iPhone Passion

The news is all around the blogosphere: an unofficial report from Wired says that the Cingular exclusivity for the iPhone will be actually a two-week one.

Although still secret, this info seems to come from within T-Mobile, whose employees are already starting signing people up for the iPhone.

… The fellow was a T-mobile agent/employee and very excited about the news. He was willing to pre-sign me for the iPhone. That all I’ve got but he was convinced.

[tags]Cingular, T-Mobile, exclusivity, iPhone[/tags]

Our fellows-in-passion from MyIPhone.com and UnwiredView introduce us to the latest gadget in the iPhone market niche: it’s concept prototype, the Asus Aura, designed by the Hungarian design company Egy Studio. It was clearly inspired by iPhone, although it has some interesting innovations that could make it quite a treat. We have no other info on the Aura, and it’s mostly probable that the gadget will remain a prototype and never reach to market, unlike the LG Prada, for instance…

(via)
[tags]iPhone, Asus, Aura, phone, design[/tags]

From Techmeme we find an interesting article that shows us the graphs of iPod vs iPhone searches on the American Online market.

As you can see for yourself, , iPhone searches started as early as August 2006 but were close to nothing; same in September, October, November. December started to spread some more rumors, but still an insignifiant number of searches compared to the ones for the iPod. However… January came and with it a HUGE peak in internet searches.

The lean guys from weblogs.hitwise.com also give us the list of the sites receiving all this huge traffic. On the first position, off course, Apple Computer, followed by Apple iPhone Blog - now that’s a lucky site owner. Surprinsingly, MySpace is on the fifth position, tightly behind Engadget - I say surprisingly, since after all Engadget IS the most trustful ressource for everything gadget related.

Hmm… quite interesting, ain’t it? We’ll just see what the future brings, and whether the search in interest for the iPhone is more than just a temporary fashion. I guess we’ll have to wait until August for this…

Via TUAW (the unofficial Apple Blog) we hear that Andi Ihnatko from Chicago Sun Times has been playing a bit with the real iPhone. Here are, briefly, some of his insights:
1. the touchscreen works great, but it’s skin-sensitive: won’t work with gloves, nor with screen protectors.
2. the virtual keyboard seems to work great, despite what some critics would expect:

After 30 seconds, I was already typing faster with the iPhone than I ever have with any other phone. I suspect that true e-mail demons will need to adapt to the lack of tactile feedback, though.

3. the iPhone software will be most probably be available on iTunes, and only Apple partner developers will be allowed to create it. This is directly answering everyone’s questions. (though not all of them - I’m still curious if iPhone Widgets will be installable from the net)
4. the iPhone widgets are NOT Dashboard Widgets, though they have some part in common.
5. the OS is the stripped-down Leopard (OSX 10.5), and the cool animation effects we’ve seen on the keynote are made via Core Animation.
6. no Flash plugin for now. Damn!

Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, and his reaction to the iPhone. I guess we’ll see who’ll be laughing once the iPhone is available. In the meantime, the LG Prada seems to laugh harder

via cybersurge

According to Gizmodo, analysts have speculated that each of the shiny iPhones will generate nearly 50% gross margin.

“iSuppli estimates the 4Gbyte version of the Apple iPhone will carry a $229.85 hardware BoM and manufacturing cost and a $245.83 total expense, yielding a 50.7 percent margin on each unit sold at the $499 retail price,” said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli. “Meanwhile, the 8GByte Apple iPhone will sport a $264.85 hardware cost and a $280.83 total expense, amounting to a 53.1 percent margin at the $599 retail price.”

Off course, nobody even looks at the huge costs of R&D, the pattents, the marketing, the design, the sales force. I’d say their real margin is around 30% and will grow up as the sales rise.

According to this blog , Jeff Han, the inventor of the multitouch screen that everyone raved at during February 2006 has in fact turned down Apple’s offer. His plans? To turn his new company, Perceptive Pixel, into a major player. It seems that Apple’s iPhone multitouch is in fact based on the technology from Synaptics.

Han’s technology seems to be the basis for LG’s PRADA phone which is coming in fast steps, and although iPhone has the buzz right now, I guess the PRADA is going to be a major success; smaller, maybe more feminine, less gadgety and the first to hit European stores.

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Techcrunch has an interesting insight on Apple’s UGLY practice of bullying bloggers, that’s getting UGLIER by the minute. You know the first case: Apple taking bloggers to court because of published pictures of the Mac Mini.
Now, they are getting beyond the absurd: somebody created a skin for Windows Mobile phones that looks exactly like the new iPhone user interface. Somebody else created one for the Palm. Now, Apple lawyers are threatening all bloggers that even LINK to the software in question.
I believe Apple is BAD whenever doing this. While the creators of the skins in question might breach the copyright(although, come on, the iPhone won’t be any less successful because of these skins; even more, they will make it even more popular), the persons linking to them are in a very legal position, nonetheless.
SO. Without any further ado.
Also, please read engadget’s take on the matter . Dont’ forget to read gizomodo’s one as well.

How to install? Read details at the links pointed from techcrunch, and here as well.

Computer World has a set of 20 questions now, after the Reality Distortion Effect has faded out. Read their article for a feet-on-the-earth view:
Among the questions:

• How much will it actually cost to own it? (data fees and SMS fees seem to get pretty important)
• How fast is it, actually?
• Can you use it as a mobile modem as well?
• Will the name remain the same once the CISCO suit takes off the ground?

Etc…