Iphone Guide For Lovers

Gizmodo had this humorous piece: 

A MUST Read!

Trent Reznor from the band Nine Inch Nails talks about the bands new iPhone app and their web strategy...that's working.

Here's a small portion of the story from WIRED:

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free," Reznor says. "But the climate is such that it's impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we've tried to do has been from the point of view of, 'What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?' Now let's work back from that. Let's find a way for that to make sense and monetize it."

Over the past year, NIN.com has quietly evolved into a series of interlocking services designed to deliver maximum benefit to the fans at minimal expense to the artist. To build it out, Reznor decided to use off-the-shelf resources — Blogger, Twitter, FeedBurner, Flickr, YouTube — rather than trying to duplicate what other people had already created. "They're going to do a better job than we are," he explains, "and they're going to have a lot more resources to put into it."

I couldn't have said it better myself...and I have.

Read the entire story, watch the video, and see the screen shot here.

Rumor Mill Buzzing

Interesting buzz on some of the Apple and iPhone fan blogs today.

...it also adds the ability to receive and send (the previous model could only receive) information through FM radio signals which theoretically could be used to broadcast sound into car stereos..without external adapters. It could also be used to pick up FM radio music, news and sports broadcasts on their iPhones and even, in August, on iPods. Read the article here.

We can be certain that Apple will do everything it can to make it as easy as possible to use the iPhone in the car. So it won't be surprising to see an FM transmitter built in as one way to get the job done. Thus far Apple has rejected the idea of including a FM receiver in anything it produces. Will they give in this time? To me, it seems somewhat unlikely based on their past history. Time will tell.

Significant...Or Not?

In a recent post I suggested that HD Radio was DOA. I promised that I would blog about a HD Radio unit sales number if one were to be released--it has. This morning Inside Radio had this:

HD Radio milestone: One million receivers are now in use. Three years after the first HD Radio receivers arrived, iBiquity says it’s crossed the one million mark. “We expect that number to grow tremendously in the coming years,” says iBiquity VP Joe D’Angelo. He tells Inside Radio the recent economic downturn has yet to make an impact on sales. At yesterday’s Kagan Radio Summit, D’Angelo noted, “The take-up rate has really grown as prices for receivers have come down.” He says the number of units in circulation should continue to grow more rapidly as HD Radio chipsets have been shrunk to fit into MP3 players and other portable devices. An iPod accessory is set to be released this summer. Even though a dozen other automobile brands are offering HD Radio options, General Motors has yet to commit. D’Angelo says iBiquity has “ongoing discussions” with every automaker, but notes it gets help from suppliers like Delphi who also push the car companies to adopt the technology. The rollout comes as car sales have plummeted. Detroit’s Big Three yesterday reported weak March sales figures. General Motors sales fell 45% last month, while Ford reported a 41% drop and Chrysler had a 39% decline. By positioning HD Radio as a replacement “upgrade” for the estimated 800 million analog radios in use, D’Angelo says, “There’s still more than enough head room for us to grow.”

OK, one million radios "in use?" Not sold, but in use. Putting that vague reference aside, it strikes me that even at 1 million units after 3 years, the number is quite weak. By comparison, it is believed that when Apple released iPhone 3g in the US there were 1 million sold in the first 3 days.

Promising or not? You decide.

How Long Will This Last?

Funny or stupid?

I saw a Vietnamese restaurant yesterday. Not only was its name iPho, which would be bad enough by itself, but its "o" was replaced with an Apple. Yeah.

Any points docked for lack of imagination are immediately returned for ballsiness. I wish you good luck against Apple's inevitable legal bombardment. [Photo Credit BeerNotBombs, because I forgot to take a pic.]

Source
Feed Title: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog
Feed URL: http://gizmodo.com/index.xml

A Little Creativity

Fun video to watch and one that should remind all of us that a little creativity can be quite entertaining.

What Store Would You Go To?

Here's a Riddle:

You want to buy an item...you got to the mall and there are two stores about 100 steps apart...both stores are selling the same item for the same price...the only difference between the stores is the one has a line 50 people deep and the other has no line at all. What store would you go to?

If we were talking about anything other than an Apple 3G iPhone the answer would be simple. But since we are talking about Apple and iPhones don't count on too many people going to the AT&T store.

Read on for a story of unbelievable brand loyalty to Apple, the iPhone, and the Apple stores that sells them. Can you think of anything else that evokes this kind of passion.

Blog post from Engage in PR

Brand Loyalty Can Be Blind

I’m preparing for a long drive from Boston to Austin with the dog starting this Friday and want to make sure that I’m properly stocked up, which meant a trip to the mall yesterday to purchase a FM adapter for my iPhone. I figured that the best place to purchase said product would be at the friendly Apple store at the CambridgeSide Galleria in the People’s Republic (funny only to folks from the area, sorry). Obviously I’m aware of the iPhone mania happening right now, but figured it had been more than a day so things would go smoothly.

There was a line about 50 people deep at the Apple store and according to the folks inside it had been like that since opening on Saturday. Each person was waiting up to three hours or more to get the iPhone 3G. Fortunately for me they had created a separate line for those folks and those of us with iPhone classic, a Mac or, shudder, an iPod, could go right in and do what we needed to do. Ten minutes later I’m walking out of the store still giggling to myself at the people in line, but also understanding it a bit as an iPhone user and lover of 2.0.

Here is the rub folks…100 steps from the Apple store was an AT&T store with a HUGE display of iPhone’s waiting to be bought and ZERO people in line.

My wife was the first to notice and we both laughed a bit at the insanity of waiting in line at the Apple store for the same phone you could have at AT&T in four less hours. Sometimes brand loyalty is blind, but in effect that is the power of proper branding. When you do it correctly you create a systemic need for people to be with you, buy from you, support you and defend you. It didn’t matter to those people that they were waiting hours for the iPhone; they wanted it and the only proper way to purchase the phone would be from Apple itself.