Houston AT&T Store Chosen By Apple Designers
When looking for an attractive looking AT&T store to to showcase on its “Where to buy iPhone” page, Apple’s designers matched the Houston AT&T store on 59 between Edloe and Weslayan with the 5th Avenue Apple Store. As far as cell carrier stores go, it’s nice, but I’ll still be at the Galleria Apple Store on July 11th.
(Hat tip to the very awesome Swamplot)
Apple’s Influence on the Smartphone Market is Painfully Obvious
I met a Nokia developer the other day at a local event. We chatted about mobile phones for a good while, and he showed me a couple of the Nokia smartphones he was working with. While none of them are as blatant a knockoff as this one, we both marveled at the strikingly familiar design: shiny and black, surrounded by a chrome ring. RIM’s newest, (the Blackberry 9000) is no exception. Look familiar?
It’s no secret that Apple has snagged a huge portion of the smartphone market in the last 9 months. In fact, Apple and the iPhone catapulted to #2 in the U.S. market in its first 6 months on the scene. As a new entrant to the market with a single device competing against established players hawking multiple devices, that is quite an accomplishment.
With that kind of success, Apple’s competitors have been scrambling to crack the recipe to Apple’s secret sauce. So far, they have all failed miserably. While they have all failed in slightly different ways, it is clear that no one in the smartphone market “gets it” like Apple does. It’s the software stupid! Yes, the iPhone is a gorgeous piece of hardware, but, like every other Apple computer, the true power lies in the software. Steve Jobs understands this, and he has said, multiple times, that Apple is a software company. The company makes its own hardware to complement its software and to allow its developers the control they need to produce amazing software.
Many people have asked me over the past 9 months whether they should get an iPhone or some other smartphone. As much as I love my iPhone, I’ve hesitated to recommend it to everyone. That changed at the beginning of March. Thanks to Apple’s announcement of the iPhone SDK and accompanying iPhone 2.0 software update due out in June, I am now bullish on the iPhone, and I won’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone for business or personal use.
Apple has made the iPhone business ready by adding support for Exchange ActiveSync, Cicso IPSec VPN, and making some much needed improvements to the email client. Also, as it has done with Mac OS X on the desktop, Apple has made building applications for the iPhone simple and accessible to any software developer. The icing on the cake? For $99/year and a 30% cut of sales, Apple will list your application in the ubiquitous iPhone app store, and the company will handle all distribution and billing. The developer is just cut a check at the end of the month. This allows bright developers to do what they do best: build cool applications.
The game is changing again, and I have little doubt that Apple will continue to be a force in the mobile market. The rest of this year is going to be very exciting for those of us who love mobile devices, and I’m ecstatic that I will be able to contribute to it.
Fsckers
I am not a happy camper at the moment. After 3 days of incessantly reloading the order page for my brand new Wii bundle (for which my credit card has already been charged), this is the email I got this evening:
Hello Nathan,
Thank you for shopping at Buy.com.
At Buy.com we strive to provide the widest assortment of high-quality products at the lowest prices on earth. However, sometimes circumstances beyond our control affect our selection.
We were recently informed that the item listed below from order #XXXXXXXX is no longer available from that supplier. Please accept our sincere apologies for this inconvenience.
What!? It was in stock when I ordered it 3 days ago. It took 2 days of order “Processing” to get to “Sent to Warehouse” status. After that, it didn’t take the warehouse long to dash my hopes of having a Wii any time in the near future. I was soooo ready to play Zelda next week. Buy.com is going to have a hard time earning my business ever again.
Smart Surveillance == ED 209?
researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are hoping its smart surveillance system can lend a hand in detecting that pent-up rage. The “computer vision system” can reportedly analyze human movements as they occur, and distinguish between “friendly behaviors such as shaking hands, and aggressive actions like punching, pushing,”
Although this looks really cool, I can’t help but worry that it will turn out like ED 209 in RoboCop some day.
You know, like this:
Anyone have $722,534 + tax I can have?
Uh…I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Koeningseggs Dream of Speed
Yes, I got one
Yes, the one with video…more to come.
CellSensor EMF Detection Meter
For those of you who are paranoid…