Analysts are like Tarot card readers with MBAs, making speculative predictions based on little more than the direction of the wind and bird migration patterns. They follow a similar marketing practice too - the first reading is free, but the second will cost you, and cost you.
The brain trust at Gartner Research, a firm whose name is legendary in “We predicted this all along” market research, has arrived at the astounding postulation that Apple’s plans to incorporate enterprise-class features into iPhone will make the device a viable corporate tool.
Principal analyst Ken Dulaney gave his best Jean Dixon sound bite, stating that enterprise features “will open a huge volume of business users” for Apple. The man is a genius.
Of course, this is the same firm who said just last year that iPhone wasn’t ready for business, so take their conclusions as I always do - with a grain of salt and a shot of whiskey.
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It seems like only yesterday Apple’s servers were overwhelmed by the unbridled lust of developers, feverishly downloading the newly released iPhone SDK, going offline and back again like cheap Christmas tree lights. Today Apple is reporting that over 100,000 SDK downloads have been made in a span of just four days. That’s amazing considering that traffic bottleneck prevented downloading to occur for hours at a time, and Apple’s iPhone developer page was broken for nearly two days.
Makes you wonder how much higher that figure would be if everything had gone smoothly out of the gate. 500,000 perhaps?
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Reading my news and RSS feeds on the go is important to me. Most people I know use Google Reader, and it is a fantastic desktop web application. However, I find the mobile version really lacking in features and functionality; this is where Bloglines (http://i.bloglines.com) comes in.
Bloglines really takes advantage of Apple’s HIG’s and gives a very integrated environment for your news. Keep in mind that this version of Bloglines is is still in beta…
(Ed Note - We’ve already welcomed Rene Ritchie to the fold, now we welcome Chad Garrett! Chad will be bringing us a software review each week — with any luck at all he’ll be able to move to reviews of real, honest-to-god, Apple-approved native applications very soon! Welcome Chad!)
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Psst! Hey, buddy. Yeah, you! Over here. You want hot merchandise? These here iPhones just ahem fell off the truck today. Oh these are real beauties too. Fresh from from the factory, as they say. Get’em while you can because my supplies are rather limited, if you catch my meaning, and the Chinese Police are very interested in my wares. Meet me tonight behind the workers dormitory and we can discuss this further.
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CNBC reporter Jim Goldman claims that a source close to Apple’s Asian contract manufacturer knows precisely when Apple will launch the long desired 3G iPhone. Clear your calendars for the month of June ‘08, the date of iPhone 3G’s arrival. This news, if you can call it that, comes as little surprise since the existence of a 3G iPhone was confirmed by none other than Apple itself. But this source, if accurate, dashes any hopes such a product will reveal itself at MacWorld in January. Was anyone really expecting Apple to obsolete the current model in under 6 months? Apple churns out new iPhone models like Mocha Lattes at Starbucks, but in a new iPhone release in such a short period isn’t realistic, especially given that iPhone hasn’t fully propagated among international carriers.
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Now see here, you Yanks. This whole iPhone concept…it’s just not cricket. You plebes may fall victim to the seductive powers of Sir Steven Jobs, with his shiny expensive bobs and brickabrack, but we Brits are made of tougher stuff. You won’t find it so easy fobbing off your gadgety thingies on us, by Jove. Just look at the pittance of iPhone activations made since launching here in the UK, something like 26,500? Mere truffles, I tell you. The queen has more diamond studs in her dinner gown. Knickers!
Now do go on and take your toys elsewhere, or Parliament will have to reassess the terms its peace treaty with you and reclaim lost territory. We wouldn’t want to start an “incident” now would we? There’s a good chaps.
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I post a story about iPhone coming to Commiland, and now Reuters steps in with news that iPhone’s arrival in China may be delayed by technical (read: Political) and fee (read: money under the table) issues. The gist of this delay centers around iPhone being locked, as apposed to Chinese phones which are unlocked and portable to any GMS carrier. Does anyone else besides me feel utterly ashamed and embarrased that communist mobile phones enjoy more freedom and liberty than our capitalist phones?
Maybe this Communism thing isn’t so bad after all… Capitalist pig!
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China Mobile Ltd., the country’s largest state run cell phone carrier, claims that it is in talks with Apple to bring iPhone to the land of cheap labor and censorship sometime next year. No agreement has yet been reached…so why bother making the announcement?
It’s only fitting. American jobs are being exported to China, so why not Steve Jobs? Get it…Steve Jobs, American Jobs? Heh? Oh never mind.
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Apple has selected a bunch of songs that make for popular ringtones and placed them in an easy-to-find section of the iTunes store. I’m getting tired of my old custom alarm ringtone (I only made one) and I think it’s time to wake up to something new.
Ringtones: the Playlists
Listen up. The iTunes Store has just made it easier to find the perfect ringtones to assign to your favorite callers. After scouring the more than 500,000 currently available ringtones, iTunes editors have assembled a wide assortment of ringtone playlists. The genre-based playlists include such eminently “ringtoneable” tracks as “Answer the Phone” (Sugar Ray), “Pyscho” (Bernard Hermann), “My Funny Valentine” (Chet Baker), “Hung Up” (Madonna), “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson), “Soul Man” (The Blues Brothers), and many others. Want help creating your new ringtones? [Nov 06, 2007]
iTunes Store Link
Time Magazine has named iPhone “Invention of the Year”, a title shared with… well I don’t recall Time ever bestowing that award on any product, but this is after all the same publication that once named Adolf Hitler Man of the year, and me (or rather everyone) Person of the year.
Invention of the year is an overstated understatement. Any product that has educated adults behaving like pre-teens camped outside retails stores for days on end, and turns slobs into celebrities, is an achievement unrivaled by any other medium. Invention of the Century would be more fitting.
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