Washington Post featured my CEO in our demo vehicle at CES in Las Vegas. Very cool how we are on the cutting edge of bringing DVB-SH to the US market. Here is the Washington Post blog article.
This is only funny because it sounds like nobody was injured. Listen to the voice-over of the on-lookers at the end, too funny. I definitely want a person flying my planes for the forseeable future…
Airplane Crashing On Landing - The best bloopers are a click away
Some websites with themes, wallpaper, and ringtones. All free of coarse! 
www.mobile41.com
blackberrythemecentral.com
www.tuneusin.com
www.deviantdigital.ws
Mobile Software
www.shozu.com
Beyond411 (aka Berry 411)
Yahoo! Go
Google Maps
I got the first one available in the store. Love it so far and it is a much needed upgrade from the old 8700 and 7100 series I have been using. It includes a nice 2MP camera and it has a flash. The media player portion is sweet! I can pretty much use it to listen to music, once I get my MicroSD card from Newegg.com. It even has a new headset connector, which is 3.5mm. This is the same as your standard headphone connector for a walkman or PC. That means I can use quality headphones! The speakerphone is extremely loud, and the rings are very crisp and clear.
I am still getting used to the rollerball, but I am starting to like it. I am not fond of the themes, as I was using a Vodafone theme on a 8700 recently and loved that. Hopefully a few months will bring some nicer themes from the community. I am happy with my purchase, and hope Cingular’s service is reliable enough. I moved from T-Mobile, after being there for the last 6 years, because my co-workers and family are on Cingular and that enables free mobile-to-mobile. I waited to switch for the last 2 months because of this device. I would have waited for T-Mobile’s if I hadn’t had that factor.
All deference to the folks that believe in the omniscience of Steve Jobs, but there is almost no way that Apple is going to be able to sell 10 million iPhones in 18 months. Just to show that I’m not a naysayer, I do agree that 1 million iPhones in 2007 is completely reasonable.
Here’s the rationale:
With AT&T/Cingular being the only announced carrier to date, getting to the 10 million number would require 1 out of every 6 CURRENT AT&T/Cingular customers to buy an iPhone. The people that will buy iPhones are the small subset that are currently paying well over $100 per month for wireless service. With AT&T/Cingular’s current ARPU at less that $50, a standard distribution would suggest that substantially less than 1 in 6 are currently paying more than $100/month. Compound that with the fact that many of these people (myself included) have already upgraded to Cingular’s 3G network, and we won’t want to lose all of that network speed just to have a slightly slicker form factor. (Side note: I was going to wait for the iPhone, but ultimately decided that the Blackjack was plenty feature rich and also had 3G, allowing me to watch my slingbox from anywhere - something you just can’t do on the EDGE network that the iPhone will have).
Wait, you say, the iPhone will attract people to leave Verizon and Sprint. I definitely agree with that point, which is why I believe that the iPhone was a huge coup for Cingular. It will attract many of the high ARPU, fashon-savvy customers away from the competitors. But if you’ve noticed, Cingular remains the only carrier in the world that has done a deal with Apple. The reason for that is the eggregious terms that Apple forced on Cingular. Apparently Verizon was going to get the iPhone, but couldn’t stomach the terms. The terms are so difficult that AT&T’s board of directors had to sign off on the deal - something that has never happened before for a single handset deal. Because Apple got AT&T to fold like a lawn chair, they are expecting other carriers to do the same, but the European carriers are not biting.
There have been well over 1 million people that have signed up in Apple stores and online to get an email when the iPhone is generally available. Let’s be generous and say that all those people buy the phone in the first 6 months it is out. That gets you all of the early adopters. Then what? Who buys it next? With a $500 price tag, very few people will be able to unless some kind of payment plan is offered (which there won’t be for all of the reliability issues highlighted by others).
In all reality, the main reason this is a coup for Cingular is the fact that 1) they will be able to attract the very high end customers from the other carriers, 2) they will be able to retain their own high end customers, and 3) they will drive consumers into their Cingular stores just to look at and play with the iPhone. The reason #3 is so critical is that Cingular has a teriffic selection of phones that have pieces of the iPhone functionality (MP3 player, video, etc) at a fraction of the price. Cingular’s bet is that for every 100 people that come in to look at the iPhone, 1 will buy it, 9 will buy something else, and the other 90 will just leave the store. Hey, that’s 100 people that wouldn’t have walked in the store that day, thus 10 sales that wouldn’t have been made. Smart move if you ask me.
A the end of the day the iPhone will do very well and Jobs will again be touted as a consumer products/marketing demi-god. However, given the current information we have, it will take time for it to get to the 10 million plateau. Unless, of course, Jobs has a couple other carriers up his sleve, in which case my entire analysis is out the window, which (as a shareholder) would be fine by me.
I love getting my finances online. I can look up info on my WAMU Checking account, Citibank credit card (with ThankYou Rewards), my 401k, and my direct deposit paycheck stubs. ADP iPayStatements provides the paystub in PDF format, but it is an awful website. I can review my Pay Statements or my W-2 forms, which is great. I can also get email notifications when new statements are available. Since we no longer get paper copies, this is great. The only issue is the way the website is constructed. They don’t let you ‘Open in New Window’! So my multi-tasking browser is stuck dead in the water with the following message: “To protect your sensitive information, you cannot access iPayStatements from this browser window.”
Okay, so no second browser window is not the end of the world. But they are going further and screw with Adobe Acrobat’s settings. So Acrobat’s default setting is to “Display PDF in browser”. This means that the browser window is open, and the PDF is displayed within Internet Explorer or Firefox. I hate this concept because it limits the toolbar, can crash/stall your browser, and is usually inefficient since I usually download the full PDF so I can view later. This ’security’ limitation is a pain, and will cause me to hate the site. I went to look for help on the topic at ADP’s website since the PDF was not displaying initially, but the only answer I got was to either install Acrobat (meaning I didn’t have it already) or upgrade to the newer version.
Someone over at ADP needs to learn how to make a website more user-friendly. Until then, I am only going to visit to get my W-2 and 1099 forms once a year.
So I used to play this game as a kid, as did many others I bet. Check out this fantastic video of the grown-up version over at xbox.com
I got an email from the guys at The DiscHub declaring a 50% off sale on their product. I bought 2 of them (both Storm Trooper white) when they first launched over a year ago, and I love it. One sits on my desk to hold CDs that I randomly need to rebuild/setup computers, and the other sits next to my DVD player and holds my Netflix and Xbox360 games. I don’t have the cases out anymore, and there is no need to worry about scratching the discs. The DiscHub has been licensed to a major manufacturing company and soon it will be available in some of the major stores. Anyway, if you want to pickup one (before they go all brand name) for $5 and free shipping, head over to TheDiscHub.com and use the coupon HALFOFF.
Okay where are the Windows Mobile 5 phones for Verizon and Sprint? My CEO loves Verizon’s coverage in NYC, but hates the battery life of the new Blackberry 8703e. The standard battery only lasts 3hours of talk time, and there isn’t an extended battery available currently. He had a Motorola E815 with extended battery and liked it, but it eventually got worn out and he wanted to go for a combined device. Sprint and Verizon both offer Windows Mobile 5 PDAs with full QWERTY keyboards, but no simple phone WM5 devices like Cingular and T-Mobile. Does that mean people don’t want the Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition? I don’t think so, since I know several people who own the T-Mobile SDA, Cingular 2125, Audiovox SMT5600, and Motoral MPx200 and 220.
While researching possible stocks to invest in, I found a blurb about the upcoming launch of Zecco.com. It sounds like a nice idea. People sharing ideas and news on stocks. Then they will also have the option to execute stock, option, and mutual fund trades. I think I heard someone say that they would be offering free trades (no commission). I don’t know how that is possible, but that feature won’t be available at launch. It looks like a lot of their ad sponsors are from financial services companies. I am a bit worried about the idea of users spreading news/rumors and pushing stock prices in the wrong direction. Indiviuals don’t have to disclose the same things large companies and analysts have to. So I don’t trust blogs to give honest stock recommendations…
Its interesting to note that commission fees are dropping. I remember paying $35 per trade and I now pay $12.95. I also don’t have quarterly or yearly fees on my Schwab account. TechCrunch has an interesting take on this new service.
Twenty four hours in a day. Work eight hours, sleep eight hours, but what do you do with your ExtraEight?
