iPhone 3G's Sell-Ability

This is an amazing sales chart I saw on my endadget rss feed. It shows how many days it took to sell a million of these handsets. There's not much more to say. Amazing.

iPhone Google App Secret Menu

Check this one out. The developers at Google put some secret options in their Google App for iPhone. From Just Another iPhone Blog®:

To reveal the Bells and Whistles section, you need to continuously swipe upwards on the ‘About’ button on the Settings page for the app. This should show you Bells and Whistles as an extra menu item. From that menu you can:

• Change the theme color of the app
• Change the default sound (to a monkey or a chicken)
• Choose a waveform to appear when you speak
• Set whether to have links open within the app

Not a huge new range of settings, but better than a kick in the teeth, and sounds like the Google Mobile team had a lot of fun adding these.

I prefer the bright green theme color with the chicken sounds.

My Quest for iPhone 3G: Part IV

I never did update the blog with the outcome of the iPhone 3G trial. I decided to keep it, and I couldn't be happier. I have been very happy with the phone, and mostly happy with the service. AT&T is a much more robust network that Nextel ever will be, and the calls are crystal clear. I lose signal occasionally in the hospital, elevators, or anywhere deep inside a building. Nextel's service seemed to outperform AT&T in terms of building penetration. Beyond that, Nextel sucks. (And they're for sale.)


Just a few of the things I've done recently with my all-in-one iPhone device:

-Listen to podcasts (which I'm really enjoying)

-Listen to music out on the golf course (the built in speaker of the iPhone isn't too bad for iPod playback, but for conference calls, it leaves much to be desired)

-Facebook mobile

-Instant email

-Taking and sharing pictures

-GPS

-Fighting off enemies with my Light Saber

My Quest for iPhone 3G: Part III

It's finally almost here. My very own iPhone 3G. It's the 8GB Black one. If I am able to activate it today or tomorrow, I'll be taking it up north with me camping for a true coverage test comparing AT&T to Nextel. Any bets on who will win?

I'm like a kid at Christmas... :)

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My Quest for iPhone 3G: Parts I & II

I decided about 2 months ago that I was going to leave Nextel and buy an iPhone from its only service provider, AT&T. I have been waiting for yesterday's release date for a while now, which has come and passed, and I still have no iPhone.

I waited in line both yesterday and today. I did not wait overnight, but others did. I drove by my AT&T store on Westnedge Ave on Thursday night and there were about 25 people in line at 11:30 PM.

I arrived yesterday morning at 7:40 AM; the store opened at 8:00. The line began moving even before the store opened because everyone was bunching up at the entrance in anticipation of the release. Remember, this is the third most important release of a phone ever. Third to the initial release of iPhone in 2007, and the release of Alexander Graham Bell's invention in 1876.

After the doors opened, the line didn't seem to move very fast at all. I couldn't see in the store, so I had no idea what the story was in there. Every 10 to 15 minutes, the line would move about 10 feet or so. I didn't have much hope at this point of getting my iPhone.

At about 8:40, an AT&T salesman came out to address the crowd. He said, "Everyone past this point may want to reconsider waiting." The point in the line he was referring to was a long way ahead of me. I figure the Portage AT&T store had approximately 40 iPhones for the first day.

I went home.

Friday night, I went back to check and see if a line was forming again. I thought that surely no one would be waiting over night on the second night, but sure enough, there were about 10 people waiting at 10:00 PM or so.

Saturday morning, I got up at 8:30 and started making my way towards the AT&T store. They open at 9:00 AM on Saturdays. I arrived about 10 minutes after 9:00, and was much further up in the line than yesterday. I was about 75 people back. This time, I could see in the store, and there were 5 salespeople working the activations.

Again, I waited. Again, they came out about 40 minutes after the store opened. Again, I was snuffed. I think they had about 40 phones for the second day too.

An interesting, but not surprising thing happened today during the mass activations. When the salesman came out to announce the day's availability, he mentioned that there was a problem with the system, and about 20,000 activations had been backlogged in Michigan. The war room in Texas was being utilized, but there were no indications of how long it would take to clear up the problem.

I went home again.

I watched some more iPhone videos today, which only made me want it more. I'll try again tomorrow. They open at 11:00 AM.