Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 76 of 168)

The Woz plays nice with the Nexus One

Steve Wozniak is a little manic.Steve Wozniak is known for being a little eccentric, but he’s so much like a big, nerdy teddy bear that it’s hard not to like the guy. He’s also one of few corporate faces that will drop the marketing schtick and admit where his company has gone wrong. Most recently, he told NBC that his favorite gadget isn’t the iPhone, it’s the Nexus One.

It’s a strange thing to admit to someone like NBC, who will take that story and run in any direction that will get attention. He did say, though, that he hasn’t ditched his iPhone. The Apple product is still his cellphone of choice. My guess is he likes that Android is a little more open, that it doesn’t restrict extremely tech-savvy people like himself from doing what they want with the phone. He’s often criticized the iPhone for it’s rigid user interface.

Whatever the reason, you can bet there’s an Apple fanboy weeping somewhere at the news.

Source: NBC

Apple sends Gawker a cease and desist

Gawker Media logo.Valleywag, one of Gawker Media’s sites, recently set up a scavenger hunt for info concerning Apple’s upcoming tablet. The contest was pretty cool, offering up to $100,000 for a chance to look at the thing. It got something, too, though I don’t think it will be giving the grand prize to Apple.

See, Apple sent Gawker a cease and desist for the scavenger hunt, something they probably wouldn’t bother to do if the device was fake. It’s a weird kind of confirmation, but a smart play on the part of Gawker. A hundred-thousand dollars sounds great, even for an Apple employee. And you can bet Gawker would be discrete if it meant a chance to have a hands-on with the tablet.

Here’s a little excerpt of the letter:

“While Apple values and appreciates vibrant public commentary about its products, we believe you and your company have crossed the line by offering a bounty for the theft of Apple’s trade secrets. Such an offer is illegal and Apple insists that you immediately discontinue the Scavenger Hunt.”

The rest is a bunch of chest-beating legalese. You can read the rest over at Gizmodo.

Google puts a $350 ETF on top of carrier’s for Nexus One

Google Nexus One.The latest in a string of consumer disappointments around Google’s Nexus One involves stacking early termination fees on top of one another. As several customers have noticed, canceling your Nexus One service after the 14-day trial period and before 120 days has passed results in what Google calls an Equipment Recovery Fee of $350.

That’s in addition to any carrier fees in place. For T-Mobile that’s another $200. That’s $550 in fees plus the $180 you paid for the phone. The lesson? Buy the thing outright if you’re interested but unsure. It’ll run you $530, will come unlocked, and you can resell it yourself and recoup most of your losses.

You also have to wonder where that money is going. In most carrier partnerships, it’s the carrier that subsidizes the cost of the phone, hence the egregious ETF. Here, though, Google is the retailer, so presumably it subsidizes the cost itself. Why the T-Mobile fee? And if for some reason T-Mobile is covering consumer costs, why Google? Whatever the case, it ends poorly for consumers.

Verizon gets an MIA song

MIA lookin weird.When you get poppy hipsters upset, they’re bound to go all sorts of loco on your ass. Take MIA. She recently had a three-hour long customer support call with Verizon, which prompted her to write a new song, titled “I’m Down Like Your Internet Connection.”

The song is set to be part of MIA’s new album, Kala which will be out later this year. For part of the song, MIA got Filipino Verizon employees to sing the hook. “I was having issues with my cable and wireless, and I was on the phone [with tech support] for three hours, and I thought, ‘Maybe this needs to be part of my music, could you just learn these lyrics and sing it down the phone to me?'” she said. “Ten phone calls later, I have Internet that sticks and a song.”

Now you know Verizon. You’ve got some bad publicity in the form of a pop song and your customer support reps aren’t helping your cause.

Source: Rolling Stone

Apple’s buying up 10″ screens

Apple tablet from TG Daily.According to several sources, Apple has been buying up every 10″ screen it can, in both LCD and OLED varieties. The company is buying so many, in fact, that there really aren’t any left.

“We were designing a product for a customer and we needed 10 inch screens, but we’ve been trying for months and can’t get one from any of the Asian suppliers,” an anonymous designer told TG Daily at CES. It’s not the first time Apple has done this, either. If you remember when the iPod was first getting started, there were zero 3.5″ drives available for the rest of the world.

The source said, surprise, it’s for the Apple tablet! I’m not really sure what else it would be for so that’s likely a safe bet. As for timing, though, it could point to a late Q1/early Q2 release instead of later in the year.

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