Tag: iPhone

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gadgets

The iPhone effect: III

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(Update) I actually went to the Apple store in West County mall this afternoon, and played with the new iPhone 3G. The first thing noticed is the sign “iPhone 3G is sold out” blah blah blah. I saw a couple in 50s (T-mobile customers) looking for iPhone, and had to leave empty handed. The sales associate acknowledged only a few early birds got the phone. I tried the browser, the touch keypad and youtube. It seems to me the web surfing speed is so so, but again I don’t have benchmark. For some reason I think this thing more like iToy 🙂

(Original) iPhone is here. Yesterday when I drove to work after 9AM, I saw many fans lined up at AT&T store (Creve Coeur, MO).

IMG_6491

There are also wide reports on the glitches in new iPhone 3G launch, such as this one from CNET. This is something I was not surprised, just like the “can not activate using iTune server” I heard last year. I can certainly appreciate the complexity of such an event, but I was not confident on AT&T and Apple’s scaling capabilty here, which is key if Apple wants success in enterprise market. Just like the BlackBerry service outage, those kinds of things are not only annoying for end users but could also lead CIOs to give up on them.

Plus side

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gadgets

iPhone effect: II

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This Friday will be another big day for the Apple fans, the 3G iPhone will be unveiled globally. The past weekend I stopped by the local Apple store, I have not been to there for 6 months so my impression maybe more genuine. Besides the iPod touch (iPhone was absent), I found some of the sales associates are incredibly young, they look like high school kids. This reminds me many high school kids carrying MacBooks at the county library. So in a word, Apple was doing peer to peer marketing here?

What’s the use for iPhone?
I saw this question posted in Trader1688. Don’t laugh, this is a legimate question. My initial thought is the usual stuff such as MP3/video playback, web browsing, GPS,…as desribed in its offical web page.

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gadgets

iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold

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From YouTube, author: the iPhone blog

BTW, I found other blackberry videos at YouTube to be good (authors: phonescoop, crackberry).

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gadgets

The iPhone effect: I

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I did not take too seriously of iPhone when it was launched a year ago. But I was wrong. My initial thought Apple jumped into the mobile phone world with a touch screen smart phone, with way too much fan fare (remember the Ads on CNBC, CNN etc?).

Well, now I think it set a new standard for smart phones for consumers. Apple announced its new 3G iPhone recently, and there are interesting customer spending analysis (Christopher Null) and iPhone manufacturing analysis (iSuppli). Numbers aside, a more intereting phenomena is, since the announcement of 3G iPhone, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) stock continued to drop. Note Nokia mainly sells outside of the US, while iPhone sells mainly inside the US. Interesting? The perception must be iPhone is going to each Nokia’s dinner: its source of profit, the N series smart phones.

iPhone and the rest of the world
Here in the US, I have seen Sprint launched this Instinct (Samsung), Verizon already got touch screen Voyger (LG).

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gadgets

iPhone deal, iPhone flip rumor

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I found AT&T offers iPhone 8GB refurb for $249. Here is the link. As of now the regular iPhone 8GB is $399 at Apple or AT&T store. I think one has to sign up the AT&T data plan to use some of the web features of iPhone. I could be wrong.

Also, I found this iPhone flip version rumor interesting (source: Sina). I understand the US consumers have a special love for flip phones. I personally switched to the SamSung A437 flip phone lately.

iPhone flip rumor

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gadgets

iPhone, Blackberry

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Missing iPhones are found in China
According to InStat, a market research company, there are about 400,000 unlocked iPhone in China. Most of them are purchased in the US, unlocked and shipped to China later. An interesting side point is Chinese (smart phone) users are mostly for entertainment, while the US users focus on business functionality (email, etc., one reason Blackberry was so successful). Chinese translation from Xinhua:

根据市场分析企业In-Stat本周五最新发布的报告，全球共有80到100万台iPhone被解锁，使用在非苹果运营商合作伙伴的网络中。而其中仅中国就占到几乎半数。…

RIM lawsuit

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gadgets

China Mobile, Nokia, Apple, Motorola

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I started pay attention to the mobile phone and service providers lately. In fact I bought some China Mobile (CHL) shares about 2 weeks ago (bought it a bit early again 🙂

Nokia: the balance
Nokia is the No. 1 brand in China as shown in baidu Shouji (cell phone) report. One thing I noticed during my last visit to Shanghai is Nokia set up a service center near Zhongshan park. Being in Midwest USA, I have not seen things like that and was a bit surprised. Why Nokia pay the extra attention to the customer services, now that they are already No. 1? One reason, I can think of, is they want to make sure their customers can get better services from authorized places, rather than going to those blackmarket and get their phones fixed.

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China Stocks

Is the Chinese bull market over?

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(Update Nov. 17) Shuipi of ChinaTimes(水皮华夏时报) wrote this interesting piece on his newspaper.

(Original) It looks like it, from the highs at 6,200 in early Oct to 5,200 now. But wait a minute, recently the US stock market suffered big loss because of the sub-prime meltdown, and weakening of the dollar. How could the mess in the US drag down the Chinese stock market?

Well, one can say we are in a global economy now, the ripple effect of US sub-prime meltdown means the US business and consumer will watch their wallet more carefully, which is bad for Chinese exporters. We all know the Chinese economy depends a lot on exporting to the US.

China Mobile logo

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Business China

Price war leaves bad taste to loyal customers

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Last week one of the biggest news in consumer electronics arena is Apple decided to cut the iPhone price. Consider Apple just started shipping iPhone in late June, this move is a blow to its most loyal customers (early adopters). Apple quickly responded to the angry customers by offering $100 credit (source: Apple.com).

From my own experience, US car makers do those kind of price cut all the time. They carry out price wars mainly in two ways: rebate and/or low interest loan. Sometimes I saw a $8000 rebate on a 20 to 30 k truck or SUV. One side effect of those kind of promotion is the lower residual value of pre-owned cars (trucks), compared to similar model Japanese cars/trucks.

Interestingly, this car price wars are now extended in China, for the good or bad of consumer. On the good side, the new customers can buy the cars on the cheap; on the other hand, the early (loyal) customers paid a premium for the car. This is an Chinese article talking about Hyundai cars. The war is not limited to Korean car makers. It appears to me low end car makers have most to lose; while high end cars such as BMW still have much price power. (Picture below: Hyundai Coupe).

hyundai cars pic

PS, after I wrote the above, I realized there is difference between price cut and price war. But I think there is a strong connection between the two: price cut is the tactics of a price war, e.g., Apple announced a price war against its competitors (Motorola, Palm, RIM etc.) by cutting the iPhone price. Now the competitors will have to respond by cutting their prices if they don’t want to give up market share.

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Business Fun

iTune at Starbucks

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That’s the new services to be offered by two great companies: Apple and Starbucks. According Seattle Post Intelligence:

Apple’s new wireless iPod music player, iPhone or any laptop computer running iTunes will automatically recognize the iTunes store without a connection fee when customers enter a Starbucks shop that has Wi-Fi access.

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