Linked List: June 9, 2008

Monday, 9 June 2008

The Downside of Subsidies: In-Store Activation ★

Gizmodo:

We just talked to AT&T’s President of National Distribution Glenn Lurie, who gave us all the pricing and activation details for the iPhone 3G, which won’t be getting special treatment anymore. It will be using all AT&T’s standard voice and data plans, which means $30 for unlimited 3G data for consumers, $45 for business users on top of voice. Also, no in-home activation for iPhone 3G — it will have to be activated in store (at AT&T or Apple Store), which takes 10-12 minutes, meaning that first day line is going to SUCK.

So, the data plan goes up $10 a month if you want 3G, and you have to activate the phone in the store, because the $199 price is subsidized. Bad news if you want to buy an iPhone 3G on day one, and worse news if you want to buy one to unlock for use on another carrier.

MobileMe ★

Pretty interesting to compare Apple’s take on mobile web app UI design to Google’s. The push data demos Schiller gave during the keynote were impressive.

App Store Promotional Page ★

No demos of the App Store in action during the keynote, but Apple has a new promo page for it, including Twitterrific.

Twitter Keynote Coverage ★

Twitter is up (hats off to them) and the Wi-Fi is on here in the keynote hall, so I’m cracking jokes there.