AT&T Reason For Anti iPhone Sentiment
As impressive as the iPhone 4 is, there are still a good number of consumers that wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. These aren’t people that have something against Apple. What they do have a problem with is cell phone carrier, AT&T. Since Apple still have an exclusive contract that stipulates the iPhone owners can only get coverage with AT&T, there are literally millions of people holding out until other cell phone providers are considered.
In a report recently released by ChangeWave, a whopping 84% of current iPhone 4 users said that they were happy. On the other hand, over a 1/3 of Motorola cell phone owners would purchase an iPhone if it was available on their current carrier. While the study does support the fact that Apple’s exclusive contract with AT&T is technically costing them some customers, it seems that those that bit the bullet and signed up with AT&T to get the iPhone found that the cell phone carrier was more tolerable than they thought the company would be.
For months, it has been rumored that Verizon would be added to the short list of companies allowed the privelege of supporting the iPhone, but so far a date or confirmation of the rumor has been announced. Apple may decide that gaining more customers in time for the release of the iPhone 5 is important enough to develop contracts with another carrier, but their deal with AT&T may be too lucrative to get them to jump ship. This means that those unhappy Motorola owners are either going to have to suck it up, or venture over to the dark side.
New Bluetooth Headset for iPhone 4 is Professional Grade
In terms of total utility, the Apple iPhone has been gaining ground in the market place recently, coming to be seen as a more executive friendly device rather than the consumer level play thing that it once was. Today’s corporate offices are increasingly home to more executives who prefer the fast action of the Apple experience to the the previous incarnations of smart phones on the market up until now. In this spirit, a tech manufacturer called Metal Evolution has put out a new Bluetooth headset that is designed to make better use of Apple’s famed smart phone and offers a range of features that executive level users are finding useful. Since it faces a great deal of competition in the market place right now, Metal Evolution designed a look for their Bluetooth device that would have more professional appeal, building on the sea change happening at the corporate level right now. According to a spokesperson from the company, the headset maker wanted to present a classy, low profile look that would be better suited to business attire so they chose a brushed metallic finish to give the headset more of a professional appeal that would match better with business fashions.
Since executives are now using their iPhone devices for business purposes and tend to upgrade more regularly than consumer level users, the headset is designed to work with iPhone 4 and 3GS models exclusively. To better leverage a market where conference calls are a frequent use for a device, Noise Lock noise cancellation from Bluetrek was used to make the audio easier to hear for the listener, a feature many business level executives find crucial as they have noted that even during such calls they may be in noisy environments making it more difficult to hear colleagues during an important call. Metal Evolution uses the same chipset featured in the iPhone so the device has gotten rave reviews so far, as reviewers noted the aluminum casing made it quite a bit more sturdy than previous Bluetooth headsets for the iPhone. If trends continue in this direction with more business grade use of the iPhone, many have begun to speculate that Apple could respond with a corporate version of the device emphasizing business use features.
Father and Son Team Send iPhone Into Upper Atmosphere
It all started as a science experiment, but now the project has managed to get national coverage in the United States for a father and son team located in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City. The 7 year old son of Luke Geissbuhler, Max, wanted to do something really fun for their back yard science experiment, so Mr. Geissbuhler decided that they would send a High Definition camera into the part of the atmosphere known as ‘near space’ along with an Apple iPhone, to see what they could see. For some this may sound like a sort of military surveillance mission, but the two merely wanted to get a sense of what all they might be able to see from such a great height. By using a weather balloon, along with a space capsule that they created in their home, they aimed their project for the upper stratosphere of Earth, not knowing whether or not the project would actually work, but it certainly turned out to be a success.
In all, the balloon went a full 19 miles into the atmosphere before bursting and once it burst, it sent back down an amazing video of the entire process. Educators have said that this experiment using an iPhone, a device children are intimately familiar with, was a sound idea for helping kids learn about science in a way that truly captured their imaginations and also showed a good relationship between father and son. The value in the iPhone’s inclusion was that after 8 months of trial and error, the device’s GPS led the experimenters to the project after it landed back on Earth via parachute, 30 miles from where it was launched.
Extend Your iPhone’s Battery Life by Choosing an iPod for Music
Plenty of people are familiar with the fact that they can get a great deal from the Apple iPhone and that it is a terrific way to enjoy music, but what a lot of people do not realize is that it can be something of a waste of the iPhone’s capacity to use it primarily as a music player when you may need that battery power later for making calls instead. This is why a lot of people are choosing to add an iPod to their collection of gadgets and let it compliment their iPhone instead of viewing it as a competing device. With the new iPod dock speakers, users can now turn their iPod into its very own stereo system that can hold thousands of songs or even play FM radio, podcasts or audio books for them. This is a great way to get the most from one’s iPod and it definitely enhances the utility of the device. Since the docks help the sound quality and raise the fidelity of music naturally, they make a very good choice for the avid music fan with a large collection of songs. They can then listen to music while they are making calls if they want to without worrying about the conflict of interest with the device. This is certainly a better way to get more from their iPhone.
When it comes to getting a low price, a lot of people want to be able to do this and today over the web it is certainly possible. By choosing a solid vendor for the dock it is possible to get a 2 year warranty which is helpful since the docks tend to become something more akin to furnishings than some other elements of hi tech in our homes. However, one way to save a great amount of money is to look into the value that we can get from the Nano iPods which offer all the convenience of the iPod with a much lower cost that is definitely going to make them appealing for those of us who want to save money. The fact that even the small end 8 GB model can hold 8 hours of video is definitely attractive and since it only needs to charge for 3 hours in order to be at full power for 24 hours, it is a perfectly fine way to enjoy music on the go or at home without worrying about cutting into talk time for the iPhone which is why it is such a great complimentary device.
Study That Shocks iPhone Owners May Be Unbalanced
SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider, released a statement regarding the Apple iPhone 4 that caused a small commotion amongst global iPhone users by claiming that according to research, the glass on the iPhone has a higher percentage rate of shattering than the previous model, the iPhone 3GS. They stated that the glass on the device is 82 percent more likely to break than the glass on the 3GS model. This report came after analyzing more than 20,000 phones that were covered under warranties issued by SquareTrade. The results of that study showed that, among other things, there were 82% more damaged screens reported by iPhone 4 users in the first four months of ownership than what was reported by iPhone 3GS owners, and the accident rate for the iPhone 4s was higher than the iPhone 3GS by almost 70 percent. SquareTrade concluded in the report that the iPhone 4 is quite a bit more likely to sustain physical damage in comparison with the earlier model.
According to other recent research however, it has become clear that the study done by SquareTrade was done without considering some pertinent information such as the fact that because the iPhone 4’s back is also made of glass, it would stand to reason that the glass would be twice as likely to shatter. While the study says that, yes, the glass on the device shatters at a larger rate, they did not take that particular fact into consideration which resulted in many alarmed iPhone 4 users. Experts say that although the study helped to create a headline for SquareTrade, it needlessly caused a stir amongst iPhone users without including all the information.