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]
Wireless Devices
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]
The first iPhone teardown report is in, and Infineon looks to the be the big winner. Infineon, which has a market cap of around $12 billion, makes at least two vital components of the phone, according to the teardown. Shares of Inineon were up 3.5% this morning. Semiconductor Insights was commissioned by EE Times to break open the iPhone and find out what makes it tick.
You can watch the video of the teardown above. Parts made by Broadcom, Marvell and Balda all have a role. Samsung and Intel make the flash memory components. Many of the components are branded as “Apple,” possibly concealing the names of the actual manufacturers.
So how is the iPhone doing after it’s big opening weekend? Among our friends in finance and tech, the iPhone is performing better than expected. Former Gawker media boss, turned Curbed.com entrepreneur, Lockhart Steele and Razorfish user experience expert Kevin Kearney purchased iPhones on Saturday. Zach Klein of Connected Ventures, who are responsible for CollegeHumor.com and Vimeo.com, bought one on Friday night. Two former Lehman brothers traders–one bond guy and one equities–also admitted caving into the temptation. In our completely biased sample, the purchasers skewed heavily male.
“Chicks dig it,” one buyer told us.
The message boards for Apple stock are a blaze on the news that the company’s shares are down about 1% in morning trading. Demonstrating what some have described as the cult-like status that the company seems hold for some consumers and investors, many seem to be taking the downward movement personally. “Why are we being punished like this?” one investor asked.
Infineon a big winner in iPhone teardown [ZD.net]
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]
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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.
Canceling conference appearances may be the latest pump and dump scheme, or just blowing off JPMorgan. Shares of Palm, maker of wireless handheld devices like the Treo, shot up more than 4% on merger speculation created by CFO Andrew Brown’s “back troubles.” Always a euphemism for an impending takeover or unveiling a new wireless megadevice, Brown used his “back trouble” to get out of speaking at a JPMorgan tech conference in Boston. Palm quickly issued its “No, Seriously” press statement, insisting that Brown was not only experiencing back trouble but was “at the physical therapist right now.”
Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) shares have recoiled slightly, trading down over three quarters of a percent in morning trading.
Skyrocketing Health Costs at Palm, Sort of [WSJ Deal Journal]
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