Cuppacafe

You remember that classic Superbowl commercial where the Coke driver was drinking Pepsi (or was it a Pepsi driver who drank Coke). Truly it doesn't matter (at least for this post), in that brand loyalty is de rigueur when working for a particular company, in that you should probably use their product while on site that company.

Imagine then being a tech-head working for Microsoft, and showing up to work with an Apple iPhone.

The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee's hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present. Mr. Ballmer uses phones from different manufacturers that run on Microsoft's mobile phone software.

In fact, in a discussion about Microsoft employees using iPhones, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once told company executives that when his father worked at the Ford Motor Company, his family always drove Fords. Seems like a pretty clear stance, eh, however, Despite Mr. Ballmer's theatrics, there are apparently plenty of iPhone users operating in in plain sight at the sprawling Microsoft campus in Seattle. In fact, among the top Microsoft executives who use the iPhone is J Allard (who helped create the Xbox game console and is chief experience officer for the entertainment and devices division). Further, there are nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say at least two people inside the company.

Interestingly enough, Brand loyalty over at Apple, is much stronger, because, in contrast, appear to be more devoted to the company's own mobile phone. Several people who work at the company or deal regularly with employees there say they can't recall seeing Apple workers with mobile phones other than the iPhone in recent memory. Makes you wonder, eh? (In a related item, we recall seeing a story of how Google was giving Google-powered Android phones out as year-end bonuses to their employees at the close of last year.)

Personally, I wouldn't mind what Internet-powered smart-phone that someone wanted to give me. I promise to use it and say nice things about it.

The Perfessor

This just in from The Unofficial Apple WebBlog (TUAW), the newest toy that they are all going to want.

TUAW bloggers Mike Schramm, Dave Caolo, Steve Sande, and David Winograd visited with the oh-so-lucky dudes from Parrot yesterday pre-Macworld, and had a chance to try our hands at flying this incredible little device. No, we don't know what this is going to cost, nor do we know when it will ship other than "in 2010," but if you have your geek on, you're going to want one of these. Watch the above video by our awesome videographer Chad Mumm for the scoop.

As for me, I'm still waiting for my jet pack!

The Perfessor

If only this tactic could work for the rest of us!

During Colbert’s Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger segment last night, he gave a tip of the hat to ScareBear Trail Companion, an iPhone app that is intended to ward off bears. As always, Colbert gave a rather funny demonstration of how the app works and how it is intended to be used, but it was his parting statement before a commercial break that really caught my attention.

If you remember, he tried this approach when the iPhone came out, but it didn’t work then. Well, this time he had better luck...

...it seems like after begging for one the entire week, Stephen Colbert just saw his dreams come true.

Tonight at the Grammys, instead of pulling out the “Song of the Year” envelope, he managed to surprise everybody with a shiny Apple iPad.

One can only assume that the iPad needed a boost that the iPhone didn’t.

I’m not saying that I will go out an buy this over-priced, awkward toy, but if Steve Jobs wanted to give one to me as well. Still, some guys have all the luck

The Perfessor

No, really, it’s true. Or, more specifically, AT&T is quietly sandbagging the iPhone sales in NYC because of the overcrowded cellphone towers, and no longer offering iPhones to folks living within the City limits.

AT&T has apparently found a workable solution to the reported data congestion in New York City. They've quietly stopped selling the iPhone to customers in the New York metropolitan area, at least from their web site.

This much was learned from a potential Big Apple customer who went hunting for the phone:

“I was on the AT&T Wireless website trying to get an iPhone. However, when I put in my zip code 11231, the site says the iPhone is unavailable. This seemed a little odd so I started punching in other famous zip codes: 90210, 60609 (spiegel catalog), 02134 (zoom, an old children's show).

For theses cities, LA, Chicago, Boston, iPhone is available. Then I looked up some other zip codes: Dallas, Miami, St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Francisco. All those cities are ok. Then I started putting in more NYC zip codes: midtown, Staten Island, the Bronx...no iPhone available.”

So if you live in NY and already have an iPhone, then you are one of the lucky ones, otherwise, there is always Verizon’s Droid.

The Perfessor

There are geeks and there are geeks, but it really does take a special kind of geek to do this.

Now I just want to know how I get my hands on it.

The Perfessor

Techcrunch covers a story done by AppsFire about a survey of iPhone users about how much they spend on iPhone apps. The slide show below comes from the AppsFire Blog and apparently they got the data from anonymously sampling the iPhone apps as that data is passed through AppsFire.

AppsFire touts the ability to take your apps (that you paid for) and share them with your friends (who apparently don't have to pay for the same app like you did) and so AppsFire obviously has the ability to peek behind the curtains and see what you're sharing.

I'd ignore the bit about the % cited for those users with nothing but free apps on their iPhone, however. If you know of a cool and free iPhone app, you'd just _tell_ someone about the app and let them download it, rather than going through the process of actually trying to use a third party to _share_ the app. I could be wrong here, since I don't know anything about iPhones.

Anyway, read up on the iPhone app data in the slideshow below. I'll keep banging rocks together with my Blackberry.

OK, you all know that I’m a huge fan of both Jon Stewart, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, and by now regular readers are aware of the fact that I not only thoroughly enjoy, but marvel at the random absurdities of life. Still, when I was (much) younger, I was told by those with vision that in the future we’d have jet packs, flying cars, and space travel. Well, I believe that I am now living in the future that I was told about when I was younger, only instead of jet packs, flying cars, and space travel we have phones that we can put in our pockets and and take with us, Internet porn, and, well, this...

Somebody please shoot me.

The Perfessor

As you are probably aware by now, roughly grabbing and violently shaking your tiny infant is probably not going to be the best idea you have on that particular day, for (so we are told) this tends to crash their tiny brains into the insides of their little craniums. Resulting in, well their immanent demise.

However, in the virtual world of digital violence, we know that all sorts of splatter-punk destruction is acceptable, so everything from shooting brain-eating zombies, to running over jaywalkers and pedestrians in your Gran Torino, or whatever (anyone got a cuppa Joe?).

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in recent days iPhone users were (briefly) able to download a virtual baby shaking app that allowed said users to take their frustrations out on those selfish, self-centered babies by, well, shaking them to death.

No, I’m not kidding.

(No babies were shaken in the taking of this photo.)

There may be plenty of seemingly useless iPhone apps for sale (iBeer, anyone?), but Apple’s vetting process for approving new applications from developers came under scrutiny in the case of a 99-cent app called Baby Shaker that simulated the shaking of an infant.

The game was developed by a company called Sikalosoft, and featured illustrations of a baby whose eyes would become covered in red Xs when the iPhone is shaken vigorously, and featured the tag line: “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be! They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it. See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!”

As you can expect, there were some bleeding heart liberals that objected to this frivolity so, Apple was forced to issue an apology. On Thursday, the company issued a statement saying that the application, “Should not have been approved for distribution.” The spokesperson then went on to say, "We sincerely apologize for this mistake."

Not sure what is going on in the head of some of these app designers, but perhaps someone will develop an app for that.

The Perfessor