"BlackBerry is the only way to go ... the rest are for kids," says one of the 400 comments to Web Worker Daily's thorough comparison of iPhone 3G's pros and cons versus a BlackBerry for use on the job. iPhone crazies are everywhere, so in response I've summarized Web Worker's pro-BlackBerry argument for those of us who pay the mortgage with a road-battered 8703e.
A TV reporter in LA went out to cover the wacky goings-on at the line of people waiting to buy a new iPhone 3G. He approached a guy in line with much goofiness; the guy in line responded by (accurately) calling the reporter a "Jackass" on live TV. It's truly a landmark moment in the history of gadget nerds asserting themselves against media mockery. Click to watch the verbal smackdown—complete with a whole crowd of Apple fans simultaneously crying, "Ooooooooo!!" [via BoingBoing]
Phil Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide product marketing, attended this morning's iPhone 3G launch in person at the company's Boston flagship store on Boylston Street. Former Valleywag reporter Jordan Golson, reporting for the Industry Standard, told us Schiller was all cheer and cooperation. "It's the first day we've been doing this," Schilller said. "We'll get better at it as the day goes on." Schiller's eagerness to talk didn't stop a blue-shirt store staffer from ejecting Golson with a great canned speech: "The press folks who have been inside for a long while need to leave so we can let more people in." Sounds fair, until you see Golson's photos of the wide-open spaces around Schiller and his son, plus the obligatory First Guy in Line being interviewed on video.
NEW YORK — Apple's iTunes store, required for activating the new iPhone 3G is failing, causing massive chaos from coast to coast. Even Apple employees are — when they don't realize a reporter is in earshot — acknowledging this. "I can't believe there's just so much stuff going wrong," says one employee at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store as he takes his lunch break sitting next to me. "It's not very Apple-like. It's shitty. It just shouldn't happen." His friend agrees: "I called my dad and his phone still doesn't work."
NEW YORK — Apple Store employees are a little tense today. They got nine hours of training preparing for today's iPhone 3G launch. Then there was all the press and hoopla when the day finally began. (I overheard two of them complaining about it: "I felt like I was going to vomit," one said. The other: "I felt like was as going to vomit too!") Then there was the crowd control. Then the iTunes Store, required to activate phones and thereby complete sales, went down. I snuck a hidden camera into the Fifth Avenue Apple Store and surveyed the chaos. Roll the clip. Meanwhile, here's a reader's account of an experience at an Apple Store in Walnut Creek, California:
NEW YORK — To get to the front of the line for the 3G iPhone here at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store takes about two hours of waiting from back to front. All for a device that probably won't work until tomorrow, thanks to a crash of Apple's activation system. It's much quicker — about two minutes — to just walk from the front to the back. Play the clip to ogle the desperate iPhone-seeking horde.
NEW YORK — I'm sitting outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store here in New York, writing up a post about the long line for the iPhone, when a pretty girl wearing aviator sunglasses and a white blouse sits next to the guy sitting next to me. She says to her friend: "So I've got a date with Dan." "Who?" the guy asks. "The guy who was first in line — the guy who bought the first iPhone today. He's doing the documentary thing, his name is Dan."
As Apple started to ring up sales of its new iPhone 3G, the scene at the flagship Apple Store in San Francisco was much quieter than last year. By 8 p.m. last night only 12 people were in line, and by 4 a.m. only 40. By 7:45 a.m. this morning, the line had grown past 325, nearly to the length it was at last year's launch, with Apple Store employees dispensing coffee and water to the waiting crowd. One man, who had taken the 20th spot in line, was trying to sell it (unsuccessfully) for $100. How did Robert Scoble get into the first 20 allowed into the store? He had his friend wait 36 hours in line, sleeping in a tent. (At San Francisco's minimum wage, you and your friends owe the guy $351, Scoble.) How was the turnout in Palo Alto? Lame. New York? Lame. Vancouver? Lame. Meanwhile, the news about the coincidental Apple TV update went by nearly unnoticed, and Apple bungled the release of MobileMe. So while there was a crowd, even here in the heart of Apple country, the pictures after the jump show the religious fervor is considerably less intense than before.
Everywhere you look, a new iPhone price hike turns up. At $199, the phones themselves may be cheaper — but Apple and AT&T, the phone's exclusive carrier in the U.S., are charging users by other means. The iPhone data plan by itself is going up $10 to $30/mo. In a GigaOm interview, AT&T wireless chief Ralph de la Vega reveals that the 200 text messages previously included will cost iPhone users an extra $5/mo. ($20/mo. for unlimited messages, which seem practically obligatory.) And then there's Apple's MobileMe subscription, without which the iPhone's new synching features won't work, at $99 a year, or just over $8 a month. Add it up, and iPhone users will be paying about $43 a month, or $1,038 over the two-year course of the AT&T contract they signed up for — all to get an iPhone at $199.
Forbes has exactly two tones: Sarcastically skeptical, if editors thinks its readers don't own a stock, and breathlessly promotional, if they think they do. "The iPhone: Apple's Magic Wand" is an example of the latter. Its writers hail the "touch-sensitive wonder phone" and say "the broad outlines of Steve Jobs' grand strategy for wireless domination are coming into focus." At least when slavering gadget blogs call it the "Jesusphone," there's a hint that they might be tongue in cheek. The Forbes scribes give no such hint.
Chinese electronics manufacturer Foxconn will manufacture and ship the first batch of new, faster 3G-network enabled iPhones by June, according to reports from Taipei, Taiwan. 3 million should ship that month, and an estimated 25 million over the life of the product. Foxconn is the sole manufacturer of the current generation of iPhones. But it has also been known to break Chinese labor laws — not that such practices would stop your typical antiwar environmentalist here in the Bay Area from upgrading. After all, that Yes, We Can video will download so much faster from YouTube now! (Photo by AP/Jason DeCrow)
