Apple

I knew it would happen eventually. Rather than simply suing Apple, Steve Jobs or AT&T individually, Dongmei Li decided to go after all three of them.

The suit, which was filed last week (Sept. 24) in the United States District Court, accused the trio of “price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, deceptive actions and other wrongdoings for their role in the September 5th price drop on the iPhone.”

According to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, there are three central claims to Li’s case. The first:

“Apple’s price reduction has hurt early purchasers’ competition with Apple because they cannot sell it for as high a profit as they could have before the price cut.”

The second one is even better.

“Apple’s price reduction has hurt early purchasers’ competition with later purchasers because they cannot resell their iPhones for as low a price as later purchasers may.”

That’s not even the best one!

“Apple is selling its iPhone for an unreasonably low price to hurt competition between early and later purchasers so that the early purchasers cannot resell for as high a profit… more...

Yeah, Apple rolled out some new features and bricked a few phones but my thoughts vary on the update. Sure I will buy more music through the Wi-Fi store but since these updates are being pushed out to combat hackers by enticing them so it means newer features more often. We have to make a difficult decision: put aside Apple’s full onslaught against hackers and choose which side will give us the better features.

Now with that out of the way, a rundown of the new update, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good:

The iTunes Wi-Fi store is truly a money maker for Apple, the very least a great advertising propenent. See, people are lazy and sometimes we like to splurge now and again to use these lazy features. Case in point: Me buying $15 worth of iTunes credit just to test out this new feature. But you know what, I like it, a lot. Now I can be lazy and waste money like a madman.

Anywho, the iTunes Wi-Fi store is everything desirable in a mobile music store. The interface is snappy but there’s a noticeable delay… more...

It has been 9 months since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone. During this period we sat eagerly anticipating the device, searching for any news or hints as to how it will be sold, what it will support and how much it will cost. The big day arrived and the device seemed to meet expectations. A great mobile Apple computer capable of so much!

Fast forward to where we are today. Apple’s strategy of cozying up to carriers and demanding a share of their revenue seems to be loosing some steam. In terms of their customers, they have amazingly succeeded in turning their army of evangelists and supporters into their enemies. Are we header for an iPhone disaster?

I think there are some troubling signs that point in this direction. The good news is that they are not related to the device itself. It is still miles ahead of the competition and if Apple were smart, they have the opportunity to take some serious market share from the incumbents. But with their current strategy in place it is hard to imagine how they will accomplish this.

The most disturbing part of the strategy is the way they have chosen to… more...

Despite some of the forum rumors going around that the update would be released later than this month, Apple did in fact manage to get the Update out as promised—before the end of the week.

The update has a few more features than I expected. Take a look:

New Features include:

- iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
- Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
- Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
- Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
- Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
- Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
- Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
- Support for TV Out
- Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
- New Passcode lock time intervals
- Adjustable alert volume

It is said that though it was hoped Apple would only be targeting SIM unlockers, the update is confirmed to have broken all 3rd party applications installed via Installer.app. The update is said to revert the iPhone back to only Apple-made applications, and the iPhone re-activates itself after installation. Enjoy your… more...