Does what it says on the tin. We've got video of the Digg founder and his Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht sitting outside a store in San Francisco waiting for an iPhone. "I'm gonna get two," says Alex, before the guys launch into their usual carny-like patter. Hm, are they really going to sell extras on eBay?
The already ferocious industry competition for our city's scarce iPhone supply may have just become much fiercer with the addition an utterly ruthless player to the market: Sources tell us that CAA has dispatched* up to 10 assistants to infiltrate the camp outside of the Death Star-adjacent Apple store in the Century City mall, where the coveted device will be made available for purchase in a mere 21 hours.
Greg Packer won't be the only person getting attention for camping out to buy the iPhone. Blogger Robert Scoble has announced he'll be camping tonight at the Palo Alto Apple Store. The blogger/interviewer conceives it as "a PR person's dream [Sic] to have me as a captive audience"; of course, it's also a dream scenario for Scoble: free press, blog hits, and his work comes to him while he sits waiting for his new toy. Although supplies are likely to be constrained and demand high, camping out for the iPhone has less to do with being first to own the latest gadget than about getting attention and feeling like you belong to a community (of unwashed obsessives who don't need to go to work). [Original Photo Credit: Infoweek and JD Lasica via Flickr.]
So it's shiny. It's new. It turns sideways or something! But also you can only send 200 texts a month, which is patently ABSURD, and it doesn't have instant messenger. So it is essentially a tiny, pretty Mac brick that takes phone calls. TAN and Blakeley asked the peoples that you meet on the street so that the coolhunters can work from home today.
On Friday, executives all over town will discover that no matter how many times they offer their anguished cries of, "Who the fuck does my assistant have to blow for me to get one of these goddamn iPhones?" to the Hollywood heavens, they'll still find themselves without the universally coveted, yet tragically scarce, miracle gadget. Those whose fears of status-symbol deprivation are most acute have already been working every last connection to obtain the phone, knowing that showing up to dinner at Cut without it would be tantamount to unzipping one's fly at the maitre d' stand and revealing to everyone in the restaurant that one's genitals had mysteriously disappeared. In a story about the growing anxiety surrounding iPhone Day, Ad Age notes how the industry's power players plan on getting their greedy hands on one:
Realists know the iPhone is the best browser for cheating on quiz night or for a bit of porn in the bathroom. Mac fanboys may not want to admit it, but the Jesusphone is perfect for some less than holy uses.
He's not just a (big) hand model. He has a face, body, and voice too! See Apple's iPhone model/spokesperson provide the most extensive guided tour to date of the JesusPhone's features at the Apple web site. [Approximate run time: 20+ minutes.] Or read Jason Chen's summary of the scant new revelations at Gizmodo.
Some would like to believe the only people willing to buy an iPhone are wealthy fanboys who will buy anything from Apple — no matter the cost, for sake of fashion and coolness. This isn't the case; there are several types of iPhone shopper who will anxiously wait in line for the computer maker's must-have gadget.
The Silicon Valley tech corps is doubtless too exhausted and giddy from liveblogging today's Steve Jobs keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference to rake it over the coals. Please, allow us. Here's a recap of what Jobs announced — and how much impact it will have on the Valley.1. Almost a million Apple developers. Jobs threw this out casually, but the number of programmers registered with Apple for updates is up 25 percent in a year. That's a huge victory for Apple, which has long suffered from a lack of Mac apps compared to Windows. Impact: 9 Surprise: 5 2. Apple's got game. Every five years or so, Jobs trots out John Carmack of Id Software, who proclaims his renewed enthusiasm for the Mac platform. The only problem: Jobs does this only every five years or so. Today's promises of more Mac games should be viewed in that light: Apple owes its weak lineup of Mac games to its on-again, off-again approach to videogame developers. Impact: 3 Surprise: 1 3. Log into your Mac from anywhere. Most of Jobs's Mac OS X Leopard was a rehash of already announced features. But this was new and significant: You'll be able to use Apple's .Mac service to log into your home Mac from any other Mac. That's a good reason for families with one Mac to add another. In other words, unlike most of Leopard's ho-hum new features, this one could actually lead to more Mac sales. Impact: 7 Surprise: 10 4. iPhone will run Web apps. A brilliant move that at once weakens Microsoft, strengthens Google, and quiets critics: Apple will let Ajax-ified Web applications like Gmail run on the iPhone. Some had demanded that Apple open up the iPhone to allow programmers to write native applications, a move Jobs resisted because of security and bandwidth concerns. By making the iPhone a platform for Web apps, Jobs is giving that nascent software platform a boost, while discouraging programmers from writing Windows-only apps. Impact: 9 Surprise: 8 5. Google and Apple integration — not! Less than two hours ago, every tech pundit on the planet was predicting that Google ZCEO Eric Schmidt would take the stage, Google and Apple would strike a deal to integrate Google's back-end Web services like email into the Mac, and Apple would make its .Mac service free. He didn't show, and it didn't happen. Impact: 0 Surprise: 10
We hate to interrupt the Apple lovefest with a tiresome observation about currency markets. But for anyone still outside the reality distortion field, here's some required reading: A Wall Street Journal article about the rise in value of the South Korean won (reg. required). Here's why this is bad news for the iPhone.What's an iPhone? Mostly a metal and plastic package for a flash-memory chip and an LCD screen. And where do those come from? Largely from South Korea, home to Samsung, LG, and countless other parts-makers. Those poor souls get paid in dollars, which are worth less as the won gets more valuable. Apple, whose profits have been supercharged by rapidly falling component prices over the past year, will have a tough time negotiating lower prices. If the won appreciates further, forget hopes of an iPhone cheaper than its current $499 price tag.
NICK DOUGLAS — One in four high schoolers would drop $500 on an iPhone, according to a poll by banking firm Piper Jaffray. Ahem. As a recovering ex-teen (on the wagon for three years as of Tuesday), let me channel the psychology of a high schooler. I am told about a hip product that will elevate you among my peers. I am asked to speculate, in a consequence-free context, whether I would spend my next two McDonald's paychecks on this product. I will tell you "sure." And I'll probably tell you my plan to get my own car, man. Yeah, and an apartment, cause I'm sick of Mom and Dad. Totally, man, totally. (Photo: duncandavidson)
NICK DOUGLAS — "A new company is paving the way for a more automated Internet," shouts the New York Times. Oh god. New internets are like perpetual motion machines: they get "invented" all the time, but you'll never find a working model. Here are the most famous, including Cyberspace, the Semantic Web, and Bruce Sterling's Magical Spime World.
