4 posts tagged “iphone tracker”
With MobileMe, Apple Bites Off More Than It Can Chew
Mark Hendrickson
17 comments »

When Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, introduced MobileMe onstage at the WWDC keynote in June, the audience was wowed into believing that the most stylish hardware and software company had transformed itself into a formidable Internet service provider right before its eyes.
MobileMe not only promised to be exceedingly functional - an
“Exchange for the rest of us” that would synchronize our emails,
contacts, calendar appointments and photos across devices using push technology
- it was also exceedingly beautiful. By applying its legendary design expertise to the SproutCore JavaScript framework,
Apple had created a browser-based hub that not only empowered consumers
with device flexibility; it also raised the notion that Apple would
become a major player in cloud computing, even if MobileMe was
technically only an upgrade to the six-year-old .Mac service.
But alas, the transformation has proven itself to be more of a slog than Apple had hoped. After a false start, persistent outages
, and all-around bugginess
, Steve Jobs has admitted to employees in an internal email
that “it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone
3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” and “the MobileMe launch
clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet
services”. This is an atypical admission by a company known for its
well-maintained image of impeccability. It also raises the question of
whether Apple will be able to metamorphize as services and software
move online around it.
Apple is certainly not without its previous Internet successes, namely the iTunes Store with its paid music and movie downloads. The store’s success appears to be why Eddy Cue, Apple’s VP of iTunes, has been put in charge of all Apple Internet services following the MobileMe mess. But it has yet to be seen whether Cue can translate his experience deploying an Web-connected desktop app within a proprietary framework (iTunes) into a more distributed, browser-based platform that competes with the likes of Live Mesh and SugarSync. And then there is the question of whether Google will ever add desktop syncing to its webtop services, competing even more directly with the MobileMe offering.
credit - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/05/with-mobileme-apple-bites-off-more-than-it-can-chew/
DISCLAIMER: This page uses data from Apple's site that is retrieved every 15 minutes.
However, it does appear that Apple only updates the data every night at midnight PDT.
I strongly advise calling your local Apple store to check inventory before visiting said store.
UPDATE: Apple does update this file throughout the day.
UPDATE 2: Apple has been showing NULL values for availablility at all stores
recently, so this data may not be as fresh as before Apple took this action.
Apple's JSON file was last modified on July 25, 2008 @ 2:53 pm EDT OK
http://www.topmuffin.com/3g-iphone-availability#top
They have changed all inventory values to NULL in their JSON file. I guess it beats a cease-and-desist letter.
