Subsidized or not subsidized?  Which is it, and will everyone get one for $199/$299?  Sheesh!

The iPhone 3G... EVERYONE is talking about it. Everyone. I hear at least 2 or three conversations about it every day (since the 6/9 WWDC announcement) here at the hospital (new job), and these are the biggest bunch of NON-geeks ever assembled in once place at one time.  If even the techno-phobic are interested in this puppy, you know it's going to make a HUGE splash in both the consumer and enterprise spaces.

However, all of these conversations have one common theme, and I get asked this question at least 2-3 times in some of these conversations and people come and go through them, "If I'm not eligible for an upgrade, can I buy one; and at what price?"

That's a GREAT question; and the answer is, I have no freakin' clue.  What's more interesting is that NO ONE can really answer that question yet.

I stopped at a local AT&T store last night near closing, dropped the site name, got the, "hey, I know you!" thing, and started asking questions...and that's when everyone clammed up. I thought it was because there were other customers in the store; but even after they left, I got nothing more than crickets.

The official word on EVERYTHING iPhone 3G specific from anyone at any Apple or AT&T store is:

* The prices are $199/$299
* We don't know if that's (officially) subsidized or not
* The unsubsidized price, if any, hasn't been announced
* We don't know how many we are going to get
* And, no... I can't set one aside for you (damn it!)

Calls to AT&T customer service just seem to confuse the matter, as everyone gets a different answer...

* Yes you can "upgrade" to an iPhone 3G even though you DON'T qualify for any other kind of equipment upgrade. 
* No you can't "upgrade" to an iPhone 3G because you don't QUALIFY an equipment upgrade. 
* Current iPhone users can upgrade their device at the $199/$299 price points.
* Current iPhone users aren't eligible for an equipment upgrade.
* The prices are subsidized. 
* The prices aren't subsidized. 
* There full retail price is going to be $XXX (the price varies).
* We don't know what the full retail price is going to be.

Damn!  Would the real iPhone pricing please stand up..?! Can someone PLEASE clarify the situation for us?  I'm not asking for any special treatment or favors here, just clarification so all of the speculation stops. I'd rather it come out now than on 7/11, in the store.
If users who want an iPhone 3G can't get one at the $199/$299 price points because they don't qualify for an equipment upgrade; and don't find out until the day the devices are released, AT&T and Apple are going to NEED the police presence in the stores again, as things are going to get REALLY ugly.  That official information needs to come out NOW instead of then to avoid problems. 

If the prices are subsidized, and the unsubsidized price is $499/$599 or whatever, again, fine...but we need to know now instead of on release day. People need time to rub pennies together and make more, figure out alternatives, etc.

There have been a number of different articles posted on semi-official decisions/announcements from AT&T on some of these questions; but nothing truly official yet. Heck, Chris Gavula and I discussed the upgrade/subsidy question this morning when we spoke. I even posted about one of those articles on Gear Diary on 17-Jun-08; but as I'm asking for clarification on the situation, I'm not going to link to it here. I don't want to add to the confusion, as the article was an opinion piece and pure speculation.  However, at the end of the day, it still leaves the lot of us wondering if and when AT&T is going to tell us who can and who cannot have an iPhone 3G, and at what price, under what conditions.

So...which is it, AT&T?  Can I have one; or do we have to start whining about it now?  Will you tell us, or will it get ugly on release day when you tell someone that they can't have one, or have to open up a new account?  For those of us that aren't eligible for an upgrade, will you charge us a prorated early termination fee and let us upgrade, WITH the "termed" number? Can someone in authority PLEASE give us the OFFICIAL, straight poop here?

Again, (and hopefully for the last time) would the real iPhone pricing please stand up..?!

When it rains it pours. I feel like the Morton Salt girl...

If you remember, a week or so ago, I posted a huge rant on how Microsoft released buggy and problematic SP's in both Vista SP1 and XP SP3. There have been a lot of people bumping into operational problems with corrupted Registries, corrupted files, and endless reboot loops. I can't help but shake my head when crap like this happens.

As end users in an enterprise environment, we will likely will never experience these problems. Most IT managers avoid the application of SP's for at least 8 months to a year. At that point, most of the bugs and issues have worked themselves out and an updated version of the SP has been released. Great for enterprise users... Not so great for consumers.

With the way AutoUpdate works, Windows wants you to have AutoUpdate turned on, all the time, everyday, out loud; or it barks at you... "You don't have Auto Update turned on...You won't get the latest security updates. You're whole world is going to be exposed through the Internet, and you're going to risk identity theft (and all sorts of other nasty problems)... Sheesh! (Kinda reminds me of that one Mac commercial where PC is communicating to Mac via the Vista security thingy that continually asks you to "allow or deny..." ) You are coming to a sad, sad realization, allow or deny...

Anyway, I noticed that even Apple is not immune to the OS update bug, well...bug. Their latest version of OSX Leopard, 10.5.3 is causing all sorts of problems with iTunes, Adobe applications, etc. I subscribe to Version Tracker's OS updates for both Windows and OSX, and all of the Mac Update e-mails over the past week or so have had issues and fixes and articles about how Leopard 10.5.3 has been causing this problem or that problem with some kind of application or with regular OS functionality. The biggest problem I've seen with this latest update from Apple is not the problems with 3^rd party applications; but with their own applications.

OSX 10.5.3, for example, causes grief with iTunes, one of Apples main-stay, big-mamoo apps. Damn, half the world runs iTunes on the Windows side. EVERY Mac user uses iTunes. How in the WORLD does Apple let this OS Update out the door without testing to insure that iTunes continues to work on EVERY type of Mac available? I mean, what's up with that?!

If it sounds as though I'm a little upset with this, I am. No...I didn't get bitten by the bug; I've been in Quality for nearly 20 years. I've spent nearly the last 10 years in Software Quality. I am having a hard time understanding how something like this happens.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to challenge Apple's QA Director to contact me and share Apple's QA Test Plan with me. I'd really like to see it. I have a lot of questions for them:

• How much test time did the team have?
• How many test cases were run?
• How much regression testing was done?
• Was testing done on all native Apple apps?
• How many different OS/machine configurations were tested?
• What kind of documentation was passed to the QA Team to insure that all test requirements were effectively identified and tests executed on them?
• Does an ERD (entity relationship diagram) exist for Leopard; and does it identify all the dependency relationships between the OS and all of Apple's native apps?

...and this is just off the top of my head.

Now, don't get me wrong...I KNOW that testing an OS is a lot of work and there are a ton of moving pieces; but still. When a new OS update has trouble with its own, native apps...something isn't right. Either changes were made to shared, core components that weren't appropriately or effectively documented and communicated, or all of the testing requirements weren't identified and the appropriate tests executed, or some combination of the above.

At the end of the day, when Apple has the vast resources that it does, AND its got the kind of reputation that it does (everything just "works,") these kinds of results are simply unacceptable. The OS update needs to be fixed, patches or updates need to be created for those that have already installed the original update, etc. It’s a huge mess...and one that could have, and should have, been easily avoided.

But again, I'd like to hear your thoughts on all of this. Why don't you join us in the discussion and let us know what you think?

If you get an Open Computer from PsyStar running Leopard, you can now update your OS!

One of the biggest news items last month was the discovery and on-again, off-again availability of PsyStar’s Open Computer. They made headline news with their $399 entry-level offering, as the first non-Apple PC to run Leopard. The catch, however, was twofold:

1. If you wanted OSX on the machine, you had to buy the license from them. You can't install your own version of Leopard on the box due to driver issues; and
2. You were stuck with the version they gave you, as Apple Update didn't run right on the PsyStar box.

Well, guess what? Those limitations have been cut in half. If you buy a PsyStar machine, you now get Apple Updates; but again, there's a slight catch. PsyStar is now posting updates to OSX 10.5.x on its site for their customers to download and install. The catch..? Oh, yeah. The only way you're gonna get the updates is through PsyStar.

According to PsyStar, Safe updates, as well as bug fixes and work-arounds, are now available in their Support section. They have released a couple of fixes for things like Time Machine, as well as a fix for DHCP issues that some customers are having.

All of those updates have been rolled into an update added to the factory-installed edition of Mac OS X that users can order when they configure one of the company's clones. They will also begin releasing safe updates through the operating system's Automatic Updates and will require all of our existing users to download a small update manually and install it to enable this functionality.

It should be noted that Apple's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) doesn't expressly forbid others from posting the company's software updates, but it does ban others from copying or modifying that software.

PsyStar's searches of Apple's Web site revealed no documents spelling out a policy that would bar others, whether a company like PsyStar or individuals, from posting Apple updates on non-Apple servers. However, the practice has been severely limited by other vendors, like Microsoft, who has actively hunted those types of updates out and squashed them. For example, Microsoft forced Auto Updater, a popular alternative to Windows Update, off the Internet in August 2007, citing copyright infringement.

I've been actively trying to get PsyStar to send Gear Diary a review unit to see how well their boxes run OSX, compared to, say my MacBook Pro; but all e-mails and calls have either gone unanswered, or have been directed to their PR "department." If the situation changes, and I am able to get one, expect a review, otherwise...

If you have a PsyStar computer and are running OSX on it, I'd love to hear from you. Why don't you join us in the discussion area and let us know what you think.