MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Nov 30, 07 - 10:31 am Comment from: MikeK

Jobs basically said the same thing several months ago... So, I don't understand why the press is making such a big deal about it now that Randall has said it also.

"as I have predicted for weeks -- Apple will be joining Google in bidding"

Google today announced it will bid without partners

This is going to be very interesting. My prediction:

Stephenson loses - big time.

He has hit his partner in the worst possible place - right in the center of his ego.

His Steveness will not tolerate the outing of his marketing manipulations. If he says it will be another year of selling the inferior iPhone signal and building a few millon more suckers who will then have to have the 'improved' model, then it will be another year and not a day sooner.

So, AT&T;, playing with fire gets you burned.

There are news reports this morning about an "event" coming next Wednesday. Has anyone else heard this?

It is supposedly an iPhone announcement. I heard it on a local TV station a few minutes ago.

Steve Jobs announced a 3G iPhone back in January 2007, during his iPhone presentation. This Robert Cringely is a stupid asshole.

Cringly is crazy. He likes to construct these fantastic scenarios, when in reality the AT&T;CEO just made a mistake.

There's no date been announced all we "know" is 2008. Steve Jobs said they'd look to add 3G when chips became available with suitable efficiency - which would hopefully be sometime in 2008. They're saying the same thing. There's no news here.

Nov 30, 07 - 10:44 am Comment from: JadisOne

Get a clipboard, stand in the middle of a high-traffic location, and ask everyone who passes you by this, "Did you hear the comment the AT&T;CEO said about a 3G iPhone coming?"

I can almost guarantee that if you don't get a blank stare, at most you'll get is this, "Huh?"

These kinds of comments people can care less about. It'll freeze what? 500 geeks from buying an iPhone? The iPhone will continue to sell and best believe that the marketing coming from AAPL will drown out any idiotic comment coming from Job's shackle-partner over at AT&T;.

Nov 30, 07 - 10:46 am Comment from: Shogun

From Cringley's Article:


What I believe is troubling the relationship between AT&T;and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T;'s discovery that -- as I have predicted for weeks -- Apple will be joining Google in bidding...

Of course to this point Apple hasn't even said it will participate in the 700-MHz auction.


Incoherent? Sounds like it to me. Don't give the guy more credit than he deserves. He slipped and said more than he should have. These people live so totally within their own world that it's easy for them to slip on secrets that the rest of the world doesn't know, but which they have been dealing with as common knowledge for many many months.

I agree with JadisOne, these types of things only dissuade those of us who absolutely have to have the most bleeding edge devices and will fore go purchasing until the next processor/generation is released. The mass market will not be influenced, I think 90% of mobile phone buyers don't even know what 3G means...

Exactly what I was saying yesterday.

I don't think most people realize that most of the really hardcore geeks already bought the iPhone long ago. It's the mainstream buying now, and they couldn't care less about this kind of "news", if they even knew what 3G meant, or why it was important.

This guy is a moron if he thinks this will cost any significant amount of customers. Anyone who pays attention to this kind of thing and knows about the no-3G issue already knew there was a 3G iPhone coming next year.

Nov 30, 07 - 11:07 am Comment from: Macromancer

Dear lord let the 700mhz spectrum rumor be true.

And I think the real message it sends is that AT&T;knows that its EDGE network just outright blows. It is by far the weakest link in the iPhone experience, and sadly it's a pretty important link.

What an inane analysis. Instead of wasting a billion dollars of market share to "send a message," wouldn't he just send an email?

Dumb dumb dumb.

Nov 30, 07 - 11:15 am Comment from: kirkgray

I stopped ready Cringely long ago. He always talks like he has all this insider info. He never does. He's nearly always wrong.

He reminds me of the guy at the office that always has to know more about everything than everybody and is constantly proving he doesn't by opening is trap.

Stop the presses! Are they saying "next years product will have new technology and models"? This is certainly a change for the tech, computer, automotive and a host of other industry's.

.
Hopefully we'll see that late next year.
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And hopefully I will buy one, if it has more storage of course.

Nov 30, 07 - 11:44 am Comment from: Huck

I do think that Cringely *so much* wants Apple to take part in the auction--and the vicious oligopolists in the traditional wireless companies to lose, and American wireless broadband (heck, true American broadband, period) to have a fighting chance of making a comeback, despite all the corporate welfare that's been stalling it so badly--that he's interpreting all sorts of things as proving that it is going to happen.

I feel the same way, so I can sympathize!

But the coverage of Stephenson's remark about 3G really was different, because of its timing and specificity, from the coverage of Jobs's remark. And I know that it made me personally think, 'yeah, that pretty much confirms it--I am going to wait for Revision B if even the AT&T;guy is suggesting I should.'

So, if one's personal response as a consumer is any guide to other people's reactions as consumers, either Stephenson is a bungler or he was, indeed, trying to cripple iPhone holiday sales so as to reduce Apple's leverage over him. Unlike Cringely, I just think it's quite likely he is a bungler, not fully in control of the 'messages' he sends out to the public.

After all, we've all gotten used to Jobs, who has the 'message discipline,' ability to flat-out lie, and ruthless consistency of the Cold War Kremlin, so it is easy to overinterpret more straightforward mortals.

What I love about Cringely is how disasterously wrong is punditry always proves to be. He SOUNDS almost convincing. You really want to believe him. But I can only conclude that he arrives at his purported facts and conclusions through anal extraction. Why this twit gets any press, much less attention is beyond me.

Welcome to the blogosphere, kiddies. It's a place where you can be completely insane, but if you talk a good talk, you'll get an audience and street cred. Witness Enderle, Dvorak et al. Sad. Really sad.

and in 2008 we shall rule the 700 mhz spectrum with our iZone!

- Billie Goats

If I had a name like 'Cringely' I would change it. Almost anything would be better. It sounds like the name of a rather stupid villain in an old Disney movie.

Mind you, his opinions and accuracy are about the same.

Nov 30, 07 - 01:05 pm Comment from: lurker

Are anyone else's reader comments suddenly in microscopic font?

whats with the small a*s font?

Nov 30, 07 - 02:11 pm Comment from: Anonymous©

I like Cringely's analysis. He puts it out there, unlike most of his critics. His hit rate is a little over 50%, so I'd cut him some slack. And, for the most part, he's complimentary of Apple and Google, though he's not fawning like Pogue or Mossberg, or Dilger.

I like to read Cringely but he's way off base here. Does anyone honestly believe these people got where they are by "sending messages" through third parties or through the media? No, they are very direct and honest in their conversations with each other. If the AT&T;CEO wanted to say "f*ck you" he'd pick up his iPhone and do it. Maybe, just maybe, he's trying to apply public pressure on Steve but I'd bet my Mac and iPhone that they've privately discussed 3G in lengthy and excruciating detail.

On a related note, has anyone noticed Edge being really fast today? MDN loaded very quickly and it usually takes at least a minute. Same thing with Fark and others.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:55 pm Comment from: Tommy Boy

There is no Robert X. Cringley. His name is Marc Stephens and he's always off-base. He's so wrong he makes Dvorak look like a genius.

""3G chipsets... are real power hogs. Most phones now have battery lives of 2 to 3 hours and that's due to these very power-hungry 3G chipsets... [iPhone] has 8 hours of talktime life. That's really important when you start to use the Internet and want to use the phone to listen to music. We've got to see the battery lives for 3G get back up into the 5+ hour range. Hopefully we'll see that late next year." - Apple CEO Steve Jobs introducing iPhone to the UK, September 18, 2007. [bold emphasis added by MacDailyNews]"

Translation from Reality Distortion Speak to English. "Yes I know everybody else in the world has 3G in their phones, but we just couldn't do it in time OK. But I bet I can get a bunch of those kool aid drinking frigtards who hang on my every word to buy the phone anyway if I give them some fake reason to believe that 2G is better than 3G. Once I have a 3G phone of course my position will change and I will then retune their weak and controllable minds and they will start saying how 3G was always part of my master plan and that any phone without 3G sucks"

There's a HUGE difference between Mr Jobs announcement...
"Hopefully we'll see that..." and Mr Stephenson statement "You'll have it...".

Yeah, the difference may be very likely aprox 1 million iPhones not sold.

Anyway, Mr Stephenson comments are very off side to me; HOPEFULLY he can control his words from now on.

"Yeah, the difference may be very likely aprox 1 million iPhones not sold."

The excuse for slowing iPhone sales is now complete! We will disseminate this immediately via all channels.