Linked List: June 19, 2008

Thursday, 19 June 2008

The End of iPhone Unlocking? 

The Macalope, arguing with Todd Sullivan over whether the iPhone 3G is actually cheaper than the original iPhone, hits on a point that I think many others haven’t realized yet — that the unlocking phenomenon may be over. Sullivan wrote:

Also Mac[alope], what about the 1/4 to 1/3 of iPhones purchased that are eventually unlocked? Aren’t they stunningly cheaper, or are we just ignoring them because they do not fit our argument?

The Macalope replied:

Actually, those would be cheaper, obviously… if you can actually get out of the door with one without being tasered by AT&T’s jack-booted thugs. See, Todd, AT&T has wised up and will be forcing customers to activate their phones before leaving the store.

Got it? You won’t be able to leave the store without a contract. A two-year contract. One you must pay for. Contractually. For two years. With money.

In the short-term, the main effect of the original iPhone’s “activate it at home through iTunes” model was that you didn’t have to waste 15 or 30 minutes in a store waiting for your old number to transfer and new one to activate. In the long-term, though, the main effect is that it allowed people to buy iPhones with no intention of ever activating them on AT&T. This is apparently no longer the case with the iPhone 3G.

The big question is what AT&T’s contract cancellation fee is going to be.

Update: Apparently AT&T’s standard contract termination fee is $175; let’s see if the same applies to the iPhone. If it does, I don’t see how reports like this one, claiming AT&T is subsidizing $325 on every iPhone, make sense.

Matt Neuburg Reviews OmniFocus 

Matt Neuburg:

Indeed, OmniFocus is the best GTD implementation I’ve ever used. Nonetheless, I do not yet recommend it for general use, because, in my opinion, problems with the interface would actually prevent most users from freely accessing and manipulating their data.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never read anything about the official Getting Things Done system and simply tried using OmniFocus to (lowercase) get things done, but I found it to be difficult to understand. Neuburg’s complaints help me put my finger on what I don’t like about it. Don’t miss his screencast addenda to the article, regarding the UI details of the app. In fact, the screencasts might even be better than the article.

Man Gets Windows Vista to Work With Printer 

Not a fake headline. (Via Jacqui Cheng.)

A Curious Case of Serial Typesetting 

In anticipation of David Fincher’s upcoming film, Jonathan McNicol is serializing the eleven chapters of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in nicely typeset PDF format. (Via Kottke.)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Abridged Script 

Rod Hilton’s hilarious (but spoiler-laden) mockery of the new Indiana Jones film. (Via Andy Baio.)

Video From Google I/O Sessions Now Available 

Just three weeks after the end of the conference — pretty good.

Bill Bumgarner: ‘What Is Good Tequila?’ 

Bill Bumgarner on tequila. Bookmark immediately.

MagCloud 

Derek Powazek’s latest project:

MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.

More from Derek here.

Radar 

Steven Berlin Johnson on Radar, the new “what’s going on near me?” feature at Outside.in:

The list of cool things you can do with Radar is long, but I think the basic premise is pretty simple and intuitive. Tell us where you are, and Radar shows you what’s happening around you, at increasing levels of zoom: the 1000-foot scale, the neighborhood scale, the city scale, and “Everywhere Else” in the U.S.