Categories
annoyances

The Apple Isn’t Green

Apple Headphones Yesterday I bought the shiny new iPhone for my girlfriend. Aside from that, I bought her an extra pair of headphones, as we figured a set lasts for about 4 months of heavy use. So instead of grabbing the ones from the original iPhone box, she went to unbox the extra set. I was surpised how thoroughly it was packed. Well, the “thoroughly” isn’t exactly the word.

First there’s a carton box. Pretty thick, but that’s understandable, since it’s the external cover. Then there’s a small paper envelope, that actually holds the head phones wrapped into some plastic tape. So you have two huge pieces of paper and some plastic – for small merchandise that could be wrapped in plastic only… something along the lines of “saving the trees” and so on, you know.

Does it look nice? No doubt. Does it make sense? Hardly.

Oh, and the whole thing costs $39.99, which is about 5 times overpriced. Guess half of the money goes to bribe those “ecology experts” to approve Apple’s packaging.

Categories
Main

Retire Your iPod

Retire Your iPod - Small Business, Marketing and Web Design BlogThere’s a little incentive these days to own an iPod, let alone any other mp3 player. For those crazy about any product Apple releases there’s an iPhone that’s just as good as an iPod plus you can call your friends when you’re not listening to music. If you own any other smart phone device (or PDA phone) than their memory – whether built-in or expandable, like memory cards, is all yours to store your tunes. There’s little – if any – reason to own any mp3 player.

As always, Apple got there first, although many people have been using PDA phone as my ultimate media player couple of years before that. Video looked just as good and you didn’t have to pay for each and every ringtone. But you’d have to use Windows Mobile for that, which is, of course, unacceptable for Apple fans. Admittedly, devices didn’t look half as sexy as iPhone.

But even since early Sony’s attempts to introduce Sony Phone Walkman (I think I have one laying around somewhere given to me by some friend) the idea of merging multimedia device and phone was in the air. As we progress in faster cellular networks, faster mobile processors and better screens (i.e. better video quality) eventually we will see a single device that’s capable of playing stored media files (video, audio), streaming from various sources, like XM satellite radio, YouTube (and its clones), various streaming services like Last.fm and Pandora. The device will be capable of taking down your notes and synchronizing with almost any popular calendar and contact application out there (including online services, like Google Calendar, Yahoo and MSN). Apparently e-mail and web browsing capabilities already in place, they’ll just be more robust and less cumbersome. That includes sync with corporate e-mail services (Exchange, Domino) as well.

The way this future device (or rather a group of devices) will greatly vary depending on the target market. For example, for hip young crowd the device will probably look overly stylish, hyper sleek, uber sexy and totally overpriced. For corporate employees it’s going to be some sort of cross between Blackberry and something that looks nice. For geeks it’ll probably either look like a HTC Shift with a twist and a handle.

Overall, the idea that you will have a unified multimedia device with phone capabilities is upon the big corps like Nokia, HTC, Sony and others. Let’s just hope they finally hire some decent designers and the next wave of such devices won’t look like Blackberry on steroids.

Categories
cellular

Hurray! AT&T brings high-speed cellular link to Brooklyn!

ATT Cingular LogoIt’s been in the works for quite some time. AT&T, in fact, did announce that they are expanding their 3G/HSDPA network and other good things will come to those who wait. However, last couple of weeks I did experience some cell service outage and started thinking that moving to AT&T’s GSM network wasn’t, probably, the best idea. Today, however, I was very much surprised, when while standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn instead of regular E icon I saw 3G . This is indeed very good, since now my newsreader is able to finish downloading all the packages in no time and I can, finally, follow the links from the blogs and feeds I am reading while on the subway.
On the same note – Verizon phone was showing EVDO icon for quite some time now. I just wasn’t really paying attention to it.

Let me brag a little on how this should benefit the small businesses (one of which I am a proud owner of). First of all – it lets you justify purchasing some of those cool smartphones or PDA phones. Not iPhone though, sorry, iPhone is still on a slow EDGE. Second, you may be able to beef up your sales pitch with the help of your web site – some of our clients have been doing just that (they report that the impact is tremendous). Third – it’s cheaper to communicate via e-mail/messaging/web then through the phone, although most of us don’t realize it yet. This, actually, allows you to purchase a plan with less minutes and use data connection for messaging. I am yet to test Skype on my HTC Advantage, but I am sure it’ll work much better then on EVDO.

With all that said – I can’t wait for WiMax. Oh, and Verizon – where’s my FiOS?