journal: toy

iTunes ringtones - a first look [UPDATED]

By Nick, September 10, 2007

So I was in iTunes poking around in the iTunes Store when I glanced at my source list and noticed a happy little bell icon. Hmm, that wasn’t there before. I made note of the fact that I haven’t seen anything in my install of iTunes 7.4 regarding this feature until now, and the iTunes Ringtones page on Apple’s site shed the “Coming soon” tag it had, so I can only assume it was just activated tonight. [UPDATE: Yup!] So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the first test drive of iTunes ringtones for iPhone!

In order to create a ringtone, I had to download a song from the iTunes Store, being that none of the songs I’ve purchased off iTunes in the past support ringtones. I settled on Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams for this lovely test. That’s right, I plunked down a whole 99 cents in the name of you, our readers. I hope you’re grateful.

UPDATE: This morning I tried the ringtone tool again. iTunes asked me to enter my Apple ID and password again, and this time it added a bunch of little bells to my iTunes library.

Oh, and it’s a pretty good song…
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iPhone: over 1 million sold

By Nick, September 10, 2007

Today Apple has announced that it has sold 1 million iPhones since the product’s launch on June 29. In a press release issued today, Steve Jobs notes, “One million iPhones in 74 days—it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod.”

As noted, the iPhone has been on the market for 74 days. If you do that math, that calculates to roughly 13,514 iPhones sold each day, 563 sold each hour, and nine every minute--and that’s just in the United States! They’re a long ways off from McDonald’s claim of “Billions and billions sold,” but one million iPhones in 74 days is nothing to sneeze at.

Needless to say, the $200 price cut likely wasn’t much of a factor, being it was announced a mere five days ago.

How big a deal is this? The local morning news on channel 4 in the Bay Area referred to it as a developing story; go figure.

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Some thoughts on the iPhone price cut

By Nick, September 7, 2007

I can’t believe I am going to dive into this issue. Who wants to bet that I’ll get torched and end up regretting writing about this tomorrow? At any rate, here it goes…

Okay, quick show of hands:

How many of you saw the $200 price drop in the iPhone coming so soon? I sure as hell didn’t.

Now how many expected the loud outcry from iPhone owners? I sure as hell didn’t.

Lastly, how many of you expected Apple to give every iPhone owner who bought their phone before the price drop a $100 store credit? You can probably guess my response to this last one.

I don’t own an iPhone and I probably won’t for a while. It’s not that I can’t afford it; I was able to afford one on June 29 and I can afford one now. I simply have no way to justify one considering the fact that I rarely use my current phone. I’m lame like that. That said, I don’t really know for certain how I would react to the $200 price drop on the 8 GB iPhone, but I suspect my reaction would be the same as it was when Apple unveiled…
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Apple issues open letter to iPhone owners

By Nick, September 6, 2007

Price drops are good, right? Not if you already own an iPhone and found out yesterday that Apple would be knocking $200 off the price of the 8 GB model and dropping the 4 GB model completely, in which case you might be a little angry. Upset iPhone owners flooded online message boards and Steve Jobs’ own inbox. Today, Jobs wrote an open letter to iPhone owners, offering them an olive branch:

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

As a result of the outcry from iPhone owners, Apple will offer everyone who bought an iPhone a $100 credit for Apple’s online and retail stores. More information will be available from Apple’s web site next week. Stay tuned.

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New iPods: a very early first impression

By Nick, September 5, 2007

Okay, the Apple media event isn’t even over as I write this, so what you are about to read are very early first impressions. Enough with the formalities of an introduction, let’s get to it:

Ringtones

Why this wasn’t there when the iPhone was released is beyond me, though I think we all saw this coming eventually. .99 cents isn’t bad compared to some other ringtone services out there, but it strikes me as lame that in order to have the song and the ringtone, you need to pay $1.98. So it goes, I guess.

I wonder what other features itunes will sport, and whether Apple will continue the 7.x numbering or jump to 8.0.

iPod shuffle

All right, new colors, but no capacity boost?

iPod nano

Okay, this event was just the worst-kept secret in Apple’s history! Yes, the new nanos are exactly what was rumored. The new user interface looks quite slick (it was time for a refresh), and I appreciate the longer battery life for video playback, but, man, those poor nanos look so squished! I also find the colors to be a little bland. Classy, but bland. I’m sure my eye will adjust in time, however.…
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