Canadian iPhone 4 on sale tomorrow
After months of hand-wringing and speculation (as well as “Antenna-gate“) the iPhone 4 is finally available outside of the original 5 launch countries as of tomorrow morning. While many bemoan the fact that Canadians have to wait until the second round before laying their hands on this hot new consumer product, others are thankful that Apple has had the time to work out some of the early production bugs, as well as coming up with a plan to deal with the antenna (non) issue. While a stalwart consumer of Apple technology, I’ve always shied away from buying a product on launch day choosing instead to wait until mid-cycle before investing.
So, if you’re going to try getting the latest iPhone on Friday, here’s a few things you should know…
- The iPhone 4 will only be available in limited quantities at your local Apple store. Resellers and Telcos won’t have product until later. Apple has not yet posted prices online, but pundits speculate that the 16gb iPhone 4 will cost $659 CDN and 32gb $779 CDN. Some Apple stores will be opening early and selling their limited supply of black iPhone 4 models on a first come, first serve basis.
- These prices are for factory unlocked phones, meaning you can activate them with any carrier supporting the iPhone. Yes, they are more expensive than subsidized phones… if you want to enslave yourself to your Telco for THREE YEARS, go ahead… they should have stock in about a month. Trust me, you’ll save more money over the long term by just paying full hit for your device up front and shopping around for the best pay-as-you-go or monthly plan.
- Your current SIM card will NOT fit the new iPhone 4. Your options are to either hand-cut your old SIM to fit (possibly inaccurate); use a SIM-cutter to trim (expensive if you’ve only got one SIM to deal with); or pay your Telco to sell you a new MicroSIM and transfer your phone number over. My current Telco lists MicroSIM cards at $10 on their website. I called a local dealer to confirm stock and they had ample supply. If you are already a Telco subscriber, there should be no additional charge to move your number over.Other Telcos may differ, so be sure to check before taking the plunge.
- You should (unconfirmed) be able to order your unlocked iPhone online for home delivery, or reserve one for pickup at your local Apple store at a later date. This means you can sleep in tomorrow and avoid being labeled as a geeky dweeb by your friends, family and coworkers for queuing up at such an ungodly hour.
As for me, I’m still undecided on how to spend my next tech budget allocation so I likely won’t be buying an iPhone 4 tomorrow. My current iPhone 3GS is still making me (relatively) happy and I’ve got real, live computers taking care of the rest of my digital life… so I’ve got no urgent need for new hardware.
But, if I can manage to get out of bed early enough, I might just make my way over to the Apple store and take a few pictures for tomorrow’s blog. Besides, I hear the Starbucks gives out free coffee to anyone waiting in the line…
Old Spice slaps on social media and enjoys the cool, refreshing smell of success
Old Spice Social Media Marketing Campaign – Last YouTube Video In Series
Fast Tube by Casper
The marketing gurus at Old Spice launched an innovative marketing experiment in social media two weeks ago, putting together their debonair Mr. Isaiah Mustafa with a camera crew, social media gurus and a writing team to solicit questions from fans on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs. In a quick response fashion they wrote, recorded, and uploaded their responses to YouTube. The campaign generated 87 YouTube videos (I counted more on YouTube) in the course of three days, pulled in the participation of celebrities and was a tour de force in mixing and combining the elements of social media.
What fascinates me about this campaign is the marketing effectiveness on multiple levels.
Multiple celebrities joined in the fun and participated for free. Alyssa Milano (video 1, video 2, video 3 and video 4) and Rose McGowan were favorites of the campaign. They were obviously “Charmed” to the point of filming their own YouTube responses (Milano, McGowan). A quick google of the Old Spice YouTube video campaign mentioned by the press and blogs goes on for pages. The campaign was a major PR success by any measure.
A major television campaign will broadcast an advertisement 3 to 9 times over 3 to 4 weeks to be remembered by viewers. This commitment of time is needed because viewers tune out television advertisements. Advertising Age estimated a 30 second prime time ad rate in 2007 at $350,000 or more for shows like CSI with 23 million viewers. For the price of one or two TV ad placements, the team at Old Spice have mounted a social media campaign that has reached an audience of 40 million and counting. An audience not only engaged in actively viewing the advertisements but actively participating.
David Ogilvy, a master of advertising, said “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative”. Mashable reports that Old Spice Body Wash sales are up 107% since its social media campaign.
Apple quietly introduces new hardware
In an uncharacteristically low-key manner, the Apple crew released several new products this week including updated iMacs, a stand-alone track pad as well as announcing the specs on the updated Mac Pro line due and new 27″ Cinema Display out in August. The new iMacs look like sweet machines… with faster processors, improved graphics and a slew of options allowing you to configure everything from a budget machine to image processing workhorse — check out the specs here. Probably the most impressive feature of the iMac is the crystal-clear screen. If you’ve ever seen one, you’ll know what I mean… they are stunning. Read more…
Adobe announces Digital Publishing Workflow
Given the runaway success of the iPad and the digital publishing features already included in Adobe CS5, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone — today the Adobe digital publishing evangelist outlined the company’s plans to bring new digital magazine authoring technologies to market in the next version of Creative Suite. Dave Dickson outlined these initiatives in his blog, specifically saying that betas of these new tools could be individually available as early as later this summer through the Adobe Labs site. This is an exciting development as this new workflow puts powerful promulgation tools into the hands of the common man, with the potential for digital zines to become the podcasts of publishing.
As a dyed-in-the-wool magazine addict, my first impression of the iPad was that of a great delivery system for rich media magazine-style content. The concept was handily proven with the release of Wired Magazine’s iPad App which was well received. Interestingly Wired’s digital edition outsold their print magazine for the month, but without causing a decline in print sales. This seems to indicate that digital and print editions can co-exist… for a while at least. Other big names in the magazine world have since followed suit, but I’m really looking forward to the inevitable rise of the home-brew digi-zine… maybe we’ll even see Softcircus, the zine coming soon to an iPad near you!
(of course, that means I’d have to actually buy an iPad first…)
Webcams: Only in China
Fast Tube by Casper
China was known in the 1980’s – 1990’s as “The Kingdom of Bicycles”. In today’s China no status symbol of wealth and prestige surpasses the automobile. With China’s new wealth, drivers see themselves as “important men”, traffic laws are suggestions, and accidents are handled with a quick 200 to 500 RMB paid off on the spot if the driver doesn’t just speed off. In addition, bystanders in China watch accidents, but never get involved or help.
This amazing traffic cam clip from Beijing earlier this month is a classic example. Two drivers at 5:30 in the morning with no traffic for miles in all directions refuse to give way or slow down at an intersection. Notice that the truck driver continues on after the accident. Notice there is a bystander bicyclists in the lower right hand corner of the video who keeps going as well. Only in China.
Monday Freebie: Fontspace
I came across Fontspace.com last week when I was sourcing out fonts for an upcoming project. Any designer will tell you that buying multiple fonts for a speculative project can get expensive very quickly. The Fontspace site has more than 13,000 FREE fonts you can search by style or keyword. All of the fonts offer a license for private use, and many are available for free commercial use as well. You can click here for a breakdown of licenses and what they cover. What I like about Fontspace is that unlike many of the other “free” font websites, these fonts are really quite attractive and usable.
Can Jack Bauer find the missing episodes?
Not bloody likely! While in production, Defaultworld Radio evolved somewhat. Like episode 001, episodes 21, 21 and 23 went out live on the air and were not recorded. I’ve got set lists someplace I think, but no audio! C’est la vie! Also, DFW 024 was the first programme of the new shortened format, coming in at just over an hour. This was done for a number of reasons, but mostly because this would allow it to fit on a single CD, which was important for rebroadcasting on Radio Radio. The original run of Defaultworld Radio died out after episode 28… so there’s only a few left. I’d better start working on some new shows… but for now, click here.
Apple Press Conference: 30 day money-back guarantee, free cases and lots of blah-blah-blah
I would say that antenna issues are the least of these people's problems...
First of all, thanks to Jason Chen and Gizmodo for their excellent live blog coverage. I would have attended the press conference myself but nobody invited me… you can read the entire transcript for yourself here.
[UPDATE: you can watch the video of the press conference here... and they've put up an info-mercial meant to educated the masses here...]
- The conference starts out with Steve Jobs defending the iPhone 4 antenna problem by demonstrating that all major smartphones have signal strength issues when gripped in a certain way. (great, so the iPhone is just like all the other smartphones…) Read more…
FridayPhile: Worst Album Covers of All Time
Some examples of bad album art… though I suspect the music isn’t too good either! If you can handle it, click here to see the top 100 Worst Album Covers of all time! Read more…
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- gizmodo
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