iphone-3gs posts

Filed under: Surveys and Polls, Apple, iPhone

3GS has 99% satisfaction rate, AT&T not so much

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Aug 18th, 2009

A recent customer survey (of only 200 customers -- what are these surveys getting away with only 200 respondents?) claims that the iPhone 3GS has a 99% satisfaction rate. A full 99% of 200 polled iPhone customers claim that they are satisfied with their purchase, while 82% of them claimed they are "very satisfied." That's higher than previously, too: previous versions of the iPhone got a 73% satisfaction rating. You're probably not surprised by this, but guess what? People love their iPhones.

What don't they love about them? 8% said the phone wasn't compatible with their company's IT infrastructure. 41% still say the battery life isn't long enough for their tastes. And a little company called AT&T has drawn the most ire: 55% of respondents say the AT&T network was the worst feature of the iPhone 3GS. So there you go. This just in: ten of eleven Twitterers I just surveyed do like ice cream. That survey is probably just as shocking as the iPhone one, which is not much.

Still, quite a deal Apple has. Your product has almost unanimous satisfaction from customers, and the worst thing about it... is the fault of a completely separate company. Good deal indeed.

Tags: apple, atT, battery-life, customer-satisfaction, iphone, iphone-3gs, it, obvious-research-department, product, survey, unanimous

Filed under: Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, SDK

More AR, this time with Twitter, on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jul 9th, 2009

Here's another augmented reality iPhone app that might be slightly more useful for those of us outside of London than the Nearest Tube app we showed off the other day. TwittARound is a Twitter client (currently in beta) for the iPhone that uses your location info, compass, and the 3GS' video camera to place tweets close to your location in a realtime video view, so that the effect you get is like pop-up notes on the landscape. Very cool indeed. Unfortunately, it seems many of these AR (augmented reality) apps may never see the light of day, as some developers are saying Apple doesn't provide any public API calls for the live video (hence this petition from the burgeoning AR community).

There are other issues here too, though, even if Apple does open up all of the APIs needed for a project like this. Twitter doesn't actually include location information with each tweet, so what you're actually seeing (I'd imagine) is the location of each Twitterer. What you'd like to do with an app like this is walk around and use it to get information about what you see (look through the app at a line outside a concert hall, for instance, and see people talking about who's playing inside). But unfortunately, unless they have some way of seeing exactly where those tweets come from, they'll all still be from each Twitterer's location, not where the tweet was actually sent.

But maybe Twitter or some other app can start including that location (Brightkite is already location-based, and works with Twitter), and then we can get real-time information from where we actually are on an AR screen like this. There's still a few obstacles, but once those are evened out, the possibilities are very exciting.

Tags: augmented-reality, brightkite, compass, information, iphone, iphone-3gs, location, twitter, video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, TUAW Business, iPhone, App Store

Talkcast reminder: Potluck night tonight

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jun 28th, 2009

Our weekly interactive podcast goes live at 10pm Eastern this evening, and it's going to be a potluck night on the show -- you bring whatever you want to talk about, and we'll bring our own casserole of TUAW news from the last week. We'll definitely talk about the new iPhone 3GS: how fast it is, how Find My iPhone really can help you find your iPhone, five things you might not know about the phone (if you didn't read that post yet), and, errr -- how fast it is. The speed is such a big story we'll talk about it twice!

Plus, you'll probably hear us wax poetic on how much we love the mini, and we'll talk about our "stickiest" iPhone applications -- apps we just can't help but load up that "one more time." Should be a lot of fun -- definitely tune in and join us at 10pm Eastern this evening over on TalkShoe.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can try out the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.

Tags: app-store, casserole, find-my-iphone, flight-control, iphone, iphone-3gs, mac-mini, mini, mini-love, phone, podcast, potluck, speed, talkcast, tuaw-talkcast

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone

iSuppli estimates the iPhone 3GS costs $179 to make

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jun 25th, 2009

Did you know that after it is broken down into all of its composite metals and materials and parts, your human body is really only worth about $4.50? Yup, you're cheap in the broadest sense -- all of that oxygen, magnesium, iron, and sodium isn't actually worth all that much in the rare metals market. In fact, according to iSuppli, you're worth way less than the iPhone 3GS -- they looked at the component parts for Apple's new handset, and calculated its raw value at around $178.96. The most expensive components are the 16gb flash memory (ringing in at around $25 per part) and the display (at $19), all the way down to the audio codec board, which Apple reportedly picked up for a cheap $1.15. Of course, there was lots more cheaper stuff (we assume the screws weren't a buck each), but iSuppli didn't actually go that granular. That also doesn't include any of the non-hardware costs: shipping fees, R&D, distribution, marketing, and so on. But it's way more than you're worth, and it's $40 more than the Palm Pre costs to make, too.

Lest you start worrying that your spouse will start valuing their iPhone more than your body, however, there is a silver lining. If you break down to the mineral components of the human body, we're cheap, but the actual components of the body are pretty expensive, it turns out. Expensive to the tune of $45 million, if you count up all the money you could pick up from taking out your bone marrow, extracting your DNA, and selling off a lung or two. Just like the iPhone's parts, when assembled, are worth more than iSuppli's $179, you too pick up some value when assembled the right way.

[via Engadget]

Tags: assembled, body, cheaper, component-parts, components, cost, factory, humor, iphone, iphone-3gs, isuppli, money, parts, screws, selling, trivia

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