Manhattan iPhone Watch: T minus 4 days
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I'm guessing that if people showed up this early, desperate to be the first people in the States to get their hands on the iPhone, they'd be shooed away. From Crave, CNET's gadgets blog.
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Apple Inc.  is expected  to show a 35 percent surge in quarterly profit this week, but  the focus will be on just two days: the last 48 hours of June  when its highly anticipated iPhone went on sale.
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Apple&#39;s iPhone has many consumer-pleasing features, but battery replacement is not going to be one of them. A consumer advocacy group has complained about Apple&#39;s $86, three-day program for putting in a new iBattery.
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The last few days have seen an amazing amount of security chatter concerning the iPhone considering that the thing just launched. Jon Espenschied would like to hear a little less hysteria and a little more clarity about the difference between standards and "what's usual."
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The 2008 Macworld Stevenote is less than 24-hours away. We'll be live-blogging every word that escapes from Steve Jobs' mouth, so bookmark this page now. Festivities begin at 9 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Can&#39;t wait until the end of the month to buy an iPhone?
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Before heading over to the Web 2.0 conference at the Palace Hotel in SF this morning, I couldn't resist doing some more digging into alternate user interfaces for news reading based on the NY Times keywords.  One thing I learned the hard way is that when you access the Times site from a script (not through a browser) if you try to read an article that's too old (not sure what the time limit is) it tries to redirect you to a login page (which is pretty pointless considering that there's no human being around to log in). I hit this problem yesterday, and then hit it again this morning, but couldn't remember what the problem was. So by writing it up this time I hope to remember.  No doubt some debunked hack journalist posing as a tech industry mogul will slander me for this, but the asshat asshole has no idea how blogging works, and who the fuck cares what he thinks anyway. "cheesecake"
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Blog: Meet the two guys who have showed up nearly four days in advance to be the first to get Apple's hot new handset.
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By Barbara Grady  MATT MORGAN of Alameda said he plans to borrow an iPhone from a friend to check it out before he plunks down $500 for his own.
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Tycho: But if you haven't seen it yet, you should - Street View in Google Maps. Holy F-ing S.(CW)TB
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(InfoWorld) - Apple began selling its iPhone Friday, ending six months of waiting by consumers and rival smartphone vendors. Store managers at AT&T retail shops and Apple's own stores are throwing open their doors at 6 p.m. in each U.S. time zone, having closed the shops several hours earlier in an attempt to control expected crowds. At the Apple store in the SoHo section of New York, there was a carnival atmosphere throughout the afternoon, which built to a climax with a crowd of hundreds counting down from five, right before 6 p.m. In the last hour before doors opened, a man was even heard selling spots close to the front of the line to those who were closest to the back. Amid whoops and hollers, movie director Spike Lee was the first to walk into the store, saying he was there for charity. A Brooklyn, New York-based charity called Keep a Child Alive grabbed first place in line earlier in the week, using its position to publicize its plans to auction an iPhone on eBay and use the money for charity. "They asked me to be a part of it," Lee said. He noted that the charity did the "hard part" waiting in line all week in front of the store and said he felt lucky to be part of the effort. Actress Whoopi Goldberg was second in line. When asked what she was doing there, she commented on the media crowding around her, saying "I don't really know at this point." When asked whether she was going to buy a phone, she said yes. About 10 minutes before the doors opened, an Apple employee came out with instructions and tips for the crowd. He said people could buy up to two phones each and encouraged people to buy iPhones before shopping for accessories. By morning, the line outside the SoHo store stretched for three blocks. Some enthusiasts were napping in folding chairs while others talked on the phone or to each other as they waited. Temperatures had dipped nearly 20 degrees Fahrenheit since Tuesday, and though the skies threatened rain, the weather provided a more comfortable atmosphere for iPhone enthusiasts than the summer heat that assaulted them earlier in the week. Bill Mac and Jonathan Bricklin had another way to pass the time -- they had a small ping-pong table set up as a way to promote their social networking site, The Naked PingPong Club, which encourages people to meet by playing ping-pong. Mac said he was waiting for the iPhone because it would allow the two to run their business entirely from a phone without needing a PC. "In LA [the mobile office] is about your car, in New York it's about your phone," he said. Later, Mac took a break from line to visit a local cafÃ©, Aroma, where he was overheard on his current phone telling someone about the two-iPhone limit. Meanwhile, at an AT&T store in downtown Boston, Craig Henry took a sick day from work to gain the second place in a line of 65 people. "I have a Motorola Q and a BlackBerry, but this lets me get rid of the phones and the iPod," Henry said. "I'll sell it (the iPod) to you if you want." Apple has prepared for what it calls "iDay" with the company's customary secrecy, sharing few details about the phone's internal workings or how many phones it has manufactured for the launch. The company has said it wants to sell 10 million units worldwide by 2008, but CEO Steve Jobs warned on Friday that he may not have made enough iPhones to meet demand for the launch. In fact, that goal is modest by Apple's own standards; the company sold more than 10 million iPods during the first quarter of 2007 alone. Other factors that could lead to slow sales are consumer wariness about the iPhone's battery life, the utility of its virtual keyboard, and its high price. The phone comes in a 4GB model for $499 or 8GB model for $599 and requires a two-year AT&T service plan ranging from $60 per month to $100 per month. However, Apple says the iPhone will win converts with its touchscreen interface and combined functionality of a mobile phone, iPod music player, and mobile Internet browser. The company says those features will differentiate the iPhone from other smartphones like the Motorola Q, Palm Treo, Research in Motion BlackBerry, Samsung BlackJack, Sony-Ericsson W900-series, Nokia N-series, and LG Electronics Prada. To handle the expected rush for iPhones, Apple has extended the hours in its 164 U.S. retail stores until midnight. But the majority of customers will buy the phone at one of the 1,800 AT&T retail shops, also scheduled to push their usual 8 p.m. closing time back to 10 p.m.
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(InfoWorld) - New Yorkers have a reputation for being a hearty lot, and those who want to be among the first to buy an iPhone Friday seem to be made of a particularly tough constitution. Despite temperatures that soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit Tuesday, several were already lined up outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The leader of the pack was Greg Packer, a 43-year-old retired highway maintenance worker from Huntington, New York, on Long Island. Packer lugged his supplies, which included water and clothes, and set up a camping chair on the street outside the store on Fifth Avenue at 5 a.m. EDT Monday morning so thatÂ he could be the first in line for Apple's latest gadget. Though he's committed himself to spending nearly five days living on the street for the iPhone, Packer said he's not "computer literate" and doesn't own an iPod. "I'm not really a technology person, but I'm doing the best I can to keep up with technology," he said. However, two of his favorite things are music and the phone, so Packer -- who said he has camped out early for concert tickets and sporting events in the past -- wanted to be first in line to get the product that combines the two and provides Internet access at his fingertips. "I want to see what it's like," he said. "I want to give my review of it." Packer isn't the only one consumed with iPhone fever. At 2 p.m. Tuesday, there were three people with chairs in line behind him, and a fifth person said he was joining the queue while Packer was being interviewed. (That move seemed unlikely, however, since the man was dressed in casual business attire and had no supplies or other equipment that one might have for a four-day camping excursion on a New York City street.) Jessica Rodriguez, a Bronx resident on summer break from New York's Boricua College, said when she stopped by the Apple Store on Monday, she had no intention of camping out. But after talking with Packer and the others lined up outside the store, "it motivated me to want to come." The iPhone release is a "groundbreaking moment for cell phones," said Rodriguez, who wants to be a part of "something that's going to go down in history." The Bronx resident hopes she can buy at least one iPhone for her sister, who has a birthday coming up, but would like to buy two so that she can have one. The staff of the Apple Store is being "secretive" about how many phones customers will be able to purchase when they go on sale, she said. Apple store representatives asked Tuesday how many iPhones users would be permitted to buy Friday had different answers. One said there will be a limit, but the store had not been informed of how many could be sold to each user, while another said she "hadn't heard anything" about a limit on the number of iPhones users could buy. Rodriguez seemed unfazed by the 90-degree-plus temperature on Tuesday, though she had just arrived that morning and had not yet spent a full day and night on the street. "If you go to the beach, it's this hot," she said. The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue is open 24 hours, and both Packer and Rodriguez said they are taking breaks and using the store's restroom when needed. They're also getting help on their mission from friendly New Yorkers, who are bringing them food, water, and other items they might need for their long wait. Mia Bleyman, who works in the same building as the Apple Store, stopped by Tuesday and presented Packer with a mini electric fan to help keep him cool. She works for the Estee Lauder cosmetic company and said she can see the iPhone queue from her window. "Everyone's so excited," said Bleyman, who had also brought Packer Doritos, chicken soup, and other food and beverages since he'd set up camp. Bleyman acknowledged that she thinks it's "a little bit" crazy to be lining up for days in the summer swelter just for a new gadget. But in defense of Packer and the others she said, "I don't think he thought it would be this hot." The iPhone goes on sale at 6 p.m. local time across the United States Friday. Like other Apple stores, the New York stores on Fifth Avenue and on Prince Street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood will close at 2 p.m. and reopen at 6 p.m. for iPhone sales.
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Among the hundreds waiting in line yesterday to buy an iPhone were Computerworld's Michael DeAgonia and Seth Weintraub. It's been less than a day, but they're sold: It's worth the high price and offers a peak into the future.
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Apple said Monday that the estimated battery life of the iPhone will be about two hours longer than initially anticipated, along with its plastic face being upgraded to optical-quality glass.
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Plus: Qualcomm results show strong demand...eBay warns of weaker 2008 results...Motorola profit shrinks, phone forecast dims...Apple posts good Q1, despite slow iPod sales.
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âThe phone is so sleek and thin,â reports David Pogue (New York Times) in his review of iPhone, that âit makes Treos and Blackberrys look obese.â And the software transcends. âItâs fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate.â If you need âto answer a call, you can tap Answer on the screen, or pinch the microscopic microphone bulge on the white earbud cord. Either way, music or video playback pauses until you hang up.â As for email, itâs âfantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.â And âthe Web browser,â he points out, âis the real dazzler.â No âstripped down, claustrophobic My First Cellphone Browser; you get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip â much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.â In short, Pogue calls the iPhone, âthe most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years.â
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Friday is the big day -- the iPhone cometh. Our interest in the device is primarily to see how people will use it in ways Apple never intended. Tell us what you think will be hacked on the iPhone.