Normal Rockstar

Steve Jobs Writes Open Letter

I watched Steve Jobs' announcement of the new iPod Touch yesterday and was FLOORED when he revealed the price drop on the iPhone. If you missed it, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone $200 just two months after it was made available to the public. Now, I don't own an iPhone in large part due to the cost of the product - I can't justify spending $599 on a phone! But my first thought when I heard this was, "Oh boy - sucks to be an iPhone owner right now!"

Well, it seems like many iPhone owners felt the same way. Yesterday, in a rather unconventional move, Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to iPhone owners offering a $100 in-store credit to anyone who was an early adopter of the iPhone. Very interesting... Personally, I think it was a great move. Technology changes quickly, but not THAT quickly - I'm prepared to see prices change every six months or so, but two months is a little ridiculous.

What do you think?

NBC to Leave iTunes

This is interesting: NBC has decided to end their relationship with iTunes after Apple refused to up the price on their shows from $1.99/episode to $4.99. Read Apple's story here - and get NBC's side of the story here.

Here's my two cents: it boggles my mind that NBC actually thought the consumer would be willing to pay $4.99/episode when they can get episodes from other networks for $1.99. I mean, really - these days the consumer doesn't have to look very hard to find free episodes to download. I would guess that raising the price to $4.99 would push more consumers to hunt for those free episodes instead of paying for them and the company would end up losing money anyway.

What do you think? Would you pay $4.99/episode for your favorite TV show?

[This opens a whole other can of worms: the iTunes effect on the music industry. Any thoughts? If you've come across any blogs recently discussing this, let me know - I'll be posting something this week on this as it's kind of fresh on my mind.]

iPhone Unlocked by 17 Year-Old College Freshman

If you haven't already heard, the iPhone was unlocked this past weekend by 17 year-old George Hotz. You can read his step-by-step process on his blog and hear the story of how he accomplished this (if you are unaware, Apple had programmed the iPhone to only work with AT&T - a rather unpopular move for millions of cell phone users).

After trying to sell the phone on eBay over the weekend, Hotz got frustrated with the number of bogus bidders and decided to accept the offer of high-tech mogul Terry Daidone: a new Nissan 350Z Roadster and three, new 8GB iPhones.

Read more on the story here.

And for the record, this still doesn't make me want an iPhone... I talked to a guy the other day who told his son if he stood in line to buy him an iPhone he'd buy him a new video game  - so the kid stood in line for nine hours. (Read my post yesterday... it may be appropriate here again!)

If you go ahead and try and crack your iPhone, let me know how it goes - I'd be interested to hear how successful people have been with these steps!

iPhone: Will It Blend?

I watched this yesterday in utter disbelief. Definitely a new use for an iPhone!

AT&T Preparing for Apple iPhone Frenzy

Today Apple will be releasing their iPhone, and it's causing quite a stir. In fact, AT&T will be completely closing their retail stores across the country at 4pm to prepare for the buying frenzy (HT: AppleInsider).

Earlier this week I watched the iPhone Guided Tour.

I will always remember Shaun over at Shlog referring to Apple's products as 'technoporn" (it's a great post - read it here). Well, this definitely applies to the iPhone - for us Mac people, this product is enough to make professionals stand in line for hours waiting to throw hundreds of dollars at the new must-have product.

I won't be one of them. I WANT it - but I don't NEED it. And here's why:

• I already have a 30 gig video iPod - the largest iPhone you can get is only 8 gigs
• all my family and immediate business partners are Verizon customers; switching my service to AT&T just doesn't make sense
• there's a lot of other things I can do with $400+ right now

So - until Verizon joins the rest of the world and starts working on a GSM network and then somehow manages to score the iPhone, I'll be without... and honestly not that torn up about it. In the meantime, I've got my eyes on Verizon's new Blackberry 8830 (which just happens to work on either CDMA or GSM networks) - do you have any experience or thoughts on this product?