Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!
This week: A day late but sadly no jokes short, Boldly browsing, unboxings galore, big love from HTC, who does Rubenstein really work for, and ZOMG! a new Android beta!
Have you checked out our forums lately? The community is growing and the commentary is getting better and better each day. Unconvinced? I’ll bring out a thread, a post, a topic, or a comment directly from the forums and post it on TiPb’s front page every week to prove it to you. We here at TiPb love the interplay, quid pro quo, repartee with our readers, so step up your creativity and tighten up your diction, you could be next!
Got a hankering to make an spot-on iPhone looking WebApp? Wanna mock-up an App Store application interface of your very own? Thanks to the hyper-generosity of teehan+lax, now you can!
Apple seems to have taken the unprecedented step of posting a special page for iPhone software updates, highlighting the very recent 2.0.2 firmware:
The iPhone 2.0.2 Software Update is the latest version of iPhone 2.0. It’s available now and it's easy to install. Just follow the step-by-step guide below.
Said guide features large but tasteful graphics, featuring "Steve's iPhone" no less. Taken together with the MobileMe News blog, could this finally be a sign that Apple is taking customer communication at least a tiny bit more seriously?
So while Apple is ramping up production of the iPhone 3G, it looks like the rest of the cell phone industry is in a serious slump. Kind of. According to the NPD, (via Ars Technica) only 28 million cell phones were sold this quarter representing a 13% year-to-year decline. But looking specifically at the model-by-model numbers, it looks like everyone is enjoying success on Motorola's dime.
Everybody has been playing the guessing game on how many iPhone 3Gs Apple has sold. The numbers have been pitted at 11 million this year and 25 million in 2009 on the low end and 13 million this year and 45 million in 2009 on the optimistic side. Well according to people familiar with Apple's production plans, it looks like Apple is preparing for the high end of the spectrum, upping their yearly production to around 40 million.
As it stands, Apple is pumping out 150,000 iPhones a day which roughly equates to 39 million a year (5 days a week, 52 weeks a year). Apple should have no problem selling these iPhones because of the international rollout and the Best Buy initiative, greater availability leads to more sales.
