Bonus post for those of you still stuck in the office! I was left behind here as the rest of the DealBreaker team left for the beach.
You may have noticed others here at DealBreaker hinting toward my iPhone coverage around launch time at the end of last week in a couple different posts, and now I present to you what resulted.
The lines outside the Apple stores at the Fifth Avenue and SoHo stores slowly grew from Monday onward and I made sure to be right there to document the madness history-making launch. As you all know, Greg Packer, dubbed the iLoser, a compulsive line-sitter, was at the forefront at the Fifth Avenue Apple store. He even has his own blog now. Second in line was David Clayman (his blog here) who, after changing his story a couple times, decided he was buying the phone for charity.
Over at the SoHo store first in line was the “Keep A Child Alive” foundation who is auctioning the Jesus Phone iPhone off in a package on eBay now. They of course wanted to wait at the flagship Fifth Ave. store but since Greg beat them to the punch, they decided to mope at the SoHo store instead. After talking to them on numerous visits to the store (close to the office, conveniently), I found out they had five people in line (working shifts of only 4 hours) and each was buying two 8GB phones, but one wonders if the other nine have vanished into their pockets since only one is up on eBay now.
Filming the entire event live was Mogulus.com at the special website iPhoneLaunch.tv. They interviewed me briefly as I scouted the location and aired it live on the site (unfortunately not archived for my self-referential enjoyment). Supposedly on launch day they had four cameras out and about filming the event, but their site couldn’t handle all the traffic (max 800 viewers?!), so I can’t verify.
Through downpours and sweltering heat, hundreds of people camped out for this revolutionary (Jobs’s words, not mine) device for many days and I was forced sure to cover it all. On launch day I visited both stores but stuck to the Fifth Ave. store (which had unreal amounts of press) for coverage of the opening at 6PM. After the jump are two slideshows of my attempts at photojournalism, the first one of the Fifth Ave. store and the second of the SoHo store.
The best iPhone review I have read (which says the Mail app is terrible) for those of you who still haven’t gotten your hands on one of these can be found here.
Consumer Electronics
Round of applause for Apple, which not only “Think[s] different” by marking up its product 55% but also strips (some) iPhone purchasers of the one constant thing in their lives, their cell number. Yes, Yale anthropology doctoral candidate Allison Alexy stood in line for hours on Friday, bought the iBomb and then found out she couldn’t transfer her Sprint number to AT&T, a minor problem, given Apple’s exclusive contract with the carrier. She received a message from the fruit that her number wasn’t elgible for transferring but didn’t get into the how’s and why’s.
Her boyfriend, a lawyer, got on the computer and looked into the problem for 30–count ‘em, 30–minutes and found out that “wireless numbers can only be transferred from one wireless carrier to another within the same metro area.” Wanting to avoid a “hassle,” Alexy sucked it up and switched numbers. The long term affects of this event are unclear at this time.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris commented that “There are a small percentage of iPhone customers who’ve had a less-than-perfect [activation] experience.” But it doesn’t really matter either way, because the entire premise of this phone is based on Jobs’s supposition that “people will sacrifice a lot– $499-599, their old numbers, their pride, etc, to be card carrying members of the shit-eating grin club.” So there you have it.
Some Users Of iPhone Lose Their Numbers [WSJ]
Wouldn’t it suck if you paid $50,000 for a cell phone/iPod combo and then couldn’t activate it? Perhaps we should ask the 2% of iPhone purchases who suffered such a fate, which, according to estimates by Steve Jobs, translates to roughly 1 billion people.
Jay Gurfein bought his mobile Friday night at an Apple store in Nassau County (…). As of Sunday afternoon, he hadn’t been able to use the device. And just to make things interesting, when the Jay-man-LI initially tried to activate his service, AT&T immediately ended service on his existing BlackBerry, leaving him alone in the world for “more than 45 hours.”. By late Sunday night, AT&T, having had a spark lit under its ass by iGod himself, had gotten Gurfein’s phone on and given him a $150 credit for ruining his life.
In Louisiana, pretty much the same deal happened to Jaci Russo, except she also dropped two calls. In Murray Hill, one disgruntled user reported his iPhone’s failure to get him laid, even after whipping it out Joshua Tree and asking several female patrons if they’d like to touch it. Steve Jobs–sleep with one eye open.
Some iPhones Are Stuck on Hold [WSJ]
- Posted in:
Apple
Options Traders: Betting They’ll Find Marvell In The iPhone Tear Down?
By John Carney
Call options of Marvell Technology have been trading at four times their usual volume today. Apple’s iPhone is widely rumored to use a wi-fi processor manufactured by a company Marvell bought last year. Shares of Marvell traded up 5.81% for the day, with nearly twice the average number of shares changing hands.
One analyst we spoke to said he did not believe that the surge trading volume in the options and shares indicated anything suspicious.
“Some people are definitely trading on hopes that the stock will get a bump once the teardown analysts release their reports on the iPhone,” the trader told us. (He asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t authorized by his employer to speak on the iPhone.) “But I don’t think this pick-up is due to someone having inside information about what’s insider the iPhone.”
Marvell is still priced well-below the highs it hit in early 2006. Since then the company has faced an stock options scandal that lead to the resignation of its chief financial officer. Its most recent quarterly results came in below estimates.
But it hasn’t all been bad news for Marvell. Nasdaq announced this week that it was holding off suspending trading in Marvell’s while Nasdaq’s board reviewed allegations against the company. Marvell was recently added to the Russell 2000 index.
“There’s other news on this company besides the iPhone,” the trader told us. “But today’s interest is definitely trying to get in pre-teardown.”
Of course, it’s not just speculating traders who are excited about the iPhone. Nerds are excited too! Our reporter on the scene, Scott Bressler, says that there are approximately 362 people on line at the Apple store in Soho. At noon there were about 280, up from 68 at midnight.
(Photo: Waiting for tonight’s iPhone launch outside the Apple store by Scott Bressler).
Last night we sent DealBreaker intern Scott Bressler to scout the scene at the Apple stores in NYC. In Soho he met the folks at the front of the line, who are broadcasting their standstill adventure at iPhone Launch TV. They plan to be the first to buy the iPhone, which they will auction on eBay for charity. (Scott made an appearance on their webcast last night, and we’ll be posting his pictures later today.)
So the bleeding hearts are selling the iPhone for charity. We’re sure that’s sweet of them. But what we want to do is get our hands on one of these babies and smash it.
That’s the only way we’re going to get real answers to the question that has Wall Street traders speculating, whispering and rumor-mongering today: Who makes the components of the iPhone? Some rumored parts makers are Marvell Technology, Broadcom, Samsung, Infineon Technologies, FoxConn Technology and Cambridge Silicon Radio. Apple won’t say who is manufacturing the guts of the new phone, and none of various players are commenting to the press.
But that hasn’t kept the stocks from moving. Marvell technology seems to be a favorite. The stock is up nearly 3.5% today, and just halfway through its trading day it has almost reached the three-month average for trading volume. Broadcom is down a bit, after rising earlier in the week. Infineon has been up and down all week, and is currently trading about where it started on Monday.
Clearly we need to learn who makes what inside the iPhone as soon as possible. And the only way to do it is to break the phone open.
The market expects Apple to sell as many as 1 to 2 million iPhones today.
Update: It looks like we’re not the only ones who want to break the iPhone.
In anticipation of June 29–THE DAY THE iPhone COMES OUT–Steve Jobs announced this morning that the billion dollar mobile will exceed expectations, re: only lasting 2 hours before needing to be charged and work for a whopping eight hours between charges. Of course, this estimate works under the construct that from the second you turn your phone on at make a call–one call–you can talk for eight hours. But it doesn’t take into account that you might want to make use of some of the features you paid $500 for, like sending email, listening to music– scrolling through songs, etc.
But let’s just take eight hours at face value–are we the only cynical, OCD assholes who would just as soon listen to music on iPods and email on Blackberrys (which last 16+hours), rather than pay for a screen that’ll probably go to black at the most inopportune time and that’s going to have so many finger prints on it it’ll drive us insane (and: carry 80 things at once, since most of you are contractually obligated to carry a BBerry anyway, and it’ll be a dark day in hell before the banks start issuing iPhones)? I don’t think so.
Why then, are Wall Street’s analysts calling Apple at 160 and up and predicting that the ‘Phone will sell more than 40 million in 2009, lifting revenues more than 30% and earnings by 40%? A confluence of things, including the success of the iPod and the Mac, the monetization of geekdom, a growing segment of the population united in their hate of keyboards and the fact that Jobs, despite his laid back Mock Turtleneck/sneakers/501s demeanor, is a bit of an asshole, and assholes usually get what they want.
This is neither a judgment (if you know one thing about us it’s that assholes are our heroes) nor a statement not based on fact: John Heilemann writes today in New York that the “most common descriptor applied to [Jobs], by friends and foes and even Jobs himself is ‘asshole’.” His response to the question by a Wired writer, “If you could go back and give advice to 25-year-old self, what would you say?” was “Not to deal with stupid interviews–I have no time for this philosophical bullshit.” When he was asked by US assistant attorney general Joel Klein to get involved with the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, he asked, “Are you going to do something serious? Or is it going to be dickless?”
Mouthing off to U.S. Attorney: Assholeish or Heroish, you make the call. (We pick: C. All of the Above, but you know how us girls are attracted to assholes). And does it make you want to buy that thing?
Apple improves iPhone battery estimates [InfoSync]
Steve Jobs in a Box [NYM]
All-in-one How Big Will The iPhone Be? [BusinessWeek]
[via]
If you’re like us, it’s pretty hard to get through your day without cellphones, AIM, BlackBerrys and Bloomberg terminals. Whether it’s a message to say, “Hey, story in the Times about bestiality at Bear,” a quick buzz to see if anyone wants to come to get confrontational with the security guards at 85 Broad, have cyber sex or insider trade, without these forms of electronic communication, we’d all be at loss for what to do with ourselves (though that’s an idea). Unsurprisingly, the N.Y.S.E. and NASD, full of non-stop hate, are trying to strip us of our rights to do any of the aforementioned, in an effort to police (state) how written information is spread via internal and external exchanges.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
