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Hands-on: the iPhone (video)
Sneaking into the Apple store for the iPhone launch is one of the benefits of working as a tech journalist. Inside we got plenty of time to play around with the hottest device in today's technology scene.
Below you can watch a video demo of a few of the device's features.
June 30, 2007 at 05:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
San Francisco hails the iPhone (video)
Months of waiting came to a climax tonight as Apple started selling its iPhone in stores across the US.
As it goes with highly anticipated events, the actual launch was somewhat of an anti-climax. Hundreds of people waited for hours, some of them days, and every one of them received an iPhone. But all they really did was walk in the store and hand over Apple a bundle of cash (activation will be handled over the internet, so buyers couldn't use the phone just yet.
You don't have to feel bad for the people at the front of the line, such as our Jerry Taylor who waited for 33 hours and was the first person to get into the store. Most of them really enjoyed the experience and made new friends.
June 30, 2007 at 04:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iDay -4hrs: SF line going around the block
The line outside the San Francisco Apple store currently holds about 150 people and is stretching two blocks. They are all eagerly waiting for the iPhone to go on sale.
Jerry Taylor, who we interviewed yesterday, is still at the front, but he is now accompanied by a rich group of people including some clowns playing mini golf, an Adobe engineering manager called Arno Gourdol who's donning a "Steve Jobs for President" T-Shirt, and your share or profiteers who refused to talk to us.
Arno Gourdol is pitching in on the presidential debate
At the front of the lines, the Peep Show Mini Golf folks set up a miniature golf course. "We're putting the circus back in media circus," they proclaimed.
Chilling out on a San Francisco side walk (but why isn't that a Mac?)
Rich, but we'll call him grumpy guy, has an iPhone for sale. Wouldn't say much, which tends to be problematic if you're trying to sell something.
The line at AT&T Wireless store that we visited this morning also continues to grow. But it's still far shorter than the one at the Apple store. Perhaps because AT&T stores limit iPhone sales to one per customer, while the Apple store will let you buy two.
Photos by vnunet.com's Shaun Nichols
June 29, 2007 at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
iDay -4.75hrs: New York's iPhone line (video)
The East Cost still close to 5 hours to go before the iPhone starts selling, New York is only 2 more hours away, and Greg Packer is set to become the first person to get one.
Raven Zachary did a video interview. Interestingly enough, Zachary happens to be an analyst with the 451 Group, where he covers open source technology. He is actually one of my favourite analysts covering that beat.
June 29, 2007 at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iDay minus 8 hours: lines everywhere
iPhone lines were mostly limited to the Apple stores yesterday in San Francisco, but on Friday morning (8 hours before the launch of the iPhone) you were hard pressed to find a single AT&T Wireless store that didn't have a line of people camping outside.
The lines furthermore are highly visible, as AT&T Wireless stores are plastered throughout the city. And each and every one had a group of about five iPhone hopefuls outside.
You can dismiss the people camping outside the Mac stores for several days as Mac zealots or attention seekers, but the lines outside each of these AT&T stores is underscoring the instant cult status of this gadget.
Line outside the AT&T store on Market @ 3rd street in San Francisco
June 29, 2007 at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Somebody wants an iPhone
Comedy Central's Steven Colbert didn't get a iPhone for review. But nobody gets away with upsetting Colbert that easily.
The imaginary iPhone that he reviewed received zero stars. That will teach Apple for messing with the wrong people.
June 29, 2007 at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Red Hat talking to Microsoft, oh my
Blogs and new sites are abuzz about some comments that Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik made yesterday during its earnings conference call: the company has been talking to Microsoft.
The only news in there was that the firm had been approached by Microsoft before the software giant partners with Novell. But neither company has been very secretive about thee fact that they are in talks.
As far as these talks go, there doesn't seem to be much space for maneuvering. Red Hat has always said that it refuses to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property (read: patents), and is insisting that any interoperability is done through open standards.
Neither party seems to be getting any closer to a compromise, but you never know what might be worked out at the bargaining table.
Szulik still singing the same old gospel
June 29, 2007 at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Big Wait: the San Francisco Mac store @ iDay - 30hr
It took some time, but San Francisco as of this morning finally has its own iPhone line outside the Apple store.
Jerry Taylor got to the store around 9am, armed with a lazy chair and his own carpet. Where other iPhone lines are filled with line holders out to make a quick buck, Taylor claims he wants the iPhone itself.
Except... everybody has his price. Taylor's is around $500.
Below you can watch a video interview with Taylor.
June 28, 2007 at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iPhone on the EDGE of living up to the hype
The iPhone is turning out the first highly hyped consumer launch of the millennium that actually lives up to the hype.
With the iPhone launch only 2 days and 3 hours away, Apple provided review models to a few A-list tech columnists such as The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret and David Pogue from the New York Times.
The device seems all that Apple said it would be. That alone is quite a feat. In the past years, no a single consumer electronics provider was able to create a large buzz without disappointing when their product launched. Sony's PS3 tanked, Wii never really built up much up much fervour prior to the launch, and Microsoft failed with pretty much all of their products, most notably the Zune, Windows Vista and the UMPC that it developed together with Intel.
The reviewers however all seemed to agree that the iPhone's wireless radio is drastically underpowered. Being equipped with an Edge radio rather than 3G technology, browsing the web will proof a challenge to your patience.
Secondly, the on-screen keyboard will take some getting used to.
But for every minus, there are numerous plusses, most notably the phone's intuitive user interface and operation.
June 27, 2007 at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Why would the music industry kill internet radio?
Tuesday marked a day of silence for web radio broadcasters as they oppose a 300 to 1,200 per cent license fee hike from the US Copyright Royalty Board.
Although the fees are set by a government body, they would only get the idea from a strong lobby group such as the RIAA. As the dinosaurs from the record labels attempt to make the online world adjust to its 20th century thinking, it is charging online broadcasters a fee per station. But that doesn't work very well for broadcasters who allow users to create their own stations, such as Pandora.
To further demonstrate the industry's blind appetite for revenues, online broadcasters will be charged more than traditional radio broadcasters. It should a blind disregard of the economics: the fact that more people are still listening to traditional radio, and that those stations also are making more money than their online counterparts.
The recoding industry's lobby must be either clueless about the online music market or is knowingly sabotaging internet stations. Either way, this has monopoly power written all over it. Where is justice when you need it?
June 26, 2007 at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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