Apple 2.0

TIME Reviews the iPhone

My colleague Lev Grossman at TIME Magazine has posted the most elegant review of the iPhone I've seen yet.

A snippet:

E-mail and web-browsing are unbelievably great. Ditto the crisp music and video playback. Everybody I called with the iPhone remarked on the crispness and clarity of the audio. For the iPhone, Apple has brought to market a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match it, all in one go, so seamlessly that my 3-year-old daughter — and I apologize for going to this place, but the fact is striking nonetheless — had no trouble unlocking the iPhone and dialing with it (even though she believed that she was playing a musical instrument).

Voice mail — you pick and choose visually what messages you want to hear — and Google Maps are ridiculously useful. The user interface is crammed with smart little touches — every moment of user interaction has been quietly stage-managed and orchestrated, with such overwhelming attention to detail that when the history of digital interface design is written, whoever managed this project at Apple will be hailed as a Michelangelo, and the iPhone his or her Sistine Chapel (Steve Jobs can be Pope in this scenario).

If you're not a reviewer, chances are you won't even bother to look at the manual. Translucent, jewel-like, artfully phrased dialogue boxes come and go on cue. Window borders bounce and flex just slightly to cue the user where and how you're supposed to drop and drag and scroll them. When you switch the phone to "airplane mode" (no electronic transmissions, for use on planes) a tasteful little orange airplane slides into the menu bar, then zooms away when you switch out again. (This was so pleasurable that I repeatedly entered airplane mode while using the iPhone, even though I wasn't actually on an airplane.) As soon as my phone realized it belonged to someone with a nonsense-name like Lev, it started correcting typos like "Leb" and "Lec" to match.

For the full review, click "I Take the iPhone Home."

iPhone Passes Scratch and Drop Test

Regular readers know that I've been worried since I first put my hands on an (AAPL) iPhone about what would happen if it slipped and landed on the sidewalk (see here). Well, I'm delighted to report that someone else risked their $500 to $600 device to find out -- and that it passed with hardly a dent.

Eric Butterfield of PC World put his brand new iPhone through a series of pretty realistic tests -- shaking and grinding it in a bag of metal objects; trying to scratch it with a key; dropping it from ear height on carpet, linoleum and concrete . The device took a serious licking -- and kept on ticking. Don't believe me? Watch the video, here.

1st-night Sales: Tens -- Perhaps Hundreds -- of Thousands of iPhones

If the reports that Apple (AAPL) had 3 million iPhones stockpiled for opening night are anywhere close to the mark, there should be plenty left over for next week.

Apple and AT&T (T) are not releasing sales figures, but piecing together eye-witness accounts from stores around the country and doing some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, it's clear that Apple sold tens of thousands of iPhones -- and perhaps as many as 200,000 -- the first night, not millions.

There are several reports of AT&T stores selling out their consignment of iPhones -- 60 in one Wall Street store, 40 in another, 20 in a smaller store.

According to Apple's iPhone availability website (here) there are iPhones in stock today at all 164 Apple Stores, including the big ones in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Roughly 300 people lined up to buy phones at each of the largest stores (we counted 335 when the doors finally opened at the Stockton Street outlet in San Francisco) and more buyers streamed in before the doors closed at midnight.

If you generously assume that 500 iPhones were sold at each of Apple's 164 retail outlets (including the tiny mall stores), and that all AT&T stores sold out an average of 50 phones, that's

                                500 * 164 = 82,000
                                50 * 1,800 = 90,000
                                TOTAL   = 172,000

Not bad for one night's work. Because that doesn't include online sales, it's roughly in line with earlier analysts' estimates that Apple could sell 400,000 iPhones in the first few days.

Apple has not commented on the estimates. Steve Jobs has said he hopes to capture 1% of the worldwide cellphone market by 2008, which comes out to roughly 10 million iPhones over the next 18 months.

UPDATE: An AAPL watcher whose opinion I trust thinks this estimate for AT&T sales may be 25% to 35% too low. He believes the smaller AT&T stores had 60 to 70 phones and the larger ones 100 or more.

He also points out that many, if not most, customers at Apple stores bought two iPhones. If we assume that half did, the numbers come out somewhat differently:

                                500 * 164 * 1.5 = 123,000
                                50 * 1,800 = 90,000
                                TOTAL   = 213,000

In which case the headline should have read:

Apple Sells Hundreds of Thousands of iPhones the First Night

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: Bloomberg News estimates 200,000 sold on the "first day," but doesn't make clear whether they mean the first night or the first 24 hours:

Apple stores sold an estimated 128,000 iPhones on the first day, while AT&T stores sold 72,000, said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with San Francisco-based Global Equities. (link)

SUNDAY EVENING UPDATE: Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, estimates that Apple sold 500,000 iPhones from 6 p.m. Friday to the close of business Sunday evening. Accoding to Piper Jaffray's survey:

Ninety-five percent of iPhone buyers in San Francisco, New York and Minneapolis (home to Piper Jaffray's offices) purchased the 8GB model... About half were new customers for AT&T, at least among the 253 people surveyed for the report. (link)

Glitches at AT&T Bedevil Apple iPhone Owners

Something was bound to go wrong, and for existing AT&T (T) customers trying to activate their newly purchased Apple (AAPL) iPhones, the problem looked like this:

Your activation requires additional time to complete

The discussion boards on Apple's website were lit up overnight with frustrated customers, some of whom had waited in line all day to buy their iPhone only to run afoul of AT&T's activation process.

"I Activated my Iphone at 8pm on 06/29/07 and it is now around 7am the next day and my Iphone has still not activated," wrote Clark Brantley of Charlotte, N.C.

"Same here (in NYC), it's been about 10 hours for me. AT&T said (after talking to 4 agents) that it's Apple's job to activate the phone not theirs," added user PeteTech. "Here goes the runaround." (link)

iPhone owners transferring their numbers from Verizon or T-Mobile had similar problems, in some cases being told it would take another day for the process to complete. Often the problem emerged after the current SIM card had been deactivated, leaving buyers without any working cellphone. (see here) What made the wait particularly frustrating was that until their iPhones were activated, the new owners couldn't do anything with them except call 911.

"This does suck," wrote Gabe 5 Editor. "i wanted to play with them tonight and teach my wife how to use it, but that is not the case, might have to wait for tomorrow."

AT&T's help lines, not surprisingly, were overwhelmed with calls. In some cases, phone reps were able to resolve the issue. For other users, rebooting the iPhone seemed to do the trick. An explanation of sorts emerged late Friday evening from a user named Ty Morton:

I called the activation help line and spoke with a very friendly and helpful Caroline. She said that for existing AT&T customers porting a number, it would take 3-5 hours. If you were porting a number from another service, it could take up to 24. If you are getting a new number, regardless of whether to are an existing customer or not, activation is almost immediate.

The bottleneck is the result of porting all of the existing users' SIM cards. Normally, they just transfer the SIM card to another phone, or the data another card. To her credit, she acknowledged that they were caught off-guard by that.

It appears to be an honest stumble -- which is to be expected with a product launch of this scale -- and the AT&T people are doing the best they can to resolve it.

"Guyrexia" from New York was not so forgiving:

AT&T ***** soooo bad, I knew I should never have come back to them. Bad move Steve. I have been waiting over 9 hrs for my activation to complete. You would think AT&T would have been ready to handle all the activations having had almost 1 year to plan for it. I think Steve Jobs should be running AT&T they could use his help.

iPhone Disassembled

Only hours after the Apple (AAPL) iPhone went on sale, it has already been cracked open, disassembled and thoroughly analyzed.

Our friends at PowerBook Medic wasted no time putting up a site offering accessories, replacement parts and a "free take-apart manual."
(See here.)

The technicians at iFixit went even further, stripping an iPhone all they way down to its individial components (see photo below) and annotating what they found, including a two-part logic board that's very tricky to separate without causing irreparable damage and a total of 16 screws. (link)

"Construction as a whole is particularly tight," notes AppleInsider. "An iPod nano, for reference, uses only three. Even the antenna wires are glued to the phone at strategic points despite the scarcity of room, indicating that the iPhone's creator leaves very little to chance." (link)

iPhone Lines Cost U.S. 12 Man Years

That's the back-of-the envelope calculation of Jeremy Toeman at Live Digitally, who has been tracking reports from bloggers covering the lines Apple (AAPL) stores around the country. His count is conservative for  several reasons: he undercounts the number of Apple stores and doesn't include AT&T stores at all. Still, it's an impressive waste of time. His calculations: (link)

the 11 cities I tracked represented 8790 person-hours of line-waiting. With 140 Apple stores nationwide (not even counting AT&T stores, by the way), this represents 7.8% of all stores. A tiny bit of extrapolation later and we have 111872 person-hours spent waiting in line . The totals:

111872 person-hours.

4661 person-days.

12.77 person-years.

[Photo of Nick from Boy Genius getting the first iPhone in Tampa, Fl., courtesy of Engadget]

Apple's Online Store Shuts Down for iPhone

Californians who logged on hoping to buy Apple's (AAPL) iPhone online at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT) found this instead:

iDay: Live Blogging From an Apple Store

As orderly as the line had been for two days, by 6:00 p.m., PDT, chaos reigned at San Francisco's Apple Store on Stockton St.

At the end of the line, where would-be buyer No. 335 waited patiently, things were pretty quiet. But the store's front door was a madhouse. Jerry Taylor, No. 1 in line, was nearly crushed in the scrum of  reporters, photographers, TV crews, gawkers and commuters trying to make their way to the bus.

At 5:55 a parade of black-shirted Apple employees came tearing down O'Farrell St. They ran all the way past the line handing out water bottles and shouting "iPhone! iPhone."

Once inside the store, they clapped continuously for the next five minutes, as if applauding the buyers for their loyalty and persistence.

The crowd at this point had spilled into the street; a police car pushed its way through, speakers blaring, to clear the bus lane. Someone  waved a big green sign proclaiming "JESUS LOVES YOU."

A minute before 6:00 p.m. two burly Apple security men came out of the store and started clearing out a lane for the buyers. Finally, with less than half a minute to go, the Apple staff started counting down the seconds, as if it were New Year's.

At zero, Jerry walked into the store, lit up like a movie star, cameras clicking, reporters shouting questions. Five minutes later, he walked out, holding his iPhone box like a hard-won trophy.

The rest was mere denouement. No. 2 in line had hardly waited at all. He bought the spot from Jerry for a figure he would only say was less than $1,000. "I don't want my wife to know," said Erwin Coumans, 37, of Amsterdam, who works for Sony when he isn't spending his savings snapping up iPhones.

Judging from the reports from the East Coast and Midwest, it seemed likely that almost everyone who wanted an iPhone -- here and around the country -- will be able to buy one. And sure enough, by 7 p.m. the line had dwindled to a few dozen people, all of whom had arrived within the past five minutes.

At the AT&T store on Market Street, by contrast, the line was still half a block long and was moving at a snails pace. Something was wrong with their computerized credit check system, or something. Apple could teach their partners a thing or two about doing retail right -- if they are willing to learn.

The day started for me at 7:00 a.m., when I began monitoring the wire services' breathless coverage...

Bandwidth 101: Why the iPhone Is So Slow

Moving swiftly to address the issue identified by early reviewers as the iPhone's weakest link, the CEOs of Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) launched a two-man media offensive on the eve of its launch.

In a series of interviews with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today, Steve Jobs and Randall Stephenson used nearly identical talking points as they defended their decision to rely on AT&T's sluggish EDGE network rather than the faster 3G network that AT&T sells corporate customers. "It's good enough," Jobs told the Journal. "But you wish it was a little faster."

Jobs described the iPhone's network strategy as a "sandwich": it connects to fast Wi-Fi networks where they are available and switches back to the slower EDGE network when they're not -- which is the case for most of the U.S.

"We think we made a pretty good doggone decision," said Jobs.

So what exactly are these acronyms -- EDGE, 3G and Wi-Fi -- and how do they compare? A primer:

iDay Minus 1: Report from an Apple Store

The madness has begun at the San Francisco Apple (AAPL) store on Stockton Street, near Market.

It's not as bad as New York City, of course, where Greg Packer, the first man in the world to queue up for an iPhone, has already had way more than his 15 minutes of fame (see Fake Steve Jobs' take here on the guy he's dubbed Johnny Skidmark). 

My wife, who walked past the Soho store in Manhattan earlier today, reports that there was more press -- TV, print and otherwise -- than would-be buyers. The folks camping out on the sidewalk, however, made up in color what they lacked in numbers. One seemed to be falling over drunk and was trying to interest passersby in buying a mailbox, calling it a work of art.

San Franciscans are no less creative, but they have a bit more class. Or something. It wasn't until this morning at 7 a.m. that Jerry Taylor, 54, a marketing specialist with Denver-based World Class International, staked out his six-square-feet of sidewalk right outside Apple's front door on Stockton. By lunchtime, he was comfortably ensconced with throw rug, folding armchair, boombox, thermos, laptop and battery-powered fan.

When the camera crew from CNBC was done getting their money shot of Jerry in his lair (see photo), I moved in with my notepad.

Where To Buy an iPhone (Update)

"Don't go to an Apple store," Steve Jobs famously advised Arianna Huffington last month. "It will be a madhouse there. People will be lined up around the block, sleeping on the sidewalk to get one. Go to an AT&T/Cingular store. Most people don't know that they will be selling them too." (link)

Good advice? That depends.

There are 164 Apple Stores in the U.S. and 1,800 AT&T Wireless outlets, so you probably have a better chance of finding an AT&T store with a short line.

On the other hand, Apple probably controls the distribution of the devices, so there may be a larger supply in stock at its stores when they go on sale Friday at 6 p.m.

And you can buy more iPhones at Apple. AT&T (T) announced yesterday that it will limit sales to one per customer. Apple (AAPL) in a press release this morning announced that customers at its stores will be allowed up to two -- one for yourself and another to, say, sell for a profit on eBay.

The lines should move quickly at either company's outlets; the authorization procedure that usually seems to take forever can be done at home, through your iTunes account. But having dealt with staffers at both outlets, I'd put my money on Apple's staff to get you in and out more smoothly.

Alternatively, you can buy your iPhone online. The link on Apple's online store, which appeared a few days but was grayed out, has now gone live. It's not clear whether buyers on the West Coast have to wait until 6 p.m. Pacific time, or can place their orders when it's 6 p.m. in New York. We'll find out soon enough.

Wherever you buy your phone, Apple is the place to go to find out how to use it.  According to today's press release: 

Beginning Saturday morning, iPhone customers can learn how to get the most out of the iPhone with free, in-depth workshops offered throughout the day at all Apple retail stores. Every Apple retail store will offer support for iPhone at the Genius Bar and personal training through Apple's new One to One program. (link)

Each company offers a handy store finder. To find the Apple store nearest you, go here. To find an  AT&T store that carries iPhones, go here. Here again, however, Apple retail does AT&T one better. It has set up an iPhone availability webpage that tells you, store by store, if their supply has run out.

UPDATE:  AppleInsider reports that Apple will be hosting a nationwide sleepover tonight as a skeleton staff man the stores overnight, perhaps for security reasons, perhaps to take delivery of the iPhones in the wee hours of the morning. And Cult of Mac reports that Steve Jobs will host a rare town meeting for employees this morning at 11:00 a.m PT.
 

Where to Buy an iPhone

"Don't go to an Apple store," Steve Jobs famously advised Arianna Huffington last month. "It will be a madhouse there. People will be lined up around the block, sleeping on the sidewalk to get one. Go to an AT&T/Cingular store. Most people don't know that they will be selling them too." (link)

Good advice? That depends.

There are 164 Apple Stores in the U.S. and 1,800 AT&T Wireless outlets, so you probably have a better chance of finding an AT&T store with a short line.

On the other hand, Apple probably controls the distribution of the devices, so there may be a larger supply in stock at its stores when they go on sale Friday at 6 p.m.

And you can buy more iPhones at Apple. AT&T announced yesterday that it will limit sales to one per customer. Apple in a press release this morning anounced that customers at its stores will be allowed up to two -- one for yourself and another to, say, sell for a profit on eBay.

The lines should move quickly at either company's outlets; the authorization procedure that usually seems to take forever can be done at home, through your iTunes account. But having dealt with staffers at both outlets, I'd put my money on Apple's staff to get you in and out more smoothly.

Alternatively, you can buy your iPhone online. The link on Apple's online store, which appeared a few days but was grayed out, has now gone live. It's not clear whether buyers on the West Coast have to wait until 6 p.m. Pacific time, or can place their orders when it's 6 p.m. in New York. We'll find out tomorrow afternoon.

Wherever you buy your phone, Apple is the place to go to find out how to use it.  According to today's press release: 

Beginning Saturday morning, iPhone customers can learn how to get the most out of the iPhone with free, in-depth workshops offered throughout the day at all Apple retail stores. Every Apple retail store will offer support for iPhone at the Genius Bar and personal training through Apple's new One to One program. (link)

Each company offers a handy store finder. To find the Apple store nearest you, go here. To find an  AT&T store that carries iPhones, go here. Here again, however, Apple retail does AT&T one better. It has set up an iPhone availability webpage that tells you, store by store, if their supply has run out.
 

iDay Minus 2: Report from an Apple Store

School was off today in San Francisco, which skewed the demographic of the folks hanging out at the store on Stockton Street a bit younger than Steve Jobs' target audience, especially for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that is due to arrive in two days and three hours and 18 minutes (but who's counting?).

In fact, most of the people using the Macs on display today were teenagers in that awkward age range where friends and classmate can differ in height by a laser sword or two.

Since there were no would-be iPhone buyers camped out on the sidewalk -- as there are in front of both the Fifth Ave. and Soho stores in Manhattan -- I approached a couple of kids to gauge their interest in the most hyped communication device since the semaphore.   

                        iDay Minus 3: Report from an Apple Store

It wasn't easy getting their attention. A bunch of them -- eight in all -- were deeply engrossed in a game called RuneScape, which according to the publisher's promo material is "is a massive 3d multiplayer adventure, with monsters to kill, quests to complete, and treasure to win."

How Apple's Steve Jobs Whipped Us Into an iPhone Frenzy

This is one they'll be teaching in business schools for years to come.

The Apple (AAPL)  iPhone, set to go on sale Friday at 6 p.m., is a case study on several levels.

Physically, it's an electronic device that combines three of today's most popular technologies -- cellular communications, portable digital music and access to e-mail and the World Wide Web -- in one slick high-tech package.

It's also a showcase for the kind of simple, user-friendly software design that Apple pioneered, first with the Macintosh line of computers, then with iTunes and the iPod.

And it may be the most impressive demonstration to date of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' legendary mastery of the art of media manipulation.

Through clever stagecraft, massive advertising buys, carefully calibrated  releases of information (and on occasion misinformation), and the coddling of a handful of influential reporters, Jobs has created level of consumer interest and anticipation never before seen for an electronic device.

For sheer news value, the arrival of the iPhone this Friday could rival the maiden launch of the Space Shuttle and Charles Lindberg's cross-Atlantic solo flight.

The basic facts of the iPhone can be swiftly summarized.

Apple iPhone's Missing Pieces

Although the first reviews of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone were glowing (see links here and Josh Quittner's review of the reviewers here), all agreed that there were features that were either missing or not quite up to snuff.

Not to fear. If past behavior is any guide, Steve Jobs is likely to start filling in those missing pieces, one at a time, in a series of press releases and software updates carefully timed to garner maximum publicity and drive further sales. Look at the flurry of iPhone news in the weeks and days before the launch: YouTube videos, "improved" battery life, a 25 minute tutorial, the cheapest wireless plan on the market and generous reviews from hand-picked journalists timed for simultaneous release three days before the device goes on the market.

Because he owns the whole box -- hardware and software -- and he can count on a few hundred reporters and bloggers to broadcast every minutia of iPhone news, Jobs can send new goodies down the pipeline whenever he feels his baby needs another jolt of media buzz.

So what's missing from the iPhone in its current configuration? Let's see...

• No instant messaging
• No way to IM pictures, videos, sounds (i.e. no MMS)
• Can't cut and paste
• Can't edit or save Word, Excel, PDF documents
• Camera can't record video
• Can't play Web pages with Flash
• No access to iTunes Music Store
• No games
• No way to download contacts from old phones
• Can't turn contact lists into e-mail distribution lists
• Can't turn iPod songs into ring tones
• No way to search phone book or song lists
• No voice dialing
• No quick way to move up or down pages
• Not clear if there is support for Microsoft Exchange 
• No other carrier except AT&T Wireless
• No AT&T Wireless  insurance
• No way to change SIM card or battery except through Apple
• No GPS or real-time navigation system
• No access to a fast, 3G network (for that you'll have to wait for iPhone 2.0)

That's all we've got for now. Feel free to add to the wish list. (With thanks to those who have already done so.)

[Photo courtesy of Gizmodo]

Apple iPhone: Links to the First Reviews

The first reviews of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone are in. Here are the links I've found.

Wall St. Journal: The iPhone is Breakthrough Handheld Computer
New York Times: The iPhone Matches Most of its Hype (w/amusing video)
Newsweek: At Last, the iPhone
USA Today: Apple's iPhone isn't perfect, but it's worthy of the hype

Seen any I've missed? Send them here.

iDay Minus 3: Report from an Apple Store

At the flagship San Francisco Apple store on Stockton and Market, it's business as usual three days and four hours before the iPhone is due to arrive.

The lunchtime crowd is, if anything, a little light -- as if the place holds a bit less magic without Steve Jobs' newest gadget in house. The usual collection of teenagers, businessmen and Asian tourists are parked at the demo machines, but there are still five or six laptops free for me to peck at. There even seem to be openings at the Genius Bar.

I was met at the door by three cheerful Apple employees, all dressed in jeans and black T-shirts and wearing, in addition to their usual white and grey Apple pendant, a red-and-white stick-um shaped like the OS X calendar app and printed with the date they're all waiting for: Friday 29.

                        Where To Buy an iPhone

The only other indication that the most hyped product in recent memory is due to arrive in fewer days than it took God to create the world are the two oversized iPhone-shaped screens running a demo video, a reporter from the L.A. Times buttonholing passers-by for quotes, and a surprisingly modest cardboard poster perched on a stand by the front door. "iPhone World Premiere," it reads. "Friday, 6 p.m. to midnight. We'll be closed from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. to get ready."

"We're expecting a big crowd," says a friendly Apple helpmate who says her name is Angela. "I'll be disappointed if there isn't."

If there is an official memo like the one sent to AT&T store managers with instructions for how to handle the expected hordes -- stanchions, chains, guards armed or otherwise (see Raw Data: June 22) --  she hasn't seen it.

"Employees haven't been told anything," she says wistfully. "We're not even allowed to bring cellphones."

"But it's going to be exciting!" she adds, as if remembering the script.

First Authorized iPhone Reviews Due Today

UPDATE: The first reviews are in -- Mossberg and Katherine Boehret the WSJ and Pogue at the NYT -- at 6 p.m. ET, not PT. I stand corrected.

The headlines:

"The iPhone Is Breakthrough Handheld Computer" (WSJ)

"The iPhone Matches Most of its Hype" (NYT)

----------

With the show set to open in just four days, Steve Jobs has calculated that this is the time to let the reviewers have their say.

Only a small group of hand-picked journalists were given Apple (AAPL) iPhones in advance of the June 29 launch under strict nondisclosure agreements that specified precisely when they could publish or broadcast their reviews.

Apple 2.0 has learned that that moment is tonight, at 9 p.m. 6 p.m. ET, (6 p.m. 3 p.m. PT).

Log on then and you can expect to read (and in some cases watch) detailed reviews from Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, David Pogue of the New York Times and another half-dozen or so journalists who specialize in new technology.

From what we've heard the reviewers are going to be generally positive but will not shy away from pointing out the parts of the iPhone experience that were disappointing -- mostly revolving around typing difficulties and sluggish downloads over AT&T's current cellular network.

In other iPhone news, Apple and AT&T this morning revealed the long-awaited price points of the iPhone's wireless service plans, which are considerably lower than expected (See Adding up the Costs). There are three plans, ranging from $59.99 per month to $99.99 per month. Each requires a two-year commitment, as is standard in the cellphone industry -- at least in the U.S.

The $59.99 plan includes 450 minutes of voice time; a $79.99 plan includes 900 minutes of voice time, and the $99.99 monthly plan gives you 1,350 minutes. All three offer 200 text messages, unlimited data services, roll over minutes, and mobile-to-mobile services. There is a one-time $36 activation fee. See the Apple press release here.

Buyers will be able to activate their iPhones at home, using their iTunes accounts (see tutorial here), which should make purchases on the evening of June 29 go a little more smoothly.

They're Here: First iPhone Shipments Arrive

AppleInsider reports this morning that the first shipments of Apple (AAPL) iPhones arrived over the weekend, touching down quietly at a handful of U.S. drop locations. (link)

Quoting "people familiar with the matter," AppleInsider says that the shipments were carried by a Hong-Kong based courier that services Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The security procedures, according to this report, were extraordinary:

Awaiting the freight at each location on Sunday were armored (sic) personnel, who were reportedly hired by Apple through its courier's ground handling agent and then cleared by the Transportation Security Administration. Armed guards are extremely unusual for freight coming out of the Asian sector, those familiar with the matter explained, and are typically reserved for shipments containing riches such as gold and diamonds.

Once on the ground, the iPhone shipments were to be broken down under the watch of the armed personnel, who would then observe the loading of the freight onto ground vehicles and become party to its transpiration outbound. (link)

AppleInsider also reports that Apple management informed staffers on Sunday that no devices containing cameras -- including cellphones and Macs with built-in iSight video cameras -- would be allowed in the back storerooms of its retail outlets.

How it could hurt Apple for a photograph of an iPhone box to escape these security barriers is not clear. But none of this hurts the buzz that Steve Jobs is carefully fueling.

Apple's iPhone: Adding Up the Costs

UPDATE: One day after this was posted Apple and A&T released their iPhone pricing plans, which were considerably lower than those AT&T offers BlackBerry users. For the entry level iPhone and the cheapest $59.99 plan, a two-year contract comes to

iPhone:                                                 $499.00
Data, Voice (450 min/mos):         1,439.76
Activation Fee:                                        36.00
TOTAL (two years)                         $1974.76

- - - - - - -

Apple's (AAPL) iPhone will carry a $499 to $599 pricetag, not including taxes, depending whether you choose the 4 gigabyte or the 8 gigabyte model.

But that's not how much it will cost to own one. With five days to go before the device goes on sale, AT&T has still not published the rate card for its iPhone service plans or indicated whether there will be any rebate on the hardware. We do know how much AT&T charges BlackBerry users, however: between $34.99 and $79.99 per month for data and anywhere from $39.99 to $99.99 per month for voice.

Choosing the entry-level iPhone (assuming no rebate) and the lowest possible price for a two-year contract, this is what we get:

iPhone (4 gig model):                                $499.00 plus tax
AT&T voice 450 minutes/mos.                 879.36
AT&T data                                                       839.76
TOTAL (2 years):                                    $2,218.12 plus tax

That's not counting Apple's Bluetooth headset (reported cost: $129) or any protective covering you might buy to keep from scratching the glass screen.

And if you decide before your two-years are up that the iPhone -- or AT&T -- is not for you, the Boston Globe reports that the company formerly known as Cingular will charge you a $175 early cancellation fee. (link)

Cellphone service providers routinely charge their early-cancellation fees to recoup the cost of subsidizing the phones, which they sell way below cost when you sign a two-year contract. It's not clear how AT&T can justify a cancellation fee on a phone it hasn't subsidized. With the iPhone, it would appear, the old rules don't apply.

CLARIFICATION: This is not meant to suggest that the iPhone/AT&T costs are uncompetitive. As several readers point out, you are going to get hit with monthly charges no matter what phone or carrier you use.

Apple iPhone: New Details, Good and Bad

With less than six days left before the Apple (AAPL) iPhone arrives, there's a flood of press coverage but new details about how the gadget actually works are hard to find. A few drops of news are dribbling out, however.

The 24 minute "guided tour" Apple released late last week (see here) is basically an infomercial designed to head off any negative feedback from independent reviewers. Mostly it delivers the same information contained in the TV commercials, but at a glacial pace. But Jason Chen at Gizmodo scoured the video for fresh information and offered this summary:

• Confirmed in-line viewer for PDFs, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel docs in email. Microsoft complained about lack of support before. This is a huge deal, even if it is read-only.
• Turning off the phone requires you to slide your finger across the top (like unlocking it) to confirm.
• You can rewind voicemail like a sound file.
• You can finger-scroll through contacts using the alphabet on the right.
• The special iPhone headphones have volume and call control.
• IMAP/POP support confirmed
• Typing with two thumbs actually looks manageable
• Limited amount of ringtones can be selected from the settings menu. Doesn't look like songs can be used.
• Confirmed turn by turn directions and up-to-date traffic info for Google maps. (link)

Over at rival Engadget, Ryan Block pried a few less-than-flattering reactions from "a very trusted source" who has spent time with a pre-launch iPhone. Excerpts:

• "It won't replace a BlackBerry. It's not good for text input. It's just not a business product."
• The browser "worked well" but page load speeds on EDGE were just as slow as expected. It sounds like 3G users will have a tough run with this.
• Users must scroll through the address book (or use the alphabet-drag on the side) -- one cannot bring up the keyboard and type in a name, as many of us are used to.
• Shocker: YouTube over EDGE didn't work well at all, and will basically necessitate use of WiFi. (For the full list go to Engadget here)

Finally, there are these observations from Balsu Thandu, one of the 200 AT&T (T) field technicians who reportedly spent the past 10 weeks putting the iPhone through its paces incognito (see here). According to Mobility Today,

Techs also did a lot of walking. "Many people don't realize it, but walking gives you the worst channel conditions," Thandu says. Cell signals tend to bounce off buildings, causing interference, and background noise is a constant problem in cities.

Feedback from the field was relayed to Apple, sometimes hourly, Thandu says. Early on, he says, technicians discovered that the iPhone's audio was "not loud or clear enough." Apple designers quickly fixed the problem, he says.

Though "iTesting" will continue on an ongoing basis, Thandu says he is comfortable that the device is good to go. "For the launch, I think we are there." (link)

 

 

Apple iPhone: What Happens When It Hits the Road, Literally?

Call us obsessive, but we've been thinking about what would happen if an Apple (AAPL) iPhone slipped and fell on the sidewalk since we first got our hands on one in January. (See "How to Throw an iPhone" and "Apple iPhone's Slippery Secret.")

At the time, the Apple executive who was giving us the demo (we agreed not to mention his name which, cough, rhymes with "lobs") indulged us by tossing an iPhone on the floor. This particular floor was richly carpeted, however, so I'm not persuaded it was a fair test.

Apparently Apple's partners at AT&T (T) weren't either.  According to a report in Mobility Today, the phone company formerly known as Cingular dispatched a batallion of field technicians who spent the last two and a half months roaming the streets of our cities, secretly putting iPhones through a battery of real-world tests. Cleverly disguising the devices by hiding them in newspapers or covering them with iPod "socks," some 200 AT&T agents reportedly logged more than 10,000 hours on the phones and sent or received nearly 5 gigabytes of data.

And to test the iPhone's durability, according to an AT&T tester identified in Mobility Today as Balsu Thandu, they doused it with water, dropped it on concrete and, yes, bounced it off sidewalks. (link)

Unfortunately, Thandu did not reveal the results of these particular tests.

So we're back where we were in January, after that unnamed Apple executive threw the iPhone on a thickly carpeted floor, where it bounced a couple of times, came to a stop and kept on ticking.

But would it survive a five-foot drop onto a concrete floor? we asked.

"Buy one of your own and try it," he replied.

Lacking one of the iPhones that have by now found their way into the hands of at least a half-dozen print journalists, we may just have to.

Meanwhile, if you are lucky enough to have an iPhone and unlucky enough to drop it, send us a line here and let us know how it made out.

 

The Coming Battle: Apple's iPhone vs. Corporate IT Departments

The battle lines are being drawn, and they're not between Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) or AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ).

They're between the managers of corporate Information Technology (IT) departments, who insist on total control of any device that connects to their network, and gadget-oriented users, some of them very high up in the corporate food chain, who just want their iPhones.

The first shot fired by IT professionals appeared in the Wall Street Journal in a piece entitled "Companies Hang Up on Apple's iPhone." It quoted technology directors complaining that the iPhone couldn't send or receive mail from corporate Blackberry or Microsoft Exchange servers -- and furthermore that IT was unwilling to look into workarounds.

That tough line is echoed in an article today in eWeek, an online newsletter that caters to IT professionals. It cited an alleged lack of tools to secure the iPhone with encryption or the ability to lock or wipe the hard drive of an iPhone that gets lost or stolen.

"The iPhone is—and I can't stress this enough—not an enterprise-class device," Benjamin Gray, analyst for Infrastructure & Operations with Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass., told eWEEK.com.

But what both these articles also concede is that resistance may be futile. Increasingly, it's users who drive the adoption of new technologies within corporations, not IT. And when the user is a VP or maybe even the CEO, all bets are off.

"The iPhone is going to give heartburn to a lot of IT managers out there," says Todd Dagres, general partner of Boston-based Spark Capital. "They've just now figured out how to work with Blackberries, Treos and Palms."

No. 3 in Valleywag's semi-grammatical list of who's going to buy the iPhone (after "fanboys" and "rockstars") are the "extravagent executives":

They've been issued crackberries by the IT department, but they don't give a damn. They can bend IT policies to their will, ignore them entirely, or never paid attention to the unending stream of corporate text messages anyway (sic). They know their significance is their image as power brokers and rainmakers. A status symbol, a conversation starter is more potent in their hands than the latest memo from HR and other operational minutiae. (link)

That Apple failed to work out the details of Exchange and Blackberry e-mail in advance seems like a major oversight. But according to the Journal, that could change:

According to a person close to Apple, the company is expected to fight for this market, currently dominated by players like BlackBerry's RIM, Palm Inc. and, increasingly, Nokia Corp. and Motorola. If Apple comes up with an acceptable strategy for integrating with business software systems, many companies might change their tunes.  (link)

UPDATE: eWeek continues to carry the IT departments' water on the iPhone with an enthusiasm that's starting to feel suspect. Their latest: "Analysts: iPhone Has Neither Security nor Relevance" by Lisa Vaas.

Raw Data: AT&T Talks to Landlords about the iPhone

The Boy Genius Report, a site with unusually good sources within AT&T (T), got its hands on two unintentionally amusing official documents designed to help AT&T store managers deal with crowd control on the night of June 29, when the Apple (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale.

The first leaked document, available as a pdf here, offers such details as how much stanchion material will be required to keep desperate buyers from storming stores when they open their doors at 6 p.m. (eight posts and 24 feet of chain, cut into 4 lengths of 6 foot chain) and how to get properly reimbursed for the expense.

The second, available here and pasted below, simulates a dialog between an AT&T store manager and the store's preternaturally compliant landlord. It sounds like two robots on a first date:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

 

Comic Relief: The One True Phone

"And on the 29th day of the sixth month, when the sun was at its lowest point in the sky, the Phones appeared, one after another, each in its tasteful white box without any adornment whatsoever. And the People rejoiced, for they had been waiting a long time and could wait no longer."

Thus begins the Netly News' walkup to the iPhone release, perhaps the funniest thing I've read  on the subject (and I'm not just saying this because the author is my boss).

I know you're probably too busy buying Apple (AAPL) puts or selling calls or whatever it is you do to click on the link below, so I'll give you one more graph for free:

Next came the fan boys and the overweight and the incorrect wearers of patterned shirts and the others who were decried as social pariahs. To them, the faithful, the Phone was celebrated and hailed as no other Phone before it, nor any other kind of consumer electronic gear for that matter, except maybe the Tivo.  And the Phone made them cool for a while, which was a miracle. “Yea, the Phone has brought peace and happiness to our lives!” wrote Gizmodo, and a record of pageviews was logged.

To read the full piece, click here.

(OK, Josh, now can I go home?)

Anatomy of a Rumor: Google To Buy Apple?

My friend and colleague John Heilemann should be flattered.

A blind quote buried deep in his eight-page cover story on Steve Jobs in this week's New York Magazine has launched a cottage industry of journalistic speculation about whether Google (GOOG) might actually buy Apple (AAPL).

It started with this:

Some of his friends say these close calls have mellowed [Steve Jobs]. "I see him around the neighborhood," says one. "He looks different than he did a few years ago. I think he may want to do something else."

Say what? "I think that Google is going to buy Apple," this person says. "It would be a victory for Apple; they’d get major-league partners, money, and engineers. And it would be a victory for Steve—a huge win that lets him leave the stage." (link)

Not exactly something that would pass muster at the Wall Street Journal as a solid quote. In fact, the New York Times won't let reporters file a graph like this without a phrase explaining the source's motivation for remaining anonymous.

But that hasn't stopped a half dozen bloggers and journalists who should know better than to take the hypothetical ball and run with it.

"Apple Buyout Rumors Circulate as iPhone Launch Nears" screams Guy Kewney's headline in the British Channel Register. "Buyout Rumor Wednesday" is the teaser on Veronica Belmont's podcast on CNET News.

"First there was Google Maps on iPhone, then Apple announced that YouTube on AppleTV and now YouTube being an iPhone feature," writes Googlefied. "I wonder if they will merger (sic). [with link to New York Magazine]"

Matthew Siegler at ParisLemon actually gets out his calculator.

Google's market cap currently stands at $158 billion. Apple's is at $105 billion - but is almost for sure going to go up significantly starting in about 8 days from now... I mean for Google to make a run at Apple what would they do, mortgage AdSense?

Fake Steve Jobs, however, seems to like the notion:

So the idea I guess would be that we'd bring Squirrel Boy [Google CEO Eric Schmidt] onto the board for a while, let him learn all about the company and develop a comfort level, and then at some point Apple becomes the consumer-facing side of the Google cloud operation. The combined company controls search, and controls the utility computing data centers that Google is still secretly building, a virtual supercomputer girding the globe, in effect the world's most powerful single machine which in ten years will be delivering not just email and word processing but also television programming, movies, games and phone calls. Basically, everything. Cable companies? Phone companies? Our kids won't know what they were, unless they look them up on Wikipedia, using GoogleNet. (link)

OK. But at least Fake Steve Jobs knows he's fake.

YouTube Coming to iPhone

Making a play for younger buyers, Apple (AAPL) announced today that selected YouTube videos will be available for streaming onto its iPhone when the device ships on June 29.

According Apple's press release, the company has designed a special application that allows YouTube content to stream wirelessly to the iPhone over either Wi-Fi or AT&T's EDGE network. Too improve quality and save battery life, Google is translating the videos into H.264 format; it is expected to have more than 10,000 videos available by the end of June and the full YouTube catalog by this fall. (link)

Apple also announced that selected YouTube videos are now live on Apple TV and that YouTube subscribers can log into their accounts via Apple's set-top box and upload their own videos.

"This is both impressive and important," writes Jupiter Research's Michael Gartenberg. "Apple has just increased the overall value of two key devices with integration into YouTube by increasing the amount of content available for both. At the same time, it helps move YouTube off the PC screen alone and two more key screens, the phone and the TV set." (link)

What remains to be seen is how well the videos perform on the new screens, especially with the limited bandwidth available on AT&T's cellular network.

Apple's Response to European Antitrust Charges Due Today

UPDATE: Apple submitted a response to the European Commission before the midnight deadline, according to Thompson Financial.

"They answered yesterday and we are studying (the response) carefully at this point," a commission spokesperson said. (link)

- - - - -

Apple (AAPL) has until midnight tonight to respond to antitrust charges filed in April by the European Commission against the company and four major record labels.

The commission had set a midnight, June 4 deadline, but extended it by two weeks at the request of Apple and three of the record companies. One of the labels met the June 4 deadline. Another, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, said today that it has been granted an additional short extension (link).

The commission has yet to hear Apple's reponse.

In early April, the EC charged Apple and the four labels with violating its rules against restrictive pricing practices. The issue arises from a complaint filed two years ago in the U.K. that the iTunes Music Store sets different prices for the same music depending on where in Europe its customers live. At the time of the complaint, iTunes customers in the U.K. were paying the equivalent of 1.17 euros per song, while customers buying songs in the 13 countries of the euro zone paid only .99 euros each, 15.4% less.

Apple has said it wanted to set up a single, pan-European iTunes store, and that the different pricing schemes were imposed on it by the record companies. According to the Financial Times, the companies involved are EMI, Vivendi, Warner Music Group and Sony/BMG.

At a press conference last April, a spokesman for the commission seemed to buy Apple's argument. "Our view is that the agreements were imposed on Apple by the record companies,"  said Jonathan Todd.  The main focus of the antitrust case is the record companies, he added, but Apple was also charged because "it entered into restrictive agreements too." (link)

The commission can fine companies up to 10% of their annual worldwide turnover for breaching EU antitrust rules.

How the iPhone Keyboard Works

With 10 days to go before the Apple (AAPL) iPhone is scheduled to ship, no feature has drawn more attention or concern than the virtual keyboard [see All Eyes on the iPhone Keyboard (or Lack Thereof)].

Apple describes it as a "predictive QWERTY soft keyboard that prevents and corrects mistakes," but doesn't say how. Its website offers a preview of the thing in action in the SMS section of the iPhone promo, here, but the demo moves too fast to get a feel for what's going on.

The evidence is there, however, as this step-by-step breakdown of the SMS demo, posted by a reader named Will on a blog called Take a Bite (link), suggests:

This post doesn't deal with how the keyboard prevents and corrects mistakes, but presumably this works  like the automatic spelling correction feature in Microsoft Word, looking up words in a dictionary on the fly and correcting them as you peck them out.

Steve Jobs has said that it takes a few days -- or maybe a week -- to learn to trust the keyboard, but that eventually we'll love it. Unfortunately, unless you have a friend with an iPhone, or you plan to camp at the Apple store for a week or so, there's no way to find out if he's right without shelling out $500 or $600 in advance.

Early iPhone Testers: Concerns about Keyboard, Battery, Corporate E-mail

Early testers and supply chain sources  remain concerned about the virtual keyboard and the non-replaceable battery in Apple's (AAPL) new iPhone, according to a bulletin issued to subscribers today by American Technology Research.

Shaw Wu, who wrote the report, has been -- and continues to be -- one of Apple's most bullish analysts. But, he writes,

...we wanted to offer some balanced perspective and analysis.

1) We are picking up on some concern surrounding AAPL's "virtual keyboard" technology. On the positive side, using this design allows AAPL to maximize its 3.5-inch screen and to limit clutter; however, those accustomed to a physical keyboard may face a learning curve. Nevertheless, we are not overly concerned as we believe users will likely spend the majority of their time on navigation-type tasks, i.e. scrolling through menus;

2)  One of the biggest criticisms of iPod is that its battery is not user replaceable. While we believe this hasn't really negatively impacted iPod sales, our concern is that it will become a bigger issue with iPhone.  ... AAPL has indicated their belief that the iPhone will deliver up to eight hours of talk time ...  We hope those times are accurate, but our sources have indicated iPhone's active use battery life may be closer to around 4-5 hours for heavy use, similar to other smart phones  However, because an iPhone also serves as an iPod, unless AAPL’s claims on performance specs are accurate, 4-5 hours of video playback may not be enough.

Wu also reports that the way the iPhone handles e-mail may be a concern for corporate users locked into Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange:

Our sources indicate that iPhone works with corporate e-mail systems based on Microsoft Exchange, but will not be as robust as the push technology offered by Blackberry. We believe this may deter usage among some corporate users; however, for consumer users, it is not likely an issue as iPhone works well with popular consumer e-mail systems from Yahoo! and Google. One advantage we believe iPhone has over smart phones is its Safari web browser. Accessing corporate e-mail through "Outlook Web Access" from MSFT could prove to be a usable solution and eliminate the task of synching.

Wu reiterated his $145 price target, which is in the high range among Apple analysts.

Apple Ugrades iPhone Battery Life

Addressing a concern that has lingered since the device was introduced in January, Apple (AAPL) announced today that it has improved the battery life of the iPhone to deliver up to 8 hours of talk time and 10 days of stand-by time.

Battery life is particularly critical because the iPhone, like the iPod, is a closed system. Opening it to replace the rechargable battery will likely damage the case and void the warranty. Apple initially indicated that the iPhone would deliver 5 hours of talk time. But in an April podcast that was widely reported on the Web, columnist John Dvorak claimed that a source at Cingular told him it actually delivered only 40 minutes before needed a recharge. (link)

Apple's press release reads, in part:

iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours-more than 10 days-of standby time. (link)

Apple also announced that has redesigned the iPhone's top surface.

"With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone's battery life is longer than any other 'Smartphone' and even longer than most MP3 players," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've also upgraded iPhone's entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity."

Apple did not indicate whether it achieved the improvements through new battery technology, better battery management or both. But according to Jupiter Research's Michael Gartenberg, the company has headed off what could have been a serious problem.

There were two reasons for this. The first is Smartphone battery life is notoriously poor (some devices are simply not usable unless you immediately purchase and extended battery for them) and without the ability to swap out batteries, you could easily end up carrying a dead device  through most of your day. If Apple's claim of eight hours of talk time and six hours on Internet access via WiFi are correct, that pretty much will obviate the need for a replacement battery. (and in terms of battery life claims, other than with the 2nd generation, Apple has always under-promised and over-delivered on battery life). (link)

Boot Camp for iPhone Developers

Would-be iPhone programmers debating the pros and cons of writing applications for the new device with the limited tools Apple (AAPL) made available have found a new venue: the announcement on Digg of an iPhone Developers Camp scheduled for the weekend of July 6-8.

The event, scheduled to take place one week after the iPhone ships so that attendees might have a chance to get their hands on one, is free and unaffiliated with Apple. The volunteer organizers plan to hold it in San Francisco, although they have yet to find a venue or sponsors. But as of Sunday afternoon their announcement had attracted nearly 500 Diggs and dozens of comments that open a window on what the programmers are thinking. A sampling:

Apple, Dell and the "Dot Calm" Era

The New York Times today published one of those front-page pieces that may be remembered as a turning point.

Under the headline "Online Sales Lose Steam as Buyers Grow Web-Weary," Matt Richtell and Bob Tedeschi make the case that the period of hypergrowth in Web retail sales is over. 

They quote research from Forrester and Jupiter indicating that after growing by 25% overall for the past decade, and much faster in some categories, online purchases have have slowed sharply in major sectors such as books, tickets and office supplies. They have  dropped even more dramatically in beauty products, computer peripherals and pet supplies.

"Sales on the Internet," they write, "are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits." (link)

In this context, it's interesting to contrast the strategies of Dell (DELL) and Apple (AAPL).

Fake Steve Jobs: Let the Apple-bashing Begin

"Apple fans, re-hypnotize yourselves with the photo above and get ready for the wave of anti-Apple stories, because I can feel it coming. I've been in this business long enough to know how it works. They boost you up and hype your stuff and turn you into the reincarnation of Buddha himself; then they tear you down. It's not their fault. It's what they do."

So writes the anonymous author of the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, currently locked in a statistical dead heat for 6th place with the real Apple (AAPL) CEO in Business 2.0's 101 People Who Matter Now online poll.

Speaking, as usual, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, FSJ doesn't just anticipate the "tsunami" of contrarian Apple-bashing articles that the "filthy hacks" and "media whores" of the press are about to bang out, he practically writes them for us:

Comic Relief: Steve Jobs Keynote's Secret Problem

With thanks to Fake Steve Jobs for the pointer:

Click here to see how the story turns out.

Why Photographers (and L.L. Beans) Will Like Safari for Windows

I'm not going to add to the growing list of theories about why Apple (AAPL) released Safari for Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows.

Maybe it was, as Om suggests, to seduce the switchers. Or, as Cringley theorizes, to help AT&T paper over its bandwidth problems. Or, as my colleague Erick Schonfeld notes, as way to get Windows developers to write apps for the iPhone. Apple reports  that more than 1 million copies were downloaded in the first 48 hours; it also moved quickly to patch the security flaws and bugs that popped up almost immediately.

My modest contribution to all this is pass on a note from my friend Tom, a physicist and photographer, who points out that Safari 3 does something no other browser for Windows -- and only a few for Mac  -- do: handle colors in high quality photographs correctly. He includes a pointer to a color management tutorial where you can see the effect for yourself. Tom's e-mail:

Hi Phil

Thought this might interest you. I couldn't think of any reason why I would bother to put Safari 3 up on a Win box ... until I read this. I didn't realize that no Win browser until now had color management. This is certainly a big deal for photographers, but also for advertisers  and websites like, say, l.l. beans who want the color of their products to be true (otherwise people send things back).

It's from Galbraith's excellent photo web site. (See link on FULL STORY)

Tom