More specifically, Palm’s biggest cheerleader at financial backer, Elevation Partner, Roger McNamee famously gaffed that:

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

Well, today is July 29, 2009 — two years later and a month later. Given that Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones last quarter, and AT&T activated 2.5 million of those babies, we’re leaning towards a number somewhat higher than “not one.”

Hey, maybe that’s what he meant? Quite clearly, “millions” means “not one”… right?

(Note: Palm did retract McNamee’s hyperbole with a speed that would make Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Open-Mic Reaction Team (SBOMRT) envious.)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Palm’s Roger McNamee Wants to Know if You’re Still Using an iPhone?

The UK’s Telegraph ran an article recently with a headline stating “Overheating iPhone 3GS: Apple blames the weather”… that could be a tad misleading. The Telegraph cites an Apple knowledge base article, last updated June 25, 2009, that warns about leaving the iPhone 3GS in hot places or using it under hot conditions, and shows a screenshot of the iPhone’s temperate warning screen,

The problem is, as longtime TiPb readers know, it’s the same knowledge base article that’s been up since the introduction of the iPhone 3G in 2008, the update merely adding in the newly launched iPhone 3GS.

So, while the iPhone 3GS may indeed have overheating problems — though we’re not experiencing any yet — saying Apple blames the issue on heating is, as mentioned, a tad misleading.

In any event, we’re more interested in whether or not our readers are experiencing iPhone 3GS overheating issues, and if so, what are you doing on the device when you experience them, and are you running a jailbroken device?

[via Engadget]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Regarding iPhone 3GS, Overheating, and “the Weather”

Time Magazine has an interesting article up on Apple’s ongoing success with the iPhone in not only a poor economy, but in face of competition like Nokia, Palm, Sony/Ericsson, etc. doing badly, even when they offer much cheaper alternatives.

BlackBerry is enjoying similar success with their higher end products, leading Time to speculate that it’s based on brand, a multi-factor and mysterious currency that companies spend fortunes earning so they can make even greater fortunes exploiting:

A lot of people think that consumers who buy brand are suckers, the kind people WC Field used to mock in old movies. Samsung builds a smartphone that looks and works a lot like the iPhone. It is called the Instinct and Apple owners think it is junk.

Where the article falls off the rails, however, is in it’s conclusion:

All Apple cares about is that their customers have enough money to buy an iPhone, iPod, or Mac. Suckers have money, too.

It would be a mistake — and likely one other companies are still making — to assume “suckers” buy on brand absent other factors, rather than brand embodying the factors customers want to buy. (Even when Apple states just this much during every quarterly conference call.)

Could it be consumers are smarter than many companies — and perhaps journalists — give them credit for, and in tougher times they tend towards better products? A junk phone that provides daily frustration and requires monthly or yearly replacement is in no way a better value than a highly refined user experience with tremendous build quality that’s offered year-after-year free software updates and a previously unimaginable stream of ever-new applications, creating not only great initial value, but great sustainable value as well.

A better closing would likely have been:

“In tough times, smart customers make smarter choices on where and when to spend their money. Apple realizes this and makes sure their products are ready and waiting… in elegant, inviting little boxes.”

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Retorts: Customers are Smarter than the Average Phone

Sibling site WMExperts, which — while Dieter doffs his WinMo cap and rounds his robin reviewing the iPhone — brings us Phil Nickinson’s exception to iPhone OS 2.2’s Podcast Download feature.

Okay, it’s not cut and paste, lack of MMS, no unified inbox, no Flash, etc. etc. In all fairness, it’s an interesting look at some of the things we here at TiPb complain about as well, pointedly the 10MB cap for podcast downloads over the 3G network (you have to switch to WiFi for anything larger, same as the App Store has enforced since iPhone OS 2.0):

It’s this kind of manipulation from Apple that keeps a good many of us from wanting to deal with the company (and frustrates many who do). It’s not that the hardware’s not sexy. It’s not that the software is lacking. It’s that lines are being blurred, or destroyed. Apple makes the hardware, and AT&T provides the service. There’s too much collusion going on. If AT&T wants to set a 5-gigabyte cap on my data, fine. But don’t tell me how to use those gigs. And don’t use Apple as a proxy to do so.

The only problem with the argument? The inclusion of Apple.

Look no further than the very next day on WMExperts, when Dieter posted a rant of his own, asking people to help save GPS on Windows Mobile, which we’ll paraphrase thusly:

It’s this kind of manipulation from [Microsoft and the OEMs] that keeps a good many of us from wanting to deal with the company (and frustrates many who do). It’s not that the hardware’s not sexy. It’s not that the software is lacking. It’s that lines are being blurred, or destroyed. [Microsoft and the OEMs] make the [software and hardware], and [Verizon] provides the service. There’s too much collusion going on. If [Verizon] wants to [lock down the GPS that's not fine]. [And] don’t tell me [I have to pay to subscribe to Telenav in order to do it]. And don’t use [Microsoft and the OEMs] as a proxy to do so.

See what we’re getting at? Targeting Apple and the iPhone — which hits the rabbit-eared AT&T 3G towers like Elmer Fudd with a rail gun — for redirecting high-bandwidth traffic to WiFi, when Verizon is locking out GPS entirely is platform division at the expense of a united front against a common enemy. It’s the WinPot calling the iKettle black in a cupboard full of charred cooking ware, and it misses the main culprit: the carrier fire.

Now, while Apple has done more in it’s brief 1 1/2 years in the mobile space to break the carrier locks than Microsoft or any other megacorps have done in a decade it’s still not enough. Just imagine what could happen if Microsoft put their own, still ginormous weight behind reform. Imagine if Google, rather than taking the carrier-centric, business-as-usual Android licensing route put their “don’t be evil” mantra where their handset was? Imagine if RIM, rather than letting carriers rip WiFi from the Blackberry Storm, stood up told the carriers just where exactly they could push their odiferous demands? Imagine if Apple told AT&T to invest a little in infrastructure cause unlimited means unlimited and podcast downloads they are a coming!

Those are the rants I want to see more of, and in more places.

Go get ‘em, tigers!

PS: Particularly perplexing with the current 10MB cap on podcasts in iPhone OS 2.2 is that they only apply to direct downloads. Hitting the title, on the other hand, will begin to stream the podcast over 3G (or WiFi) without any such limitations or restrictions. What’s up with that? Anyone know if streaming traffic is any different for the 3G network than download traffic?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Retorts: iPhone Shmodcasts?! WinMo GPS Locks?! Fight the Real Enemy!

Surprise, surprise, the Free Software Foundation doesn’t want you to use an iPhone 3G. Less surprisingly, they don’t want to provide anything more than hyper-sensational, factually challenged reasons why you shouldn’t buy it:

Phone completely blocks free software. iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology. iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge. iPhone won’t play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora. iPhone is not the only option.

Sigh. Why is it those who demand freedom the most are usually the same ones who respect freedom of choice the least?

They go on to call Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, a snake-oil salesman who uses good design to pied-piper the dull mundane consumers into buying his shiny little toy, thus abandoning themselves drone-like to his evil, conspiratorial prison. Patronizing? Hypocritical? Black and white just one option too many for the FSF?

DaringFireball gives it a sentence. Allow me to give it a retort! (After the break)

Equally simple analogy:

I have the ability to cook, yet sometimes I choose to buy myself dinner. Sadly, restaurants completely block free eating. Customers must PAY for the food, and the chef is sole authority as to what can or can’t be offered on the menu. Restaurants endorse and support federal, state/provincial, and local health and safety codes. Restaurants are public and allow you to be seen and observed eating. Restaurants won’t use free, non-proprietary recipes and insist on keeping their secret sauces and 11 herbs and spices to themselves. Restaurants are not the only option. “Stallman’s All You Can Eat Organic Buffet” will be opening, gratis, any day now… (Or, again, you can learn to cook yourself!)

One of the gentlemen I work with, Anthony, has rocked his laptop out with Linux in a way that’s every bit as drool-worthy as OS X, but I don’t have the midichlorians for that depth of geekery, b’okay? He spent a long (loooong) time hacking away at it to get it like that. I opened my shiny Apple box and pressed the power button. I made a choice. We both did. The same choice truly free (as in speech or beer) people are empowered to make. The same as growing my own food or eating at a restaurant.

And as for the App Store? The iPhone doesn’t block free software. You can make any software you want. Apple can likewise refuse to distribute any software they want. Free goes both ways, right? Or should Apple be forced to push your pr0n virus? Developers don’t pay a tax. They buy a distribution service based on a percentage of revenue such that when revenue is nill, the distribution fee is likewise nill. (30% of 0 is 0, in case FSF calculators can’t yet handle arithmetic). And the sole authority over what can and can’t be on my iPhone? That’d be me. (I can even banish the built-in Apps to screen 9…)

Do I really have to metaphor-strain the sous-chef not getting all the customer’s money because a percentage goes to to pay rent, utilities, infrastructure, suppliers, etc. And that customers can easily leave part or all of their food on the plate if its not to their liking?

Lest we forget, Apple is a for-profit company and the iPhone is a consumer device. People in general not only want but need to get paid for their work. Not everyone can rely on patronage or millions in Google search revenue (which is really just another, sometimes less up-front, method of accepting payment for work).

As to Steve Jobs being the mustache-twirling villain, better to think of him more as self-absorbed artist. He wants to paint his picture of the perfect gadget, and he absolutely cringes at the idea of someone else coming along and doodling on it afterwards. See, it’s not really a computer or a phone to him, its his creation (and the creation of his apprentices). Sure, he’ll compromise to get the work done (DRM) and to get it out (App Store), but its not just a little beige box crunching math to him. It’s an object d’art.

Still, Free and Open Source Software is important to the industry. For every singular concept piece, there must be thousands if not millions of utilitarian derivatives. Hey, even Apple contributes toward WebKit, Darwin, CUPS, SproutCore, CalDAV, CardDAV, and a host of other FOSS projects. (Yup, patronage). That importance is probably why I’m so disappointed in the FSF. It’s a serious topic for serious people, not an agenda or petty stick to be batted about in the name of media attention (which I’m sadly giving).

But bottom-line, there’s only one reason to avoid the iPhone 3G: If you choose something else.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Retorts! 5 Reasons the Free Software Foundation’s 5 Reasons Not to Use an iPhone 3G Are Silly