People who read this…

Were so spellbound that they couldn’t read anything else!

Now if only I could remember where I read that… tech2.com or ibnlive.com?

At 3.15pm today, the spell was still on! The original screenshot was taken on June 10… over a week ago!

Cashiers, restaurants, gadgets and orgasms

Quick note to pen these incidents before I forget… The first instance was rather amusing and tells me how business is still conducted at the grassroots level (if we can call it that). And the second was orgasmic. Please be patient for the second one (evil grin!). Here we go:

Incident 1:

On my way from Mumbai to Pune, we stopped at the food plaza just before the Lonavala ghat for a quick bite. As I strolled up to the window to place my order the following conversation took place between the manager of the place and the cashier (the actual conversation was in Marathi, but I shall translate it into English and reproduce):

Manager: Whenever someone is here to place their order, tell them that the lassi is great or that the chaas is very good today. If they order only food, tell them that something else is better.

Cashier: Ok.

Manager: Have them order more. Make sure they order more than they intend to.

Cashier: Ok.

Manager: Increase the order. Make sure they spend more than they intend to. Get them to spend more.

Cashier: Ok.

Me (to Cashier): Don’t upsell to me, please.

Cashier: (smiles)

I have a witness in my wife to the conversation if any of you doubt it took place. It was hilarious, eye-opening and ear-popping at the same time. Imagine some boss in a publication giving this motivational speech to the classifieds staff telling them to hardsell over the counter. Heh!

For the record, the cashier tried to hardsell but I wasn’t falling for it. Smart, no?

Incident Two:

The second incident has more to do with touching. No, not that kind you perverts (but I did mention the orgasmic part, right?). It so happened that in the evening (once I was back in Pune) I paid a visit to my regular gadget shop on FC Road to check out the new stuff. And lo and behold, what has he? An Apple iPhone. Have mercy!

Once again, the wife was with me. And while she was trying her best not to look bored with goings-on, she herself was besotted with the brilliance, opulence and the sheer magnetic nature of the iPhone. The price? Rs 35,000, 33,200 (Oct 4), 25,000-0dd (Oct 8th) or thereabouts (I may get a discount if I ever have that kind of money!).

It was a dream. Holding the Jesus phone… that’s one thing on my birthday wishlist (friends, family, enemies, those who wish to bribe… please take note).

Ahh. The iPhone was in my hands today.

Ahh.

It’s starting: iPhone reviews

There are three more days until launch, but some lucky bastards (bastards, bastards) received a review unit of the iPhone some time ago. And they liked it. Why not. Most reviews give it a thumbs up. Hm.

Among the lot, I have to say this video by the New York Times is the best. Totally outstanding! And I can’t help but feel that he summarises the whole target audience brilliantly in the end when a colleague (the last standing one after he’s heard all the downsides) asks "Does it have an Apple logo?".

I recently spoke with the PR company that may handle Apple in India and tried to needle out the India launch date, but all I could get was "later this year". Eventually they caved in and gave me a two-month range: October/November 2007. Enough notice to start saving? I think so.

More reviews:

• iPhone matches the hype [NY Times]
• At last, the iPhone [Newsweek on MSNBC]
• Testing out the iPhone [The Wall Street Journal]

Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone review, iPhone launch

If there was Internet when bread was first sliced…

Can you even imagine the furore it would have created? Imagine what it could have done for the manufacturers of the machine that sliced bread and the bread industry in general.

M/s Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa who are credited with inventing the first machine to slice bread, could have really used the viral in the early days. Especially when you consider that they took about 11 years to successfully market a product that was destroyed in a fire in 1917.

It’s another thing that had the Internet been around back then, the phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread" may have been propagated much faster too!

But could your imagine reading headlines like this leading up to the launch of the bread slicer?…

• Sliced bread set to ring up strong results for Chillicothe Baking Company
• Sliced bread faces line of challengers
• Countdown to bread slicer begins (circa 1928)
• Sliced bread hype has housewives in a tizzy
• The four big ‘ifs’ of sliced bread
• More secret leaked photos of bread slicer and sliced bread

The list could go on for about 73,800,000 links drawn out by Google in about 0.07 seconds. Incidentally, that’s the number of hits available if you search for "iphone" currently. Incidentally, a search for sliced bread throws up only 1,420,000 results after almost 80 years! I can’t even imagine how many results there would be for iPhone in 2087! I definitely won’t be around to check it

In case of sliced bread, it is unimaginable for us to think of such hype because it is so much a part of life that we take it for granted. The same applies for most things launched or announced before the iPhone. But after this frenzy, one cannot be sure of sanity in such cases. Perhaps this is an exception. Yes, it is.

But it is worth thinking what it would have been to have the Internet and an incredible speed of information dissemination back in the day when sliced bread was not launched or steam engines were all the rage! I bet the iPhone would have been eclipsed! After all, you can’t put butter or jam and eat the iPhone. Nor can you toast it nor can you slice it.

I wish life remained as simple as that.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, sliced bread, internet

Photo: Worth1000.com

Tring, tring! History calling!

Remember the first ever cell phone that weighed about 1 kg (pictured to the left)? Well, we didn’t either! My first memory of a cell phone was the Nokia 8800 (what we called the Banana phone for its curved slider) and then I stopped remembering.

But the early days were rather impressive and are very well captured by PC World in this slideshow [via MSN Tech & Gadgets]. Head on over for a bit of tech history and nostalgia along the way. And don’t be surprised to see descriptions such as this one:

That phone, which measured more than a foot long, weighed almost 2 pounds, and cost $3995, ultimately became commercial available in 1983. Known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, its battery could provide 1 hour of talk time, and its memory could store 30 phone numbers.

And they called it a mobile phone! Hah!

Tags: cell phones, history, motorola, nokia, apple, palm

Is this the iPhone killer?

It’s called the HTC Elf or Touch depending where you read about it. And after you’re done drooling, you can check out the features and other details here.

For the record, it has ‘TouchFLO’, HTC’s own touchscreen app that apparently lets the phone work just like the iPhone. Ok stop drooling. Stop!

Tags: iPhone, Apple, HTC, Elf

June 29th. Mark the day.

For a lot will change. Forever. The Apple iPhone will be launched. Heh! I do sound like a crazed Apple fan and I most certainly won’t be buying the iPhone until the second generation is out. An India launch is being speculated around October… just in time for my birthday (hint, hint!).

In the meantime, you may want to check out the ads that have surfaced and are being now televised in the US. [More ads here on Apple.com].

Coming back to my point of when to buy the iPhone, do you think by the time the phone makes it to India, it would anyways be a second-gen phone? And why am I going on about that? Just so I know that more bugs have been fixed when I buy the phone. If I am spending close to 25K for the phone, I do want it to work better than average.

UPDATE: Apple execs are nervous and perhaps my reasoning and decision of waiting for the second gen phones is justified:

"The anticipation, which is intense even by Jobsian standards, has led to some quiet, behind-the-scenes anxiety at Apple. Some Apple executives worry privately that expectations for the one-button phones may be too high and that first-generation buyers will end up disappointed." [via Engadget]

Tags: iPhone, launch date, iPhone ads, apple

Chal meri Luna!

Okay, this isn’t that Luna and neither is it as ugly or cheap. But is it as practical? Nokia, desperate to score a few points with a losing loyalty base, has announced the 8600 Luna and it reminds us of the Sirocco that was just as outrageously priced. I can’t help but think that Nokia is targeting the entry-level or the high-end forgetting the important ‘middle’.
So what’s the big deal about the Luna? Here’s the poetic description in the Nokia press release:

The melding of nearly opaque smoked glass with unique, soft-touch stainless steel makes the Nokia 8600 Luna as enchanting to behold as it is a joy to touch. Adding to its mysterious allure, a gentle keypad illumination pulsates from beneath the glass case while the phone awaits a call. Combined with the warmth of its glass and stainless steel body, this “heartbeat” transforms the Nokia 8600 Luna from an inanimate object into a trusted companion with an organic, virtually alive form. When a call does beckon, the signature slide movement is carefully balanced to smoothly raise the ergonomic keypad from within its glass cocoon.

Whew! This one would surely be priced in the range of about Rs 40,000 (before taxes or Euros 700) and the feature set isn’t all that striking. Clearly, a phone aimed at a high-end user base. Good move, but is it really that unique? Aren’t there better looking and more functional phones in the market? Here’s what the phone will have (more poetry):

Nokia’s first use of a single micro-USB port not only allows for a streamlined design free of extraneous indentations, it allows owners to streamline common activities – like charging, audio and data connectivity – into a single connection. Quad-band GSM support also allows owners to easily stay connected while they are on the road, while the large, bright display is perfect for sharing images captured with the 2 megapixel camera.

40K for that is a bit much. I’m still waiting for the Sony-Ericsson P1!

Sony Ericsson P1 announced!

Business phones are all the rage these days and barely six months after the launch of the P990i comes the P1i from Sony Ericsson. Why do I care to write about this? I am a convert. I used Nokia, O2, Motorola and have come back to Sony Ericsson. I currently use the M600i and I cannot wait for the P1 to be launched in India.

The rationale behind the launch would have to be questioned, though. The P1 is about three-fourths the size of the P990i, has a 3.2 megapixel camera with business card scanner, media player and 512MB Memory Stick Micro and also comes with push email function.

It also retains one of my favourite features on the M600i, the dual function keyboard. Dual function keyboard – full alpha-numeric (e.g. QWERTY) text input combined with one hand phone usability. I can vouch for that one-hand usability part! The P1 runs on Symbin OS v9.1 and it features a 2.6-inch, 262k color (240 x 320 pixels) TFT touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, QWERTY keyboard, Media player with MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+ support, 160MB internal memory and of course the traditional 512MB card in the box, M2 card slot for extra memory and FM radio with RDS. Other features include push email, VoIP support, WLAN (802.11b), Bluetooth with A2DP, Infrared and USB 2.0.

Pricing is still unknown but it’s expected to be available in the third quarter of 2007 (between July and September). There’s a reason to start saving! If I were to guess, I’d say this one would cost about Rs 30,000 to Rs 33,000 in India. Damn!

Details of the Sony Ericsson P1.

The P990i and I

After many delays, Sony Ericsson finally launched the P990i and those who did buy it at the obnoxiously high initial prices (almost like IPOs), would vouch it was worth the wait (and money). I got mine for about 29K (INR, that is!) and think it was a fair price considering i paid some Rs 38K for my O2 Atom.

Back to the P990i… I was originally rather sceptical as to whether I should give up my Atom for a phone that is bigger, looks a little less cool (yes, accept it) and does not have Windows Mobile 5. But it had the one thing I desperately wanted: a keypad. And the more I used it, the better it seemed. It still tends to crash a little (I’ve had it for almost a month now) but it’s nothing that the Atom wouldn’t do either!

The only thing I find missing in this one is the sleekness of the Atom. And of course, the stylus sucks. But then again, I rarely use it! I wanted the keypad and I got it.

More later!