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Before the Halo Effect, There Must be a Halo
Hearing loss group complains to FCC about iPhone
The Gutsy Marketing And Strategy Behind Apple's iPhone Price Cut
Apple Admits Screen Fault In Some iPod Touch Units
New iPod nano: Manufacturing Problem
Apple’s iPod Touch Is a Beauty of a Player Short on Battery Life
The Elegant iPod Touch
Review: Apple Still Has Some Work To Do On iPod touch
Uber cheap iPhone screen fix
France Telecom's Orange confirms winning exclusive iPhone rights in France
European iPhone Deals Raise Fresh Questions over Billing Clarity, Says Analysys
Before the Halo Effect, There Must be a Halo
iPodObserver's John Martellaro says:
Steve Jobs is in Europe this week, making announcements and chatting with European officials. The goal is to pave the way for the iPhone in the hopes of later creating the the same halo effect in Europe that's propelling the Macintosh sales in the U.S. However, the iPhone must first be successful there to create the halo, according to Business Week on Thursday.
Initially, the halo affect was dismissed, but BW's Arik Hesseldahl admitted that it was real. That effect has driven Mac market share in the U.S. to a modern high of 4.7 percent.
For the full commentary, click here.
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/33055
Hearing loss group complains to FCC about iPhone
Computerworld's Gregg Keizer reports:
A group representing people with a hearing loss filed complaints with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission last month, accusing Apple Inc. of not making its iPhone compatible with hearing aids.
The Hearing Loss Association of America, a Bethesda, Md., advocacy group, filed formal complaints with the FCC in August, Brenda Battat, the HLAA's associate executive director, said in e-mailed comments about Apple's iPhone. "The phone [is] not usable with a hearing aid, either on the microphone or telecoil setting," said Battat. "Clearly, it was not designed to be hearing aid compatible. It should have been."
Under its Section 255 regulations, the FCC requires phone manufacturers, including those selling mobile handsets, to make their products accessible to people with disabilities, if such access is "readily achievable." That standard is defined by the agency as "easily accomplishable without much difficulty or expense."
For the full report click here.
The Gutsy Marketing And Strategy Behind Apple's iPhone Price Cut
Blackfriars Marketing says:
The iPhone price cut appears to be the story that will never die. Leander Kahney at Wired News and I had a great discussion yesterday about the what and why behind the iPhone price cut. Some of what we discussed ended up in the Wired article here, titled, The Perils of Taking the IPhone Mainstream. But there was actually some background and analysis that Leander didn't use, so I thought I would fill in that back story here.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2007/09/gutsy-marketing-and-strategy-behind
Apple Admits Screen Fault In Some iPod Touch Units
MacWorld UK's Jonny Evans reports:
Apple has confirmed widespread reports complaining at the manner in which the iPod touch displays video with deep black areas, warning that some early units have "defective screens".
The company says this problem has affected "a small number of units and is being remedied," writes Walt Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=19160 0
New iPod nano: Manufacturing Problem
HardMac's Lionel says:
A report from Baptiste.
I just purchased an 8GB iPod nano, silver model, in Canada. After unpacking it, I realized that the display is not straight and slightly rotated on the left. I went back to the shop to get it exchanged, unpacked it right on the place, and... same thing...
When browsing the web, it quickly found 2 websites reporting about this issue:
http://crunchgear.com/2007/09/16/new-nanos-feature-crooked-screens/
http://ipodnanosucks.blogspot.com/
For the full report, visit:
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2007-09-20/#7222
Apple’s iPod Touch Is a Beauty of a Player Short on Battery Life
The Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg says:
I’ve been testing the newest member of the iPod family, the big-screen iPod Touch. It’s a close cousin to the iPhone that connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi wireless networking and replaces the famous iPod click wheel with a touch screen. It starts at $299, $100 less than the iPhone but with the same eight-gigabyte capacity. There’s also a 16-gigabyte iPod Touch for $399.
Like earlier iPods, the Touch is elegant and capable, and works smoothly with Apple’s free iTunes software for Windows and Macintosh PCs, as well as with its computer-based online iTunes Store, which sells far more downloaded songs and TV shows than any other legal outlet....
For all its beauty and functionality, the Touch has some quirks and downsides. It’s the first iPod model I’ve ever tested that fell significantly short, in my tests, of Apple’s battery-life claims. It’s also the first iPod that lacks any physical buttons for controlling music playback.
For the full review visit here:
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20070920/apples-ipod-touch-is-a-beauty-of-a-player-short-on-battery-life/
The Elegant iPod Touch
BusinessWeek's Stephen H. Wildstrom says:
The new iPod Touch from Apple is in a class by itself. It's like an iPhone, only without the phone. It's a music player, though not your best choice if that's what you're looking for. It's a wonderful video player and Web browser, despite certain limitations. Most important, it's beautiful, and I bet it sells like crazy, even at $299 for an 8-gigabyte version and $399 for 16GB.
For the full review visit here:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2007/tc20070919_706225.htm?sub=techmaven
Review: Apple Still Has Some Work To Do On iPod touch
Computerworld 's Eric Dahl reports:
I'm an iPhone fan who can't get an AT&T signal at home, so I was hoping the iPod Touch would be the perfect compromise. Based on its specs (Wi-Fi, mobile Safari, the Multi-touch interface and twice the iPhone's storage capacity at 16GB), it sure looks like it would be. But I've been testing a $399 16GB iPod Touch for a couple of days now, and based on a number of hardware and software issues I've encountered, it looks like Apple still has some work to do.
For the full review visit here:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9037765
Uber cheap iPhone screen fix
MyTablet's James Allan Brady reports:
That's right, for $5, maybe less depending on what you have handy, you can replace your iPhone's busted screen. It won't work if you puncture far enough through your phone to actually break the LCD, but it it's just the glass, read on.
You can check it out at:
http://www.myitablet.com/uber-cheap-iphone-screen-fix-201542.php
Will iPhone Dial Up Europe Mac's Sales?
BusinessWeek's Arik Hesseldahl says:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is making the rounds of European capitals announcing plans for a Nov. 9 overseas launch of the iPhone. As of this writing, he's announced deals in Britain with O2, a division of Spain's Telefonica, and in Germany with T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom.. Rumors are rife that his next stop is France. Or maybe Spain.
Wherever he lands next, Jobs is on a critical mission. The iPhone's European tour has big implications not just for Apple's new music-playing cell phone, but could also set the tone for Macintosh computer sales in markets where Apple has minimal share.
For the full commentary, click here.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2007/tc20070919_331039.htm
France Telecom's Orange confirms winning exclusive iPhone rights in France
Thomson Financial reports:
France Telecom has exclusive rights to distribute the Apple iPhone in France...
For the full report, visit:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-19705970.htm
European iPhone Deals Raise Fresh Questions over Billing Clarity, Says Analysys
[Press Release]
As European deals for Apple's iPhone are announced, the chosen operators will be well advised to learn from the experiences of AT&T Wireless in the US when it comes to billing users, says Analysys the global advisers on telecoms, IT and media ( http://www.analysys.com ). The kick to mobile data usage given by the iPhone in the US market resulted in some subscribers receiving bills that were very large physically - in extreme cases running to hundreds of pages - detailing every mobile data event. AT&T quickly changed the way bills were provided - issuing summaries rather than full details by default - but the issue highlights the mismatch that often exists between users' requirements of bills and operators' perceptions of what users want.
According to research carried out for the Analysys Research report 's The Next-Generation Bill: Commercial and Technical Strategies, customers are often baffled by unclear bills and – as a result – telecoms companies risk lower revenues and increased churn. The report argues that service providers put huge amounts of effort into developing new services and competing with each other on price, but much less into ensuring that bills are clear.
“What we are hearing repeatedly is that residential and business customers are increasingly frustrated by bills that make no sense,” says the report’s author Teresa Cottam.
“Marketing strategies are falling at the first hurdle: people are so worried about the cost of new services that they don’t even try them. They dread receiving their bills because they are unpredictable, and become frustrated because they don’t know how to change matters.”
The report argues that the bill is a unique opportunity for telecoms companies to communicate with customers and offers several commercial opportunities. “To deliver the optimal next-generation bill, service providers need to shake off outdated assumptions about their customers and gain a clearer understanding of their needs. If they do not change, powerful competitors from outside the telecoms industry are waiting in the wings to show them how,” says Cottam.
Key findings from the report include:
- Not enough effort has been put into bill presentment (the way that bills actually look). Making bills more useful to customers will increase customer loyalty and cut the cost of queries
- Business customers often fear the cost of new services, yet providing bill analysis to demonstrate benefits of service plan changes can be good for both customers and suppliers
- In the wholesale market, bill cycles must shorten to improve revenue management for all parties.
In addition to its expertise in billing, Analysys undertakes consulting work with telecoms companies to review and modify tariff structures and price levels in order to maximise profitability and maintain competitive advantage. Analysys PriceManager ( http://www.analysys.com/pricemanager ) is a proven price-comparison and -impact tool for analysis that provides clients with a powerful means of comparing and analysing a wide variety of alternative tariff schemes.
The report is available online http://research.analysys.com/store , priced at GBP1700 (approximately EUR2450) plus VAT.
Charles W. Moore
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