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A few people are reporting UPS tracking numbers for their iPhones that indicate a June 17 scheduled delivery date, Murphy included. But Murphy won’t be conducting a 24-hour UPS Watch at Murphy Mac HQ tomorrow - he sees it as unlikely the phones will reach their final destination before Friday.
What seems more likely is UPS building a buffer into their delivery schedule to meet the Apple promise of delivery on the same day iPhones are available in stores. My UPS guy is a Dallas Cowboy fan, I doubt he’ll hand it over early.
Murphy’s other prediction: Google Latitude for iPhone will be released on Friday. And Google Voice next week.
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3g Customer Uproar
Can anyone explain to me why iPhone 3G customers are up in arms about not getting a subsidy for the iPhone 3GS ? I’ve read many complaints that go something like this:
“I bought the iPhone 3G a year ago. Now AT&T wants me to pay $499 to get the new phone. Don’t Apple and AT&T want to reward their loyal customers?”
The obvious reply to that question: Do you think AT&T earns enough from your business after ONE month to cover the payment they made to Apple for your iPhone? No, they don’t. Two months? Still no. What about twelve months later? Well, maybe. But only AT&T knows for sure and they’re clearly saying they haven’t made enough back a year later. Otherwise they’d sell you another subsidized iPhone.
If iPhones came out every three months and AT&T always let you buy one with a subsidized price they wouldn’t make much money, would they? That’s real money AT&T is paying to Apple every time someone buys an iPhone and starts service with the carrier. It’s not a giant leap to apply the same logic to people who bought a 3G a year ago. Again, only AT&T knows when they’ve earned enough from your phone service to call the subsidy worthwhile for them.
MMS and Tethering
On the other hand, AT&T came out looking pretty bad after the keynote. No MMS until the end of summer? How can this be??! Two years wasn’t enough time to prepare? One year wasn’t enough time to prepare? Apple didn’t seem to mind putting the news out there either.
What about tethering? Is tethering a new concept to AT&T? How can they possibly not be prepared for this?
From Verizon to AT&T
I’m not a heavy mobile phone user. But I’m happy with the service I get from Verizon and my LG phone. Calls don’t drop, I always have a signal. Sure, unhappy customers are more vocal, but in the case of AT&T it seems like there’s some cause. Their showing on Monday didn’t instill much confidence.
I was going to write something about the ridiculous situation with text messaging and got sidetracked comparing U.S. carriers to those in other countries. But the plans are so completely different that it’s very difficult to make a comparison.
Still - twenty dollars for unlimited text seems ludicrous when compared to all-you-can-eat-data for thirty dollars. If thirty dollars is a fair price, $1 per day, then something is way out of control with texting charges. If AT&T profits even when I email a dozen video files from my iPhone why are texts weighing them down so much? Senator Herb Kohl is investigating, it will be interesting to see what turns up.
My problem? I don’t want to pay 20 cents for a text message. And I don’t want to buy 200 for $5 when I won’t use anywhere near 200. In a way I suppose the carriers deserve to collect what people will pay. Unless there’s collusion involved or it’s determined that text prices are artificially high based on the carriers monopoly status. I think the text market is in for a shake-up, one way or another.
WWDC
If you want to see more of Murphy’s reaction to the WWDC keynote take a look at his post on SeekingAlpha.
Note: The new Macs are listed on Amazon, but not shipping yet.
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Murphy uses AirFoil to send audio from a web browser to an Airport Express or an Apple TV. It’s great for listening to Pandora throughout the house, with various speakers all in sync. There’s an Apple TV connected to the stereo and an Airport Express connected to a Tivoli radio in the kitchen. AirFoil can also send audio to another Mac, like the G5 upstairs that has decent speakers connected. Three sets of speakers all playing one stream throughout the house.
Airfoil keeps getting better. Recently it gained the ability to ‘hijack’ audio from an application that’s already running. Previously, you had to start AirFoil, and then launch the application from AirFoil to send its audio to another device. Not anymore - AirFoil can access already-running applications now. And they’ve added an iPhone app. So Murphy can bring a portable radio out on the porch - connect an iPod touch - and listen to the same stream that’s playing in the house. In a nutshell, it turns an iPhone or touch into a battery powered Airport Express in terms of music streaming.
The software is rock solid, no drop-outs. The interface is simple and unobtrusive.
Using Quicktime Murphy could listen to the aapl quarterly conference call over AirFoil. Sending the stream into the kitchen beats lugging a laptop in there. It’s great for Songza, Pandora, YouTube - or whatever audio you want to transmit. You can even transmit an iTunes stream to your iPhone or touch - enhancing its multi-speaker functionality.
The iPhone / touch application is free. The desktop software is $25. AirFoil for Mac / Windows. There’s a bundle with both for $40.
AirFoil
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Murphy has a few random Google things to pass along: Using Quick Add with Google Calendar on your iPhone or iPod touch. An alternative to the default iPhone Google Reader page. And a Google Calendar shortcut he hadn’t noticed until recently.
Quick Add - Google Calendar - iPhone
If for some reason you’re not using Google Sync to update the native calendar application on your iPhone this might be of interest. You can’t use Google Sync if you’re already using MS ActiveSync for something else, like connecting to Exchange at your office. And even if you do use Google Sync with your iPhone, the native Apple calendar application doesn’t have a feature like Google’s Quick Add.
Chances are you end up at http://www.google.com/m when you access Google on your iPhone. If you access the calendar from this site there’s an option to create new appointments, but no Quick Add. So where is it?
Amazon iPod Nano: $133
Just point your iPhone to http://www.google.com/calendar/m where you’ll get a list view of your upcoming appointments. And at the bottom - a Quick Add field. Bookmark the page and you’re all set.
Google Reader on iPhone
Murphy finds the http://www.google.com/m page a little slow to load. Especially if you’ve bookmarked it on its Reader tab. Like the calendar, there’s an alternative view for the Reader that makes it easy to focus in on particular feeds and quickly mark them as read. It seems to load faster for Murphy. Open http://www.google.com/reader/m on your iPhone. You’ll get a list of items to read, and links to specific subscriptions and tags. The link http://www.google.com/reader/m/subscriptions will show you all the feeds you’re subscribed to along with an unread-count. Dig down into any feed and bookmark it for fast access in the future. The Mark All As Read link is easy to tap, and helps you keep up with your feeds.
Murphy uses the built-in Safari feed display too, but it doesn’t provide a mechanism to mark items as read.
Google Calendar Shortcut
While looking at monthly view in a Google Calendar on a Macbook Murphy dragged two fingers across the main calendar and found it scrolled through the months. Dragging on the mini-navigation calendar scrolled very quickly. Very convenient.
More on Google from Murphy Mac
Amazon iPod Nano: $133
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I’ve been thinking the Google Search Box needs more juice for a long, long time. A recent Pogue column got me thinking about it again - so here’s what I’m looking for.
What You Can Do Now
Google lets you log in - they know who you are when you run a search from the box. Google needs to leverage that fact into increased functionality. I’ve posted before about all the things the search box lets you do. Look at Pogue’s column for details on the kinds of things the search box lets you enter. Flight status, currency conversion, all kinds of useful stuff. I’ve posted about it too. But why doesn’t Google deliver more?
What You Should Be Able To Do
Parsing a line of text for the good stuff isn’t much of a challenge for the brainpower at Google - what I’m looking for is something they could turn on tomorrow. Here’s an example:
Say I want to add an appointment. I could go to my Google Calendar and use the Quick Add link. Then I can type a natural language description of the appointment, something like- tomorrow lunch with Merlin 11:45am at LAX In-N-Out -and the appointment gets created in my Google Calendar. That’s nice, but why do I have to go to Google Calendar to do that when I have a permanent Google search box on every web browser I use? I have to load Google Calendar and click the Quick Add link before I can enter my appointment details. I don’t even want to go to Google Calendar after the appointment is created.
Instead, I’d rather type a qualifier in the regular search box like- appt# Dentist Dec 7 10am. The appointment would be added to the default calendar of whatever Google account I’m logged into. Obviously the appt# would tell Google I’m creating an appointment.
Where do we go from there? I’d be happy to send a quick email from the search box: email# to:laporte, pogue, mossberg sub: google body: they don’t like my idea
In this case the names would be pulled from my Google contacts. But you could enter an email address instead. And once Google buys Twitter you could just use a screen name and send a tweet.
What else? Depends on what you like to do with Google. How about where# pambeesly to see her location in Google Latitude? I should be able to add stocks to my iGoogle page. Open a Google Document by name. Send a text. Upload a photo.
Mobile
This is the big one. Google should be itching to keep me in their mobile app for as long as they can. If I can send texts, add appointments, open docs, and see where people are all from one simple search box on my mobile device I’m far less likely to wander off to another application or another vendor. For some people it’s much more convenient than digging through a GUI and multiple page loads.
When will we see something like this? Who knows. Google Calendar lets you specify lots of information with Quick Add, even details for a recurring appointment. So someone over there likes plain language interfaces. But it doesn’t let you specify a calendar. You never know what features we’re going to get, but you can hope.
Related Posts
Access Google Calendar from Terminal
Selective Mobile Phone Reminders with gCal
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