"Other terms of the agreement are confidential" says the article. We don't know if Apple got this for free, or if they paid $4bn, half their shares and free rides in Steve Jobs' personal Jet for it.
I think you need to look up "fact" in a dictionary... either that or call the Prada a rip off of Apple's Newton, given that they all they have in common is that they are black cuboid electical products with touch screens.
Apple can win this one in the long term by making the term generic. There is no public confusion over the name, nobody but the most blatant Cisco shill or eBay fraudster would actaully mix up the two products (or 3 if you count the Canadian one).
After the first (non-3g) model's lifespan is over Apple can safely trademark the "iPhone 3G", "iPhone Nano" and all other variants, protecting their products while allowing the first part of the name to become generic. Once that happens, they could tell Cisco where to stick this deal.
The reason I specified "centralised" in my original post is that I have no idea where to find a Mac programmer familiar with the Mozilla code who is keen to fix this bug, and I have no idea if it's a $100 job or a $10,000 job. If it is a $10,000 job, I have no idea where to find 99 other people who would pay $100 to get it fixed.
Bug 306276 (windows not going where the user wants to put them under OS X) annoys the hell out of me. So much so that I'd happily pay $100 a fix for this in v1.5 or v2.
Is there a centralised system for offering this sort of incentive to volunteers?
The deal was buy one get one free, and that's exactly what happened. The problem for Amazon is that they let people stack the offer up to buy 2 and get each of them free with the other.
Unless Amazon said you couldn't stack the deal up, it's their fault, the customers got exactly the deal they offered, twice.
To all those saying there is no contracy, surely that one falls down if you ordered anything else at the same time, I think you'd have a very strong case that there was a binding contract covering all the items at the final (non 0) total price.
The British launch price is actually 425 UKP (about 835 US dollars), not quite as shocking as your suggestion, but still in "that has to be some sort of a joke, right?" territory.
I'm not even going to think about buying a PS3 until there's a proper Gran Turismo game out, and the console is below 300 UKP.
TV adverts for drugs are so lightly legislated over here that they are effectively banned (as are all drug adverts). The only one I can remember was a Pfizer advert that was so vague it only really seemed to be about Pele's inability to keep it (presumably a soccer ball) up.
Our medical system is based on the principle that if for have something wrong with you, you see a doctor, and the doctor prescribes the right drug for it if one exists. Therefore, drug companies market to doctors, not to patients, which seems the most sensible way to do it - after all a drug company's spend on advertising is spread a lot less thinly if they only advertise to doctors.
I rarely use Yahoo, their homepage is a big mess, and seems to have been redesigned every time I look at it. Add to that the different local varieties of Yahoo (sometimes I want the.co.uk version, being British), and the fact that their "Adult groups" are deliberately not indexed at all, then I feel quite justified in Googling for a Yahoo page rather than fighting my way through Yahoo's menus to find it, it's the quickest way to get to it.
Given that 1/2p = near as dammit 1 US cent, I guess our experience is relevant. The removal of the 1/2p was fairly painless, although as a small chld at the time I was affected by the fact that the candy called 'halfpenny chews' could only be bought in even multiples.
Basically the Bank gave up plenty of warning, then they stopped minting the coins, then their status as legal tender was changed so they were valid only when paid into banks (who sent them off to the mint, presumably to be melted down).
More recently, we changed the size of our 5, 10 and 50p coins by a similar process. The sky didn't fall, vending machines were converted to take the new coins with no disasters, and the rounding up/down issue was lost in the general climate of inflation. I imagine we'll lose the other 'copper' coins (1p and annoyingly large 2p) by a similar process in the next decade or two.
Apart from possibly changing the generation from grandfather to father, that IS exactly what happens in the book. Of course, a lot of other stuff happens *because of that* (the unauthorised copies, 256k mice etc.) but you are going to end up with a pretty convoluted press release if you want to cram the other stuff into the one sentence plot teaser that each of the new series announced gets.
You can't reasonably expect extrapolate from that one sentence to accurately predict anything after the 1st ten minutes of the first show, which is entirely to be expected from a document that is supposed to attract viewers who don't know about the book (and don't want spoilers) rather than fans who do know the book and want reassurances.
Jobs is certainly a more charismatic figurehead than Gates or Ballmer, but plenty of companies do just fine without a reality distortion field, so why shouldn't Apple? I believe the key man behind Apple's current run of success may well be Jonathan 'Jony' Ive, not Steve Jobs.
Complaint 1: "The battery is sealed in". This is pure FUD, nothing in the keynote or on Apple's website says that the battery is sealed in or not sealed in. The keynote graphics did indicate that the SIM card slot was internal, so taking the back off is possible, and therefore battery swaps seem likley to me.
Complaint 2: "Lack of third party apps". Possible FUD - Apple is strangely silent on this issue. We don't know if it's locked down like the iPod or as open as a Mac. For all the complainers know it might have Apple's rosetta technology and run Mac apps out of the box!
Complaint 3: "No 3G". FUD. Steve broke with tradition and pre-announced a 3G version in the keynote.
Complaint 4: "Terrible 2 year contract". Pure FUD. No details of what you get in this contract have been announced. It could be anything from $10 a byte to all call and data charges included in the sticker price.
As a foreigner, I'm surprised that the FCC isn't coming in for the sort of flambee trearment that the USPTO get from Slashdotters. We seem to get along fine here in Britain without leaky beaurocrats taking months to decide that a phone isn't a WMD (We do have some annoying European who want a "CE" logo on everything, but it's not hard to get, you can practically self-certify).
I expect apple will quietly rebrand the thing with the logo where the 'i' was, just like the (applelogo)TV. Everyone not on Cisco's payroll will ignore the change and call it the iPhone anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
"Other terms of the agreement are confidential" says the article. We don't know if Apple got this for free, or if they paid $4bn, half their shares and free rides in Steve Jobs' personal Jet for it.
I think you need to look up "fact" in a dictionary... either that or call the Prada a rip off of Apple's Newton, given that they all they have in common is that they are black cuboid electical products with touch screens.
Apple can win this one in the long term by making the term generic. There is no public confusion over the name, nobody but the most blatant Cisco shill or eBay fraudster would actaully mix up the two products (or 3 if you count the Canadian one).
After the first (non-3g) model's lifespan is over Apple can safely trademark the "iPhone 3G", "iPhone Nano" and all other variants, protecting their products while allowing the first part of the name to become generic. Once that happens, they could tell Cisco where to stick this deal.
The reason I specified "centralised" in my original post is that I have no idea where to find a Mac programmer familiar with the Mozilla code who is keen to fix this bug, and I have no idea if it's a $100 job or a $10,000 job. If it is a $10,000 job, I have no idea where to find 99 other people who would pay $100 to get it fixed.
Bug 306276 (windows not going where the user wants to put them under OS X) annoys the hell out of me. So much so that I'd happily pay $100 a fix for this in v1.5 or v2.
Is there a centralised system for offering this sort of incentive to volunteers?
The deal was buy one get one free, and that's exactly what happened. The problem for Amazon is that they let people stack the offer up to buy 2 and get each of them free with the other.
Unless Amazon said you couldn't stack the deal up, it's their fault, the customers got exactly the deal they offered, twice.
To all those saying there is no contracy, surely that one falls down if you ordered anything else at the same time, I think you'd have a very strong case that there was a binding contract covering all the items at the final (non 0) total price.
The British launch price is actually 425 UKP (about 835 US dollars), not quite as shocking as your suggestion, but still in "that has to be some sort of a joke, right?" territory.
I'm not even going to think about buying a PS3 until there's a proper Gran Turismo game out, and the console is below 300 UKP.
oops, well spotted, unintentional mistake, now fixed.
TV adverts for drugs are so lightly legislated over here that they are effectively banned (as are all drug adverts). The only one I can remember was a Pfizer advert that was so vague it only really seemed to be about Pele's inability to keep it (presumably a soccer ball) up.
Our medical system is based on the principle that if for have something wrong with you, you see a doctor, and the doctor prescribes the right drug for it if one exists. Therefore, drug companies market to doctors, not to patients, which seems the most sensible way to do it - after all a drug company's spend on advertising is spread a lot less thinly if they only advertise to doctors.
If you want to make your views known, the BBC's online consultation form is here
Let's make our opinions known!
I want to know more about "asteroid"
I rarely use Yahoo, their homepage is a big mess, and seems to have been redesigned every time I look at it. Add to that the different local varieties of Yahoo (sometimes I want the .co.uk version, being British), and the fact that their "Adult groups" are deliberately not indexed at all, then I feel quite justified in Googling for a Yahoo page rather than fighting my way through Yahoo's menus to find it, it's the quickest way to get to it.
Exactly. Cingular have no visible presence at all here in Britain either, nobody expected that deal to apply here either.
Given that 1/2p = near as dammit 1 US cent, I guess our experience is relevant. The removal of the 1/2p was fairly painless, although as a small chld at the time I was affected by the fact that the candy called 'halfpenny chews' could only be bought in even multiples.
Basically the Bank gave up plenty of warning, then they stopped minting the coins, then their status as legal tender was changed so they were valid only when paid into banks (who sent them off to the mint, presumably to be melted down).
More recently, we changed the size of our 5, 10 and 50p coins by a similar process. The sky didn't fall, vending machines were converted to take the new coins with no disasters, and the rounding up/down issue was lost in the general climate of inflation. I imagine we'll lose the other 'copper' coins (1p and annoyingly large 2p) by a similar process in the next decade or two.
in this context, GP = "Grandfather Post", ie. the parent post's parent post.
Apart from possibly changing the generation from grandfather to father, that IS exactly what happens in the book. Of course, a lot of other stuff happens *because of that* (the unauthorised copies, 256k mice etc.) but you are going to end up with a pretty convoluted press release if you want to cram the other stuff into the one sentence plot teaser that each of the new series announced gets.
You can't reasonably expect extrapolate from that one sentence to accurately predict anything after the 1st ten minutes of the first show, which is entirely to be expected from a document that is supposed to attract viewers who don't know about the book (and don't want spoilers) rather than fans who do know the book and want reassurances.
Personal information stored in big brother database
"The author supposes that Apple will include Cingular's 3G network, when it is available."
Probably because Steve Jobs said that there would be a 3G iPhone, during the keynote.
"Can you name another corporation that has thrived because it convinced people its product was good and it really wasn't?"
Yes
Jobs is certainly a more charismatic figurehead than Gates or Ballmer, but plenty of companies do just fine without a reality distortion field, so why shouldn't Apple? I believe the key man behind Apple's current run of success may well be Jonathan 'Jony' Ive, not Steve Jobs.
Is it just me or has the iPhone recently had an Apple logo tacked to the front of it's name like the (apple)TV?
I'm sure this gif has changed since the keynote.
What did Cisco want? '[We] wanted an open approach.'
'What did Cisco want? [We] approached Steve and asked him to open his wallet'
Complaint 1: "The battery is sealed in". This is pure FUD, nothing in the keynote or on Apple's website says that the battery is sealed in or not sealed in. The keynote graphics did indicate that the SIM card slot was internal, so taking the back off is possible, and therefore battery swaps seem likley to me.
Complaint 2: "Lack of third party apps". Possible FUD - Apple is strangely silent on this issue. We don't know if it's locked down like the iPod or as open as a Mac. For all the complainers know it might have Apple's rosetta technology and run Mac apps out of the box!
Complaint 3: "No 3G". FUD. Steve broke with tradition and pre-announced a 3G version in the keynote.
Complaint 4: "Terrible 2 year contract". Pure FUD. No details of what you get in this contract have been announced. It could be anything from $10 a byte to all call and data charges included in the sticker price.
As a foreigner, I'm surprised that the FCC isn't coming in for the sort of flambee trearment that the USPTO get from Slashdotters. We seem to get along fine here in Britain without leaky beaurocrats taking months to decide that a phone isn't a WMD (We do have some annoying European who want a "CE" logo on everything, but it's not hard to get, you can practically self-certify).
I expect apple will quietly rebrand the thing with the logo where the 'i' was, just like the (applelogo)TV. Everyone not on Cisco's payroll will ignore the change and call it the iPhone anyway.