All Articles Tagged iPhone

That zany analyst Shaw Wu (woo woo) from American Tech Research speculates that Apple is developing a low-cost mass market iPhone for the RAZR crowd, or so he says. Mr. Wu (can I call you Mr. Wu?) is basing his reasoning on Apple’s iPod strategy which began with the introduction of pricey high end models, eventually branching off into an assortment of models in different price tiers.

In other news, researchers have discovered the sky is blue. Video at 11:00.

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A poll conducted by research firm M:Metrics in May concluded that nearly 19 Million (queue Dr. Evil voice) cell phone users here in the land of the free are willing to shell out $599 for an iPhone – and intend to do so on June 29. If this survey translates into reality, Verizon and Sprint may see a huge defection among their subscriber base as customers migrate to AT&T in order to get an iPhone.

I don’t put much faith behind polls, but I do believe that all the iPhone haters out there are going to be left with egg on their face as June 29+ will reveal some rather interesting surprises.

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The press release published today by Apple sent the company stock price trending upwards more than $3 a share. Frightening how even the most trivial news can effect stocks. In other news, I sat on my car keys this morning, sending me upwards more than three feet in the air. Sadly this had no effect on my portfolio.

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Remember back in January at MacWorld, during the iPhone unveiling, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt jested on stage that one of the reasons he joined Apple’s board of directors was to get an iPhone? It was all made in fun of course, but it seems Eric made good on that boast because he in fact does now have an iPhone, which he flaunted on camera at a recent forum. (see above).

There’s a great article at UPenn that delves into the study of marketing and hype, geared directly towards gadget release. The you-know-what is the main thing under their microscope, as it goes into detail as to why it was pre-announced by 6 months. They cover how some companies really have their way with marketing and pre-releases and hype, and some others, well, how does one actually come out and say it, not have way.

It appears that the battery will get more talk time than initially disclosed. Apple now claims 8 hours of talk time, or six hours if you’re browsing via wifi. Not bad, not bad. This may do something to quell the complaints of folks that want to do battery switching. Here’s the updated talk time information with added hours in parentheses:

• talk time: 8 hours (+3)
• standby: 250 hours (not disclosed)
• internet use: 6 hours (+1)
• video playback: 7 hrs (+2
• audio playback: 24 hrs (+8)

Apple has also replaced the plastic screen cover with a higher quality glass cover, which should mightily improve scratch resistance of the screen. [via]

In the words of a gum chewing George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove, “Mr. President…I smell a big fat Commie rat!”. iPhone’s disclosed talk time seems suspiciously robust for a full screened touch device, which leads me to wonder if someone at Cupertino isn’t blowing smoke in our faces. Apple could have sacrificed any number of features to achieve this “impressive” feat in battery life. For example the biggest consumer of power in a handset of this class is the LCD. One way around the problem is to throttle down screen brightness, and limiting its highest setting. I’ve seen numberous manufacturers play this card in the past, so I wouldn’t be bowled over to see Apple follow the same path, though I’m not claiming that’s what happened here.

So what’s going on here? Are these genuine tweats or feature retardation? We’ll know in just two more weeks.

Among the interesting factoids to come out of today’s press release is the revelation that iPhone’s touch display is fabricated from Glass rather than typical plastic found on competing smartphones. This is at once interesting and troubling. The durability of glass in a destructable device is questionable. Will the iPhone survive sudden drops to the floor? Will it crack inside your pants pocket if too much flexing or tensile stress is exerted on it? looks around worried

Ok kiddies, Apple just sent out a press release announcing iPhone’s talk time. Which is…wait for it…wait for it… 8 hours.

Read the PR here… Read the rest of this entry »

Red Ferret has posted ten criticisms of touch displays that users may strongly dislike about iPhone as well. Now, I am a long time PDA veteran and have used mobile devices for as many years as there are points in this article. And I can say that most of these criticism are rather frivolous or exaggerated. Point 4 is particularly nitpickish. Is it really a shortcoming that you can’t carry your car keys in the same pocket with your phone? Uh, not if you also consider it a shortcoming that you can’t drive your car in the same lane with oncoming traffic.

Anyway, feel free to read through the ten points and draw your own conclusions.

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