Many wireless companies will unlock cell phones after the initial one- or two-year contract has been fulfilled. But AT&T says the iPhone is “different” and won’t be unlocked at the end of the contract:
AT&T will unlock phones for customers once they have fulfilled their contracts, which typically run one to two years. One big exception: Apple’s iPhone, distributed exclusively in the USA by AT&T. “That’s different,” says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.
The “leaked” pics of a new iMac making the rounds are clearly a Photoshop fake made from images of Apple’s Cinema Displays taken from Apple’s website. See below.
The color also screams fake.
A new iMac is rumored to be introduced by Steve Jobs at a special event at Apple HQ on Tuesday — and everyone is hoping for a redesign. But Apple’s consumer machines do not come with metallic finishes. That’s reserved for the “pro” level machines. If the iMac has a new case, it will be made of plastic and will come in black, white or maybe other fruity colors.
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Fake Steve has been outed by (of all publications) the New York Times, and turns out he’s Dan Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes. Here’s the story: A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Is an Editor
“Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. “I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it.”
Ironically, Lyons was the author of a Forbes hit piece on blogs last year, called Attack of the Blogs. It begins: “Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.”
Of course, libel, lies and invective is what makes Fake Steve fun, but a lot of it was aimed at his fellow journalists. It was pretty clear Fake Steve was a journalist or editor — given all the pops he made at fellow Silicon Valley scribblers. He called Gawker publisher Nick Denton a “macrocephalic sodomite” (Denton is gay and has a large head).
Now that he’s been outed, it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable for him running into his targets.
UPDATE: Fake Steve has just posted his won entry about the Times story. He’s glad he was busted by the Times and not Valleywag, which has been on the hunt for months. Fake Steve writes:
“One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag. I really, really enjoyed seeing those guys keep guessing wrong. For six months Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth put their big brains together and couldn’t come up with the answer. Guy from the Times did it in a week. So much for the trope about smarty-pants bloggers disrupting old media. Brilliant. My only regret is that we didn’t get a chance to see Bigglesworth take a few more swings and misses.”
According to The Register, a Microsoft employee who made this hilarious Zune parody ad (featuring his boss, Monkey Boy Steve Ballmer) was fired for his trouble.
Columnist John Dvorak at an Apple Store. Pic by Steve Rhodes.
Columnist John Dvorak, who is perhaps the most hated pundit by Mac users because of his constant (and quote deliberate) Mac bashing, is now a Mac user himself — and he likes it.
In his latest PC Magazine Column, Dvorak confesses that he has been using an iMac at work for a couple of months, and it’s “not half bad.” After heaping on more weak praise, he says he has no plans to buy a Mac for personal use at home, but he increasingly finds himslef recommending the Mac to friends and neighbors who ask him what to buy! He writes:
“I can see why the Mac is gaining market share, because the rationale for using one is simple. Do you want to deal with the agony of antivirus, firewall, antispyware, and other touchy software subsystems, many of which do not work well? Or do you want to boot Microsoft Word and write a document and be done with it?
As someone who does recommend gear to people, I have to think to myself, “Should I recommend something that will come back to haunt me, or recommend a Mac with its higher price but lower hassle factor?” The answer is simple. I hate the idea of having to do customer service for people who cannot keep their systems clean, and that’s most people.”
Apple’s Q3 was the company’s best ever. It raked in $5.41 billion in sales, posting a $818 million in profit. Gross margins — the amount of revenue that is profit — is up to a whopping 36 percent. This surely is the highest in the industry. By contrast, Dell reported Q2 2007 margins of just 4.3 percent, earning $605 million profit on revenues of $14.1 billion.
Apple also reported 10 million iPods sold — up 21 percent on the year before; and 1.76 million Macs, up 33 percent year-on-year.
Apple’s stock is rebounding on the news: it’s up 6 percent after taking a hammering yesterday on AT&T’s iPhone numbers.
Picture by Ed Dame.
Apple sold 270,000 iPhones on the opening weekend, according to Apple’s Q3 results.
See the data PDF here.
AT&T’s quarterly results said only 146,000 were activated in the first two days — so it looks like 124,000 people either waited a few days to activate their phones, or had trouble activating them, as was widely reported.
The Sitening blog claims to have unearthed the identity of Fake Steve Jobs — it’s veteran Mac columnist Andy Ihnatko — but the evidence is flimsy at best.
The “proof” is that FSJ’s computer has an IP address in Boston — and Ihnatko lives in Beantown. Ergo sum.
The Sitening blog obtained FSJ’s IP address by sending him a special URL in email. When FSJ visited the special URL, it revealed his IP address: 68.160.21.224, which comes from the Boston area.
But I’m skeptical. Andy’s a humorous writer, but the styles are different. And FSJ is obviously a reporter or editor with a Silicon Valley business publication — Forbes or Fortune, or such like — not a specialist Mac writer. The subject matter on FSJ’s blog ranges too far from Apple — he’s obsessed with Sun and Google as he is with Steve Jobs.
When Wired News first contacted FSJ earlier this year to set up a sponsorship deal, my colleague Kevin Poulsen, the ace hacker, used the headers of FSJ’s emails to track him to a hotel in New York, then a public park or cafe in New York (he was probably using free WiFi), and finally suburban Boston.
We assumed Fake Steve was traveling that day. Maybe he took a business trip to New York to his home in Boston. But who knows? Maybe he works in Boston, or that’s where his girlfriend lives?
The only one who knows FSJ’s identity for sure is my boss, Wired News EIC Evan Hansen, who’s keeping mum.
This is great news. I couldn’t be more delighted that BBC journalist Alan Johnston’s kidnapping didn’t end tragically. He’d been detained for 16 weeks and his release was negotiated by Hamas, now in control of Gaza.
He told the BBC: “It is the most fantastic thing to be free.”
The paparazzi caught Ms. Lohan leaving Planet Blue at the Country Mart in Malibu on Saturday clutching an iPhone in her hand, according to crazyGossip. More crazy Lohan shopping pics at the site.
I bet the iPhone’s glass top is great for chopping and snorting.
According to Erica Sadun at TUAW, the iPhone can be used with an old SIM card. She activated her phone, then popped out the SIM card and put in an old one. The iPhone continued to function as an iPod, plus web and email via Wi-Fi.
However, I’m pretty sure this won’t work with an unactivated iPhone — and in the comments someone noted that it’ll likely get disabled when iTunes checks for a software update.
Todd Ficharker, who describes himself as the “clumsiest person in the world” smashed the screen of his iPhone less than 24 hours after he bought it. He explains:
“I tried answering a call while it was plugged in and the short cord pulled it out of my hand and hit the corner of a table on the way down. 100% my fault.”
But there’s a silver lining! Unbelievably, Apple replaced it for free.
“They gave me a brand new phone for free. Talk about fantastic customer care. I am in love 4-eva with Apple.”
Via MacFeber
Pic by Leander Kahney: Apple’s San Francisco store on iPhone opening night.
Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey thinks Apple sold 700,000 iPhones on its opening weekend, more than half again than the 500,000 estimated by his esteemed colleague Gene Munster.
Bloomberg reports that Bailey initially pegged 350,000 iPhone sales, and Munster estimated 200,000.
Said Munster: “In 2009, we estimate a third of Apple’s sales will be from iPhone. This is a huge product.”
Dinner Conversation: June 28th, 2007
Click on the pic to read the captions.
Apple sold half a million iPhones in its opening weekend, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates.
Munster was impressed with the raw speed at which the iPhones were sold. Some stores had 50 cashiers selling 1,000 iPhones an hour, he said. Most were the 8-Gbyte model.
It looks like the iPhone is beginning to sell out. Almost every store in California is out, except for one San Francisco store. However, there are iPhones available in New York and other states.
But I bet they’ll be sold out by the weekend. EBay sellers disappointed that the handsets aren’t being snapped up need only wait a week or two and they’ll be scarce again. (iPhone Not Quite The Cash Cow eBay Sellers Were Hoping: by Corey Spring, Newsvine)
The above YouTube video shows someone typing quite fast on the iPhone. He or she writes:
“People who can’t type fast on this phone are retarded.”
We performed an iPhone autopsy at Wired News on Friday night. Don’t worry, it’s on Conde Nast’s tab.
Breaking it open was pretty daunting. The iPhone is near impregnable. But we sank a few beers and soon the knife was out.
We learned a few valuable lessons about taking it apart — like don’t drink beer. It’s all detailed here.
The iPhone is gadget heaven. It really does restore your sense of childlike wonder. I’ve had a blast all weekend running my greasy finger over its glassy surface.
It’s a Crackberry for the masses. Finally, mobile email, messaging and web browsing is fun and easy — how did it take so long?
I’ve had a Treo and cell phone email for years, but never, ever used them — they’re a mess. Now I’m an iPhone text addict — a 41-year-old acting like a teenager.
I bought one on Friday and have been out around town with my kids all weekend. The little angels monopolized it, surfing the web and watching YouTube. They figured it out immediately. I showed them one thing — how to use your fingers to shrink and zoom — that was it. I took some calls, surfed the web and sent some email.
I found it’s not all roses — there’s serious issues using it for work — but in general, we’re true believers.
The Good and The Bad after the jump. Plus camera phone samples.
I’m watching the iPhone lines get longer and longer while I’m shackled to my desk all day. I’ll be lucky if I get out of here late afternoon. I’ll probably head to a mall in South San Francisco in the vain hope it’ll be less of a zoo than downtown San Francisco.
Who else is stuck at work?
Christopher Null has created a special drink to loosen your wallet before buying an iPhone.
Any doubts about laying out thousands for the iPhone will magically melt away after three stiff Appletinis.
2 oz. Vodka
1/2 oz. Apple Pucker Schnapps
1/2 oz. Goldschlager
1/4 oz. Cointreau (or Triple Sec)
Photo of Greg Packer, first in line at Apple’s 5th Ave. store, from Wikipedia.
People think Apple users are all black-turtleneck wearing graphic artists who wear poncy designer glasses, but look at the mixed bunch lining up in NYC for an iPhone.
There’s a Air Force vet, a hair stylist, and a guard at the UN, according to a list drawn up by one of the waiters:
1. Greg Packer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Packer)
2. David Clayman (Future Inforte – CHICAGO SAP Consultant)
3. Jessica Rodriguez (Whipsmart woman with wicked soundbites
4. Rebecca Boorsma (Hair stylist)
5. Anthony Cardozo (Air Force Vet, Arabic Speaker, Purple Heart)
6. Kai Pauli (Security Guard at UN, German Speaker)
7. Benjamin Sherman (Unknown)
8. Vincent Nguyen (Entrepreneur, myitablet.com)
9. Damian Charles (High school student)
10. Mark Conn (Watch him wink!)
At Apple’s town hall meeting today, an employees asked Steve Jobs why the iPhone is being released at 6PM on Friday?
Jobs said Apple didn’t want people to have to take off from work, so they scheduled the launch after hours.
More on the all-staff meeting at Ars Technica.
Unconfirmed rumor — I’m getting word that all Apple employees are getting an iPhone from father Steve at the company gathering now under way.
Update — employees are getting them at the end of July.
Further Update: The free iPhone is only for full-time employees that have worked there for a year or more — and it’s the 8-Gigger.
Steve Jobs is so stoked about the iPhone launch on Friday, he’s giving a rare company-wide pep talk at Apple HQ on Thursday. As far as I know, he’s not held one of these since the early days of returning to the company in 1997.
From: Steve Jobs
Date: June 27, 2007 1:47:55 PM PDT
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Town Hall Meeting TomorrowTeam,
We’re launching the most revolutionary and exciting product in Apple’s history this Friday. And given Apple’s legacy of breakthrough products, that’s saying a lot.
I’d like to get together and share my thoughts about this amazing moment for our company. So please join me for a company-wide communications meeting tomorrow, Thursday, at 11:00AM in Town Hall.
This meeting will also be broadcast to other Apple campus locations. Please check XXXXXX for details.
See you there,
Steve
Photo: David Phillips/Columbia News Service. “Greg Packer stood in line for eight hours before meeting Brandy, the pop singer.”
There’s more fascinating detail on Greg Packer at Wikipedia:
“Greg Packer (born December 18, 1963), an American highway maintenance worker from Huntington, New York, has been quoted in more than 100 articles and television broadcasts as a member of the public (that is, a person on the street rather than a newsmaker or expert).
Packer’s status as a frequent interviewee came about due to his hobby of attending public appearances of celebrities and other media events and being first in line on such occasions. He has consequently had the opportunity to meet people including Mariah Carey, Garth Brooks, Dennis Rodman, and Ringo Starr, as well as at least three presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.”
Even columnist Ann Coulter has sussed him out. After Packer was widely quoted in a NYT piece about fans of Hilary Clinton, Coulter went investigating. She found:
It was easy for the Times to spell Packer’s name right because he is apparently the entire media’s designated “man on the street” for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans Day Parade. He was quoted at not one — but two — New Year’s Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new “Star Wars” movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games — even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin’s house in the Hamptons and the pope’s visit to Giants stadium.
And as a result of the column, Packer got his own profile in the Times: “Long Island Everyman Masters the Sound Bite.”
