Analyst Ben Reitzes of UBS says, based on AT&T store surveys, iPhone demand remains strong long after Apple’s hype machine winds down. The firm’s target expectation for iPhone shipments in the fourth quarter is 800,000 units, and Reitzes believes Apple is on track to beat its set goal of 1 million iPhone shipments.
Today’s published study by UBS yields some interesting factoids. One being that, despite all the naysaying, iPhone has a low return rate. Many skeptics had predicted iPhone returns en masse by frustrated consumers.
Another takeaway is iPhone, at least so far, hasn’t suffered a loss in sales momentum. That surprises even myself, as I expected a sharp drop in sales within the first eight weeks of launch, as hype died down and the early adopter market had quelled.
But the report wasn’t all flattering. UBS cautions that iPhone is in desperate need of critical feature integration. Among the list of must haves are the following…
So, all around the news looks pretty good for iPhone. Sales are solid with good momentum, despite tapering hype. And Apple is set to beat its sales projections. Let’s pray for all our sake that Apple listens to the rising chorus of critics and answers those feature requests, ASAP.
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Here is a grim reminder to all of us that certain situations require our complete attention.
Picture this. A guy texting away with his eyes glued to a cell phone (no, it wasn’t an iPhone) heedlessly wanders in the path of an oncoming train. The dude narrowly avoids being struck, turns directions and goes back to texting, then walks straight in front of a second oncoming train. This time he’s not so lucky.
Unfortunately this very tragic scene happened earlier today to an unnamed Cincinnati Ohio man. Police have not yet released his identity, or disclosed his injuries, but he at least survived his brush with death and is undergoing medical care.
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Andrew Neff, an analyst well known for his Nostradamic prognostications of doom and gloom in the PC sector which largely came true, is now casting his crystal ball on iPhone. He sees iPhone gaining backdoor corporate adoption by way of individual innovative. In Lehman’s terms, people who work in large companies will buy their own iPhones and carry them to work. A sound rationale, but I don’t consider that corporate adoption anymore than my wearing Levi’s 501 jeans to work as corporate adoption of denim.
But the more iPhones that enter the workplace, the greater its chance for enterprise support.
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User Centric, Inc., a usability consultancy research group, has published a study finding that iPhone’s virtual keyboard is nearly twice as slow to enter text compared with devices that have fixed hardware buttons.
The study gave iPhones to 20 participants who were asked to send text messages and emails using the device, while UC searchers monitored their actions. Hilarity ensued. The group found texting on devices with fixed keys to be fast and accurate. On the iPhone - slow and clumsy.
Now, I am in no way a statistician, but there are a number of flaws in this study. For starters, none of the particiants in the study own iPhones…but all owned QWERTY devices, which skews results dramatically. These users were already accustomed to fixed QWERTY keyboards, giving those devices an unfair advantage in the study.
Second, as I have already mentioned numerous times, you become increasing acclimated to iPhone’s virtual keyboard with usage. After one month you’ll find text input on iPhone to be every bit as credible as a fixed keyboard. Even faster. I make just as many input errors on iPhone as I do my Treo - the difference is iPhone’s spelling correction covers my errors, which speeds input dramatically.
As with all studies, take these findings with a grain of salt and a shot of Bourbon.
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28 year old Thomas Martel of Bonnie Brae, Colorado, found manipulating his iPhone to be difficult thanks to his big fat thumbs always getting in the way. His options were to upgrade to a device with larger buttons, or chop off his thumbs. The choice was obvious - chop off the thumbs, of course. Well not quite.
Martel underwent a relatively new procedure, called “Whittling”, that involves filing down bone and reconstructing muscles and fingertip, creating leaner thumbs that are less bulbous in form.
“From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses. Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it’s saving me in frustration - that’s priceless.”
No, that’s crazy. My legs are too long for my car, bunching up under the steering wheel, but I don’t plan on having two inches of Femur removed to improve my driving.
Who says technology should adapt to us?
[UPDATE:]North Denver News has posted a clarification/retraction to this story, stating that it clearly was an innocent hoax. Here’s a tip…leave the art of parody to the pros, mkay? Thanks.
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Get your gaming finger ready (no, not THAT one), iPhone fanboys. Word on the street says Apple is prepping the iPhone for gaming support. This coming from DownloadSquad in the UK, while perusing the latest update to iTunes looking for hidden gold, uncovered these two curious strings buried in the code…
/* ===== iPhone Game Item Strings ===== */
"4329.001" = "Are you sure you want to remove the selected game from your iPhone?";
"4329.002" = "Are you sure you want to remove the selected games from your iPhone?";
Interesting, no? Don’t go running outside in your boxers just yet, because we don’t know exactly what kind of games these might be. Are they native applications, fully hardware optimized, or lamo Flash-based games made possible by future Adobe Flash plugin support? We still won’t know that until Apple plays its hand.
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A Des Moines Iowa physician, Peter V. Boesen, has filed a patent suit against Apple, claiming copyright infringement over iPhone’s onscreen keyboard. Boesen holds a patent through a company called SP Technologies, who claims to have held a patent on iPhone’s technology since 2004.
The irony in this story is that Mr. Boesen is currently sentenced to 51 months in a federal penitentiary on healthcare fraud charges. I guess Dr. Boesen never heard the phrase “Physician, heal thyself”.
My prescription for the good Doctor is to take two cyanide pills and call me in the morning.
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It’s like a real breaking news story. There’s now an unofficial Terminal client for the iPhone. It’s important to note that this Mobile Terminal is not a web app; it’s a real GUI meat-on-the-bones fire-on-the-grill application. The project is hosted at Google code, which is interesting; it could mean an unofficial nod of approval from Apple, as the above gizmodo post details. The Terminal app will be an important development for further hacking at the iPhone, and it’s incredible that it was done without any kind of official SDK from Apple. My hat is off to you, good sirs and ma’ams.
In terms of getting to a place where they can unlock an iPhone and host applications, this is a big step; it means that hackers can interface directly with the iPhone instead of having to reload firmwares, reset the iPhone, test, etc: they can test changes on the fly now. A video is after the break, and you can visit the MobileTerminal.app page directly.
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This story is so disturbing it simply MUST be true. A reader sent me his personal story of what lengths (excuse the pun) he went through to get an 8GB iPhone. There are many things I would do for an insanely great Apple product…this is not among them.
Nuts and bolts (okay just nuts) of getting an iPhone…
I openly admit to being an Apple Fanboy to the extreme. In fact, my wife had me agree to an annual budget for all of my electronic purchases…then came the iPhone announcement in January. I was smitten. Problem: my budget is already spent, my Sprint contract was in force through December. My loving wife agreed to let me get the iPhone (and not have the cost deducted from my “toy” budget) if I would wait until the Sprint contract expired.
The iPhone goes on sale…..
On a road trip with my kids (wife was at home with baby) I arrived at 10:50 pm in Boise. Next door (okay I had to drive around a bit) to the hotel was an AT&T store. I went in to just take a peek at the Jesus Phone…needless to say, I left the store with a brand new 4GB iPhone. I callled my wife with good news and bad news. Good: We arrived in Boise safely. Bad: I bought an iPhone.
The very next morning I returned the iPhone. I was angry, depressed, insulted…you get the point. My wife joined me in Denver the next day…but I was reluctant to even speak with her (you know, pouting). Noticing my sadness (obsession) she inquired “How badly do you want the phone?”. I let her know that I wanted it very, very badly. She asked me if I’d be willing to finally make that appointment for a vasectomy?
I absolutely love my new 8GB iPhone.
File this under “Too good to be true”, but one commenter and two other people emailing me claim that AT&T salespeople unlocked their iPhones after canceling service. Sound credible to you? Me neither. But according to a user named RAJ…
2 OF MY FRIENDS HAD THE CONTRACT WITH AT&T. THEY TOOK IT ON 29 JUNE WHEN I-PHONE WAS LAUNCHED, TODAY ON 1ST AUG JUST AFTER ONE MONTH OF THEIR CONTRACT THEY SIMPLY CANCELED THE CONTRACT BY PAYING EARLY CONTRACT TERMINATION FEES OF 175 ( ALTHOUGH THE FEES WAS ALSO WAIVED OFF FOR THEM FOR SOME REASON). THEN THE AT&T HAD UNLOCKED THEIR I-PHONES BY PUTTING SOME CODES. NOW THEY SAID THAT THEY CAN USE THEIR I-PHONE WITH ANY OTHER CARRIER TOO….
Now, this has to be true because it was typed in All-caps. Anything typed completely in uppercase characters must be taken seriously.
So there you have it. Whether this is true or not I cannot verify, so don’t shoot me - I’m just the messenger.
