Linked List: September 7, 2007

Friday, 7 September 2007

Speaking of feed sponsors, I’m sold out through October 8. If you have a product or service to promote to the DF audience, let me know.

PeepCode Screencasts ★

My thanks to PeepCode for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. They sell kick-ass screencasts for web developers, specializing in Ruby, Rails, and Ajax. Special offer this week: buy a 10-pack subscription and get two free screencasts, or get one free with a 5-pack.

Engadget Reports iPhoneSIMfree to Ship on Monday, This Time for Realsies ★

If they’ve got screenshots, it must be real.

iPhone Hacking Kit, the Next Generation ★

Ben Long updates his instructions for how to install and use third-party iPhone apps. (The iPhone screenshots are full resolution; that they look so big on your computer display shows how small the pixels are on the iPhone’s 160 ppi screen.)

iToner 1.0.1 ★

Updated for iTunes 7.4 compatibility. Given the aforelinked “use any AAC audio file as a ringtone just by changing the file extension” tip discovered today, though, I’m not sure there’s a market for iToner any more.

Mémoires ★

Still-in-beta journaling app by The Coding Robots, with a simple, elegant user interface. (Via Daniel Jalkut.)

Free Custom Ringtones in iTunes 7.4 ★

Tip of the week, from “Cleverboy” on the MacRumors forums: just duplicate any (non-DRM-protected) AAC file, change the file extension to “.m4r”, and iTunes 7.4 will treat it as a ringtone.

TUAW, Gizmodo Falsely Report Gloating ‘Congrats, Late Adopters’ Google Ad Was Placed by Apple ★

So far only Gizmodo has posted a correction. Hard to believe anyone thought Apple would place an ad taunting their own customers. Update: Correction appended to TUAW’s post.

The Times Giveth, The Times Taketh Away ★

Katie Hafner and Brad Stone, reporting for The New York Times:

Mobile phones tend to be more prone to price declines because the pace of product introductions is faster than for televisions or DVD players. Motorola, for instance, introduced the ultrathin Razr phone for $499 with a two-year service contract in early 2005. Six months later, Motorola realized it had a hit on its hands and dropped the price to $199 in an effort to aim at more mainstream buyers. By the end of 2005, the price was $99.

Perfect example disproving that the iPhone price cut was “unprecedented”. But, then:

Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, a market research firm in San Jose, Calif., was skeptical of the store credit.

“A $100 credit could be perceived as adding insult to injury,” said Mr. Enderle, noting that store credits are seldom well received. “It’s a way to make you go buy something else, and gives the company a chance to make more money.”

Thank you for explaining what “store credit” means. The Times, of all places, should realize that quoting Rob Enderle does not add credibility to a report. (See also: The Macalope.)

Steve Jobs Speaks the Truth ★

Saul Hansell, writing for The New York Times’s Bits weblog:

We are so used to cryptic and seemingly disingenuous communication out of Apple that we miss it when Mr. Jobs says crassly what most businessmen try to hide: Apple lowered the price of the iPhone because it wants to make lots more money by selling boatloads of them this Christmas.

I think Jobs speaks the plain truth far more often than many think. Or at least he says what he believes is the truth.

Another thought on why the price drop doesn’t mean sales have been slow. The central rule of technology is that the unit price drops sharply with volume. If Apple sold more than it hoped, then it would achieve scale faster and would be able to drop prices sooner. Apple’s introduction of the iPod Touch, using many of the same components as the iPhone, gives it an even bigger checkbook to brandish in Taiwan to secure good supplies at good prices.

Best iPhone pricing analysis of the week. Brilliant.

(This is why The Times is so well respected — they hire smart writers. That they’re putting their writers to work on weblogs such as Bits bodes well for their future. Most old media companies are hell-bent on the quixotic goal of keeping the world the way it was; The Times seems to be trying to adjust their business for the changing world.)

Washington Post Op-Ed Columnist, Who Admits He Doesn’t Own One, Writes Entire Column Complaining About iPhone Price Cut ★

Washington Post op-ed columnist Eugene Robinson:

If I were an iPhone owner, I’d be hopping mad. I’d be iRate.

“iRate”. That’s so funny.

This time, though, he has failed to live up to one clause in his implied contract with iPhone buyers. The sky-high price was supposed to guarantee a decent period of exclusivity. For a time, if you bought an iPhone, you were supposed to be the envy of your friends. The ability to show off all the neat things it could do was your compensation for the fact that the iPhone didn’t really change your life.

It’s hard to shake the sense that mainstream media outlets are reaching for any sort of negative angle related to Apple and the iPhone. The attitude Robinson is describing here has a name. It’s called being an asshole. His point seems to be that Apple is being a dick because they betrayed customers who enjoyed being assholes about owning a $600 iPhone.

Federal Court Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act ★

Linda Rosencrance, reporting for Computerworld:

A federal court today ruled that the FBI can’t compel ISPs to turn over user records without notifying those users unless it has a court order or a grand jury subpoena.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down part of the amended Patriot Act’s National Security Letter (NSL) provision, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had filed a lawsuit challenging the provision.

Good news. (Via John Welch.)

Cringely on the Price Cut ★

Great one from Cringely:

Had nobody complained, Apple would have left it at that. But Jobs expected complaints and had an answer waiting — the $100 Apple store credit. This was no knee-jerk reaction, either. It was already there just waiting if needed. Apple keeps an undeserved $50 million and customers get $50 million back. Or do they? Some customers will never use their store credit. Those who do use it will nearly all buy something that costs more than $100. And, most importantly, those who bought their iPhones at an AT&T store will have to make what might be their first of many visits to an Apple Store. That is alone worth the $50 per customer this escapade will eventually cost Apple, taking into account unused credits and Apple Store wholesale costs.

I think Cringely’s wrong, though, that Jobs is still obsessed over his getting fired from Apple in 1985. I don’t think he’s forgotten it, but I think that in his mind it’s ancient history, and he’s been vindicated several times over since returning to Apple in 1997. For example, at last month’s iMacs/iLife/iWork special event, Jobs several times alluded to Apple having released the first version of iLife “a long time ago”. It was actually just four and a half years ago, but I think in Jobs’s mind, even 2003 is the distant past.