Apple Archive

DW English: iPad combines American panache with Euro technology

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – January 28, 2010, 8:03 am UTCPosted in: Apple, Europe, iPad


by Cyrus Farivar

After seemingly endless weeks of rumors, Apple finally released its tablet computer, calling it the iPad.

The device, which will sell worldwide at a starting price of $499 (€356.65) later this year, represents something in between the company’s extraordinarily popular iPhones and its line of laptops.

“If there’s going to be a third category of device, it’s going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone; otherwise it has no reason for being,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the special event in San Francisco.

The basic model comes with 16 gigabytes of flash memory storage and WiFi — it will go on sale in two months. For an additional $130, users can buy an iPad with third-generation (3G) wireless capability, for high-speed access from nearly anywhere. The most advance model on offer will top out at $829.

For more, click here.

August 27: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – August 27, 2008, 10:05 am UTCPosted in: Apple, China, Journalism, The World (PRI)

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the controversy over the “Songs for Tibet” album, iTunes and China, will be airing today.

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams):

New York – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 4 pm Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 2 pm Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

Will be available on The World’s site later in the day and on my site if you miss the broadcast.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here.

July 30: Cyrus on All Things Considered (NPR)

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – July 30, 2008, 12:32 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism, NPR, Radio

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on Apple’s woes with the iPhone and MobileMe will be on All Things Considered today (July 30)!

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams).

New York – 4 pm to 6:30 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 4 pm to 6 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 5 pm to 7 pm Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

It will also be archived at npr.org and here if you miss it.

Update: Audio is here!

Lemme know if you hear it!

Why I (probably) won’t be getting an iPhone 3G

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – June 10, 2008, 12:48 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Personal

The iPhone 3G is pretty rad, but after some reflection, there’s no real compelling reason for me to sell my first generation iPhone and get a new one.

1) The 3G costs just as much as the old one over two years. In fact, slightly more.

2) Taxes/fees included, my cell phone bill these days on T-Mobile (for 1000 minutes) is usually about $80. On AT&T it would cost me about $90 for less minutes, plus 3G. Is that worth it?

3) I don’t really care that much about GPS. MobileMe is pretty rad though, and I think I might shell out $100 annually for that — and it will run great on my existing iPhone.

Also the idea of a two-year contract is really unattractive, and having an unlocked phone is very valuable to me.

Finally, it appears that AT&T may be selling the phone unsubsidized at some point, which MAY sway me. We’ll see.

June 9: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – June 9, 2008, 6:30 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism, NPR, PRI, Radio, The World (PRI)

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on learning English in Estonia aired today. Sorry I didn’t inform you in advance.

The audio is here.

Also, I had a spot news item on the new iPhone for NPR this afternoon. Audio is here.

June 9: Cyrus on Morning Edition (NPR)

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – June 8, 2008, 3:21 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism, NPR, Radio

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on Apple’s WWDC will be on Morning Edition tomorrow (June 9).

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams).

New York – 5 am to 9 am Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 5 am to 10 am Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 2 am to 9 am Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 6 am to 9 am Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 3 am to 9 am Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

It will also be archived at npr.org and at my site if you miss it.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here.

Cyrus on The MacJury (again)

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – June 5, 2008, 3:27 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Media Appearances

I was back on Chuck Joiner’s MacJury podcast yesterday.

The entire hour is available here, both in stream and MP3 flavors.

The topic? WWDC Preview – iPhone Speculation, Apple TV Wishes and Mac OS Expectations

Cyrus on The MacJury

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – June 4, 2008, 8:05 am UTCPosted in: Apple, Media Appearances

I was back on Chuck Joiner’s MacJury podcast yesterday.

The entire hour is available here, both in stream and MP3 flavors.

The topic? Recovering Stolen Macs, Common Sense Security and Starbucks’ WiFi.

Cyrus on MacVoices

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – January 28, 2008, 10:12 am UTCPosted in: Apple, Macworld, Media Appearances

While I was working at Macworld Expo last week, Chuck Joiner of MacVoices pulled me from behind the mixing board out to the mic:

With some convincing, we dragged Cyrus Farivar, the engineer for all the shows taped in this year’s Macworld.com Podcast Studio, up to the mic to find out what he’s been up to since leaving his post at Macworld magazine. Cyrus talks about his love of technology journalism, his mentors at Macworld, how he uses his grandfather as a gauge for his writing, how his spot as the original host of the Macworld podcast helped prepare him for work with NPR and more. You’ll find Cyrus on Wired News, The Economist, Slate, PC Magazine, The New York Times and even occasionally back in Macworld. Keep up with what he’s doing and thinking on his blog, cyrusfarivar.com.

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Why I won’t be getting a MacBook Air

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – January 15, 2008, 10:49 am UTCPosted in: Apple

It’s official — the MacBook Air is out.

I’m not going to be getting one, as tempting as it is, mainly because it’s out of my price range. And as Jason Snell put it: “So really, you’ll be paying $700 for the MacBook air’s super small size.” Not worth it for my purposes.

Still, it’s a nice piece of hardware.

That said, I will be buying a new MacBook within the next two months. I’ve got my eye on this one:

Refurbished MacBook 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo – White.

Cyrus on NPR — TOMORROW!

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – January 13, 2008, 5:05 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism, NPR, Radio

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece previewing Macworld Expo will air on Morning Edition tomorrow (Jan. 14)!

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams).

New York – 5 am to 9 am Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 5 am to 10 am Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 2 am to 9 am Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 6 am to 9 am Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 3 am to 9 am Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

It will also be archived at npr.org and at my site if you miss it.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here!

Locked vs. Unlocked: Opening Up Choice

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – October 31, 2007, 11:09 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism

NYT:

by Cyrus Farivar

Nokia, the world’s largest maker of cellphones, has been running ads that read, “Open to Anything” and “Unlock your potential.”

The company wants cellphone buyers to know that its phones can be used with whatever carrier they choose, unlike a certain other phone that has been getting considerably more attention lately: Apple’s iPhone. That phone is locked, meaning it is intended to be used with AT&T, the only carrier Apple chose in the United States.

A Nokia spokesman says that the advertising campaign is not aimed at the iPhone. “A lot of people interpreted it as a shot at another product,” said Keith Nowak, a Nokia spokesman. “It wasn’t its intention, to be honest.”

Indeed, most phones sold in the United States are locked into the carrier that sold them. Nearly all mobile phone providers discount the price of the handset in exchange for a fixed contract. But even some phones sold at full price without contracts remain locked.

Also be sure to click the link to hear me on the NYT Tech Talk podcast!

Unlocking an iPhone

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – September 14, 2007, 12:13 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Journalism, iPhone

Macworld:

By Cyrus Farivar

If you’re one of the million people who’ve purchased an iPhone since the end of June, you probably signed up with Apple’s exclusive carrier in the U.S., AT&T, when you activated your phone. That means your iPhone identifies itself to AT&T’s network using an AT&T SIM card, a smart card that’s located in a small tray between your iPhone’s sleep/wake button and its recessed headphone jack.

But what if you’re planning a trip to Europe and rather than paying AT&T to use the networks of its European partners, you want to take advantage of the favorable rates and local phone numbers offered by replacing your AT&T SIM card with a pre-paid European card? Or what if you’d prefer to use T-Mobile as your cellular provider, rather than AT&T?

In the past month several groups have announced that they’ve found a way to “unlock” the iPhone, allowing it to use a SIM card from any provider. (Keep in mind that this is only half the story: the iPhone uses the GSM radio band for its communications, meaning that it’ll only work with providers that use the GSM network. In the U.S., that means T-Mobile and AT&T.)

In August, a group of hackers demonstrated a method for unlocking SIM cards and sold its software to resellers, who in turn began selling it to the public for as much as $100 last week.

But another group has came up with its own hack that, with the help of some free, open-source software, lets you unlock your iPhone in about an hour, free of charge. Below, I’ll show you how it works — and it does work, because I’ve used this technique to unlock my own phone. (One important caveat: Certain AT&T-only features, such as Visual Voicemail, will not work when you’re connected to other cellular networks.)

How to unlock your iPhone

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – September 13, 2007, 5:12 pm UTCPosted in: Apple, Geekery, iPhone

Booya! I finally got my iPhone yesterday and spent last night and this morning figuring out how to GSM unlock it — letting me use my T-Mobile SIM card with ease.

How’d I do it? I’ll have a forthcoming article for Macworld explaining soon, but until then, you can read this guide and thank the good folks at ModMyiPhone.com. I followed their instructions — but after three failed tries, I installed AppTapp before doing the faux activation, and that seemed to work.

Woohoo!

iPhone dilemma

By
Cyrus Farivar
 – September 7, 2007, 10:24 am UTCPosted in: Apple

Ok kids, I need your advice on this one.

My big problem with the iPhone has been that it’s just been too friggin’ expensive for my budget. However, all of that has changed now with the price drop of the remainder of the 4GB iPhones that Apple is selling directly from their site. My brother works at Apple and can get a bit of a discount too. When it’s all said and done, I can get a 4GB iPhone, after taxes (free shipping), for $275.

Currently, I use an (unlocked) Treo 650. I figure I could sell it on craigslist for $200 (including four wall chargers, a car charger and a 2GB SD card). So that would be a net price of $70.

So what’s the problem? I’m not 100% sure that I’m going to be in-country for the next two years. I’ll be here definitely at least one year, but two? That’s a hard commitment to make.

Should I just take the plunge and worry about transferring my phone to someone else later by using Cellswapper or one of the others? Or is that too big a risk?

Update: So I found out that I can go the GoPhone route, which gets me out of the contract bit. However, if I do that, then I can’t port a number. Hrm. Seems like if I get a new number that’s not a huge deal, hrm?

Update 2: So I called AT&T and they said that I should sign up for the postpaid, then take it into a store and switch it over to a GoPhone at no additional charge AND keep the number that I ported from the postpaid plan. Booya! iPhone here I come!

Update 3: I called AT&T once more just to make sure, and when I explained the above scenario to a different person, they said that I should just sign up for GoPhone straightaway (“no special conditions required, right?” — so I don’t know how that squares with having to fail a credit check) and that I could port my number no problem, and to just go into a store if I had any issues. So we’ll see what happens hopefully next week when I get the phone.

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