Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Hilariously Frivolous

Friday, August 8th, 2008

Ok.  So because the 2nd Gen iPhones were so ‘affordable’ some developer out there made a completely frivolous show-off app called I Am Rich.  It costs the maximum application cost in the iTunes store ($999.99) and it’s only purpose is to let people know you have money to burn (when you start the application all it does is display a cheap looking glowing ruby).

I Am so totally Rich

I Am so totally Rich

Now it’s time for you to decide which is more ridiculous:

1. 8 people purchased this application — 6 from the US, 1 from France and 1 from Germany.

2. Apple was so offended by the application that they removed it from the store, even though it didn’t technically violate any terms of the iPhone Developer contract.

I’m still trying to decide myself.

Anyway, it’s gone now.  So all of you fat cats out there will have to sling your money at something else.  Too bad you didn’t get a change to download it in time.

And you thought you lost out when Apple pulled down the NetShare tethering app.

Read the full story on I Am Rich on the LA Times

WordPress for iPhone?

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Holy crap. I just posted this from my iPhone! How nerdy is that?

Granted, I don’t think I’ll be writing any epic posts this way. No great american novels.  It takes awhile. But it’s awesome to know I can :)

check out more on Automatic’s site

iPhone

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

I got an iPhone yesterday morning.

Now my conversion to the dark side is complete.

Apple iPhone Hype, etc

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

I’m a Mac user.  Have been pretty exclusively for years.  I use a Macbook Pro at home and at work, and I really love it.

Up until recently, that love of Macs has extended to Apple in general.

But so much is truly fishy about their latest iPhone deal that I’m starting to have some misgivings about my blind support of what I thought was a philosophy, but which is turning out to just be another brand.

It all started when it became clear that Apple made a deal with the devil when it got into bed with AT&T.  The carrier is now charging more for text messages and basically undermining Steve Jobs’ promise at the WWDC: a new 3G iPhone for $199 or $299.

That, my friends turns out to be a complete and utter lie.

Because the new service contract is now more expensive than the old one, it turns out the new iPhone, overall, is more expensive than its predecessor.  Not less.

Check the math
Or ask David Pogue

What’s more irritating to me is the fact that, as a current AT&T customer who is not eligible for a phone upgrade, I have to pay $200 more than these base prices in order to get an iPhone.  Analyst Gene Munster says I’m not alone.  He estimates that only 35% of iPhone purchasers will see the prices that Steve Jobs promised.  Turns out the only people who are eligible to get the announced prices are 1) new customers 2) customers eligible for an upgrade 3) current iPhone owners.  This means loyal customers like me (I’ve been with AT&T for 7 years) are SOL.

That’s shocking! No?

Why isn’t anyone screaming through the streets calling Steve Jobs a big fat liar?

The whole point of this, I remember, was so that more people could afford the iPhone.  So that it had a lower entry point, and wasn’t viewed as a luxury item.  What a scam.

What’s more insidious, I think, was brought to light in an opinion I just read by on TechCrunch — where he calls out Apple and Apple users for the fact that everyone is raving about the iPhones without acknowledging that they are a proprietary, DRM infested walled garden.  The points that stuck out in my mind were:

1. Apple has a tendancy to take open source technologies and package and rebrand them in such a way that they are no longer open source.  Which seems pretty parasitic to me.

2. All of the open source fans around the world are drooling over iPhones and Apple (me included) and that’s more than a little bit hypocritical.

Solutions?  I have none. I would be the first to buy an Android phone if they were actually an alternative, but I can’t imagine they’ll have anything like the iPhone anytime soon.

But some competition might be nice.  Competition was how Apple got to be good in the first place.  They were the underdog, so they had to fight.  Now it seems like they’re just as bad as Microsoft when they know they don’t have any competition.

All of that said, i’ll probably join the rest of the hypocrites and buy an iPhone when my contract is up in October.  But not before, dammit!

nice one

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

I think it’s more than a little ironic (or perhaps fitting) that for all of my bitching and moaning about the new iPhones and their pricing structure, and my own personal crusade to not — as a current, loyal AT&T customer — pay more for an iPhone than people who aren’t with AT&T… what did I manage to do this morning?

Drop a nice full-weight pint glass full of water square on the screen of my current phone.  To which we say:

Nice one!

poor little sony ericsson

I was trying to hold out until October to when I’m eligible for an upgrade phone, so I don’t have to fork out the extra $200.

We’ll see if that works.  Right now my phone’s screen is basically being held together with tape.