The folks over at LifeClever have gone where I have not dared to tread. Last August, in a post about the iPone commercials’ soundtrack, I pointed out that the ringtone showcased in the ads is actually—horrors—not available on the iPhone. I went on to muse:
I guess if you really wanted it you could record it, convert it to MP3, and use iFuntastic to make it your ringtone. But that would be silly…right?
Silly for the likes of me perhaps, but those LifeClever people apparently don’t have the same reservations that a puny mortal like me might have. They’ve done it hunted down the file, which is a GarageBand sound effect, and made the result (download link) available for download.
Just double click the file and it’ll be added to your Ringtones tab in iTunes. Voilà—problem solved. Clever indeed.
Update: To clarify, as reader Branden reminds me, they took a more clever approach than what I suggested; presuming you’ve got GarageBand handy, you could do the same thing pretty easily. Still, I appreciate it when other people do the work, so I don’t have to.
Seems like every other day there’s some sort of rumor about the next-generation iPhone. This time around it comes from no less of a source than Fortune, which alleges that AT&T will actually subsidize the next model to the tune of around $200. Given the predicted prices of $399 and $499 (Apple does like to stay at roughly the same price points when it introduces new models), that would drop the prices to around $199 and $299 respectively.
While it’s true that carriers do subsidize the cost of most of their handsets, figuring they’ll make the money back with service charges over the life of a contract, they’ve never gone this route with the iPhone. Not to say that they couldn’t—perhaps AT&T wasn’t sure when they first signed up that the whole iPhone thing would pan out. But it would be interesting for them to change their mind about this, especially when Apple is getting a cut of AT&T’s revenue already.
Furthermore, the piece’s author, Scott Moritz, has been known to make predictions in the past that haven’t held water, such as a 13” laptop released at the same time as Leopard and somewhat questionable figures for Apple’s sales expectations for the iPhone launch.
Moritz’s background information for the piece isn’t exactly watertight, either. For example, he writes:
The average iPhone user however, runs up a $100 tab each month due to the higher priced data and calling plan. This would give AT&T an even quicker payback on its $200 outlay.
I don’t know about my fellow iPhone users, but my monthly iPhone bill is usually about $65-$66. I’m not sure why he’d suggest you can “run up a tab” on the data plan; we’re talking $20/month for unlimited data on the iPhone plan.
Moritz also flails in the dark with some of his other details.
Apple has a revenue-sharing arrangement that requires telcos like AT&T to pay somewhere between 9% and 25% of the money collected each month from iPhone users.
9%-25% is a pretty big margin there: you might as well just say you don’t know, honestly. Moritz goes on to say that Apple plans on clearing out inventory before the launch of the next model—that seems like a bit of a duh to me—and also claims that the new iPhone will be 2.5mm thinner and sport GPS. How they’re going to shave off 20% of the thickness, fit a GPS chip, and a 3G radio, I have no idea, but if there’s anybody who can do it, I guess it’s Apple.
Given Moritz’s history with predictions, however, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this whole shebang falls flat. I guess we’ll know sometime this summer.
You like your iPhone? What do you love about your iPhone? As you may recall, ChangeWave Research did a study back in February to see how the iPhone fared among business users. The unequivocal answer? Pretty darn well. But that does not satisfy the number crunchers at ChangeWave: they want to know what it is about the iPhone and its chief rival, RIM’s BlackBerry, that users really love.
When it comes to the iPhone, people are drooling most over the integration: an iPod, Internet device, and phone all in one? That’s followed by the touchscreen interface, the device’s easy-to-use nature, Safari, and Visual Voicemail. ChangeWave couldn’t leave well enough alone, however; they also went on to quiz iPhone owners about what they don’t like about the device: the speed of AT&T’s EDGE network topped the bill there, followed by the exclusive relationship with AT&T, the lack of copy and paste, battery life, and more. That gibes with the fact that 3G is the number one wanted features for the next version of the iPhone, followed closely by third-party apps and GPS.
As for Apple’s nemesis, the BlackBerry, it’s primarily one feature that drives the so-called Crackberry addiction, and that’s email. It handily beats out size, Internet access, and the keypad for the top of the list. A number of users complained about the BlackBerry’s small keyboard making frequent typos and its poor Internet experience. While I’d agree that the iPhone’s web browsing blows away the BlackBerry’s, it’s worth noting that opinions on iPhone’s touch keyboard are often equally hit-and-miss. Perhaps we just haven’t found the best input method for mobile devices yet.
For the full details, you can hit the above link to take a look at ChangeWave’s blog post, complete with links to the PDFs that contain even more details about their study.
If you’re deaf or hard of hearing, there’s been nothing preventing you from getting an iPhone, but you might have been a little bit miffed that you had to pay for voice service that you’d never use. No longer, however, as AT&T has announced today their new Text Accessibility Plan for iPhone.
The TAP plan costs $40/month and lets you ditch the voice part of the plan, while adding unlimited SMS text messages and holding onto the iPhone’s full unlimited data plan. That works out pretty evenly, since both unlimited SMS and the iPhone’s data plan usually cost about $20 apiece. Just in case you want to lend your phone to someone else, you can still make phone calls at a cost of $0.40/minute. And you can still get Visual Voicemail, too (though I’m not sure how useful that will be to most hearing impaired users).
Not just anybody can sign up for the plan, however. You’ll need to fill out an eligibility form (PDF link), which requires you get a Certification of Disability from a qualifying certifying agent.
One of the most frequent questions we get asked is when the iPhone is coming to Canada. Previously, we’ve had no answer for that query, but according to a recent statement from Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers Communications, the iPhone is coming to Canada.
“We’re thrilled to announced that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year,” said [Rogers]. “We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”
It’s been long presumed that Rogers would be the mobile provider of choice for Apple in Canada, given that they’re the only GSM-based provider in the country. Dealing, however, has been slow, as Apple worked out other issues, such as disputes over the “iPhone” trademark in Canada. It appears that everything’s been settled now, however, so we wish our Canadian cousins the best as they wait for more details.
If you’re the owner of both an iPhone and a Mini Cooper, perhaps you’re frustrated with the current set up for plugging your iPhone into the car’s audio system. Todd Schneider was, so he took matters into his own Dremel-laden hands, hacking apart his Mini’s interior in order to provide a better resting spot for his beloved iPhone. He even posted the pictures to prove it.
Why Mini choose the location of the iPod adapter to be in the lower console is beyond me. If you’ve got an iPhone you’ve got to stuff it upside down in the cup holder. And the adapter is too short to use a Profit vehicle mount, its ridiculous.
I made my own adapter extension with cradle and relocated it from the console to the arm rest. It replaces the phone adapter kit and it works perfectly. The cradle fits nicely inside the armrest so you can slide the iphone in and out easily.
If Todd has inspired you, you can follow his example at the link above, where he also walks through the process step-by-step; the parts cost about $75 (assuming you have the requisite tools), but the result is awfully pretty.
[via The Apple Core]
It sounds as though iPhones across the pond in the United Kingdom are in short supply, despite Tim Cook’s recent comment in the Q2 financial conference call that Europe’s iPhone stock was largely in supply/demand balance. Carphone Warehouse, one of the major iPhone resellers in the country, is saying that it’s totally out of the 8GB model, thanks in large part to the recent £100 price cut.
An email sent out to advertising affiliates asked them to remove the promotion from their rotation due to “phenomenal response.” Despite that, however, Carphone Warehouse’s own site seems to still be pushing the deal, which it says is effective until June 1st. Over at Apple 2.0, Philip Elmer-DeWitt has some more insight into the sales, pointing out that while several O2 locations are also experiencing a dearth of 8GB models, but appear to be planning to restock.
Remember all that fuss about iPhone shortages? The ones that had people convinced—convinced—that a 3G iPhone was all but imminent? Well, the shortages are certainly real, as Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook acknowledged in yesterday’s financial results conference call, though only in the US. The European markets are still seeing balanced levels of supply and demand.
But if you thought not having enough iPhone for the unwashed masses was a bad thing, then you clearly haven’t met Apple. Here’s what chief operating officer Tim Cook had to say on yesterday’s call:
In terms of shortages; we expected [iPhone demand] to decline more on sequential basis than it did; it beat our expectations, so we started to decline in supply.
It’s just because the iPhone is more popular than even Apple expected, see?
Every time the conversation drifted in that direction Cook would firmly reiterate that the only reason Apple had a shortage was because they ended up selling more iPhones in the last quarter than they’d expected to. That’s what we call Teflon, baby.
A number of analysts also tried to trick Cook’s into admitting that a 3G iPhone was forthcoming—like they were dealing with Mr. Mxyzptlk or something.
The much-coveted iPhone Central award still goes to Sharon Cross of Cross Research, who asked if there were any plans to continue selling the current 2.5G model when the 3G model was released—oh how crafty! She must have spent hours figuring out the exact phrasing of that question, only to have it shot down by Cook’s boilerplate “We don’t comment on new products.” Kudos, Ms. Cross. Perhaps next quarter.
