Hasta La Gadget!

If you don’t have anything nice to say, good news, you may be a prime candidate to run a tech company. Tech CEOs have never been ones to pull punches when it comes to discussing how competitors are run. In fact, they seem to thrive on issuing such outspoken critcism–and yes, we certainly thrive on reporting it.

Netgear CEO Patrick Lo had all kinds of less than flattering things to say about the way Apple is run, and how the company will stumble once Steve Jobs takes his exit, “which is probably not far away.”

The iPhone, Lo told The Sydney Morning Herald, will ultimately fail, due to Apple’s restrictions on the device, comparing it to VHS vs. Betamax and, closer to home, Mac vs. PC. “Ultimately a closed system just can’t go that far,” said Lo. “If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it’s pretty difficult as I see it.”

Lo attributed Jobs’s policy to his “ego,” stating, “Steve Jobs wants to suffocate the distribution so even though he doesn’t own the content he could basically demand a ransom.”

As for Microsoft’s ability to compete in the mobile space? The picture is even less rosy, “”Microsoft is over. Game over, from my point of view.”

Lo sees Android overtaking the iPhone globally–something that, according to mobile analyst group Canalys, already happened in the fourth quarter of last year.

To add even more AT&T iPhone customers to the already large amount of people switching phone services to Verizon in order to get the iPhone 4, Verizon is letting some AT&T customers trade in their iPhones for credit when they buy a new Verizon iPhone 4 and sign up for a two-year contract. It may seem like a good idea, but WalletPop.com’s Aaron Crowe points out that the trade-in value isn’t as much as the amount the same phone could sell for on the secondary market.

Crowe said in the article that various iPhones in excellent condition could be sold at Gazelle.com, for example, for $15 to $80 more than the credit that Verizon is offering towards a new phone. So, ultimately, you have to decide whether you’re willing to go through the hassle to sell your phone on a secondary market and get more for it, or just take the easy route and have AT&T throw you some credit towards your new phone.

Either way, if you’re dropping AT&T you’re going to have to pay the $325 early termination fee, and there’s no way around that.

WalletPop lists the trade-in prices Verizon is offering, followed by the latest price at Gazelle.com for the same phone in excellent condition:

• iPhone 2G 16GB: $60 at Verizon; $80 at Gazelle
• iPhone 3G 16GB: $105 at Verizon; $120 at Gazelle 
• iPhone 3Gs 32GB: $160 at Verizon; $180 at Gazelle
• iPhone 4 16GB: $280 at Verizon; $360 at Gazelle
• iPhone 4 32GB: $360 at Verizon; $420 at Gazelle

So, the choice is yours. Ultimately, you’re loosing money by breaking your AT&T contract. The question is, do you want to loose more money, or slightly less money?

Remember glassgate? We covered it back in October of last year. It was something of a less successful sequel to the much more widely covered antennaegate. Glassgate, essentially, surrounded the ease with which the glass on the phone cracked. The story as we covered it back then, involved the rear glass on the device. When dirt or other particles worked their way in between the iPhone 4 and a case, scratches led to a shattered phone.

Glassgate is rearing its ugly ahead again, this time in the form of a class action lawsuit. Donal LeBuhn, a California resident, filed the suit after his daughter dropped the phone from three feet, shattering it, despite the presence of a protective bumper (a result, no doubt, of the aforementioned antennaegate)–and despite Apple’s claims that the material on the phone is “ultradurable” and “the same kind used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains.”

LeBuhn took the phone to a non-Apple repair shop to save $50, voiding the warranty in the processes. The irritated iPhone owner is suing for attorney’s fees, monetary damages, and to force apple to replace damage glass and refund the cost of replacement.