iPhone Buzz » Bizarre

iPhone 3G gets the Blendtec ‘Will it blend?’ treatment

Chris Davies — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 04:07:36 +0000

Asking “but will it blend” may be an internet cliché by now, but there’s still a shiver of half-glee, half-disgust to see a perfectly happy gadget turned to dust in one of Blendtec’s industrial-strength tech-chompers. And on iPhone 3G launch day, what better toy to get the blender treatment than Apple’s new cellphone. Check the video after the cut, and prepare to sob a little if you waited in a long queue but still went home empty handed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLxq90xmYUs[/youtube]
Unsurprisingly the answer is yes, the iPhone 3G will blend. Never has an on-screen warning stated the obvious quite so much – kids, don’t try this with your new iPhone (but it’s okay to do it with your Dad’s…)
Check out the original iPhone blending – and the subsequent auction for the resulting dust – here.

LEGO iPhone unboxing is a macro-marvellous

Chris Davies — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:58:30 +0000

Considering the handset has been available since last June, it’s hard to imagine an unboxing ceremony that could bring anything new to the table. That hasn’t stopped photographer ntr23, though; he actually got up on top of the table, with a team of handy LEGO men to unwrap his new 8GB toy. What might seem like a one-person job to us is a mammoth task for a minifig.

The best laid plans, though, can always backfire, and there’s a touch-&-go situation with a worker trapped under the bulk of Apple’s cellphone. Thankfully teamwork saves the day; let this be a lesson to all tech reporters not to attempt an unboxing without wearing a hard hat.

[via Pocket-lint]

Apple Russia caught up in PR nightmare

Chris Davies — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:10:52 +0000

In a turn of events that almost seems too bizarre to be true, Russian journalist and 14-year Mac user Alex Patsay has written an open letter to Apple PR following what sounds to be a disastrous launch event in Moscow. According to Patsay, Apple has added a 75-percent markup on iPods in Russia – taking a 16GB iPod Touch to the equivalent of $710 – and priced the MacBook Air above even inflated European prices: $5,000 for the SSD version.

More worrying, Apple is apparently contravening Russian law by failing to offer the MacBook Air with Cyrillic lettering on the keyboard, nor a Russian-localised iPod Touch.

“The whole press conference by itself seems to be pretty much useless, because it went about the movie rentals, Apple TV update, iPod touch update, etc – all great stuff, but with one little problem. iTunes Store doesn’t exist in Russia, and Apple doesn’t have plans to bring one here. And it makes all these news completely obsolete and useless” Alex Patsay, alexmac.net

Most bizarrely, when one journalist asked an Apple rep how he could pay to update his iPod Touch to the latest 1.1.3 firmware, since Russia lacks the iTunes Store, he was told “buy a new iPod touch with 1.1.3 firmware - it will have these applications already installed”

Patsay seems, if anything, concerned for Apple and their success in Russia – his worry is that buyers will travel to bordering Finland and buy cheaper Apple hardware there to bring back, thus causing Apple Russia to miss out on profits. But if the whole debacle is even partly true, then I can’t help but think that Apple might deserve to fall flat on its face.

[via The Inquirer]

4,000 Newton modems tumble on video

Chris Davies — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:59:15 +0000

Decidedly silly, but we love a bit of crazy domino fun here at MY iTablet, and it’s even better when the dominoes themselves are actually tiny totems of Apple heritage. It seems that on an unstressed day back in 1996 part of the Apple Newton team decided to put around 4,000 “surplus” modems for the prematurely-PDA into action, only rather than set up a huge, impractical dial-up connection they stood them all on end and then knocked them down.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teW7a8lOwYY[/youtube]

A quick look on eBay, however, shows that MessagePad modems are going for around $2.50 a piece, which means that if they’d saved the little blighters in their packaging they could’ve sold the lot for $10,000. I’m sure they’re kicking themselves now.

[via Macenstein]

$1m Class Action suit claims iPhone discount distress

Chris Davies — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:12:57 +0000

Were I a betting man I’d wager a few dollars on Apple being the subject of at least fifty spurious class action suits by the time the year is out. Latest to take on the might of the Cupertino legal team is the terribly distressed Dongmei Li, whose happy cohabitation with a 4GB iPhone in Queens has been shaken to its very core by Steve’s dastardly price cuts and range restructuring. Only $1m in compensation will heal her pain.

Li, who was among the initial queuers but decided against the 8GB model, is suing Apple on the grounds that their price cutting violates price discrimination laws, coming so soon as it did into the iPhone’s shelf-life. And lest AT&T feel they’ve escaped her wrath, she’s included them in the suit claiming the two-year contract is an “unfair business practise”.

Core to the lawsuit appears to be some misconception on Dongmei’s part that she would be able to sell her iPhone for a profit once she’s finished with it; the class action details her apparent inability to re-sell the 4GB model for the same kind of profit as those who bought the handset following the price cut.

It’d be all too easy to lambaste Dongmei Li and her fatuous lawsuit as being the addled ramblings of someone who hasn’t quite comprehended what it means to be an early-adopter, but I’m sure her wrath isn’t unusual among 4GB owners who saw none of the refund those who bought the 8GB at its original price received after the lesser-capacity model was axed. Yet those others have the common sense to limit their bile to ranting on messageboards and generally feeling grumpy toward Apple; they don’t waste the courts time attempting to sue for a cool million.

Uber cheap iPhone screen fix

James Allan Brady — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:13:43 +0000

That’s right, for $5, maybe less depending on what you have handy, you can replace your iPhone’s busted screen. It won’t work if you puncture far enough through your phone to actually break the LCD, but it it’s just the glass, read on.

The parts list is a 1/32-inch thick piece of plexi-glass, transparent plastic, something of that nature, a razor blade, Dremel, scissors, and Goo Gone. Eye protection is also recommended, but that’s probably only for the part where you use the Dremel.

Use the razor blade to scrap off the remnants of the previous glass screen, cut out the plastic to fit, use paint or a Sharpie to black out the areas that are supposed to be black, use the Goo Gone to remove the left over glue on the LCD screen, then affix the new plastic cover. Word is the touchscreen still works just like it should, and unless someone gets up close, they can’t tell the difference.

Fix your Broken iPhone screen for $5 [via SlashGear]

AT&T’s Wonderful Data Roaming

James Allan Brady — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:55:30 +0000

So, most companies at least offer some sort of warning, or more likely, require you call to unlock data roaming so they can make sure you understand how much it will cost you. Well with AT&T it appears that bad credit is your only savior if you are caught out of your plan area using data.

That’s right, if you have good enough credit, instead of contacting you, warning you, or anything, they just go ahead and approve you if you are credit worthy. Well our own Ewdison Then just got hit with a decent sized bill for data roaming with AT&T.

Thankfully for him, his bill was only $48.93, not the $5000 we have heard reports of. Its still close to $50 he should have at least been warned he was going to be charged. That’s two cents per kilobyte, thankfully for Ewdi, it doesn’t look like he went to any actual web pages, so I am assuming it was all email traffic, had he started surfing web pages I may well have been writing about another multi-thousand dollar bill.

iPhone Nano? Not Likely

James Allan Brady — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:39:02 +0000

In the Chinese section of IFA there is a portable media player that has been produced that had a very strong resemblance to the iPhone, but its smaller. So there is really no way in hell it could be an iPhone Nano.

However, it does look very much like the iPhone, save for the giant “MP4 Player” sticker across the top and some retarded looking joystick type of thing at the bottom. So yes, the product is real, no its not an iPhone Nano, although that could be one of the announcements on Wednesday, I doubt it, but at an Apple event, it’s like McDonalds’ “Hey, it could happen” slogan.

Just to let you all know though, SlashGear will be live-blogging from the Apple event on Wednesday, so if there is anything to know about, we will be the ones bringing it to you. So just as soon as Steve drops the big bomb on the whole line of new products or updates the current ones or whatever that crazed maniac is going to do, check by here or SlashGear and we will have the deets for you.

Exclusive Photo of the iPhone Nano – or Something Like That [via Gizmodo]

iPhone saves golfer from internal bleeding

Chris Davies — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:13:29 +0000

If you think golf is the ideal way to relax after a hard day at the office, think again. It turns out that life on the course might be even more dangerous than the potential for a market-crash related coronary, at least if you’re lacking in the common sense to stand well out of the way of the fast-moving golf balls. Thankfully Apple’s iPhone has an unadvertised feature: life preserver. It’s a function that 53 year old Irwin Koss of DeWitt, New York can thank for not ending up in hospital suffering internal bleeding.

Irwin took his iPhone on the golf course, keeping it safe in his pocket rather than leaving it in the golf buggy at the mercy of thieves and wolves. Unfortunately he was too busy thinking about aforementioned thieves and wolves to bother moving out of the path of his friend’s swing – a ball moving at an estimated 100mph hit him in the side, coincidentally right near a four-inch scar remaining from prostate cancer surgery.

Thankfully his brave iPhone placed itself between the ball and Irwin’s delicate, fleshy tissues, sacrificing its touchscreen and leaving the unlucky Koss with bumps, bruises but health insurance still intact.

Apple obviously have high expectations of their products, since the plucky iPhone wasn’t given a hero’s welcome but a replacement instead had to be paid for out of Irwin’s pocket. He’s now hoping for a bullet-proof casing for future models, though I’d suggest he spend less time fantasising and more watching where he’s standing.

Denver man “whittles” thumbs to ease iPhone use

Chris Davies — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:16:05 +0000

Edit: Looks like my cynicism was warranted. The story’s a hoax, and everyone’s fingers & thumbs are unchanged. Hoorah for living as nature intended.

Having not seen photos of the supposed end-result, I’m dubious about the story, but The North Denver News is reporting that Denver resident Thomas Martel has, so frustrated with inaccurate touchscreen prodding, had his thumbs surgically “whittled” so that they’re more precise for small on-screen buttons.

“From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses. Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it’s saving me in frustration – that’s priceless” Thomas Martel

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. The 28-year-old suffered pioneering cosmetic surgery in which his bones were shaved down, muscles altered and fingernails modified. He now, apparently, has thumbs that appear feminine in contrast to the rest of his hands.

Ouch.