RealNetworks has submitted to Apple a free application that will bring its $15-a-month Rhapsody subscription music service to anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch and an EDGE, 3G, or Wi-Fi connection–assuming it’s approved by Apple, which is anything but a sure thing at this point.
If misery loves company, then Apple may have a friend in RIM. A Citigroup analyst who has tested the company’s forthcoming BlackBerry Bold claims that the device is troubled by 3G reception woes similar to those plaguing Apple’s new handset. A noteworthy data point, since Bold will initially run on AT&T’s wireless network, just as the iPhone does.
Moments ago, Apple issued a firmware update for the iPhone 3G that presumably addresses the voice and data reception issues that have troubled the device since its debut. Whether its resolves them remains to be seen. The update description says only that it includes “bug fixes.”
Good thing the iPhone was chosen as Time Magazine’s 2007 Invention of the Year, because a growing chorus of discontent suggests its successor is unworthy of the honor in 2008. Voice and data reception issues have been troubling the device for weeks now and it seems the blame for them lies not with the network carriers, but with Apple itself.
AT&T is on track to complete the upgrade of its 3G mobile broadband network by the end of June. Good thing, too. Because we’re just weeks away from the eagerly anticipated launch of Apple’s 3G iPhone and AT&T–Apple’s exclusive wireless carrier in the states–certainly doesn’t want to foul up the debut of the second generation iPhone, the way it did the first.
To some, Sprint’s longstanding reputation for lousy customer service, poor network coverage, high churn and Keystone Kops-style management disorganization might be a bit–how can I put this delicately–off-putting. The beleaguered company’s subscriber numbers are dropping like failed calls, as are its shares. Sprint’s stock price has fallen nearly 60% over the past 12 months. It [...]
The clever folks at Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile unit have figured out a way to comply with a court order prohibiting the sales of iPhones tethered to its network, and still remain the exclusive German carrier of the device: sell the iPhone without a T-Mobile contract at a wallet-shriveling price.
And so this morning, the company [...]
What is Net neutrality? This from AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, one of its staunches opponents, and the guy who paid Lent Scrivner & Roth LLC $100,000 to lobby against it in the first half of 2007.
Onstage at Web 2.0 Summit, Stephenson again argues for a two-tiered Internet, rehashing the incumbent telecoms’ talking points. Net neutrality=BAD. [...]
Only Apple would launch a 2.5G device in a country where 20% of mobile-phone users own 3G-enabled handsets and expect them to downgrade their wireless experience and pay a premium for doing so.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirmed yesterday that the company’s iPhone will go on sale in Britain Nov. 9 and be carried exclusively by [...]
Apparently, my daughter’s third question in today’s video didn’t come through as clearly as I’d thought, which is too bad. Anyway, for those of you who’ve inquired, she said:
“Daddy, can we camp out in front of the Apple store, like Scoble?“
Anyway, I’ve updated the headline to clarify things a bit.
Sticking feathers on your butt does not make you a chicken. And adding millions of dollars of network infrastructure improvements to your widely maligned “2.5G” EDGE wireless data network does not make it 3G. But it might make it 2.6G, and that could be just enough to temper perceptions that your jalopy of a data network has hamstrung Apple’s new iPhone.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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