It begins, right? With iPhone 4 pre-orders already sold out and new orders becoming available on February 9th, Big Red just launched a new commercial, this time featuring an actual iPhone.
Low-quality video is embedded below, but look for it soon on Verizon Wireless’ Youtube channel.
Update: Verizon just posted the commercial on their channel. Read more
A Nielsen study shows iPhone users are paying attention, while TV views – eh, not so much. iAds started around 7 months ago on our iDevices and now there are effectiveness studies showing up, this one from Campbell’s (the soup maker).
People exposed to one of Campbell’s iAds were more than twice as likely to recall it than those who had seen a Campbell’s TV ad. This five-week Nielsen study showed that consumers who saw an iAd remembered Campbell’s brand five times more often than TV ad respondents and the ad’s message three times more often. iAd respondents were four times as likely to to purchase Campbell’s than the TV viewers. Users also liked the ad five times more than the TV commercial. Read more
2010 was the year of the twitter client; so far this year, it’s to-do apps. Many of us don’t follow the GTD mantra, we want a simpler to-do app that has the basics: what I need to get done right now, what I need to do later, and what have I accomplished. Task Eater, by Tobias Wiedenmann (also made SongSwiper), has been teasing us for months on dribbble, the app’s UI has been very popular for quite some time. Read more
As confirmed yesterday by Apple, Pre-Orders for the Verizon iPhone 4 are now live on Apple’s website here and also on Verizon’s site here. Be quick though if you want one, demand is expected to be high and orders will be fulfilled on a first come, first served basis.
If you are purchasing from the Apple Store you have to be an existing Verizon user and you have to sign up to the two year contract.
For the full pricing details head over here.
UPDATE: People on Twitter are noting that the Verizon site is having difficulties and crashing. It’s really hit and miss, some on Twitter have had seamless experience, others having errors. Perhaps try the Apple site, no reports of it going down, also some are recommending to avoid Firefox which seems to be having issues with Verizon’s site.
UPDATE 2: More and more people are having troubles with Verizon pre-orders, some have then tried going through Apple and it has worked without issue. Highly recommend people to try through Apple here.
The Verizon iPhone 4 is being sold for $199 for the 16 GB model and $299 for the 32 GB model with a two-year contract. Sales in Apple retail stores and 2,000 Verizon Wireless stores will begin on Thursday, February 10th and 7 AM — just like AT&T did for the iPhone 4 last year.
Rumors and nuggets of information circulating around the web seem to suggest that the next update to iOS, 4.3, will come within the next two weeks. These suggestions come from a few sources, from David Pogue to John Gruber and The Daily’s launch.
As 9to5Mac was able to pick up on, David Pogue’s review on the Verizon iPhone contained a snippet that was later updated and removed. It was the statement that AT&T’s iPhone will get the Hotspot feature on February 13, there was no insinuation by Pogue that this was his guess but just written plain out as a fact.
So today has brought quite a bit of Verizon iPhone news, if you’ve struggled to keep up, this post has links to all our recent coverage. Plus there’s even more news after the break which includes information that Verizon is urging it’s staff not to buy the iPhone, you may need to save old voicemails if moving to the iPhone and Apple Stores adding antenna’s to boost Verizon reception inside.
Today
First Verizon iPhone Reviews Are In
Verizon Contact Transfer App for iPhone Now Available
Verizon iPhone Coming to Best Buy on February 10
Apple Confirms Verizon iPhone Available for Pre-Order Tomorrow
Previously
iPhone 4 Cases Now Available On Verizon’s Website
iTunes 10.1.2 Now Available, Adds CDMA iPhone Compatibility
Verizon iPhone Plans Now Live on Apple.com
MyWi, a popular app available in Cydia that allows users to turn their 3G-capable devices into mobile hotspots for internet tethering, was updated today to include a new functionality the Intelliborn developers call “On Demand”. The new feature, which can be unlocked for $4.99 following the $19.99 app purchase, allows iPhones and iPads to “understand” when the mobile hotspot feature needs to be activated, or disabled.
A problem with mobile hotspots on the iPhone, in fact, is that you can’t specify settings for when a WiFi connection becomes available and you can stop tethering to other devices. The new MyWi On Demand connects when you need it, and shuts down when you don’t. After the usual pairing session between the hotspot device (say, the iPhone) and a non-3G device like your iPad WiFi, the iPad will automatically join the internet connection shared by MyWi when no other option is available, and disconnect from MyWi when another connection is found (your home wireless connection, for example). The system is pretty smart and useful, especially considering that it easily lets you save dozens of MBs of data.
More details on MyWi On Demand can be found here, and you can check out the promo video below. Apple’s next major update to iOS, version 4.3, will introduce a similar functionality called “Personal Hotspot” that enables users to turn their iPhones into portable hotspots to share an internet connection. Read more
All this bad weather in the US must be keeping App devs from dropping their prices! Here’s today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot! Read more
Nielson has revealed its latest statistics on smartphone ownership in the US and there is some fascinating information contained in the report. 31% of all mobile consumers in the US owned a smartphone as of December last year. Ethnic and racial minorities also dominated ownership of smartphones with Asian/Pacific Islanders and Hispanics having 45% smartphone penetration, African-Americans also had higher numbers at 33% whilst White Americans were at a much lower 27%.
The smartphone war between RIM’s BlackBerry, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system was also at dead heat by the end of 2010. Apple was just ahead at 28% of the mobile operating system share but has been sitting steady at around that rate for a year. RIM’s BlackBerry OS market share continued diving and was at 27% and Google’s Android continued steaming upwards reaching it’s highest share of 27%.
