Science and technology news blog

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced a price cut on the iPhone barely 2.5 months after its launch. This irked a lot of existing customers and Jobs quickly went into damage control by announcing that all existing iPhone customers would be getting a $100 credit towards their phone bill. This has by far been the quickest price cut that I have seen, but it makes sense as Apple can afford a cut right now. The iPhone is supposedly costing Apple around $250 in manufacturing costs and sells at $499 and $599 for 4GB and 8GB models respectively.

The following is a good article to read on the recent price cut from Apple:

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_The_iPhone_vs_the_PS3_A_Price_Cut_Comparison_08398.html 

Composite video of the iPhone showing its expected functionality

Ever since Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Macworld Expo in January, we’ve known that the iPhone is being released sometime in June. But we haven’t known exactly when.

Now Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11. A customer service manager at Cingular (we called 800-947-5096 and were transferred to sales) gave us that date late Thursday, but, alas, said he didn’t have any additional information beyond that.

That date is no coincidence. It’s the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 11 through June 15. (Incidentally, the agenda includes a focus on Leopard, the next generation of OS X that’s supposed to be released sometime in the second quarter of 2007.)

Rumors have been swirling about the iPhone release date. One blog pointed to a release date of June 15 based on alleged documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission, but those have been shown to be a hoax.

Apple and US networking giant Cisco have resolved their battle over the iPhone trademark and the iPod maker will now be able to use the name for its new mobile phone.

Apple’s recently announced plans to enter the mobile phone market quickly ran into trouble with Cisco deciding to sue the company for using the iPhone name, which it believed it had trademarked.

But now the two have issued a joint statement announcing that both companies are free to use the “iPhone” trademark on their products.

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With Apple’s products garnering so much attention these days, the company’s biggest competitors have been busily designing new gadgets to steal some of that limelight. Microsoft ’s Zune didn’t turn out to be the iPod killer that some had predicted it would be, but Samsung is ready to launch a new smartphone that it hopes will turn out to be an iPhone killer.

On Thursday, Samsung announced a new addition to its Ultra portfolio, offering similar features to Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone, which is scheduled to launch in June through Cingular . Samsung’s Ultra Smart F700 will formally debut at the 3GSM telecommunications event held next week in Barcelona.

In a published statement, Geesung Choi, president of Samsung’s Telecommunications Network Business, said the Ultra Smart F700 is a good example of how mobile phones will evolve in the future. Indeed, the new model does reflect an emerging smartphone trend toward large touch-screen displays. But for those who still want access to phone functions through a more traditional keyboard, the F700 offers a slide-out Qwerty keypad as well.

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It looks like Apple’s new iPhone has some serious competition…

LG has announced today the launch of the LG KE850 PRADA mobile phone which the company claims to be the first completely touch screen mobile phone.

The same claim was made by Apple last week at MacWorld Expo about the new iPhone and that is not the only similarity. In fact, the new LG KE850 PRADA looks too much like the iPhone to be a coincidence.

The new LG KE850 is the result of the collaboration between LG Electronics and Prada, one of the world’s leading brands in the luxury goods industry and it has been designed to be a truly fashion accessory.

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I love whiz-bang technology. I love it so much that when MP3 players first came out, I bought one as a voice recorder for business interviews when all my reporter counterparts were still buying reel-to-reel mini recorders or digital recorders with a one-tenth the memory and no file-manipulation capabilities. And, I love my cell phone because I can send and receive messages in a meeting, take photos on the fly, shop on it and perform Google searches no matter where I am—and it was free with my cellular service plan. So why would I ever pay $500 for a cell phone? I don’t think I’m alone here.

Market research firm Isuppli Corp. today released a research report stating that the iPhone will generate more than a 50% gross margin for Apple—nothing unusual for them. That basically means that Apple is pocketing $250 for every iPhone it sells. Compare that with the average gross margin of 10% to 20% for handsets and you’ll see where Apple is really relying on fan loyalty to gouge.

In a recent interview, Steve Ballmer chortled when asked about the iPhone. Not that I would normally take anything seriously that a Microsoft executive would say about an Apple product, but in this interview posted on YouTube, he makes two very good points: 1) $500 for a phone is outrageous when you can get the same features on another cell phone for less than $100; 2) The iPhone has no keypad, so it’s not business/text-message friendly.

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