EightBlack.

I always thought that this was strange - the fact that Vodafone and Optus got the jump on Telstra for the rights to re-sell the much anticipated 3G iPhone.

News yesterday that Telstra had finally agreed to the commercial model between Apple and Telstra’s bean counters.

Now that it’s a 3 horse race in Australia, it will be interesting to see just which carrier gets the jump on the market. My bet is that Vodafone will struggle - their regional and outer city coverage just isnt up to scratch. Optus may surprise due to its dominance in the youth market.

But Telstra has the clear advantage of strength on its side - with the largest customer base, largest business penetration, and best regional coverage.

Apparently, 4th carrier 3 (Three), has spat the dummy and all it can come up with as a strategy is to have all its customers sign a petition demanding that Apple let it sell the iPhone as well.

Yeah. Right. As if Steve Jobs has ever taken notice of a petition. Especially from a carrier with the smallest share in a market of 21 million people.

If Telstra don’t screw up the execution, their iPhone deal might just be the shot in the arm the ailing carrier needs. Lets see how long it takes them to get their marketing department to set up an adwords account and compete head to head with with Vodafone and Optus.

All I know is that its going to be mighty hard to shift all the enterprise customers from their RIM devices to a trussed up iPod.

Time will tell.

It’s called wireless. Ask your teenage child to install it for you. Apple - that’s the iPod people, make it even easier with a gadget called an Airport. See photo.

Apart from the fact that you’ll have to go through some initial pain talking to someone called Suresh or Mahit or something like this in India when ordering, the whole ordeal can probably be done in a week.

All those people with laptops will thank you for it.

They might even sit in your cafe for a bit longer, drinking their chai lattes or double decaf whatever you call those over-priced coffee substitute drinks.

If you ask me, you should only be allowed to serve espresso, double-espresso or if you must, long blacks. All the other coffee drinks are for homosexuals. Or people who still live with their parents.

Anyway.

This wireless thing. It’s important. Pull your fingers out and install it. It’s good for business. Trust me.

And if you really have to - you can charge for it. It will piss a few people off, but having the service there is better than none at all, even if you want to be a cheap arse and make people pay.

I was sitting in a Sydney hotel yesterday, quietly minding my own business when I couldn’t help but over hear the conversations of the 2 Americans sitting beside me.

Turns out that the 2 guys were here fitting out the new Apple store - which is due to open any minute.

My colleague and I were fascinated with the story that unfolded.

Apple handles the fit out personally of each and every store. This means that they use their own firm to supply the architectural woodwork. This is a proud, 100 year-old company called Fetzer, based out of Salt Lake City. They make all the interior fitout, pack it into containers and ship it to where-ever they are building a new store.

More importantly, a contractor from Fetzer goes with the container and supervises the whole installation. This guy, from Ohio, has been in Sydney for 5 weeks. Shacked up at the Hilton no less.

His buddy, who handles all the electrical contracting, including cabling, telephony etc does the same thing. This poor bastard spent 48 weeks out of 52 last year on the road - simply fitting out Apple stores worldwide.

Its this attention to detail that makes Apple Apple. No one else would go to this trouble. Well, precious few.

I asked the guy from Fetzer whether or not the Aussies were good tradies. He actually said they were. He might have been polite. (apart from the fact that because he’s in Sydney, some half wit contractor tried to convince him that Rugby League or Union or whatever the hell they call that bum sniffing crap they play was actually a sport).

He then got warmed up and starting talking about how crazy the Italians were to work with, how precise and exact the Japanese were and how average the Brits were (which surprised me, given that you can walk into a pub in outer London that’s been standing in the same spot for 800 years). Or something like that.

When you get the chance, if you haven’t done so already, walk into an Apple store. Notice the quality of the fixtures and fittings (ie Fetzer). See if you can see exposed wires at all. Anywhere. Look at the quality of the flooring. The image above by the way is of Apples New York store, which recently opened.

If Apple have done their job right (and they have), you actually wont notice much at all. Because the whole show has been built around showing off the Apple product. Nothing else.

Ok, ok, I’m biased. But you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. And there’s a reason why Apple absolutely blitz their competition when it comes to revenue per square foot.

The Sydney store, when it opens, will be a cracker. Mark my words.

Oh God. I think I’ve turned into a Mac Snob.

I was sitting in a meeting this morning and a guy came in to present to us. He had set up his PC on the boardroom table and I couldn’t help feel sorry for him. He had wires and crap going everywhere. I think it was a Benq machine. Whoever the hell they are.

Worst of all - his screen saver was an ad for Benq machines, about how well designed they were, the inherent quality and form and function and all that other marketing pish. The screen saver even bragged about the fact that this machine was blessed to come pre-loaded with Windows Vista. Cursed more like it.

Anyway.

He laboured through his presentation. I didn’t listen to a word.

Man, was the machine ugly. It was enormous. And it probably weighed a ton.

Now, I only recently moved to a Mac environment about a year ago. I am a total convert. But I am worried that I’ve turned into this Mac snob who is close to accepting the fact that membership to the Mac cult is not far away.

What is it about the Apple brand that affects most users?

All I know is that I can’t go back. It’s too late. They work too well. And too easily.

Ben, our Technical Director, reckons the way to get traffic to any blog is simply to write something negative about Apple - and within minutes, hoards of ravenous Apple Zealots will show up and beat you into a virtual pulp.

Or something like that.

I’m happy to admit that I’m a Mac convert. Wouldn’t admit to joining the cult just yet. But close.

I received my Mac Air about 6 weeks ago.

As far as travelling goes, the Air is unbeatable. It’s obviously light, the wireless is great and the same Mac features like simply closing the lid when you’re done and the auto detect of any wireless network, are just so user friendly. I don’t think the thing has crashed yet.

But I do have some gripes.

For one, the battery life sucks. The charge times are all over the place. Sometimes it literally takes 5-6 hours to charge the thing. It will last for maybe 2 hours tops. Run video and your toast.

I always buy 2 power supplies with every laptop I own. That way, you can leave one at home and one at the office. The power supply for the Air is actually the same as it is for MacBook Pro’s - but it does have a slightly different end plug. I don’t know why they couldn’t have just standardised the thing - probably because some design nazi at Apple wanted the plug for the Air to be “at one” with the overall look and feel.

Or something like that.

Also, the lack of USB ports. Couldn’t the designers have fitted just ONE more? For example, when I’m at work, the Air looks like it’s connected to life support as I have a USB router connected to it with the printer, the back up drive, the wireless mouse, the keyboard and whatever else there is.

As it is, I have now bought an external CD/DVD drive and an external hard drive for when I travel - so it starts to negate the purpose of a laptop that can fit into a large envelope when you take into consideration all the ancillary crap you have to lug around.

The full size keyboard is nice, although I preferred the “feel” of my MacBook Pro’s keyboard. Screen is exceptional. And the in-built camera works perfectly fine with iChat.

No doubt, the next version will be faster, have a bigger capacity hard drive and maybe Apple will have addressed the power issue. The Apple website reckons you’ll get 5 hours wireless use out of your new MacBook Air. Pigs arse you will.

Maybe they could design one to run off plutonium. I wouldn’t care. Already had kids.

Also, if you work with iMovie a lot (like I do), then the Air will start to hyper-ventilate. Just doesn’t have enough grunt.

My summary. The machine is cool. Would I buy another one? Maybe not. I’d be happy to go back to a Pro for performance and horsepower reasons.

And as far as helping me pick up women or improving my overall image, the Air has done bugger all. C’est la vie.

* Specs for my machine: (1.6 GHz, 80 Gig standard hard drive, 2GB ram)

* Image courtesy SMH

I actually started my life in the tech space selling mobile phones. When they were a whopping $5000 a piece!

So, I’m a bit over mobile phones now and I thought my BlackBerry was going to continue to give me what I needed.

But this is way cool.

I haven’t been taking too much notice of Apple’s industry defining product but since we had a couple of days to spare before we wreck our head space with web analytics, Ben and I spent some time this weekend wandering around Salt Lake City.

Seriously, Ben is a Mac zealot. And when we came across the Mac store in “the mall”, he nearly passed out.

So here I am, with an iPhone in my hand. The phone works like nothing you’ve seen. You can actually make out our blog on the screen of the device. The Salt Lake City store has plenty of stock and Ben and I are arguing who is going to buy one first - him or me. Who cares if it doesn’t work yet in Australia. We actually took this photo with another iPhone.

Benny reckons that in a couple of weeks, there’ll be some very smart bastards who will have figured out how to re-programme them so they are multi-carrier enabled.

As I write, Ben’s using an iPhone beside me - looking at Google Traffic, reading word documents and emailing this picture to me.

There are about 20 other people all playing with them. And the thing is, the devices are just so intuitive to use. Just pick them up and do what comes naturally.

People are watching YouTube clips on them (the screen quality is astonishing), kids are listening to music (its an iPod), sending email, sending SMS, checking email. Apple has all the phones fully operational.

If ever there was proof of a company having its shit together, its this. The retail experience, the product experience and the fact that they have re-defined what a mobile phone should be.

Just amazing.

(Now I have to figure out what to tell my wife when I unpack the box back in Melbourne. I’ve got a week to come up with a decent story, so if any of you have any bright ideas, email me).

PS. Thanks Cait for the excuse. Let me see if it works!

Hi Simon

We met at MODM, through Cameron.
I’ve got an iPhone excuse for you.

Your iPhone purchase is an investment in your future, being comfortable with incoming technology is crucial in a fast environment.

Plus you’ve got a photo with it on your blog, so you might be able to claim it on tax, ask your accountant.

–
Cait
http://scientaestubique.wordpress.com/