Entries tagged 'iPhone'

Monday, June 9th, 2008

WWDC’s Big News Not 3G, but Fortune 500

At San Francisco’s Moscone Center today, the release of a 3G iPhone took the spotlight in Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ annual address at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

But the biggest news to come from WWDC this year came about 11 minutes into Jobs’ talk, when he revealed that 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies have participated in Apple’s iPhone enterprise beta program.

These 175 companies should make RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, very nervous.

Version 2.0 of the iPhone’s software is to be released on July 11 and finally adds support for Microsoft Exchange, which powers the e-mail of corporate America like a bad crack habit. From Apple’s demonstrations, using the iPhone to access corporate e-mail seems intuitive and tightly integrated into the phone’s function set.

Add on top of that easy-to-use mobile internet access (at fast 3G speeds) and a fully-featured video iPod and the Blackberry seems like a Chevy Nova in Latin America… an outdated relic.

CTOs are practically-minded geeks by nature. It’s hard not to like the iPhone and Apple just broken the last major technical damn keeping the device from being fully integrated across major corporations.

Let the flood begin.

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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

When 1>3: The iPhone Dock Adapter

So I went Christmas shopping today, which is already a horrid enough experience: wading through throngs of shoppers in San Francisco’s Union Square area, trying to find the perfect gift.

I stopped by the Apple Store to grab an iTunes gift card for a relative and used the opportunity to pick up a simple, but needed accessory for my iPhone — a universal dock adapter. This simple piece of plastic allows my phone to sit in the dock I’ve had for a number of years and connect to my computer (the dock included with the phone is in my bedroom for overnight charging purposes).

Apple includes this item with all new iPods it sells, so I’m already angry that I have to buy one, but when the Apple Store representative hands me the package, it contains not one, not two, but three identical dock adapters for $9.

Now, I understand that some people have more than one universal dock, but I have to believe that most users have one, guaranteeing that 2/3 of what users buy ends up in the trash can (not to mention the packaging). What a waste.

Here’s a suggestion for Apple: either give away the dock adapters or sell them individually. I’d much rather pay $4-5 for one than $9 for three, even if it’s just to satisfy my environmental inclinations for a day. No wonder Greenpeace gave Apple such a poor environmental score.

In the meantime, there are 2 iPhone dock adapters on Freecycle, yours for the cost of a stamp.

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