Hasta La Gadget!

Studies just released by RBC Capital and ChangeWave Research polled iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre owners on their respective levels of satisfaction with their devices — then compared them. In the studies, 200 iPhone 3GS users and 40 Palm Pre owners were polled. Overall, 99 percent of owners of Apple’s phone proclaimed themselves to be “satisfied,” while 82 percent of that number declared they were “very satisfied.” The poll of Pre owners showed that 87 percent are “satisfied,” and 45 percent of those owners describe themselves as “very satisfied.” Interestingly, the 42 percent of “very satisfied” customers are the highest score ever attained by a Palm device, and it’s a number that’s only ever been bested by RIM and Apple. When asked about their respective reasons for buying their devices, Palm Pre owners listed the touchscreen interface, ability to multitask, and ease of use in the top three, while iPhone users cite its touchscreen, ease of use and faster web browsing as its biggest draws. So what about drawbacks? iPhone users (a whopping 55 percent of them, in fact) say that AT&T’s network is their main gripe with the device, while Pre owners list short battery life and lack of third party apps as the devices biggest drawbacks. All in all, a pretty good showing for both — though the microscopic sample size (especially for the Palm Pre) makes us wonder about the validity of the findings a bit.

Read – Apple’s iPhone 3GS has 99 percent satisfaction rate
Read – iPhone vs. Palm Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS owners’ satisfaction polled, compared in new study originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that 8GB iPhone 3GS hinted at last week? Yeah, well, it seems to have been confirmed by Rogers Wireless. The Canadian wireless carrier featured an “iPhone Comparison” table on its site, which featured, amongst other things, an entry for the 8GB version of Apple’s latest handset.

At present, the 3GS is only available in 16- and 32GB capacities. Apple opted to keep the 8GB version of the previous iteration, the iPhone 3G in circulation, albeit for a lower price. According to Mac Rumors, the table is the only spot on Rogers’ site that seems to confirm the existence of the 8GB 3GS.

Softbank’s own 1seg tuner / battery charger was a novel idea, but leave it to trained assassins at I-O Data to really expound upon the concept and concoct something nearly worthy of relocating to Tokyo for. The new GV-SC310 SEG Clip is a relatively vanilla USB 1seg TV tuner that plugs into one’s PC in order to pull down some of Japan’s finest OTA programming. Once captured, users with an iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS or iPod touch can download a TVPlayer app (shown after the break) that enables them to wirelessly watch whatever content they’ve stored. Think of it as TiVo for your iPhone, but only for those lucky enough to live in the Land of the Rising Sun. Not too shabby for ¥6,615 ($68), huh?

[Via Akihabara News]

Read – I-O Data press release
Read – Hands-on

Continue reading I-O Data’s SEG Clip brings 1seg mobile TV to iPhone and PC

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Portable Video

I-O Data’s SEG Clip brings 1seg mobile TV to iPhone and PC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By far the slickest, most mystical way to charge a smartphone these days comes courtesy of Palm’s Touchstone system — but that doesn’t do iPhone owners much good, which is where WildCharge steps up to the plate with a jacket that makes all iPhone models compatible with its wire-free charging mat. It’s not as elegant by any stretch of the imagination, but if you squint a little, the jacket (or “adapter skin,” as WildCharge calls it) looks like a totally believable case that you might buy in your local Apple store, especially if you can get past the hump at the bottom. iPhone Buzz took the $79.99 pad / jacket combo for a spin recently, and while they’ve yet to post impressions, the shots of the system doing its thing in its natural habitat might be enough to turn folks on or off. Ultimately, we still think we fall on the “just drop it on the dock before you go to bed” side of this argument — especially considering the weird hump-laden jacket with exposed metal contacts on back — but if you’re looking for an easy way to charge from a second location that doubles as a conversation piece, WildCharge might have your answer.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

If Apple had a huge, shiny Touchstone: WildCharge for iPhone checked out originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As brilliant as the $99 subsidized iPhone 3G strategy might seem on paper, the fact remains that the 3G now is a 13 month-old device — the better part of a lifetime by smartphone standards — and it stands to reason that Apple wouldn’t be interested in consuming manufacturing capacity indefinitely with outdated equipment, especially since that game plan cuts into economies of scale on the 3GS’ chipset and superior camera hardware. The solution? Let iPhone 3G inventory cool down for a few months — $99 is a nice, round number after all that’s plenty low enough to move units — and when the carnage is over, phase it out in favor of a new lower-cost 3GS. That’s sure to leave new 3G owners fuming, but newly leaked screens out of Rogers seem to indicate that’s exactly how this is likely going to go down: add a black 8GB 3GS into the mix that can serve as the company’s new entry-level device below the 3GS in two colors, likely for $100 less than the 16GB model. There’s no word on when this might happen, but Apple’s likely to host its usual Fall event to roll out new iPods (and more?), so this could serve as an interesting — if not ultimately predictable — footnote.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Apple phasing out iPhone 3G in favor of 8GB 3GS? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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