Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

As you can imagine, there are many people who feel enraged and insulted that Apple would have the audacity to lower the price of the iPhone by $200 so soon after launch. It’s been one of the hot topics in the news today, and some people were suggesting that Apple should offer a $200 refund to all those early-adopters who feel they were ripped-off. Some have called it shady saying that Apple just wanted to make some quick cash.  While there’s the crowd of people upset, there’s another crowd that’s nearly as equal in number saying that’s what you get for being an early adopter of a product that was so highly anticipated.

USA Today sat down with Steve Jobs to talk to him about the price drop of the iPhone.  One of the first things that he was asked was, "What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?" His response was "That’s technology.  If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them.  If they bought it a month ago, well that’s what happens in technology." So all those hoping Jobs would give in and offer a refund have their confirmation that it’s not going to happen.

–How to handle the situation–

Over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, they posted an article titled "Apple Screwed you: So now what?" which offers suggestions on how to handle the situation. Among the suggestions are:

1. Returns – if you bought it within 14 days, you can either return the item or you can request a credit for the difference.
2. Call AT&T – you may get lucky with a rep who’ll offer you some amount of credit on your line.
3. Complain – I’m pretty sure most people have this one under control.  They are complaining like crazy, and if you really wanted, you could write a letter to Apple with your complaints.
4. Call the store – ask if they’ll issue a refund for the difference – even if it was bought beyond the 14 days. Chances are, they’ll say no, but you never know.

–Fake Steve Jobs Says…–

I knew Fake Steve would have something enlightening to say about this whole price drop situation, which he did. You can read the entire thing here, I’ll just point out the highlights of his post:

"Dear early iPhone adopters: Yeah, we fu%*ed you. Sorry, but it’s true. We baited you in with a high price (the one thing no Apple fanboy can resist) and sure enough you fell for it just like we knew you would. But hey, you iTards were the ones lining up and camping out for a week to get a phone even though there was no shortage of them. You were the ones raving about what a bargain the phone was at $600 and how you’d gladly have paid more. Who can blame us for taking advantage of you?"

Update: It was pointed out in the comments below that Jobs is now willing to give a $100 Apple Store credit.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

One of the features that many people are quick to point out is missing from the iPhone is voice dialing. Hundreds of phones offer such a feature and when the new iPhone 3G didn’t have it, people were left wondering why. Soon the iPhone will have at least a few voice-type features thanks to technology that AT&T is researching and developing. It won’t give iPhone owners voice calling, but what it will give them the option to give voice commands.

AppleInsider explains more about it saying, “The research project is based on a new version of AT&T’s WATSON speech recognition engine, dubbed Speech Mashups, that puts the entire feature on the web as a service that can be called upon from anywhere a high-speed Internet Connection is possible.”

We saw a video (found here at the bottom) of the technology in action and it looked pretty accurate. The person doing the demo was on the mobile Yellow Pages website, and they were able to speak the city and state they were in and the business name or category they were looking for (in this case, Japanese Restaurants) and the technology translated the spoken words in text. It worked perfectly in the demo.

Of course this is something that will work on more than just the iPhone which is nice to know as well. For iPhone owners though, this will be pretty big because it’s their first opportunity (aside from one App) to make use of any type of voice feature on their phones. The only downside that we can see so far is that a phone has to have a decent connection to AT&T’s servers for this to work.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Current gasoline-powered hybrids can barely manage to keep ahead of small diesels in the mpg wars that will shape our future transportation structure, but in theory a diesel hybrid would rule the roost — for the moment, at least. That’s what Volvo will be showing off in Geneva shortly, promising a whopping 124MPG from the V60 plug-in diesel hybrid it announced a few weeks back. The car uses an internal combustion engine driving the front wheels and an electric one to spin the rears, meaning 2WD efficiency but AWD grip — and a combined 285hp to handily blow the doors off any Prius that dares step up at a streetlight. Volvo is saying the car will take about five hours to charge on a standard household outlet and that you’ll be able to monitor that status from your iPhone. Check it out in the video below and turn up those speakers in preparation for one heck of an inspirational piano solo.

Continue reading Volvo releases more details on 124MPG V60 plug-in, shows off iPhone app (video)

Volvo releases more details on 124MPG V60 plug-in, shows off iPhone app (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that Microsoft Rally Ball demo from a few days ago that showed Windows Phone 7’s integration with Xbox? Well, the gang at Supertouch has stolen a bit of Ballmer’s thunder with a new Kinect hack that lets you hurl digital orbs at your Kinect-controlling friend using an iOS device instead of a WP7 handset. The graphics for the game and the iDevice controls aren’t nearly as pretty as Microsoft’s cross-platform gaming solution, but the end result is pretty much the same — flingin’ balls with a phone while your friend dodges them courtesy of Kinect.

Meanwhile, Frog Design has added a Human Tetris game to the Kinect’s repertoire where players perfect their Vogue-ing skills by striking a pose to match an approaching cut-out on screen. Finally, all the shape-shifting fun with none of the goofy silver jumpsuits. Vids are after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

Continue reading Kinect hackers give us iOS-friendly dodgeball and Human Tetris

Kinect hackers give us iOS-friendly dodgeball and Human Tetris originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The side of a white iPhone 4. Photo by Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The New York Times has poured cold water on a rumor that Apple is preparing to sell a smaller version of the iPhone.

The report conflicts with stories published earlier this week by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, who both claim that Apple is making a smaller iPhone that relies heavily on cloud-based storage and media streaming.

Citing an anonymous source, NYT explained that Apple is working on methods to bring costs of the iPhone down, and a smaller iPhone wouldn’t necessarily be cheaper to produce, nor would it be easier to operate.

Two major publications say something is happening, and one major publication is saying it’s not. We’re inclined to believe NYT, however, because the explanation seems more rational. Reducing storage and size wouldn’t bring down costs much, and a different screen size would also cause fragmentation in the App Store.

See Also:

• Is Apple Finally Releasing an iPhone Nano?
• IPhone Nano Already Available in China
• iPhone Nano: Never Mind