The answer is nobody really knows.  However, there are two main reasons why I’m not selling my shares.  First, this isn’t a surprise.  Over the past seven years, since Mr. Jobs was first diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer and underwent a liver transplant, he has taken three leaves of absence for medical reasons, most recently beginning last January.  During these periods Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, has managed day-to-day operations.   Based on the decline of his physical appearance I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Mr. Job’s role in Apple’s daily operations limited throughout that period.

Second, the past seven years have been an incredibly successful period for Apple’s business and stock price.  Apple’s stock has been a ten bagger since 2004 and net income is up an even greater percentage.   Mr. Cook was managing Apple during much of this period – he had to have played an important role in that success!

It is clear Steve Jobs has been a huge inspiration and a driving force behind Apple’s phenomenal success, and that can’t be replaced.  However, I’d bet his core philosophies and vision is so ingrained in the Apple culture that in his absence the company will maintain and continue it’s phenomenal record of success.

I mentioned last week that Verizon was coming out with ads that are directly targeting the iPhone through both the “Droid” ads that feature Android based phones as well as the “there’s a map for that” commercials. Well, I suppose that Verizon definitely does not want to burn its bridges with Apple. Yesterday Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that he (and Verizon) are still interested in getting the iPhone.

He said, “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court. Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner.”

Next year, exclusivity between Apple’s iPhone and AT&T Wireless is supposed to be coming to a close. Apple does have the right to extend the exclusivity, but in my opinion, the company could make more with the device if it were on other networks. The only problem I see is that everyone will have an iPhone and other companies like Palm will be seriously harmed because customers who have not wanted to hop on the AT&T bandwagon won’t have to anymore to get the iPhone.

Then again, not everyone wants an iPhone.

It makes you wonder what the terms were in the first place for AT&T to get the exclusive rights to the iPhone. I know that Apple was interested in the carrier because unlike Verizon, it ran on GSM which makes it easy to produce one kind of phone for the whole world. There aren’t any carriers that run on the CDMA networks outside the United States and the only major companies that do here are Verizon and Sprint.

Only time will tell what will happen with the iPhone and other carriers. I would guess that it won’t move over to Sprint or Verizon until the companies have implemented their 4G coverage (which Sprint is working on quite vigorously).

It seems like every time I turn around someone is talking about cell phone reception problems. Either that, or they’re comparing one phone to another and the answer that usually comes out is that iPhone is amazing and nothing comes close (from the fans anyway).

However, there is one thing that the iPhone can’t seem to escape and that’s the shoddy reception and the dropped calls. Of course, you can always count on dropping some calls sometimes when you have a cell phone (when I was younger and first dealing with cell phones I had Voicestream, which is now T-Mobile, and I dropped calls so often I was convinced that the tower I was connecting to was on the back of a pickup truck driving down a bumpy road). But, how often should your phone be dropping calls?

Well, if you live in New York City and you have an iPhone, 30% is the norm according to an Apple Genius there. A post at Gizmodo told the story of how reader Manoj went to an Apple Store to try to figure out what was wrong with his iPhone and why it was dropping calls all the time.

It turned out that, after the Genius ran tests on the phone, his phone was dropping 22% of the calls it was making and receiving. This was after AT&T had told him that there was nothing wrong with his service; everything was ok on their end. The funny thing is, the Apple Genius told him that with his phone dropping 22% of its calls, it was still less than the average for the city. He said there was a dropped call rate of 30% on average. The Genius told the reader that his phone was fully functional and that, basically, it was AT&T’s fault that the calls continued to be dropped.

So, here’s my question. If other phones aren’t having a similar problem on the AT&T network in the city, then is it really an issue with the carrier or is it flaw with the phone. I’m leaning toward flaw with the phone personally. It also has seemed like the more advanced the technology is that the phone offers the worse the signal is. Prior to me purchasing the Palm Pre, I owned a Palm Centro and the service was always great. However, after getting the Pre, I barely got any signal in my house and Sprint had to send me an Airave.

Perhaps that’s what AT&T will have to start doing with its customers. AT&T has a new microcell thing out now; if they’re going to gouge their customers on plans and addons perhaps they should at least give them the thing that will actually help them get a signal in their home for free.

Source

Microsoft is having a hard time in 2009. This year has so far been the worst for the company in years. For the first six months of the year the company saw weak computer sales as well as frozen corporate tech budgets which led to profits declining by 29 percent.

However, things may be looking up for the second half of the year according to CFO Chris Liddell. He wanted to keep everyone’s hopes up after Microsoft missed expectations by $1 billion and the earnings slipped by a steep 29%.

The earnings topped off a fiscal year in which revenues for the company fell for the first time since 1986, when Microsoft first went public. For the entire year, it said that profits went down 17% or $1.62 a share.

Of course investors weren’t happy to hear the news, sending Microsoft’s stock price down $2, which is 7.8%, to $23.56 a share. In April, Intel’s CEO said that it had seen the worst PC sales and that they had “bottomed out” after the holiday season. Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said, “we couldn’t necessarily see the bottom. I think that at least we are seeing signs now of the bottom,” in a response to Intel’s statement.

Liddell also made the statement that the remainder of the calendar year will be difficult for PC makers and the software giant because Microsoft’s success is directly linked to the PC industry which is expected to sell fewer computers this year than last. Right now, netbooks are still all the rage and if they are running Windows, they are running XP which means less profits for Microsoft. If Windows 7 comes out and is good enough, then they will begin making more money off the sales of the netbooks due to a higher royalty.

In hopes of stirring up a little demand for the products, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 on October 22 as well as a new Office suite in the first half of next year, but these alone will not help the company.

Once upon a time Microsoft was the company everyone wanted to own stock in because it seemed like a pretty safe bet. There was no other competition for them as far as operating systems. If there were other operating systems out there no one really ever paid much attention to them. Now, Microsoft is trying to stop Apple from taking more of the market share than it already has and is fighting with a pretty bad recession.

Apple’s new iTunes update locks out non-Apple devices, what do you think about that?

Question:

The newest iTunes update has locked my Pre out of the program…how do I feel?

Answer:

Thankfully, I read gadget blogs very frequently so I have not updated to the latest version of iTunes. However, if you want to know how I feel about it, it’s very simple. It’s annoying, but it’s their software so they can do what they want and Palm developers can find a way around it.

However, Apple didn’t lock out PC users from using it. Hmm. PCs dominate the computer market, so it’s ok for iTunes to run on it. The Palm Pre (which I’m sure is at least part of the reason they introduced the update) is a new player in the smartphone game, which the iPhone currently dominates.

So, Apple will only lock out those weaker than them. Hmm

It’s been some time since I’ve written about the Pre or iPhone…almost 2 weeks? It looks like both of these devices have been seeing their fair share of issues.

First, the Palm Pre, being a first generation device, has done pretty good and Palm is sending updates to fix problems that are coming up. However, the phone does get hot and when it begins to heat up, a “cloud” appears at the bottom of the screen. In my opinion it is annoying and completely unappealing. For this reason, I’m returning my phone tomorrow (some of them have this problem, while others don’t).This is all my opinion and what I’ve read on forums across the internet, Palm has not addressed the issue to my knowledge.

Secondly, the iPhone 3Gs now has a serious overheating issue. If the user decides to use “resource intensive” programs in direct sunlight (according to Apple) then it “could” cause an overheating issue and the phone won’t work. In some cases the white phones’ backs turn brown. Apple has acknowledged this issue and is trying to work it out, but right now there are hundreds of thousands (likely) of iPhone 3Gs users out there with phones that my burn them.

People have been saying that they are experiences the overheating issue while the phone is charging. I have to say, my Pre gets ridiculously hot when I have it plugged in and am using intensive features, but except for the cloud at the bottom of the screen, I haven’t had the issues that the iPhone users are having. I would be really angry if my phone I just paid a couple hundred dollars for decided to turn a different color or be able to cook breakfast foods because of the heat coming off the phone.

I do suppose this isn’t an issue just for these two phones, my husband has a HTC Touch Pro that gets really hot. I don’t think it has any issues directly associated with the heat coming from the phone, but it does (at times) get too hot to hold up to your face to talk on. My LG Fusic (which was not a smartphone, it was a flip) also got too hot to hold up to my face at times, but that’s as far back as an “overheating” problem goes with my phones. None of my old Nokia phones or Motorola phones did.

It was recently reported that Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs had a liver transplant a little over two months ago, which was kept quiet until last weekend. However, the news about its iPhone sales spread like wildfire and was highly touted by the company. So why would the company keep the news about its CEO quiet from the world?

It matters because it looks like investors in Apple care what is going on with Jobs’ health. He is the face of the company and seen as the major creative force behind the Apple products. He was the one who reinvigorated the company by going on and seeing what the target market was looking for in products, he listened when it seemed like no one else would to the newest techie generation and ended up making a lot of money for the company by taking this approach. If you watch the stock prices for Apple with every little bit of bad news about Jobs’ health, you can easily tell how people feel about him and what it means if he were to leave the company altogether.

In response to why the news about Jobs’ liver transplant came from the Wall Street Journal and not from Apple, companies don’t have to give updates on the health of their executives. Health isn’t seen as “material information” as per the rules of the SEC. Material information means information that regards earnings, mergers, and acquisitions as well as new products, bankruptcies, and things of that nature. Information like stock ownership is material information, while the health issues of an executive is not considered material information unless his health hinders his ability to be an executive in the company. Since Jobs has been on medical leave for the past few months, there is no issue here.

Since the information regarding Jobs’ health was not considered material information, it was left up to the board to decide whether or not to make the information about Jobs’ health public. Since the board must act in the interest of stockholders, then I can understand why they would not want the information to be known.

In the case of Jobs and his liver transplant, it may have been best for the board to tell the public about his health issues simply because most people feared the worst when he took a sudden medical leave of absence in January. When he announced that, the stock for Apple shed 7% and on Monday of this week it fell another percentage point because of the news about his liver transplant. If investors had known about the transplant ahead of time, this drop in stock price may have simply happened at the same time the leave of absence was announced.

I believe that Apple is afraid, without Jobs, it will no longer be seen as the company that it currently is and its stock will fall and it will lose the market share it has worked so hard to obtain. This is a company that, before Jobs came back years ago, was on the brink of bankruptcy. It’s time for Apple to become a company that is apart from its CEO.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference left a lot to be desired with the announcement of the iPhone 3G S. Where everyone was expecting something “revolutionary,” they were left with something that was simply “evolutionary.”

The newest addition to iPhone lineup, the 3G S is simply the iPhone 3G with a 3 megapixel camera, a faster processor, and the 3.0 software. Data speeds for the 3G S have been increased to 7.2Mbps HSDPA. Apple also finally added video recording abilities to the iPhone and at 30 frames per second, they’re pretty good. It will also have multimedia messaging.

One of my favorite features is the new fingerprint resistant coating on the phones…I have always been angry at the amount of fingerprints my phone accumulates over the course of 5 minutes. Right now my Pre is a smudge magnet.

The price points were nice announcements, with the 16 GB version running $199 and the 32 GB at $299. They will also keep selling the iPhone 3G (the 3.0 software can be downloaded for free for these phones) at $99. That’s for a non-refurbished phone. I believe that the price points were set to put some pressure on Palm after setting the price of the Pre at $199 after a $100 mail in rebate. The new iPhones will be on sale starting June 19th.

Another announcement regarding the iPhone is the new ability to tether the phone to a computer for data usage. While at first At&t wasn’t announced as one of the carriers to allow tethering, later the company issued a statement saying that it would allow tethering.

One thing that happened at the conference today that was a bit annoying was their depiction of the number of apps the Apple App store has versus other companies. Sure, Apple has over 50,000 apps in the store, why would they compare it to Palm, who JUST launched its App Catalog on Saturday. They gave palm 2 days and all Palm has to offer at the time the presentation was made was 18 apps. Well, while browsing my App Catalog yesterday afternoon, I can tell you that there were 25 apps as of Monday night.

Aside from the iPhone, Apple also announced new Mac Books with non-removable batteries. While this goes along with every other offering from the company like iPods and iPhones, this is a bad idea in my opinion. It never takes long for a laptop to start losing overall battery life and everyone already knows how expensive it is to send an iPod to Apple for new batteries…imagine how much it will cost for a battery for a laptop! Plus, you will be without your laptop for however long it takes to get back to you.

The FTC may be getting involved to avoid any antitrust claims that may come up.

The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 bars someone from serving on the board of two rival companies. Until recently Apple and Google haven’t been rival companies, but now with Google’s Android OS and Apple’s insanely popular iPhone both out, it does seem like they are rival companies.

Schmidt told reporters that he would excuse himself from Apple board meetings when the iPhone would come up, but what is someone’s word when it comes to a main product?

I was wondering if Google is trying to avoid violating antitrust laws by not having multi-touch capabilities on any Android phones that have come out…hmm.

Blackberry maker Research In Motion increased its share of the U.S. smartphone market to 50 percent in the quarter — up 15 percentage points from the previous three months, the research firm said. By contrast, the market shares of both Apple and Palm declined 10 percent.

RIM’s success was largely due to Verizon’s aggressive marketing of the BlackBerry Storm and its buy-one-get-one BlackBerry promotion to its large customer base, explained NPD Group Director Ross Rubin. “The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers,” Rubin said. Source

Blackberry is, and will likely be for some time, the company to beat in smartphone sales. As more people, who may not necessarily be business users, begin buying more data-centric phones then there will be a larger market for smartphones and there may be some room for another brand such as HTC to take some market share away from RIM, Apple and Palm.

Of course, there will always be consumers, like me, who will go for the cheaper plan versus the cheaper phone. I don’t have a Blackberry because, on Sprint, it was an extra $30 a month for the Blackberry plan, while my Palm didn’t cost anything extra. Now, I’ve come to the realization that if I really want to get a “next-generation” phone then I will have to upgrade to a more expensive plan (but it was nice while it lasted).

Retail sales rose $20 million in the fiscal second quarter compared to the same quarter 2008, but the growth in retail net sales was less than the increase in number of stores open. This has led to “overstaffing.”

I don’t personally see how they can think that this is an overstaffing situation because every time I walk into an Apple store, there is a seriously flawed employee to consumer ratio. There are always way more customers than employees. The few times that I’ve been in a store, I have left because if I had a question, there was never anyone around to answer it.

Apple Inc. announced that it earned $1.2 billion in its second fiscal quarter ending March 28, 2009. The earnings are up from the profit of $1 billion in 2008.

It also announced it had sales of $8.2 billion (up from $7.5 billion in 2008).

Apple said that it sold 2.22 million Mac computers, 11.01 million iPods and 3.79 million iPhones.

It also made a big announcement regarding its “App Store” today. It reached a billion downloads from the App Store.

“As of today, nearly one billion apps have been downloaded around the globe,” Apple says on the countdown page. “So we just want to say thanks — a billion.”

A user downloading an app automatically gets the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. Only 25 downloads are allowed per day in order to be considered a winner.

In February, the App Store reached a milestone with 20,000 applications available for download, but by the end of February there were 25,000, and by early March 26,026 were available, with about 800 million downloads.

The heat is on Apple to release the third generation iPhone (or at least announce it) before the Palm Pre comes out, this is a publicity event that Apple is looking for.

Source

On the Consumerist some of the comments indicated that there was a Limp Bizkit song that was available for the $.69 cost. Of course, the comments were followed by snarky remarks about how that’s $.69 too much.

Apple did promise that there would be more songs at 69 cents than at $1.29. There were several tracks that are decades old in the new 30% higher tier.

Do you want to download Heart’s 34-year old Barracuda? That will now cost you $1.29. Of course, to some Baby Boomers that song serves as a mini national anthem to the 1970′s so it may not be the best example. Maybe, I should look at not just at older music, but music that is less popular too.

Source

Apple is an image and Microsoft wants to show people that it can also be an image, an image that says I have a great computer and didn’t have to pay a fortune for it.

In the commercial from advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Lauren goes into an Apple store, quickly walks back out and reports, “For $1,000 they only have one computer available, and that’s a 13-inch screen. I would have to double my budget, which isn’t feasible. I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.” That statement is a direct hit against Microsoft’s longtime rival that implies you don’t get much computer for your money when you buy a Mac.

Last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer set the stage for the new ad’s debut when he said, “Apple gained about one point, but now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction. The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.”

Lauren was excited when she entered a retail store with a variety of PCs. She tries out a few keyboards and looks at the specs on a few others. Finally, the look of one PC draws her. She settles on a Hewlett-Packard model that meets all her qualifications — for under $1,000. The commercial ends with Lauren telling the camera, “I am a PC and I got just what I wanted.”

Everytime I see an Apple product I feel like I want it and I think that’s part of their marketing scheme. It’s “cool” to have a Mac or an I*something*. Other than their computers, look at their MP3 players, an iPod is $300. You can get a video player by Sony for much less…hmm.

Source

Well now, tiered pricing will apply to all music bought on iTunes. Songs like “Right Round” (the most popular iTunes songs) will cost $1.29 and obscure titles will cost $0.69. However, most of the iTunes library will fall in the $0.99 category.

The change is set to take place on April 7th.

I also don’t understand why anyone would pay a per-song price for music when they can get a subscription service that is 100% legal for a small monthly fee. There are ways around DRM protection, but I’m not going to tell you (they can easily be found doing a little searching on the net). Then you can play those songs on your iPod. My entire iTunes library is music I bought from another source (for much less).

The function buttons for the player are all on the cord for the headphones, meaning if you wanted to use a third party headphone (which almost anything is better than the stock ones Apple gives) you would have to buy some form of adapter.

Since Apple accessories usually cost anywhere from $30-$40 each, the end price of an iPod Shuffle could end up being closer to $100 or $110.

From Engadget:

The stores are said to focus on direct competition with Apple. For example, Microsoft will have Gurus while Apple has the Genius bar…

I personally think this is a bad time to open a new retail chain, particularly an electronics one. Microsoft has an advantage over Apple that most computers sold in stores like Best Buy already come with Windows loaded on them and with a pushy trial for other programs like Works. Apple relies solely on its own computers to sell its operating system. Everyone already knows what Microsoft has to offer.

Perhaps a kiosk in retail stores would be a better idea. It would definitely be cheaper than opening an entire chain of stores that will likely not work out for the software giant.

“Apple and Palm Battle Heating Up?”

Who would have thought that Palm, the maker of outdated handsets could have pulled off creating such a buzz for its new device. I know I write about it a lot, but you have to remember I currently own a Palm phone…

Palm was on the brink of collapse last year and have really poised itself for a comeback.

Apple is now making accusations (though not to Palm directly) about patents it has obtained for “touchscreen devices.” Palm’s response was “we have patents too.”

Source

Last week, Jobs announced that he would be going on a six month medical leave. Speculation about his health ranges from his pancreatic cancer has returned to he needs a transplant due to complications from the treatment of the cancer.

Investors are angry because Jobs’ appearance has not been consistent with what was being disclosed and when his health condition was finally disclosed, stock prices dropped 7% in one day.

Apple’s shares seem to be tied to Jobs’ health concerns also, today shares fell 7%. Shares of the company have been volitile with rumors of his health in the past.

So, what would happen to shares of the company if Jobs were to leave or, worse, pass away? I think it’s time for him to start phasing someone else into the role of CEO. Apple investors need someone new to help keep the stock at a steady level.

There were some software upgrades announced, like iMovie upgrade and iLife 2009. The iMovie upgrade will supposedly fix the problems customers were having with the previous edition. The iLife 2009 software will feature a picture application that has face recognition technology as well as geomapping.

Source

So now any French carrier may carry the iPhone…

Also, it turns out the Wal-Mart $99 iPhone rumor was just that, a rumor. Information came out today saying that Wal-Mart will begin selling the iPhone on December 28 for $197 for the 8GB and $297 for the 16GB with a 2 year contract. Wal-Mart employees, will however, receive a 15% discount on plans with AT&T

This called into question Jobs’ health. He, a cancer survivor, has appeared frail at previous meetings and conferences. Jobs has decided to not appear at the upcoming event, and also end the event altogether in the future.

Jobs has been seen as irreplaceable to the company and if he were to step down, without some form of succession in place, the company could be in disarray.

So far 10,000 websites have been compromised since the flaw was discovered and the number is growing.

Microsoft officials haven’t released a statement telling IE users to switch at this time. They say they are working on a fix for the problem.

“Security pros fear that the attack will soon spread beyond the theft of gaming passwords and into more criminal arenas, as the malicious code can be placed on any website and can be adapted to steal any password stored or entered using the browser,” says Christopher Null: The Working Guy on Yahoo! Tech

People need to switch from Internet Explorer as soon as possible to avoid this risk. Some of the choices are Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome.

Change was needed at Sony. There were both external and internal forces leading the force for change. Externally, the marketplace created a need for change in Sony. Consumers began to see Sony as the past and Apple, as well as other brands, as the future. Internally, Sony had divisions in the company that would not collaborate to create new and innovative products. Also, when Stringer hired Schaaff, there was opposition to the decision. In an attempt to combat the opposition, at a 2006 management meeting, Stringer instructed all the young software engineers to the front of the room and all the older, senior executives to the back.

There are organizational changes going on currently at Sony. Starting with structure, while it is still departmentalized, many of the departments are beginning to work together to accomplish a single goal for the company. When Sony wanted to begin the PlayStation Network, a network where users could download movies to their PlayStation 3 system, Schaaff’s group, the PlayStation, and Sony’s film division all worked together to get the network online on July 15, 2008.

People are also changing at Sony. The attitudes that attributed to the division of its departments are being eliminated. When PlayStation chief Ken Kutaragi was critical of sharing power at the company, Stringer moved him into a different role in the company; Kutaragi later resigned altogether. Stringer brought in new executives whom he worked with over the years to oversee divisions such as mobile phones, PlayStation, and the Sony Reader (Sony’s attempt to break into the digital book market). These new executives were more accepting of change, and have been working well with Schaaff. However, one of Schaaff’s friends and also a former Apple executive, Ty Roberts said that “Tim [still] has to do things very gently.” Things must be done gently because if a large change happens very abruptly, some divisions could see sales drop further, or worse.

Over the past three years, a noticeable difference has come over Sony. The changes can be seen in its newest VIAO laptops (they are now sleeker, rounded, and have Apple styled keyboards), in its PlayStation 3 (with the integration of other divisions of the company), and in its mobile phones (breaking down barriers and opening up to Microsoft software). All that is left now is for Sony to accept the change as ongoing, and to manage and plan accordingly.

NOTE: This is about organizational change based on a November 10, 2008 BusinessWeek article titled : Sony Chases Apple’s Magic

In a KFC commercial a family goes around a grocery store to see if they can make a meal for $10…the same meal they can purchase at KFC for $10. The answer is a short no.

An Applebee’s commercial promotes a new special where 2 can eat for $20. The meal includes an appetizer to share.

Even Outback is getting in on the fun. They are promoting a $9.99 meal with a sirloin steak.

Even with rising food prices, restaurants may be seeing that smaller profits are easier to deal with than no profits.

They are looking to release not only low priced "net books", which are stripped down laptops that rely mostly on the internet, but also a thin notebook aimed at competing with the Macbook Air.

Today Apple announced "new" and "improved" Macbooks. The Macbook and Macbook pro will now come with multi-touch keypads and aluminum frames. They also come with new NVIDIA chips. I like the way the Apple laptops look, but I am looking forward to Samsung’s entry into the market next year…around the same time I’ll be looking for a new computer.

Their new phone is an attempt to regain some of that market share they lost in America. Currently, they are still the largest cell phone company in the world. That fact can be attributed to Nokia distribution in foreign markets.

In my opinion the Finnish company should focus more on innovative technology, or even give the American markets something that Asian markets have that we don’t. I would like to see more than 2 megapixels in a phone or a touch screen phone with a full keyboard that is less than 2 inches thick (or a Treo). Nokia has so much room to grow and become so innovative but they are missing the boat.

Because the phone is run on the Google platform Android and not Apple’s software, it is open source and developers can program their own applications for the phone.

This one makes me want to switch back to t-mobile, if only they provided adequate service for my area.

Here’s a video from CBS talking about it and how it differs from the iPhone.