good summary of the carrier industry over at USA Today, which helps explain why the iPhone (and other phones with cult followings) are so important to the carriers: 73% of the U.S. households already have a mobile phone, and the carriers largely have to steal customers from each other. That’s why they try to lock you into a two year contract, and hit you with conract breakage fees when you leave. The iPhone is potentially doubly potent, as evidenced by the 5 year exclusive deal with AT&T — if you want the Apple iPhone, you will have to go to AT&T to get it. iPhone aficionados will likely be stuck on AT&T for a long time.

So, the carriers need the shiniest shiny toys to drag you away. The article also covers the old news that Verizon passed on the iPhone, unwilling to cave in to Apple’s demands. I’m glad to hear that deal didn’t go through — I’ve not been fond of Verizon in the past, and they have this nasty habit of locking up abilities on their phones that other carriers leave open. [via TreoCentral forums]

According to the Boy Genius Report, the iPhone will be available to prepaid customers on AT&T service — the relevant plans there would be “Go Phone Pay As You Go” and “Go Phone Pick Your Plan.” No prices are available yet, but it does mean that you’ll still be able to buy one even if the Death Star (AT&T) deems you unworthy of an upgrade. They expect prices for the actual phone to be available very soon.

Actor Josh Duhamel revealed that Director Michael Bay’s Transformers movie is said to have an Apple iPod-esque killing machine in it, which is apparently set to steal many scenes. That makes it seem likely that transforming portable tape deck “Soundwave” has been re-imagined to be an iPod. The worlds “killing machine” makes it likely that our little killing iPod is a Decepticon.

The title pretty much says it all. I should have reviews of this and minigolf coming soon. [via iLounge]

AT&T has been rebranding stores that were once Cingular stores in the hopes that they will be able to cash in on all of the iPhone demand. If the NASCAR article whetted your appetite for a meatier AT&T rebranding news morsel, this story is your sandwich.

If the iPhone wasn’t coming on AT&T’s network, it wouldn’t be news. It may not be anyway, but I’m glad to hear that AT&T’s rebranding push is coming right along, on Jeff Burton’s #31 NASCAR ride.

The iPhone should be available at about 2,000 locations — most likely most AT&T stores and all Apple stores.

There’s a great article at Communities Dominate Brands that does a fair job of explaining why the iPhone will be a watershed moment in the mobile market. It’s a long article, but a good in-depth read as to how the iPhone is predicted to ‘frame the discussion.’ Other smartphones are going to be compared to the iPhone; it becomes their yardstick to measure against.

“What will change? Pretty much everything. And funnily enough, most of it is not actually caused by the iPhone, they only happen to occur so closely to the iPhone, that the iPhone will be given much of the credit.”

Tomi Ahonen (with a name like that he can only be Finnish) goes on to state what the iPhone will do to mobile handset design, mobile internet, mobile advertising, mobile media, Silicon Valley, the blogging communities, mobile messaging, and the inevitable roar of media come June when the device is actually available.

“But the level of the noise around mobile will double in June. Very many big guns will join the game. That is good. And it will be a change from an old Era, where handset makers like Nokia and Motorola ran the show with the major mobile operators (carriers). Now media giants will join in, as will major IT players and internet companies.”

[via Slashphone]

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, media, hype

Engadget has an update to yesterday’s market cap loss, explaining the ins and outs of why they posted the memo.

The FCC has approved the iPhone for sale in the U.S.A. The article from PC Worldstates that it’s a dual-band phone, which isn’t correct (dual band would mean that it only works in the USA and wouldn’t roam internationally). Thankfully, PC World is incorrect.

I was astonished to read what their article stated, that it would only be a dual-band phone, as Apple would have to manufacture a separate phone for sale in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia later. So, I moseyed over to the FCC’s website, and sure enough, it has all of the European bands listed (900 and 1800). Those bands aren’t used in the US, so the FCC didn’t test them. PC World must have missed the clearly stated “quad band” in the first page of the FCC approval letter. Oops!

At any rate, I’m glad to see that it’s approved. That means the hardware is finalized, software is likely done or nearly fully done as well. Now we just have to wait for the chance to buy the thing!