ALERTS Archives

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 -- 8 a.m. -- on my couch

As you know, Thursday is SDK day.

This is my plea to you to sign up for the Twitter Army if you want the breaking news first.

Our SMS service is great, but it's not for breaking news. For this, you need to sign up for Twitter.

Here's a recap of how to do it. It's simple.
1. If you haven't signed up for Twitter, go to www.twitter.com and do so.
2. Go to www.twitter.com/iptib
3. You'll see my photo and a little button near it that says "follow."
4. Click on it. I'll get a message saying that you are following me and you'll be all set.
5. Check the settings -- it's all very self-explanatory -- to make sure that your notifications are on. And, if you want to be alerted on your iPhone/cell phone, make sure you select that too. I believe it defaults to the Web.

I will be updating the blog as fast as I can type. Although I type really fast, it's easier for me to get a mass alert out via twitter than via the blog.

And these are the only types of days where you'll likely get a large number of Twitter alerts. Normally, my philosophy is to use Twitter as a vehicle for breaking and important news only.

So sign up and be on top of breaking iPhone news as it happens. Hundreds have already signed up for the Twitter Army. I look forward to your tour of duty.

Thanks for calling.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 -- 11:26 a.m. -- on my couch

Just a heads up for my many international callers.

I am currently working with my Web department to implement the SMS alerts outside of the United States.

There's a process and it can take several weeks for all the pieces to fall into place. But rest assured we are doing everything we possibly can on this end to get those pieces.

In the meantime, please stay with Twitter for your alert needs -- I will be using it just as promised whenever big iPhone news happens.

And folks in the U.S., remember to sign up by texting iphone to 25808. It's not too late for today's text!

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for calling.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 -- 11:25 a.m. -- on my couch

**UPDATE: New post has status update on this problem. Read this post first, but also check the updated link here.**

I've been working with a caller for a few days now trying to have a problem with EDGE on prepaid plans. Apparently, this problem has blossomed into something pretty major judging by a discussion in AT&T's forums here.

From the East Coast to Illinois and places in between, looks like many folks on prepaid iPhone plans report the same issue ... starting on 2/16 and continuing all the way through today. This doesn't seem to be affecting those of us on unlimited plans. And truth be told, it's not clear if this is solely an iPhone problem or a general AT&T EDGE problem on all phones.

For those of you with the problem, you may not see it as breaking news ... but hopefully with a little national attention we can get things working again.

In the AT&T forum, a moderator replied with this:

Thank you bringing this issue to our attention. We're in communication with our management about this issue currently. Please continue to update this thread with your status and any information Customer Care has offered. Once again, thank you.

So people are aware of it. I urge you to just hang in there and be patient, although I know it's difficult. I remember when EDGE was out for me for several hours and I was pacing back and forth.

So please check back here, as I'll be on top of this ... I've been working on it behind the scenes but felt it was worth posting today since the problem hasn't corrected itself.

If you have a report of an outage, please leave a comment. And if you are an unlimited data customer experiencing the same sort of thing -- please do let me know also.

Thanks for calling.

Friday, February 15, 2008 -- 4:25 p.m. -- on my couch

**UPDATE: I love all the callers signing up on my Twitter feed. Let's keep it up. Thousands of you visit the blog every day ... I'd love to have thousands of you with me on Twitter.**

I've been playing around a little with Twitter and now I finally understand how powerful it can be.

In case you didn't see the announcement, iPhone Therefore I Blog is now on Twitter at iPTIB.

For many people, Twitter is meant as a way to let people know every single thing you are doing at any given moment. And that's fine because in its own right, that's pretty darn cool.

But I have a different take that I think will benefit the iPhone community much more.

I am going to use Twitter solely as a breaking news vehicle and as a way to send out important blog announcements.

So for example, if I'm riding the bus to work and I'm 15 minutes away and the 3G iPhone is released, anyone will is following iPTIB on Twitter will get an instant alert letting them know with any short details and instructions on when to check the blog, etc.

Or if I am sent out of town because Steve Jobs wants to have lunch with me, I'll let you know that I may be blogging a little less while flying to California and that I may have an exclusive Q&A with the genius in long sleeves.

What won't you see on your iPTIB Twitter feed? Well, I won't tell you when I wear my black belt to work as opposed to my brown one. And I won't tell you how long it took me to catch an elevator to the lobby in my apartment building. And I won't tell you when I have a beyond excellent grilled cheese sandwich.

I take that back. I might let you know about the grilled cheese sandwich. Especially if it's the kind with bacon and tomato. Yum.

So ... that said ... if you use Twitter, add iPTIB to be assured of the most timely breaking news updates and rest assured you don't have to worry about using up all your allotted text messages. I just can't tell you everything I want to tell you in 140 characters.

But if something happens that's not quite breaking but I think is of great interest, I'll share that as well.

And if you know anyone who has an interest in the iPhone, please do tell them about the blog, but also tell them to sign up for iPTIB feeds.

Remember that when I tell you that this should be your No. 1 source for iPhone breaking news, analysis and witty banter that I mean it.

Thanks for calling. And for following me.

Monday, January 14, 2008 -- 2 p.m. -- at my desk

You won't see the usual photos accompanying each post during the announcement phase on Tuesday ... well, you will, but not until later.

My thought is that you don't need the bells and whistles. You just need to know what's going on. And if you are joining us on an iPhone, you want the fastest loading time possible -- on EDGE and on Wi-Fi.

So, if you aren't going to be sitting in the audience at Macworld on Tuesday at 9 a.m. Pacific Time in Moscone West at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center, then you need to be right here at iPhone, Therefore I Blog.

I will be liveblogging the event from the comfort of my home office -- the couch. There's two reasons why you want to be hitting refresh at this site rather than any of the others:

1. Bandwidth and server overload: Shouldn't be a problem here the way it is at the usual sites. There, the servers get overloaded and there's no guarantee your screen will actually refresh after 30 seconds despite the promises.
2. Typing: I type about 120 words per minute. The competition doesn't.

The only thing you might get from someone live in the audience is an iPhone photo of Steve or what he's presenting, and I'll admit, that's a shortcoming ... but it's dark at the keynote and those photos might not be the best quality anyhow.

Here at iPTIB, you'll get the facts as they come, fast and furious, and they'll be accurate. And, while I'm focused on the iPhone, I'm going to bring you every single thing that comes out of the address.

So set your iPhone alarm clocks and reminders to come here on Tuesday. Set it for 9 a.m. in the West, noon in the East, 11 a.m. Central, 10 a.m. Mountain, 5 p.m. London and 6 p.m. France. Tell your friends. Tell everyone you know who's interested in Keynote coverage -- iPhone and non-iPhone -- that I've got them covered right here.

Questions, just ask.

Thanks for calling.

Sunday, January 13, 2008 -- 3:34 p.m. -- at my desk

So Tuesday's Keynote comes and goes -- and then what?

Either you're thrilled and ready to spend a fortune or you are stressed out and frustrated. It happens to all of us.

I call it Keynote hangover.

You know what the best cure is for a keynote hangover? To talk about it. And iPhone, Therefore I Blog is the place to do that.

While I will be working the regular job immediately after the keynote, I will be monitoring the blog and adding entries as needed -- some analysis and some updates.

And as we all know, the iPTIB community is a great place to bounce ideas off each other and just say what's on our minds.

So I encourage you to start here with the keynote and then keep it here for what you need to know later.

Just call it Super Tuesday.

Thanks for calling.