Posted by junction on June 11, 2010
Wow, I hadn’t really intended on turning this into an Apple blog, but I guess that’s what this is turning into.
If you haven’t seen Steve Jobs give his keynote speech at WWCD, then I would recommend you give it a viewing if you have an hour of free time. Now I may not have agreed with the way Apple handled the little situation with Gizmodo, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give them credit for an amazing product.
Simply put, the iPhone 4 is awesome and I was oohing and aahing with the rest of the crowd during the entire presentation. I won’t list all the features here as I’m sure that you can find more comprehensive guides on other sites, but let me just say that its an extensive list.
As usual though, there are the ‘haters’ out there. The people who say, “Facetime HD Video Calling? It’s been done before!!”
QQ more, why don’t you? Sure video calling is nothing new, but has it ever been done the way that Apple is handling it?
Has it ever been open? (I’m assuming here that Facetime will eventually be compatible with other video calling devices, and that it will be open for developers. I use a hosted phone system and I would love to have Facetime incorporated in a mobile VoIP client someday)
Has it ever looked this good?
Has a video calling mobile device ever been in the hands of tens of millions?
Have people ever cared about other video calling phones?
I think the answer to all these questions is a resounding no. I will admit that a lot of the praise that the iPhone 4 is getting is just due to some good old fashioned (and brilliant) marketing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not arguably the best consumer product I’ve seen in a while.
Posted by junction on April 29, 2010
Remember back in the 80s when Apple released their iconic commercial announcing their upcoming MacIntosh computer? The whole point of it was that Apple would provide a product that went against ‘the establishment’, so to speak. Time’s sure have changed.
Apparently police stormed the house of Gizmodo engineer Jason Chan, the man in the Gizmodo video showing off the new iPhone prototype, last Friday. They even went so far as to bash in the door, interrupting a family dinner and then going on to conduct a search and seizure. Who knows how much Apple was actually involved in this whole process, but there’s no doubt that they at least had their hand in the raid.
Really? Was that completely necessary, Jobs? I understand if the company is adjusting its approach to business what with its stellar growth in the past 5 years, but whatever happened to maintaining a consistent image?
Chan has since hired lawyers and is pursuing legal action, which doesn’t surprise me at all. Many Analysts claim that this string of events probably won’t hurt Apple in the slightest. However, this is as close to bad publicity as you can get.
Posted by junction on April 20, 2010
Yesterday, Gizmodo made worldwide news when it announce that it had its hands on the new iPhone. It was found in a bar in Redwood City, disguised as an iPhone 3GS. Apple did manage to shut out the tinkerers at Gizmodo by remotely killing the phone before they got to fully play with the new OS, but there was still a lot of info to reveal. The full details here at Gizmodo: ‘This is Apple’s Next iPhone’.
There were theories that this was all a big ploy by Apple marketing, and even people saying that Gizmodo paid a healthy sum for this exclusive. As it turns out, today Apple is kindly demanding to have their property back:
“It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is currently in possession of a device that belongs to Apple. This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple. Please let me know where to pick up the unit.”
It’s an interesting string of events but it would appear that both parties involved come out winners. Apple gets a healthy injection of hype for their new product (as if they needed it) and Gizmodo’s article will probably be the most talked about story all week.