June 2007: Monthly Archive

CrunchGear’s Seth Porges muses on Apple’s strategy of planned obsolescence in product development. iPhone falls into this category, much like its musical cousin - iPod. This is the primary reason why you won’t see user replaceable batteries in either product. Apple doesn’t want you upgrading your device, they want you to upgrade to a NEW device. This strategy was widely used by auto makers in the 1950’s and 60’s. Each year the big three would roll out new models designed to make last years model look obsolete, fueling consumer buying. It may have worked with iPod, but I doubt this will work for iPhone due to the inherent entanglements of wireless carrier red tape.

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According to tech web giant, the iPhone doesn’t have Adobe’s Flash, but Apple promises it will be supported later. I’m not sure how I feel about the lack of flash; part of me views it simply as the most intrusive ad tech on the web.

Fifteen days to go before iPhone officially launches, and already web apps are popping up like ragweed in my backyard. This interesting concept is called iTweetr, which acts as a web-based Twitter client accessible through Safari. It works under Firefox too. Visit http://dev.deanjrobinson.com/itweetr/yourusername to try it out under your own Twitter account.

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Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so!

Our sources at WWDC are reporting that, for now, there is officially no Flash support on the iPhone. Apparently, in the State of the Media address yesterday, the announcement was made that: “There will be no Flash support at the moment on the iPhone.” Developers are being told not to serve video via Flash, as there simply isn’t a player built for the phone yet.

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MacRumors has confirmed one small but significant tidbit about the June 29 iPhone launch. The 6:00pm launch is local time, not nationwide. What does that mean, you ask? It means that folks on the east coast will be getting their iPhones a full three hours before west coasters! Na na nah nah na nahhhhhhh!

While Steve Jobs gave us an exact time (6 p.m.) to line up for buy an iPhone, he didn’t go into many details. As it turns out, the iPhone will be sold on June 29th at 6 p.m. local time — so East Coasters will get a full 3 hour head start over their West Coast counter parts. A memo sent by AT&T confirmed this today: The iPhone will go on sale on at AT&T retail stores June 29 at 6 p.m. local time in each market.

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AppleInsider is reporting via a tipster that AT&T will not be offering the iPhone to its Business Account customers. If you fall into that camp, you’ll need to purchase your unit through individual contracts.

I can hear the collective screams of biz users as loud as the guy from the Paris Hilton press conference. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

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European Operators are hot happy with the fruity company from Cupertino. Apparently Apple is not playing friendly with its iPhone distribution plans for the EU market.

“Operators consistently told us, not for attribution, of course, that they had spoken to Apple and found the company ‘unbelievably arrogant’, making demands that ’simply cannot be justified no matter how hot the product is’,” Avi Greengart, a principal analyst at Current Analysis, wrote in an advisory on Monday. “Several [operators] were adamant that they will never offer the iPhone.”

[Via Vnunet]

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Here’s something that will make your blood peculate. AT&T Senior VP, James W. Cicconi, says the company recently began working with movie studios and record labels to develop anti-piracy technology targeting offenders. Now, I’m all for copyright protection, in fact I am one of the few sick bastards that actually supports DRM (in tolerable form), but I draw the line when my privacy is sacrificed. I don’t consume or traffic in narcotics, but that doesn’t mean I would allow the police to enter my domicile every night to check under my bed for drugs.

In a perfect world, government would step in to intercede on our behalf. But in reality Uncle Sam will simply want a piece of the action. sigh

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File this under the crazy claims category. A website called Pure Mobile is peddling what it alleges to be unlocked iPhones, soon to be available to anyone with a sustainable credit card. Now, I don’t know whether this is lame attempt to drive traffic to their site or if (and that’s a big IF) they’ve somehow managed to cheat the system by acquiring pre-locked iPhone units. Whatever the case may be, I’ll be getting my hands on one the old fashioned way - by stealing purchasing one through AT&T.

ReadSource: Ars Technica

A supply chain researcher claims that the iPhone presents a high-risk challenge that may cause shortages for a couple of months. One assumes Apple has a pretty good idea whether or not there will be enough and is planning accordingly. This is like those “reports” on what the actual manufacturing costs of a product are based on part costs - fun to speculate on but bad to believe in.