Oct

29

monkey_on_iphone.jpgколи под наемHouse members in the next Congress could get Apple’s iPhone as their newest communication gadget.

The Chief Administrative Office (CAO), which oversees the communications systems for the House, has begun testing a small number of iPhones within its ranks to see if they are compatible with the working needs of lawmakers and staff.

“The reason we’re trying them out is because we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have them,” said Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the CAO.
The iPhone has garnered tremendous attention since its release in July 2007. In addition to being heralded as one of the greatest modern inventions, it’s received its share of criticism for its touch-screen keyboard and slow connection speeds.

The CAO plans to decide whether to give members the option of using the phones, which are offered exclusively under AT&T contracts, by the beginning of the next Congress in January.

The cell phone of choice in the House is currently the BlackBerry, with nearly 8,200 in active use.

If the CAO decides to offer members the option of using the iPhone, BlackBerrys are likely to remain the primary tool of communication on the Hill. If lawmakers opt for the iPhone over the BlackBerry, they will be required to pay for it out of the Member’s Representational Allowance.

But switching to the iPhone will be a costly investment.

The House’s e-mail is set up in a way that all the messages are delivered via a BlackBerry Enterprise server. That server is not compatible with the iPhone, so the only way people could get their e-mail would be to plug the iPhone into their computer. Because the iPhones would require a new server, the CAO is testing it before making the investment, according to the CAO officials.

Read Full Story at The Hill

Jan

31

2215285685_17d7427547.jpgI was filling my car up with gas in the sharp cold gusting winds we’ve had here in Kansas lately. I had on a light jacket and as I was getting out of the car to go around and begin pumping, I figured I’d put on my heavy winter coat. I took my phone out of my lightweight jacket and set it on the trunk of my car and switched to my heavier coat. I went inside to prepay for gas, forgetting all about my phone. When I came back out, I pumped my gas, walked around the front of my car, got back in and drove off.

I was traveling down the interstate when this happened. The gas station I stopped at was a little rest area in the middle of the turnpike. So as I left, I merged back onto the highway, accelerated hard, turned up the stereo, and got moving. About 5 minutes later, I reached for my phone, but couldn’t feel it. Then it hit me. I’d forgotten to grab it off the back of my car when I was filling up at the gas station. A feeling of panic and anger washed over me instantly and I started screaming and yelling in my empty car. Because I was driving on a toll-road, there was no way to turn around and just go back. I had to drive another 15 miles to the next exit, pay my toll, get back on the highway, and race the 20 miles back to the rest stop.

I pulled back up to the pump I filled up at but there was no sign of my phone. I remembered a lady filling up next to me in a silver BMW - but she was long gone. My first move was to go inside and ask if she or anyone else had turned it in. No such luck. I scoured the parking lot and on-ramp I used to get back on the highway - no sign of the phone anywhere. After about 30 minutes of searching, I finally gave up. It was 11pm and it was 19 degrees outside. I was exhausted, cold, angry, frustrated, and just decided I’d have to start using the Treo 750 I had as a backup.

As I slowly merged back onto the highway, I kept my eyes open for the remote possibility that the phone had stayed on my car for a longer distance than what I’d searched on foot. Still, no luck. I got up to speed, giving up for good, and about that time (1/4 mile from the gas station) I saw a glimmering light from the lane next to me. As I sped past the object, I knew it was my phone - still alive and working! I slammed on the brakes and pulled over, waiting for the passing cars and trucks to go by so I could run across 2 lanes of 75mph traffic to retrieve my poor phone. As the last pair of headlights approached, the semi got over to the far outside lane because he saw me standing on the side of the road. I knew this was trouble. As I watched helplessly from the shoulder, the semi plowed my phone at full speed, throwing it to the ditch on the other side of the highway. At this point, I figured I’d retrieve it just for the purpose of seeing the crushed iPhone in disarray, mangled and crunched lifeless in the grass.

Much to my surprise, as I approached, I heard the familiar sound of my ringtone — the iPhone was alive and ringing! As I picked it up and cradled it gently in my hands, I saw the screen displaying my caller ID — the screen still worked! I slid my finger gently over the answer slide and paused as I held the tattered and torn device to my ear — my heart must have skipped a beat when I heard my mom’s voice at the other end of the phone — the phone still worked!

I ran back to my car and sat on the side of the road for about 15 minutes inspecting it, testing it, and looking it over — how in the hell had it survived being trounced by an 18-wheeler at 70mph?!?

One day later as I’m writing this, I don’t have an answer to that question. It makes and receives calls, sends and receives text messages, browses the internet, plays music from the iPod feature, connects to my wi-fi network, syncs with my computer, and charges the battery. The camera even takes perfect pictures still!

I’ve spoken with Apple’s customer relations department - they’re interested in using it in an iPhone commercial; I mean come on, this is the ultimate crash and durability test out there! I’ve banged this phone up many times since I bought it the day they were released last June. I’ve dropped it down a flight of concrete stairs, slid it across a parking lot, dropped it on cement, and even partially submerged it in water and this little phone just keeps truckin!

There are a few bad spots on the display now, but the screen is still responsive to touch in those bad areas! The glass covering the screen doesn’t have a mark on it - I have no idea how. The phone would have first had to topple off the back of my car and based on where I found it, I’d have been going well over 60mph when it fell off — that alone would kill most phones. But then being ran over by a semi — I don’t know what to say! I know that approximately 1 hour went by between the time I knew I lost it and the time I recovered it — who knows what else happened to it during that time. When the semi ran over it, the phone was sitting dead in the middle of one of the lanes — it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine it getting hit more than the one time I witnessed!

Read Full Story with more photo’s

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Aug

9

Really !!!!!!!! ??? …………… no not really

iPhone Copy and Paste from lonelysandwich and Vimeo.

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Jun

30

Jun

28

skunk.jpgWorried about long lines to buy an iPhone on Friday? A San Francisco man said he and his band of pranksters will create a diversion to distract everybody else in line and allow you to slide right up to the front.

The company — called “Over Here, Jerks!” — will go to Apple or AT&T stores and release a wild animal, let loose a bad smell, or do something else disgusting, shocking, or scary. The plan: Everybody in line runs away, except for the company’s client, who’ll be first up for service.

“You might even have time to grab a few lawn chairs, sleeping bags, and sandwiches amid the mayhem!” according to the group’s Craigslist ad.

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Jun

25

smelly.jpgWell it was bound to happen. Some pathetic loser is already in line at the Apple Store on 5th Ave. in NYC for the iPhone. The iPhone doesn’t go on sale until June 29th at 6PM so can you imagine what this guy is going to smell like when he walks into the beautiful elegant Apple Store 4 days from now.

see more “smelly pics at MacDailyNews

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Mar

28

Brother….John C Dvorak is at it again.

The hype over the unreleased iPhone has actually increased over the past month despite the fact that nobody has seen or used the device. This, if nothing else, proves the power of branding and especially the power of brand loyalty.dvorak.gif
It’s the loyalists who keep promoting this device as if it is going to be anything other than another phone is a crowded market. And it’s exactly the crowded market aspect of this which analysts seem to be ignoring.

Apple’s past successes have been in markets that were either emerging or moribund. Its biggest hit has been the iPod. But let’s examine what happened here.
First the MP3 player business was segmented and unfocused with numerous players making a lot of cheap junk and not doing much to market any of it.
Apple does what? Advertise. Gosh, what a concept.
Then there was the online music distribution business, again unfocused and out-of-control with little marketing and a lot of incompatible technologies. So Apple comes in with a reasonable solution, links it to the heavily promoted iPod and bingo. A winner.

It advertises on TV, on billboards and on the Internet. Within no time the company takes over the business which would probably still be languishing without Apple.
Thus Apple does what it does best. It produces a jazzy product and promotes it like any good business should do. And in the process manages to get a high margin.
This is nothing more than the fundamentals.

Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it’s gone so far that it’s in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia and Motorola.
During this phase of a market margins are incredibly thin so that the small fry cannot compete without losing a lot of money.

As for advertising and expensive marketing this is nothing like Apple has ever stepped into. It’s a buzz saw waiting to chop up newbies
The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that they can play it fast enough. These phones go in an out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months.
There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer, it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market share.

And its survival in the computer business relies on good margins. Those margins cannot exist in the mobile handset business for more than 15 minutes.

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Feb

9

iPhone_googlemaps.jpgNeonode, a Swedish mobile phone developer, is twitting Apple over its iPhone by positioning its own touch screen handset against the Apple device at the 3GSM World Congress.

“Apple’s iPhone and several other manufacturers can see the benefits of the concept and are now following the lead set by Neonode,” the Swedish firm’s announcement stated. Daniel Stalbo, Neonode’s marketing director, said the firm will present “a whole new phone” at the GSM event. He declined to discuss the phone beyond that comment and beyond a brief press release issued Friday.

Neonode has introduced buttonless touch screen phones in past years, which has drawn mixed reviews from users.

The firm’s first phone, the Neonode N1, was announced in 2003, but the actual delivery was delayed for several months. Its successor, the Neonode N1m was introduced in early 2005 and is a dual band GSM 900/1800/1900 device. Neonode’s handsets, like the iPhone, operate on the European-developed GSM wireless standard. Neonode said its phone will be available in the spring.

By contrast, Apple’s iPhone has been a minor sensation since its debut last month. In addition to its iPod and music playing capability, the iPhone has one-button and rather than utilizing a stylus, it features finger pointing navigation technology. The iPhone, which also has Wi-Fi capability, is scheduled to hit the market in June.

Rather than succumb to a popularity contest, however, Neonode is taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the “My smartphone is cooler than your smartphone,” debate.

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Feb

4

Of all the things I knew the iPhone was gonna do…
I had no idea of some of it’s features.

Late Night With Conan O’Brien had a funny video talking about all the uses of the much-hyped Apple iPhone and how it can do everything including open a bottle, change TV channels, blow dry your hair, grate cheese, and even function as a prophylactic.

Feb

4

wackyiphones.jpgIt would seem that some people just can’t wait to get their fingers on an iPhone (I’m looking at you, Roger). If you are a little crafty you can make yourself a placeholder iPhone to get you over the hump. Try this iPhone cake, which I am sure is much more delicious than Apple’s iPhone (and I have it on good authority that the cake does not require a 2 year Cingular contract).

If you aren’t a baker, why not whip up a LEGO iPhone? You know you want to (well, I know I want to and I assume we have similar interests).

[LEGO iPhone via brilliantdays]

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