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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

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Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Tougher Than an 18-Wheeler’s Treads

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Mike Beauchamp’s iPhone has been through hell and back – and it’s still working. He tells the story in graphic detail at Flickr.

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!

Glorious. Apple should hire him.

Via Daring Fireball

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

7 comments

    I heard that Apple’s PR actually got ahold of him to possibly do an ad. Seams like a strange angle for Apple to take though, when I think of the iPhone I don’t think “Hey! I’ve got to get that phone; it is so DURABLE!”

    Great story, though. Reminds me of all those people who were worried that just dropping it would shatter the device.

    Yeah.
    My wife’s phone shattered after less than a 3 foot drop. After hearing how bulletproof it was, I was quite disappointed in that performance, and I was disappointed that Apple wouldn’t stand behind it.

    I wonder why Apple didn’t ask my wife to do a commercial.

    Why exactly should Apple “hire him?”

    I’m tempted to swear for you being so… ridiculous.

    [...] the guy who dropped his iPhone on an interstate where it was subsequently run over by a semi-truck should be hired by Apple. Uh, [...]

    My last patient was a bull rider who fell off his bull and then got stepped on by said bull, squishing his liver. While we were cutting his clothes off in the trauma bay, his iPhone slipped out of his pocket.

    Who exactly goes bull riding with their iPhone?

    Um, Andrew…why go bull riding at all is more the question that comes to my mind.
    But the bull made a good choice of where to put his “foot” :)

    to really make your ipod or iphone “bulletproof” you should check out http://www.vibevault.com.

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