With the buzz of last weeks event still electrifying the Apple stock and market, how will Apple adjust to the recession and cut in stock? I’m going to have to agree with my fellow blogger, Henry Blodget, who states that Apple Won’t Get Crushed By The Recession.

The new MBP and other products launched within the last few months have took into account the market and economy, while still maintaining the elegance and superior performance that Apple offers. They have been able to effectively balance the, ” magical halo of quality and cool” that Blodget mentions, while still lowering prices to a reasonable rate for those interested in purchasing a Mac for the first time or buying the new, sleek MBP with its innovative features. Blodget says:

• A $1,000 laptop is not really much more expensive than an $800 laptop, especially for a product that should last a few years. Apple will never win over the folks who choose purely on price anyway, so it would be dumb for it to sacrifice its premium positioning to try.

 

• The $200 iPhone has much of the functionality that many people once looked to laptops for, and some potential buyers of $500-$800 laptop will opt for that instead. Apple’s iPhone, moreover, is still the highest quality product in the market, so no one who buys it will ever feel like they’re settling for less.

I agree with Blodget’s reasoning, but still, there were many who were disappointed with the event and were hoping that Apple would lower their prices a little more in order for those struggling in a recession to be able to purchase a new Mac.

So while Apple is far from ‘taking a hit’ in the current recession, though everyone will see a cut in stock and lowering in profit margin and purchasing, Apple will still be just find and continue to excel as the leader in innovative and user-friendly, cutting edge technology.

But I can’t help but wonder, will Apple ever make their products, like the iPhone, available at a lower price or keep it just out of reach for the average joe in order to maintain its mystical and superior quality status?

September 7th marked an eventful day at Best Buy stores across the nation as they became the first company outside of AT&T and Apple to carry the coveted iPhone 3G. Best Buy has promoted and prepared for the event, anticipating record lines in front of the store before opening and bringing in large staffs to handle the various purchasing and set-up options they are offering. Best Buy highlights the iPhone 3G’s release both in store, through their ads and online. They offer in-store set up and ‘out the door working’ capabilities with the new purchase.

Yet at a Best Buy store in the Pacific NW, as the opening day came and went, the record lines before opening were missing and the first day sales of the iPhone seemed to be a disappointment. The brand new Best Buy mobile wasn’t nearly as busy as they hoped and the hyped and highly advertised iPhone 3G seemed to be an afterthought to customers entering the store. While the upgrades of Best Buy mobile in stores is most likely the reason Apple was willing to allow the electronics store to sell the iPhone, it is apparent they did not experience the large revenue push they were expecting. Best Buy already offers iPod digital music players at all its stores and is now even selling Mac computer lines at its more than 600 locations.

While the initial day surge may not be what’s expected, Best Buy still stands to gain considerable revenue from the iPhone in their store, as they continue to expand their relationship with Apple and search to meet the consumers needs as a one-stop shop electronics store.  Yet they may be a little to late on the iPhone 3G rush. Their listed price is online at 199.99 with 8GB memory and 299.99 with 16GB memory. The 199.99 price is available to new AT&T customers and customers ‘qualified’ for an upgrade. If you do not qualify for an upgrade, the price rockets up to 399.99. Apple Stores are also increasing their shipment supplies of iPhones and are becoming more readily available. All three stores in my local area had the iPhone 3G in stock as of today.

Time will tell whether the iPhone 3G acquisition for Best Buy will be another great move by the world’s leading electronic store or if their relationship with Apple could cloud their marketing foresight and ability.

You would think Santa had just brought the household a new puppy on Christmas morning. My family is enamored with Facebook. One good thing about this love affair is I don’t have to clean up doggie “accidents” or deal with chewed up furniture. It’s also highly likely Facebook isn’t going to get hit by a car or develop bad hips.

Needless to say, I’ve been dabbling a bit with the site in an effort to remain the king of my house when it comes to the number of friends each of us has. To help me, I downloaded the Facebook Application onto my iPhone and I’m pretty impressed. It has the most used base communication features of the web version. I’ve found that adding new friends is actually faster than it is with the web version.

If you’re into Facebook and have an iPhone, give the Facebook Application a try.

After calling around to the three Portland area stores I found out that all three had iPhones in stock, and were handing out the ‘golden ticket’ above, to let you know you were going to get a phone–either that day if you wanted to wait, or any other time you came in, and of course, wanted to wait. I snagged a ticket, got in line and proceeded to wait about 45-60 minutes, got prequalified, and then got my iPhone.

An interesting thing happened while I was waiting. I noticed a hip looking, attractive blond gal walk in, ask someone about the line, get a ticket, and them mill around the store a bit. There were still people behind me when I got called up for my phone, so I was surprised to see a few moments later that the ‘lady in pink’ had somehow ended up standing with the guy who was pre-qualifying just a few minutes earlier, iPhone bag in hand, at an activation screen. The same folks waiting were still waiting.

I asked the person helping me if she knew how that lady hopped the line, and she said “I have no idea. It might be a business thing.” I asked another person on my wait out, and she kind of shrugged it off too. But I’m still curious to know if she either a) somehow managed to talk the whole line into letting her skip to the front, or b) had some special business pass at Apple to let her skip the line, or c) simply wooed the Apple dude into letting her skip the line.

Anyone know of an actual Golden Ticket that lets you skip to the front of the line?

When I was just a kid, one of my siblings asked for a Cabbage Patch doll for a gift. I remember my dad running around like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Jingle All The Way, trying to find that ugly little thing, and probably aging 5 years in process. I’m catching glimpses of that fiasco every time I call the local AT&T shops and Apple Stores asking about iPhone availability.

I think I’ve finally given in, and let our AT&T business rep order one for me. Expected delivery time: up to 21 days. All because I was camping out, instead of camping out. I honestly would not have expected the 3G iPhone to be a bigger, and quicker seller than the first gen version — many people I knew were planning on NOT upgrading, but apparently many were, and many first time buyers stepped up.

Perhaps the rep will come through with a surprise, otherwise, in about three weeks I’ll do an unboxing….ugh.

According to Macworld, we may be in the iPhone void for up to another entire month. “I bet we’ll see these problems for another two to four weeks,” said Gene Munster, analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., referring to his estimate of the lead time necessary for Apple to increase orders from its suppliers and restock the depleted iPhone inventory. “Early demand has been more than they expected [because] they knocked it out of the park on the first weekend.”

We can attest to the supply and demand in our area. All local AT&T stores have been out of stock all week and are now saying they are only taking orders for delivery in 7-10 business days. After a call to three local Apple stores in the Portland area, one said they had ‘everything in stock,’ so we made a beeline to pick up a couple. Turns out they sold out of the white 16gb model before we could get our hands on one. They did however have the elusive black 16gb model, which is apparently the hot seller. Again from the Macworld article:

“The hardest-to-find iPhone 3G remained the $299 black 16GB model, which is available Thursday in only 18 stores, or 9.6 percent of the outlets. Supplies of the $199 8GB iPhone 3G plummeted in the last 24 hours, according to Apple’s inventory tool: 24 stores reported it as available Thursday (12.8 percent of the 188 in the U.S.) compared to 42 stores that said it was in stock Wednesday (22.3 percent).”

How long will the void actually last? Hard to say. Are you still in an iPhone void?

There are a LOT of free apps in the iTunes App Store — enough to keep a fella busy downloading and trying tons of new stuff each day! All in all, the App Store is a welcome addition to the iPhone life, even if syncing all those apps is a drawn out process each time you hook up.

Complaining aside, here’s the pick for Favorite Free iPhone App of the Day: Shazam!

Shazam bills themself as the ‘amazing music discovery engine,’ and I would say after just a few minutes of monkeying around with the app, that I concur. It is pretty amazing. According to the website, here are the key features and functionality of the application:

Already an industry standard, Shazam fully integrates with and complements the iPhone’s native environment, allowing you to seamlessly discover, buy and share tunes simply by holding your iPhone to music for just a few seconds.

• Tag music: identify music anywhere - whether it’s on the radio, TV, in a movie or in a store.
• Build your own soundtrack: see the list grow every time music is tagged.
• Get the music: go straight to iTunes to preview and buy.
• Music Videos: see related videos of the track on YouTube.
• Capture the moment: personalise the tag by taking a photo and adding it to ‘My Tags’.
• Share the moment: send track details to friends via email.

The Shazam application enables you to tap into a vast database of nearly 5 million tracks giving instant satisfaction for those times when you want to know the tune that is playing, learn more about the artist, buy the song immediately - or simply add it to your playlist.

In initial run through, we were able to play and successfully track songs from Faith Hill, The Eagles, Norah Jones, The Go Go’s and even Tennessee Ernie Ford. Shazam provided links to iTunes tracks available for purchase, and videos on YouTube.

I don’t even want to know how the engine works, I just want to have this magic application continue to provide many more moments of amazement and wonder! Get it FREE, at the iTunes App Store.

Last Thursday, July 10…”iPhone Eve,” I tossed my sleeping bag and tent into the ol’ rig and set off to camp out. No, I wasn’t camping out for the iPhone, I was literally camping out — trees, lake, bugs — the whole nine yards. I had a previous commitment that turned out to be on the same weekend as the V2 release, and couldn’t join in on all the hoopla for the new version when it came out.

Last year I was one of the first couple of people in our town to get an iPhone. I brought down my RV and we played Halo and Guitar Hero all night long, got in the local paper, had friends bringing down food and drinks — really made a party out of it. This year, nada. My camp out buddies from last year went down at 5 am the day of, got in a then-short line, and walked out with iPhones.

During a lull in the camp out this year, I headed into a fairly large town around noon, only to find out that this years iPhone was actually a bigger seller than last years. Apple has reported that it’s sold 1 million iPhones over the weekend, whereas last year it took 74 days to accomplish the same goal. I could have told you that…because there are NO phones to be had around here. Checking in daily since I got back from my trip…ugh:

They had black 8gb iPhones available yesterday, but I’m fairly set on the white 16gb model, so here I sit, in an iPhone 3G void. All is not lost though, I have been enjoying the V2 update for the V1 iPhone mentioned in the previous post. I still have the beta version, and I think it’s acting a little funky, but downloading and playing around with stuff from the iPhone App Store is keeping me entertained while I wait.

Anyone else still waiting, waiting, waiting?

With just a couple of days left until you can officially get your hands on the the 3G iPhone, or V2 iPhone, many people are deciding what to do with their ‘old’ version, if you were an early adopter.

While some people have been standing in line for a couple days already, many more will just stroll on in after the official release and pick one up old school style. Regardless of which way you go, you still have some time to decide what to do with your old iPhone. Here are the top three (if not obvious) things to do with your V1 iPhone.

1. Sell It - Duh. Get rid of it, either as a good deal to a buddy or client, or by listing it on Ebay while they’re still hot. Unlocked V1 iPhones are still getting between $350-450 online. Many people ask why anyone would pay that much on Ebay for an old and crusty outdated version when the new one will be less than the current going rate? Two words: no contract. People would rather pay a few bucks more to have a phone they can use on T-mobile, or even AT&T, without signing their lives away for the next two years.

2. Keep It In The Family - If you’ve got a wife, kid, brother, sister, mother, father, or anyone else that you’ve been wanting to bring into the Mac Family, the 1st gen iPhone may be just the ticket. Of course that little gift comes with a monthly recurring expense that someone will have to pony up for, but again, if someone already has an AT&T account, or you unlock the phone, they can bail on that cost at any time if they decide they hate it.

3. Put a Fresh Coat of Paint On It - Not literally, (although the ColorWare finishes are a tempting option,) but by upgrading the firmware when V2 comes out with the new iPhones. If Walt Mossberg is to be believed, you may just be better off waiting for a bit until the next, next version of the firmware comes out for the V2 iPhone. Although he likes some of the new features, and the 3G network, he points out that battery life suffers, and the new pricing is slightly higher than before. Updating your old V1 iPhone with the new firmware will give you many of the benefits of the new model, without having to give up battery life.

There are many other options for what to do with your V1 iPhone model…what do you plan on doing with yours?

A buddy of mine asked me recently if I was going to stand in line for the new iPhone v2 on the day they came out. I hadn’t really thought much about it. The release of the first iPhone last year was an all day event for myself, my family and several friends, but I’m not so sure about this time around.

I thought I’d ask…Anyone planning on standing in line for the latest version of the iPhone next week?