Quoted Text

iPhone buyers excited to get latest gizmo
BY MAY WONG The Associated Press

   SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of people who lined up to be among the first to get their hands on Apple Inc.’s coveted iPhone are now the braggarts and guinea pigs for the latest must-have, cutting-edge piece of techno-wizardry.
   The doors of Apple and AT&T stores opened promptly at 6 p.m. EDT with cheers from employees and eager customers.
   “I’m glad it’s over,” said Carlos Sanchez, 19, at the Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York City, clutching shopping bags containing two iPhones — the maximum allowed per person. “I don’t have to sleep outside anymore.”
   Techies, exhibitionists and luminaries — even the co-founder of Apple and the mayor of Philadelphia — were among the inaugural group of iPhone customers.
   Because Apple designed a new way for customers to activate the cell phone service from AT&T, by logging onto Apple’s iTunes software from their computers, many buyers headed straight home to christen the device.
   In Newton, Mass., Khu Duong, 30, said he was excited but, “I’m afraid to open it. You want to sit down and relax.”
   Fellow customer Nick Seaver, 21, couldn’t wait. He flipped open his Mac laptop right in the mall, and paid $5 to use the wireless network to get online and activate it. But because his current service contract with Verizon was set to expire the next day, Seaver got a computer message from iTunes that he would have to wait 24 hours before his iPhone worked.
   Will all the waiting have been worth it? For many, it didn’t seem to matter.
   “I just love getting new stuff,” said retiree Len Edgerly, who arrived at 3 a.m. Friday to be first in line outside an Apple store in Cambridge, Mass. “It’s the best new thing that’s come along in a long time. It’s beautiful.”
   Even Steve Wozniak, the expartner of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, showed up at a Silicon Valley mall at 4 a.m. aboard his Segway scooter. He helped keep order in the line outside the Apple store.
   The other customers awarded the honorary first spot in line to Wozniak, who planned to buy two iPhones Friday even though he remains an Apple employee and will get a free one from the company next month. He said the device would redefine cell phone design and use.
   “Look how great the iPod turned out,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “So who wants to miss that revolution? That’s why there’s all this big hype for the iPhone.”
   Apple is indeed banking that its new, do-everything phone with a touch-sensitive screen will become its third core business next to its moneymaking iPod music players and Macintosh computers. The gadget was going on sale in the United States at 6 p.m. Friday in each time zone.
   Apple’s media blitz wasn’t without its glitches.
   On NBC’s “Today” show, co-host Meredith Vieira ran into problems trying to get the iPhone to work, laughing that “this is why gadgets drive me crazy.”
   With a team of Apple representatives hovering off-screen, Vieira was supposed to receive a call from co-host Matt Lauer in London. The iPhone — billed by Apple as the most user-friendly smart phone ever — displayed the incoming call, but she couldn’t answer it.
   Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment.
   Since its unveiling in January, expectations that it will become yet another blockbuster product for Apple has pushed the company’s stock up more than 40 percent.

Quoted Text

Jam-up of iPhones stirs up complaints
   SAN FRANCISCO — While blogs continue to simmer with complaints from people who waited months to buy an iPhone and now are experiencing problems activating it, AT&T Inc. said Sunday that the situation has improved.
   “We are working on any issues on an individual basis with customers who were impacted,” said Michael Coe, a spokesman for AT&T, the Apple Inc. device’s exclusive carrier. Nearly all customers have been able to activate their phones within five to eight minutes, he said.
   Without activation, not even the phone’s alarm clock works, leading some unhappy customers to joke that their inactive iPhones are little more than expensive paperweights.
   AT&T attributed the problems to overloaded servers as large numbers of customers tried to activate their phones over the weekend.

Quoted Text

Teen untethers iPhone
The Associated Press

   NEW YORK — The last summer before college is full of possibilities. George Hotz, a slight, curly haired teenager in Glen Rock, N.J., spent it taking on two of the largest corporations in the U.S. technology industry, and winning.
   Along with a secretive group of online collaborators, the 17-yearold broke the restrictions that make Apple Inc.’s iPhone, arguably the hottest gadget of the year, work only on AT&T Inc.’s cellular network.
   The feat took him 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone’s June 29 launch. The equipment used included a soldering iron and a large supply of Red Bull energy drinks.
   An AP reporter was able to verify that an iPhone Hotz brought to the AP’s headquarters on Friday was unlocked. Hotz placed the reporter’s T-Mobile SIM card, a small chip that identifies a phone to the network, in the phone. The phone then connected to T-Mobile’s network and placed calls using the reporter’s account.
   Apart from AT&T, T-Mobile is the only major U.S. carrier that is compatible with the iPhone, even an unlocked one, but an unlocked phone would work with most overseas carriers.  

Quoted from bumblethru

I'm tellin' ya...these kids are mega smart today. Now you'll see T-Mobile and other possible carriers, if they can alter their technology, offer service as well, unless AT&T and Apple do a re-design.

Quoted Text

iPhone hacker moves into RIT dorm
Updated: 8/26/2007
By: Casey Bortnick
  
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- He's not exactly your average college freshman. The 17-year-old who successfully hacked into the world's most-hyped cell phone moved into his dorm at RIT Sunday afternoon.

After spending most of the summer figuring out a way to unlock the iPhone, George Hotz attended freshman orientation at RIT. The New Jersey teenager received national attention when he became the first person to successfully crack the connection between AT&T and the Apple phone.

Hotz was able to make the phone compatible with T-Mobile. After putting one of his phones on eBay, he traded one for a Nissan 350Z.

"It was a cool phone I saw it on the commercials I was like yo! They show the skate boarding dog. I want to make my phone show the skate boarding dog. But I have T-Mobile and my parents didn't want to pay for it and so I cracked the iPhone," Hotz said.
  
  
  Hotz said he hasn't heard from Apple or AT&T. He said anyone can hack into the phone in ten easy steps. He's left instructions on his blog.

Quoted Text

  Hotz said he hasn't heard from Apple or AT&T. He said anyone can hack into the phone in ten easy steps. He's left instructions on his blog.

Quoted Text

SAN FRANCISCO(AP) Apple Inc. slashed the price of the iPhone by $200 Wednesday _ a rare move for the company that typically discounts only older products. It also updated its iPod media players, introducing a model with a touch-screen and other iPhone features.

The 8-gigabyte iPhone will be $399 _ $200 cheaper than the same model when it went on sale in June. The 4-gigabyte iPhone, which sold for $399, will be phased out. By comparison, the new touch-screen iPods will start at $299.

Analysts said the price drop would definitely boost sales, possibly allowing Apple to achieve its self-proclaimed goal of selling 1 million iPhones by the end of September.

But they also questioned the move, which is not consistent with Apple's standard marketing practice of lowering prices during a product's second or third update. Apple also typically keeps the price the same but adds new features and storage when a product is upgraded.

Apple stock dropped more than 5 percent after the price drop was announced, losing $7.40 to close at $136.76.

"It will absolutely help sales _ but at what cost?" asked Tim Beyers, an analyst at The Motley Fool research and investment group. "People who bought the iPhone weeks or months ago must really be annoyed, and with good reason they might think twice about being the first to buy future Apple products. This smacks a little of desperation, and it's very unlike Apple."

Also Wednesday, CEO Steve Jobs unveiled updated iPods, including the version with a touch-sensitive screen, wireless Internet access and a Web browser. Unlike an iPhone, it can't make or receive phone calls.

The iPod Touch allows users to download songs wirelessly, and, eventually, will let people sample and buy digital tunes from any Starbucks in the United States that offers Wi-Fi Internet access.

Quoted Text

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs apologized and offered $100 credits Thursday to customers who shelled out $599 for the most advanced model of the iPhone this summer, only to have the company unexpectedly slash the price $200 in a push to boost holiday sales.

In a letter on the company's Web site, Jobs acknowledged that Apple disappointed some of its customers by cutting the price of the iPhone's 8-gigabyte model and said he has received hundreds of e-mails complaining about the price cut.

But Jobs added that "the technology road is bumpy," and there will always be people who pay top dollar for the latest electronics but get angry later when the price drops.

"This is life in the technology lane," Jobs said.

Jobs said Apple will hand out $100 credits for Apple's retail and online stores to any iPhone owners who aren't eligible for a rebate under the company's refund policy. They policy covers those who bought their phones within 14 days of the price cut.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company did not have an estimate of how much the credits would cost Apple.

For many of the iPhones early adopters, money is not and never was an issue, however. They were after the gratification of knowing they were among the first owners of something that was cool, even revolutionary.

"If they told me at the outset the iPhone would be $200 cheaper the next day, I would have thought about it for a second — and still bought it," said Andrew Brin, a 47-year-old addiction therapist in Los Angeles. "It was $600 and that was the price I was willing to pay for it."

Enjoying that period of being among the first — before the prices drop and reach the masses — is part of the pleasure, Brin and others say. And in much of the tech world, the usual expectation is that six months will pass before there's a major price cut and a year before a next generation of the product — usually an improved version — appears.

The looks of envy and attraction are an elixir.

"It's better than a dog, if you want to meet people," Brin said of his iPhone.

Jack Shamama of San Francisco, who was among the thousands nationwide who lined up for iPhones on the day they first went on sale, said he got some smug text messages and phone calls from friends on Wednesday after Apple announced the price cut.

But Shamama is taking the price cut in stride, saying such cuts are the wages of being an early adopter.

Gadgets — and food — are the 33-year-old online marketing consultant's splurges.

"It's the equivalent of having that season's handbag," said Shamama, who goes through cell phones as quickly as some people do shoes, comfortably shelling out hundreds of dollars per handset every six to eight months.

He's got a collector's item in one of the first Palm Pilots. And, even though he didn't even want one at first, he felt compelled to buy a Nintendo Wii game system last November — paying a friend of a friend $400 to get the $250 machine — after he heard how scarce they were.

Shamama bought the BlackBerry Pearl — another trendy smart phone — only months before the iPhone was unveiled.

"My biggest fear with any product is that it's going to become obsolete, and that isn't what happened this time," Shamama said.

Immediately after the iPhone price cut was announced Wednesday, Jobs' tone was less conciliatory. He tartly rebuffed criticism about whether some of Apple's most die-hard fans would be miffed by the company's latest actions.

IPhone owners who bought their device that morning, he said an interview with USA Today, "should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that's what happens in technology."

Jobs then apparently had a change of mind. The company is making the right decision by lowering the iPhone price, he said in his letter Thursday, but needs to "do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers."

"(W)e need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price," he said. "Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these."

Analysts said Thursday that Jobs erred by initially dismissing the gripes of people who bought iPhones early, many of whom are Apple loyalists who felt insulted they were being overlooked in the company's zeal to sell to a broader audience.

"In the course of a day, he probably got an earful and a better sense of the extent of the discontent on the part of these very, very loyal customers," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "On second and third thought, he realized these were probably the customers you most want to make sure are satisfied and retain a very positive impression about Apple overall, not just the iPhone."

Under Apple's refund policy, customers who bought an iPhone within 14 days of the price cut can get a refund of the price difference if they have the original receipt. Those who haven't opened the phones can return them for a full refund.

The price cut — and the phaseout of the 4-gigabyte iPhone, which retailed for $499 — came less than 10 weeks after the two products hit the market June 29 and angered some iPhone users.

Investors were also rattled by the news, sending Apple's shares down a total of more than 6 percent over the past two days, a drop that has wiped out about $8 billion in shareholder wealth. Apple's stock closed Thursday at $135.01.