The free iPhone 4 bumper was a quick fix to “Antennagate.” But now that Apple is giving up on the program, what does that mean for iPhone users in the near future?
If you go back to July 16th, 2010, when Steve Jobs both praised the iPhone 4 and simultaneously admitted that it had a design flaw with its antenna, you’ll see a moddled and confusing public relations pattern with Apple and its “problem child” iPhone. From the beginning, Apple has struggled to control the message surrounding the newest iteration of its groundbreaking smartphone: as soon as the iPhone 4 prototype got out into the open, the PR and marketing arm of the world’s most ingenious technology company has had to play catch-up with the blistering criticism of the tech media ever since.
Inasmuch as the free iPhone 4 bumper programme was seen as a crude workaround unworthy of such a high performance piece of technology like the iPhone, it was indeed an “ugly but efficient” solution to the problem. However, now that Apple is abandoning its iPhone 4 case programme — after only 75 days in operation — what can be deduced from this new chapter in the iPhone 4 saga?
Continue reading ‘Apple’s Discontinuation of Free iPhone 4 Case Raises Questions, Rumors’
Emperical evidence suggests that the new, hyped Apple rechargeable batteries are actually just the Sanyo Eneloop brand in disguise.
One of the best kept secrets in the world of business today is branding. Companies can buy anything they want, stick their logo on it, and sell it as their own. It happens all the time. As consumers, it is sometimes quite obvious when a product is being branded by the retailer who sells it. Other times, however, it can take you by surprise.
Batteries — and particularly rechargeable batteries — are one of these products.
Continue reading ‘Why You Should Choose Sanyo Eneloop Over Apple’s Rechargeable Batteries’
Chart and poll courtest of MyType.com
A revealing new study indicates that the vast majority of people in the world either have no interest in the iPad or think it’s a piece of junk.
Since the release of the iPad in the Autumn (or Spring, depending on where you live), everyone in cyberspace has weighed in regarding the groundbreaking tablet. You could even say there’s as many opinions as there have been iPad sales worldwide. But until now, no quantifiable study has been done about iPad users, iPad critics, and the rest of the people who are somewhere in between.
Today, however, MyType.com’s scientific poll has spun off a wave of new reports on the kind of people who love the iPad as well as those who loathe it. While most people are debating the voracity of the poll’s juiciest and most controversial findings — that iPad users tend to be “Selfish Elites” while its critics are identified as “Independent Geeks” — most of the news coverage has missed an even more startling find: a vast majority of people just aren’t that impressed with the iPad.
Continue reading ‘The Facts Don’t Lie: Most People Hate the iPad’
New iPad case designs continue to pop up on the consumer electronics market each month. But how much influence does Apple’s own homegrown iPad case have on other companies’ designs?
Apple's own "homegrown" iPad Case
You’ve probably read all about Apple’s recent iPhone 4 snafu, and how Steve Jobs has generously given all disgruntled iPhone 4 buyers a free iPhone case. Nevermind that the free iPhone bumper probably costs about .4 cents to produce — I’m sure that a bit of silicone rubber will make the new iPhone’s shortcomings disappear in the minds of Apple disciples.
But there has already been enough written about the iPhone 4 to fill the blogosphere for years. Instead, I’m wondering what kind of ripple effect that Apple’s now-free, el cheapo iPhone 4 case will have on the rest of the new iPhone 4 cases due out for the remainder of 2010?
Continue reading ‘Apple’s Own iPad Case Sets Trend For Other iPad Case Designs’
There’s an iPad case for everyone on the market today, but is a designer iPad case that costs almost as much as the iPad itself really necessary?
Photo courtesy of dmarge.com
Louis Vuitton, the heralded, hallowed designer handbag maker, recently made news in both the fashion and tech world with the announcement of its new iPad case. Clad in its trademark Louis Vuitton leather print, the simple leather iPad sleeve will retail for around A$ 420 ($366 USD). While Louis Vuitton isn’t liberally shipping out review samples of its designer iPad case to tech reviewers such as myself, a quick look from an expert eye reveals a complete lack of any features, protective or otherwise.
Basically, the Vuitton iPad case is just a big slab of status symbol — a case for either a spendthrift who is desperate to wallpaper themselves with as many designer brands as possible in order to impress their family, friends, and passersby, or for the desperately wealthy class who would never even consider an iPad case that didn’t have LV’s print or Chanel’s interlocking Cs emblazoned on the front.
Continue reading ‘New Louis Vuitton iPad Case Begs the Question: Is the iPad a Status Symbol?’
Image courtesy of Gadgetell.com
When Steve Jobs famously said, “We don’t know how to build a sub-[USD]$500 computer that is not a piece of junk,” the tech media unanimously interpreted this to mean that Apple would never get into the netbook business. After all, what is a netbook? Essentially is a small, compact mini computer that is constructed mainly for the purposes of surfing the ‘net, checking e-mail, social networking, and light gaming. However, there is nothing innovative about the netbook design — it only exists because, more important than any of these defining features, netbooks are usually really cheap. Thus, they were developed not as product leaders in the tech market, but as price leaders; they give people an opportunity to enter the computing world on a shoestring budget.
Continue reading ‘The Case of the Netbookish iPad: How Jobs Said He’d Never Build a Netbook, Then Built One’
An image of HP's Slate, courtesy of PC World
Apple’s iPad continues to reign as king of the tablets, launching a whole sub-industry of iPad cases and accessories. But where are all of the competing tablet PCs promised at CES 2010?
It seems that whenever Apple debuts a groundbreaking new mobile device or computer, a whole new market segment opens up in the world of consumer electronics. Like a gadget supernova, new industry niches are formed like new suns and planets spinning out of a massive, exploding star. The latest star has been Apple’s iPad: in addition to the expectation that Apple will sell 10 million iPads in 2010 alone, thousands of iPad apps, iPad cases, and other iPad accessories have already exploded into the marketplace and will continue to do, generating a billion dollar market for products that are completely dependent on the iPad and its platform.
Given the fact that Apple has officially opened the market on tablet devices, why haven’t we seen any viable PC tablet contenders yet?
Continue reading ‘In Case You Didn’t Notice, the iPad is Still the Only Real Tablet Device Out There’
3G and even talk of a 4G network may open up endless mobile computing opportunities, but rechargeable batteries will play the biggest role in mobile technology.
We’ve come a long way from the early days of the internet, when a 2400 baud modem was your only ticket into cyberspace. Now, city-wide 3G network coverage is giving people the opportunity to access the internet sans cables or even a local wi-fi hot spot. In essence, the world is fast becoming a hot spot for 3G access.
This is exactly what mobile computing giants like Apple are hoping for; they cannot continue to tout the mobility of their devices if network coverage does not continue to advance as the same pace of mobile gadget technology. So far, however, the ability to connect has remained on pace with the amazing features that you find on the iPad, iPhone, Droid, and top-of-the-line laptops and notebooks. Now, it is not unusual to see people “at work” in nearly any location within a major city. The future is definitely now.
Continue reading ‘iPads, iPhones, & Droids: The Future of Mobile Computing Depends On Rechargeable Batteries’
Back during the 2008 Macworld Convention in San Francisco, I made friends with a guy named JC, who turned out to be the Apple iTunes Content Quality Czar. Once he told me his title at Apple, my first question was about the Beatles and iTunes: our meeting was just on the heels of Apple and the Beatles settling their infamous logo issue, and he assured me that their song catalogue would be up on iTunes “sometime in 2008.” That was two years ago, and still no progress has been made to add the most influential pop group of the 20th century to the world’s most relevant music retail repository. For a long while, other highly influential acts, like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Radiohead, were also holdouts from iTunes. But at the beginning of 2010, only the Beatles remain absent from the ubiquitous iTunes music inventory, and recent comments by the executors of the Beatles brand show no immediate signs of joining the roster.
Continue reading ‘"We Can Work It Out?" 2009 Passes, Still No Beatles on iTunes’
