I primarily do buying from eBay, and although I can't attest to the actual inner workings, when attempting to bid on guitar/musical instrument items since they instituted this Bidder 1, Bidder 2, etc. hidden identity system, EVERY auction that had hidden bidder IDs resulted in a sale price that was in excess of the real value of the item being sold.
By this I mean an individual could go to an online or bricks-and-mortar retail store and buy the same item for the same price or less.
(Caveat: I'm the Sr. Systems/Data Engineer for one of the top cell phone OEMs...)
Narramissic is probably a marketing wonk; the question he surveyed is skewed. While a small percentage of people buy top tier handset that retail at $400 or more, if you surveyed the question "have you spent $400 or more for BOTH your music player and your cell phone", THAT percentage would be much higher.
Devices that integrate two separate functions and allow the user to have to carry/hassle/charge one device rather than two typically initially sell at the premium the added convenience conveys to the user.
We have been manufacturing handsets that function as music players for some time now, but the US domestic carriers have attemped to channel music sales through their OTA interfacing at a premium and force the user to jump through hoops to "side-load" music for playback. When you add the iPhones ability to easily interface with existing iTunes player setups and be the ONLY alternative to playback DRM'ed iTunes music content, AND the superior design, Steve may just do better than 1`% of the market before he's through, and I'm no fan and would never purchase an Apple computer...
Slashdot Mirror
...and they'll send out the supoena via flying pig...
I primarily do buying from eBay, and although I can't attest to the actual inner workings, when attempting to bid on guitar/musical instrument items since they instituted this Bidder 1, Bidder 2, etc. hidden identity system, EVERY auction that had hidden bidder IDs resulted in a sale price that was in excess of the real value of the item being sold.
By this I mean an individual could go to an online or bricks-and-mortar retail store and buy the same item for the same price or less.
(Caveat: I'm the Sr. Systems/Data Engineer for one of the top cell phone OEMs...)
Narramissic is probably a marketing wonk; the question he surveyed is skewed. While a small percentage of people buy top tier handset that retail at $400 or more, if you surveyed the question "have you spent $400 or more for BOTH your music player and your cell phone", THAT percentage would be much higher.
Devices that integrate two separate functions and allow the user to have to carry/hassle/charge one device rather than two typically initially sell at the premium the added convenience conveys to the user.
We have been manufacturing handsets that function as music players for some time now, but the US domestic carriers have attemped to channel music sales through their OTA interfacing at a premium and force the user to jump through hoops to "side-load" music for playback. When you add the iPhones ability to easily interface with existing iTunes player setups and be the ONLY alternative to playback DRM'ed iTunes music content, AND the superior design, Steve may just do better than 1`% of the market before he's through, and I'm no fan and would never purchase an Apple computer...
I just checked both the McAfee and Symantec "security centers" and neither has this trojan listed as a current threat.
Wonder why that is????