iphone-3g

Apple hits 10 million iPhone target

Owen Thomas · 10/06/08 06:40PM

The latest estimates show Apple has sold 10 million iPhones so far in 2008 — a goal CEO Steve Jobs expected the company to hit by the end of this year, when he launched the first-generation iPhone last summer. [Apple 2.0]

Disgruntled iPhone owner alleges conspiracy in lawsuit

Jackson West · 09/11/08 10:20AM

70-year old San Diegan William Gillis has added "civil conspiracy" to the list of allegations in a lawsuit against Apple and AT&T. More 3G devices on a local network means less data bandwidth and possibly disconnections, both problems which have plagued the latest version of the iPhone since launch. The conspiracy charge is on top of false advertising allegations he already filed — the conspiracy being that Apple and AT&T knew that the advertised performance would suffer if sales estimates for the devices were actually met or exceeded, hence the two companies oversold the device. [Wired]

10 million iPhones shipped by end of this month

Jackson West · 09/02/08 05:20PM

A group of Apple watchers have been compiling a spreadsheet listing product numbers of iPhones submitted by recent buyers. Presuming them to be sequential, they've come up with an estimate of at least 4,539,700 iPhone 3G handsets purchased. With 2.4 million suckers having shelled out as much as $599 for the firstgeneration model, and factories in China churning out over 800,000 units a week, his hot-tempered holiness Steve Jobs's prediction of 10 million units sold in 2008 could come true well before Thanksgiving. (Photo by George Panos) [Apple 2.0]

Misleading iPhone ad banned in the U.K.

Nicholas Carlson · 08/27/08 09:00AM

The iPhone 3G hasalready outsold the original iPhone. One reason for all the success? False advertising, says the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA has told Apple it can no longer air an ad claiming the iPhone accesses "all parts of the Internet," since the iPhone's Safari browser can't access Web sites that use Java or Flash. "Because the ad had not explained the limitations," reads the ruling, "viewers were likely to expect to be able to see all the content on a website normally accessible through a PC rather than just having the ability to reach the website." The naughty ad, below:

Donk In A Box

Alaska Miller · 08/21/08 06:40PM

What can you do when your expensive iPhone with the expensive monthly plan just doesn't work? Class action lawsuit! Class action lawsuit! And that's exactly what one Alabama woman did. Donk In A Box, today's featured commenter, calls the case as he sees it:

Class-action suit filed over iPhone 3G's failings

Nicholas Carlson · 08/21/08 10:20AM

An Alabama woman says Apple's become "unjustly enriched at the expense of Plaintiff and Class members" because her iPhone 3G doesn't get a good reception. She says where she lives supposedly gets good AT&T coverage and that her iPhone doesn't work as well as Apple said it would in its commercials. It's a common complaint. Check out the video comparing the speed of an iPhone in an Apple commercial versus real life embedded below . But we have to ask: instead of filing an expensive lawsuit, why doesn't the plaintiff just junk her iPhone and buy a Palm Centro or a Nokia N90? That seems easier and, you know, vastly less annoying to the rest of us.

Reviewer nearly kills self testing iPhone loaner, then loses it

Nicholas Carlson · 08/20/08 10:40AM

Credit InfoWorld's Tom Yager this: He's open with his failings. Perhaps too open. In his latest column "In memory of iPhone 3G," a review of Apple's mobile device, Yager writes, "Well, this is embarrassing but I might as well blurt it out: The iPhone 3G that Apple loaned to me was stolen." But Yager needn't fear Apple. They'll certainly let him test future devices after the warm review he gave this one. Instead, its the rest of us — or those of us that drive — that should fear Yager's testing method:

Four reasons Apple's iPhone 3G fails

Nicholas Carlson · 08/13/08 07:00PM

In agreeing to sell the iPhone, does Best Buy know what its getting itself into? Steve Jobs is issuing mea culpas about MobileMe, Apple's flaky email-and-synching service. But there are no Jobsian apologies over the iPhone 3G. Sure, sales are fine, $30 million changed hands through iTunes App Store in its first month, and Apple's market cap is now larger than Google's. But InternetNews.com's Andy Patrizio says it's obvious there's something wrong with the device itself.Specifically, the "3G" part of "iPhone 3G." Patrizio writes that "on disabling 3G, service improved immediately. There were no more dropped calls. Audio quality was fine. Battery life was much better." An analyst tells Patrizio a chip inside the phone is the problem: "We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain Infineon is the 3G supplier." Patrizio's three other problems with the iPhone:

As predicted, Apple now worth more than Google

Owen Thomas · 08/13/08 02:40PM

During today's trading, Apple hit a market capitalization of $159 billion; Google's worth hung at a mere $157 billion. In November, when we predicted Apple would soon be worth more than Google, thanks to the iPhone, we drew scathing remarks from the commenters. One called it "the dumbest thing you've ever written." But the iPhone is an even bigger hit than the most fervent Macheads might have predicted. And the Googlephone, as we noted back then, is still just a set of developer tools. (You might get to preorder an HTC Dream running Google's wireless operating system in September.) What we got wrong: Apple dropped its innovative revenue-sharing scheme in favor of the more straightforward — and highly profitable — business of selling cell phones with a subsidy from carriers. (Screenshot by Digital Daily)

Best Buy agrees to sell iPhone

Nicholas Carlson · 08/13/08 12:20PM

Electronics retailer Best Buy will begin selling Apple's iPhone 3G next month. Until now, only Apple Stores and AT&T outlets carried the phone. Like Apple Store customers, Best Buy shoppers must sign a two-year AT&T contract to leave the store with an iPhone. [WSJ]

10 "I Am Rich" ratings reveal how delightfully cynical online product reviewers can be

Nicholas Carlson · 08/06/08 03:00PM

Armin Heinrich's "I Am Rich" iPhone App, sadly no longer available for $999.99 in the iTunes App Store, was probably the most important software development of our time. Wonderfully, some 502 iTunes App Store shoppers took the time to review it, giving it a rating of two stars out of a possible five. Our 10 favorite reviews — sometimes marked by calm, playing-along cynicism, sometimes by wide-eyed fury — are below:

Behold the $999.99 do-nothing iPhone App; buy it because you can

Nicholas Carlson · 08/06/08 11:00AM

Maybe you haven't heard about the $999.99 "I Am Rich" iPhone App by Armin Heinrich yet. We'll catch you up, poor thing. Purchase this app for your iPhone 3G from the iTunes App Store now and it will do two things: display a glowing red gem for an icon and tell everyone who handles your iPhone 3G that you have more money then there are orca skin purses to spend it on. It's a bargain compared to a Patek Philippe watch which does the same thing.

iPhone day 13: Dude, where's my mail?

Paul Boutin · 07/23/08 11:00AM

Apple's .Mac email — relaunched as MobileMe in conjunction with the iPhone 3G two Fridays ago — is still flying as crooked as Drinky Crow on payday. MacRumors has aggregated customer gripes. Apple's hard-to-swallow response: Only 1 percent of customers are having problems after Apple's server migration. MobileMe mail works for stationary old me, but see these screenshots from readers:

iPhone day 7: Store getting remodeled, but lines still long

Paul Boutin · 07/17/08 11:40AM

A tipster snapped this late-night shot of Apple's Union Square store being overhauled. You — yes, you waiting in line with your old iPhone — send us photos of the results when the store opens at 10, willya? Separately, we've been told that Apple Store employees at the San Francisco flagship cut off would-be buyers who arrived after 5:30 p.m. Shoppers timed the morning line at 2.5 hours yesterday. That's even more time than I spend watching my BlackBerry reboot.

Apple's weekend profits for the iPhone 3G: $330 million

Nicholas Carlson · 07/17/08 11:00AM

Apple profited some $330 million from 3G iPhone sales over its first weekend, Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt estimates that . His back-of-the-envelope formula factored in iSuppli's estimate of the manufacturing costs of each iPhone 3G, Apple's numbers on how many iPhones it sold over the weekend, analyst estimates on how much AT&T and other carriers subsidize each phone, and what a survey says about the sales split between the iPhone's $199 and $299 iPhones models. All that, a little bit slower now, in Elmer-DeWitt's bullet points below.