Psystar Wanted To Sell 12 Million Clone Macs…. They Sort Of Came Up Short Of That Mark

The drugs that Mac clonemaker Psystar were using must have been some seriously mind altering drugs. I say that because according to Computerworld Psystar had planned on selling 1.45 million clone computers by 2011. And that number is a “conservative” estimate. Their not so “conservative” estimates had Psystar selling 12 million clones by the end of 2012. So, what did they actually sell? You’ll be shocked by the actual number of clones sold to date: 768.

Guess that they missed that target by a wide margin.

These numbers were partially based on having a notebook in their lineup:

That notebook, tentatively named “OpenBook” to identify it with the company’s “Open” line of desktop and server systems, was to boast a 13.3-in. display, an Intel 2 Core Duo processor running at 2GHz, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. The OpenBook’s price was set at $699, $300 below the price of Apple’s lowest-cost notebook at the time, the MacBook.

I’m guessing that this laptop isn’t going to see the light of day given their current problems.

It really seems that Psystar was delusional given all the facts that are coming to light. Good thing that Apple is taking them out of their misery.

 

Rogers Punts 900 Workers To The Curb…. You Might Say That They Got Rogered

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. But for some Rogers employees, they have little to be thankful for. 900 Of them have been laid off by Rogers:

A spokeswoman for the telecommunications and media giant says the layoffs represent 3 per cent of the company’s total work force.

“The goal was to streamline the organization, remove the number of layers and enable quick and faster decision making,” said Rogers spokeswoman Terrie Tweddle in an interview Thursday.

Areas of the company affected by the cuts include marketing and communications, human resources, and technology support operations.

Ms. Tweddle added that the cuts have a minimal effect on “front-line” operations, such as call centres and customer services.

“We actually continue to hire and invest in resources, particularly in customer-facing areas, while we’re going through the reorganization,” she said.

One has to wonder if even the limited competition in the cell phone space has hurt Rogers? Or perhaps they’ve been wounded for a while now and we’re only now starting to see the blood trail? Either way I suspect that these will not be the last layoffs that we’ll see from Rogers.

Oh, about the statement that these layoffs having a minimal effect on front line operations. I’ll believe it when I see it. Or more accurately the next time I have to call Rogers for something.

AT&T Brings Luke Wilson Back For Another Crappy Ad

Another day, another really bad ad from AT&T starring Luke Wilson. Here it is:

Ignoring the fact that iPhone users who have 3G capable phones are often stuck on EDGE which doesn’t support this feature as has been discussed here previously, this ad does nothing to counter what Verizon has said. That is, AT&T’s 3G coverage sucks. Until they address that, these ads will continue to be useless in terms of helping AT&T’s image.

Apple Asks Court To Finish Off Psystar

Now that Apple has clearly got Psystar by the short and curlies, they want to finish the job. According to Groklaw, Apple is asking a court to permanently prevent Psystar from infringing Apple copyrights in Mac OS X, circumventing copy protection measures in their software as well as possessing or selling devices that circumvent copy protection.

If granted, that would effectively kill them.

But wait! You haven’t heard the interesting part yet. According to the same Groklaw article, Psystar was using their ongoing litigation with Apple as a tool to try and get venture capital money. Here are some of the key points that they were giving potential investors:

The on-going litigation will insulate Psystar from competing with other PC manufacturers in the OS X arena

• The anti-competitive nature of Apple’s EULA make it an illegal contract.
• Once the litigation is over that contract will become invalid, opening Mac OS to other OEMs
• This presents us with a unique window of opportunity to gain market share and achieve brand recognition before competitors can even enter the market.

I guess that didn’t work out so well now did it?

Oh by the way, Apple also wants this extended to Snow Leopard as the current summary decision against Psystar only covers Leopard.

Strangely, Psystar has had little to say about this. I guess they’re too busy watching their house of cards crumble to act like idiots.

Are The Latest iPhone Ads Are Bogus?

As I mentioned yesterday, there are two new iPhone ads that center around talking on the phone while running apps, checking e-mail, or surfing the net. That sounds great right?

Except that it may not be true.

The problem lies in the fact that you need 3G coverage to do all of that. Many iPhone customers on the AT&T network who have 3G capable iPhones are often running on the slower EDGE network rather than their 3G network and EDGE isn’t capable of simultaneous voice and data access. If by some miracle they get 3G on their iPhone, the chances of it working are suspect at best. So the ads may not be true and I’m just waiting for someone to file the lawsuit against Apple over these ads. After all, lawsuits in the mobile phone industry seems to be the in thing at the moment.

Sprint Gets Hit By Verizon Over “Most Dependable” Claim

I guess that after kicking AT&T all over the Map with their ads and in court (thus far), Verizon is getting bold. Now they’ve gone to the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus to get Sprint to drop their “Most Dependable” claim about their network. What do they have as proof? They have a study performed by Nielsen Co. that says that less calls are dropped on Verizon vs. Sprint. The funny thing is that the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus agreed with Verizon [Warining: PDF]. So now they’re 2 for 2. Sprint is going to appeal this decision, so expect a round two, or more.

So Verizon, you’ve targeted AT&T and Sprint. Who’s next for you?

Judge Says Rogers Can’t Claim To Be “Canada’s Most Reliable Network” [UPDATED]

You can bet that Rogers execs are freaking out right now. They’ve been using the tagline “Canada’s Most Reliable Network” for some time now. But those days have come to an end. A judge in B.C. has ruled that Rogers has to stop using that tagline unless it it can back it up. Needless to say Telus who filed the suit was happy about this:

“Our sole interest in filing the suit was to have Rogers remove what we always believed was a false, misleading and harmful claim from their advertising and this orders them to do that,” said Telus spokesman Shawn Hall.

But this isn’t over just yet. Both parties are back in court on Friday to work out the details regarding this. I couldn’t find any statements from Rogers about this, but I’m hoping that “my new best friends at Rogers” might be kind enough to offer a comment if they happen to be reading this.

UPDATE: Rogers has come out with a statement:

“We are perplexed by the decision. We continue to believe that our network reliability claim is valid. Today we have filed an appeal with the B.C. Court of Appeal. Further steps will be taken shortly.”

AT&T Launches New Ads To Fight Verizon…. Epic Fail

The good news: AT&T hasn’t launched a new lawsuit against Verizon.

The bad news: AT&T have a bunch of new ads that have hit the airwaves. The first two center around the iPhone and the iPhone’s ability to do things like check e-mail and use apps while you’re on a call:

Okay. I guess that might be cool, but they don’t really answer the core argument from the Verizon ads. From where I sit, if Verizon comes out and says “your network coverage sucks!” and the best AT&T can come up with is “Yeah, well your phones can’t go online to do stuff while you’re using the phone to make calls on your network” then it’s clear that Verizon has hit the mark with their ads and AT&T is in no position to fight back directly against Verizon’s arguments.

Oh, Luke Wilson is back with a couple of new AT&T ads as well:

Great. AT&T can reach 300 million Americans which is according to them 97% of the population. But is that with 3G coverage which is the whole point of the Verizon ads? I think not. But why let little details like that get in the way of trying to bash their competition?

The bottom line is that these ads from AT&T are craptastic. No shock there considering that AT&T makes no attempt to answer Verizon’s claims. I really thought that AT&T was wasting their money suing Verizon. Now I think they’re also wasting their money with uber lame ads like these. Perhaps AT&T should just wave the white flag and just give their customers better 3G coverage in as many places as possible. Oh while they’re at it, they should make iPhone users happy by not having service that’s so crappy it has become notorious for dropping calls like Luke Wilson drops postcards.

Face it AT&T, Verizon has beaten you. Deal with it and fix your network.

New iPhone Marware Targets The Bank Accounts Of Dutch iPhone Users

If you live in Holland and you’ve jailbroken your iPhone, you may want to take note of this. A pretty bad piece of marware is targeting you. First, here’s what the BBC has to say about it:

It is specifically targeting people in the Netherlands who are using their iPhones for internet banking with Dutch online bank ING.

It redirects the bank’s customers to a lookalike site with a log-in screen.

In other words, it’s a phishing scam. Lovely. But it’s actually worse than that according to Intego:

When active on an iPhone, the iBotnet worm changes the root password for the device, in order to prevent users from later changing that password themselves. It then connects to a server in Lithuania, from which it downloads new files and data, and to which it sends data recovered from the infected iPhone. The worm sends both network information about the iPhone and SMSs to the remote server. It is capable of downloading data, including executables that it uses to run and carry out its actions, as well as new files, providing botnet capabilities to infected devices.

So given all of that, does it still sound like a good idea to jailbreak your iPhone? The bottom line is that these pieces of marware only affects those users. So if you want to remain secure, don’t jailbreak that iPhone.

Virgin Mobile Canada To Carry iPhone

Guess what? Virgin Mobile is getting the iPhone and they let Canadians know about it in a very tersely worded statement:

Virgin Mobile Canada will launch iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in Virgin Mobile Retail Stores and online in Canada in the coming months. For more information on iPhone, please visit www.apple.com/iphone.

Good grief! Their marketing boilerplate took more real estate than the actual statement. What is it with these Canadian cell phone companies releasing such short statements about getting the iPhone? In any case, the devil is in the details and we’ll have to wait for important details like pricing for the phones (I’m expecting it to be just like everybody else) and plans (ditto). Of course they could surprise me with a reasonably priced unlimited data plan, but I’m not holding my breath.