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Wait, Isn’t the iPhone 4S Supposed to Be a Disappointment?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 10, 2011 at 1:27 pm

Boy, does Apple’s iPhone 4S event feel like it happened a long time ago. In fact, it was less than a week ago, and as you may recall, many observers declared the new phone to be a disappointment. But now Apple has released pre-order data, and it seems to suggest that real folks are excited about the 4S. A million people pre-ordered in the first 24 hours, breaking the iPhone 4’s record of 600,000 in the same period.

Why the disparity in reactions? I can think of a few reasons.
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Dark Souls is a Word of Mouth Triumph

Posted by Jared Newman on October 10, 2011 at 9:07 am

Something remarkable happened in the United Kingdom last week: Dark Souls, a game with no mass appeal and hardly any marketing, outsold the blockbuster Gears of War 3.

Granted, Dark Souls launched last week, whereas Gears of War 3 was released on September 20. And Dark Souls is available on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, while Gears of War 3 is an Xbox 360 exclusive. Still, I never expected that a nerdy, dark fantasy RPG would so quickly topple a white knuckle shooter with crazy marketing and voice acting from Ice-T.

If you follow enough gamers and game writers on Twitter, it’s easy to understand what’s going on. Dark Souls, like its spiritual predecessor Demon’s Souls, has incredible word of mouth.

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Qwikster: Gonester!

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 10, 2011 at 9:06 am

I have a confession to make. Ever since Netflix announced its plans to spin off its discs-by-mail business into a self-contained business called Qwikster, I’ve been assuming it would reverse the decision, and have frequently checked Qwikster.com for signs it had done so. I last did it early this morning.

And now it has. In a blog post, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix will stay, well, Netflix. I never stopped assuming this would be the eventual outcome, especially when the initial announcement was followed by radio silence. There was just too much that was too wrong with the idea–the fact that Netflix was eliminating one of its principal attractions as a service, the fact it did so with a video that almost seemed to brag about it, the name, the fact it didn’t have the Twitter handle. It was all the irrational  result of some sort of bizarre midlife crisis, and the oddest part of all is that the idea got announced before the company came to its senses.

The controversial price hikes, however, remain in place.

Netflix is a fine company with a fine service, and–until recently–the way it’s navigated its transition from a snail-mail powered enterprise to a digital one has been really admirable. With any luck, it’ll get back to business so quickly we’ll forget this brief period of weirdness ever happened.

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The Best iPhone 4S Plans by Carrier

Posted by Doug Aamoth on October 10, 2011 at 2:58 am

With three carriers now selling the iPhone, your options have gotten a bit more complex as far as monthly service plans go. We’ll take a look at which carrier’s plans are best for cheapskates, big talkers, big texters, and those who want it all—voice, data and text messaging.

Before we start, some constants between all three carriers:

The iPhone 4S starts at $199 with a two-year contract.

Voice plans include unlimited minutes to people on the same network, so even if you have the 450-minute plan on Verizon, for instance, you won’t use any minutes when calling other Verizon customers.

Apple’s new iOS software features “iMessage,” which lets you send and receive free text messages (for now, at least) between other Apple devices that have the iMessage feature turned on as well.

And with that, let’s get started.

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A Strange Sort of Prison, a Strange Sort of Freedom

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 9, 2011 at 5:19 pm

Free software advocate and GNU creator Richard Stallman has blogged that he’s glad Steve Jobs is gone. That’s, um, gauche. But it’s not why I bring up his post. He also calls Jobs “the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom.”

Apple products? Jails. Cool ones. Apple fans? Jailbirds. Foolish ones. Got that?

Eric S. Raymond, also a free software advocate, has also written about Jobs’ passing. He’s more dignified about it, but the gist is similar. He says:

What’s really troubling is that Jobs made the walled garden seem cool. He created a huge following that is not merely resigned to having their choices limited, but willing to praise the prison bars because they have pretty window treatments.

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Steve Jobs and Edwin Land

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 8, 2011 at 8:17 pm

Over at the New York Times, Christopher Bonanos has a nice piece comparing Steve Jobs to the entrepreneur/technologist he resembles most by far: Polaroid’s Edwin Land. Bonanos says that virtually none of the Jobs obituaries mentioned Land, but I remembered to do so in my piece for TIME–in the third paragraph, in fact. And last June, when I wrote about Polaroid’s SX-70 camera, I found the Land/Jobs parallels so compelling that they threatened to take over the article.

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Take That, Wii U: Split-Screen TV Gaming Comes to iOS 5

Posted by Jared Newman on October 7, 2011 at 9:29 am

With iOS 5, Apple is extending Airplay to any third-party app, allowing iPhones and iPads to serve as wireless game controllers for the Apple TV.

Although we’ve known about this since the summer, Real Racing 2 developer Firemint is showing off something new: split-screen gaming on the television, with up to four players racing at the same time.

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And So the iLine Begins Again

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 7, 2011 at 8:43 am

Having trouble <a href="pre-ordering an iPhone from AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint Hop on a plane and head to Tokyo. I'm still here, and the iPhone 4S, as in the U.S., has gone on preorder. It's available from wireless carrier SoftBank, and as I strolled around Harajuku and Shibuyu this past evening, the hoopla was underway and the crowds were forming, presumably to place orders in person.

A few photos after the jump. (The signs are hard to read, but they all make reference to the 4S.)

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iPhone 4S Pre-Order Fail

Posted by Ed Oswald on October 7, 2011 at 12:49 am

I don’t think Steve would be too happy with the way the pre-order for the iPhone 4S has gone so far. It took Apple until 3:41am to get the Apple Store up, and once up it was difficult to complete a transaction: for example, existing AT&T customers were experiencing issues in reserving a device. Sprint’s site crashed within minutes of the 3:01am opening, and on AT&T it said you could preorder the device, yet it’s nowhere to be found. Verizon’s the only carrier getting high marks so far for the process on Twitter and elsewhere.

Yes, I guess we should have expected this, but it seems like these pre-order events are getting worse rather than better. Wouldn’t you think these companies would figure out how to do it right after awhile? I guess not.

UPDATE (1:15AM PT): Apple’s site is still having issues, but AT&T seems to be working sluggish but half-decent. Sprint’s site is definitely slow, and Verizon’s still doing the best. Just anecdotal, but Sprint is definitely the slowest out of the group. Not surprising, considering these folks are completely new to the iPhone, and we’re likely seeing the pent up demand there.

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Steve Jobs, on the Cover of TIME Once More

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 6, 2011 at 10:43 pm

My friends at TIME had just finished work on the issue that comes out this Friday when the world learned of the passing of Steve Jobs. They stopped the presses, called an emergency meeting–here’s photographic evidence–and put together a new cover story. (And what a cover that is.) I’m honored to say that the obituary I wrote for TIME.com became part of the print magazine’s coverage. (I also have another story in the issue, on Facebook’s new Timeline and Open Graph features.)

 

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