3G

Bottom line: iPhone sales projections roll in [update]

Let the guessing game begin!

On Sunday morning, with one more day of weekend sales to go, analysts and other Apple watchers were already weighing in with their estimates for the iPhone 3Gs three-day launch.

First out of the block was RBC Capital Market's Mike Abramsky, who issued his best guess on Friday. Based on pent-up demand, expanded distribution, and lower pricing, he predicted that worldwide sales for the first weekend would MORE

"iPocalypse" now: The perils of event marketing

The upside of simultaneously launching four major products -- the iPhone 3G, the App Store, iPhone firmware 2.0 and MobileMe -- in more than 20 countries around the world is that you get people's attention.

That's not an easy thing to do in this media-saturated age.

The downside of this form of event marketing -- which Steve Jobs pioneered -- is that you risk blowing it on a really big stage, in MORE

Live! From the Fifth Ave. iPhone line

I bought an iPhone for myself on Friday. This was a live blog to chronicle the event, posted in reverse order with the most recent items on top.

11:47 a.m. The iPhone just beeped. I'm in. Entered my e-mail address and the sync is in progress. That ends this blog.

POSTSCRIPT from Brooklyn: I counted roughly 230 people in line as I left the Apple Store, none of whom were among the MORE

The iPhone line in New York City grows - but not much

Six days after they began queuing up to buy iPhone 3Gs outside Apple's (AAPL) flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City -- hoping to set a Guinness record and garner publicity for the causes of sustainability and locally-grown food (see here) -- the sunburned eco-warriors of TheWhoFarm finally have some company.

At 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning, 25 hours before the new iPhone goes on sale in the United States, four MORE

The iPhone 3G, unpacked and disassembled

The folks at iFixIt didn't waste any time.

The Atascadero, Calif.-based Mac and iPod parts shop flew a technician to Auckland, New Zealand, to buy one of the first Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3Gs when they went on sale July 11 at 12:01 a.m. local time.

No sooner had he unpacked it than he immediately set to work taking it apart.

You can follow the somewhat unsettling sequence of events -- dirty fingernails and MORE

Apple's App Store opens for business

Four months after Steve Jobs first announced it, Apple's App Store -- the showcase for third-party developers writing new software for the iPhone and iPod touch -- has opened its doors, at least for some users. (More on that below.)

The timing of the launch was apparently driven by New Zealand, where the iPhone 3G was set to go on sale at 12:01 a.m., Friday July 11. Given the time difference, that dictated MORE

ChangeWave survey: 56% of smartphone buyers want iPhones

A quick glance at the chart at right would suggest that it's all over for the BlackBerry.

It's from the latest quarterly ChangeWave survey -- taken shortly after the June 9 unveiling of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3G -- and it shows that among consumers planning to buy smartphones in the next 90 days, 56% plan to purchase iPhones, double the percentage who plan to buy RIM (RIMM) BlackBerries. (The less MORE

Finally, the real iPhone

There's a theory favored by savvy Apple watchers that the first generation iPhone -- greeted with such hoopla last year -- was not actually the real thing.

That iPhone -- the one that hundreds of thousands of Americans queued up to buy for up to $599 apiece, the one that Time magazine named the Invention of the Year, the one that six million people purchased before Apple finally stopped making them in MORE

Countdown to the iPhone 3G launch

With the July 11 launch date fast approaching, the machinery required to execute the worldwide release of Apple's second generation iPhone is kicking into gear. A timeline:

Tuesday, July 1: Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) unveil details of their pricing plans. Apple issues a pair of video guided tours and AT&T publishes a checklist and video on how to get "iReady." (See A tale of two videos.)
Friday, July 4: First line MORE

Apple-Rogers falling out: A story too good to be true?

Daniel Smith, a Canadian sales and marketing consultant with an eclectic blog called Smithereens, posted on Saturday what he called "a very plausible rumour" about the launch at of Apple's iPhone 3G on the Rogers Communications network.

The gist of the post -- entitled "Apple Flips Rogers the Bird" -- was that Apple and Rogers, Canada's largest mobile carrier, have had a falling out over the negative publicity generated by Rogers' MORE