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iPhone 4 launch takes place in New Zealand, but confusion reigns down under
Imagine if Apple's handset prices in the US weren't announced at WWDC, and the subsidy pricing was up to AT&T. Imagine if AT&T told potential iPhone customers that the iPhone 4 would launch on July 30, and pricing info would be released well in advance of that. Now imagine the weeks leading up to July 30 went by, and AT&T didn't say a word about the iPhone 4's pricing, even though many other countries had already released handset and plan info. It's July 29, and instead of working with its customers, throwing them a bone, giving them some sort of information, AT&T instead remained utterly reticent and deleted any posts on its forums remotely critical of its handling of the situation. Imagine AT&T followed up by deleting all mention of the iPhone 4 from its website: no pricing info, no pre-orders, not even a "coming soon" link. Imagine that July 30 comes along, with the usual line-ups happening nationwide. You'll also have to imagine there's no Apple Stores, and AT&T is the only place in the country where you can buy a subsidized iPhone. At eight in the morning on the day the iPhone 4 is supposed to launch, there's no trace of it at any AT&T store, or Best Buy, or Wal-Mart, or anywhere else you might reasonably expect to find an iPhone 4 on the day it's launched. And even in the midst of all this, and with media reports flying about that Apple's partnership with AT&T has been cancelled, AT&T still doesn't have a single scrap of information to spare for its loyal customers. Not a word of explanation. Not a single excuse. Nothing. And no iPhone 4 anywhere in the nation. Now replace "AT&T" with "Vodafone," and you have a picture of the iPhone "launch" in New Zealand. I put "launch" in heavy sarcasm quotes, because the iPhone 4 is not launching in New Zealand today... and thanks to Vodafone, no one has any idea when or even if it will be coming to New Zealand at a subsidised price. Read on for a textbook example of how to generate a PR disaster, and also an example of how not to treat potential customers. Update: I just got off the phone with my local Vodafone retailer, and they claim they will be selling the iPhone 4 today starting at mid-day, but only to those willing to sign a 2-year plan; they are not selling unsubsidized handsets, and the iPhone 4 will be available for online sale "in the coming weeks." I'll be heading over there momentarily to try my luck, and will update later whether I'm successful in getting one or not. Update 2: It turns out the store reps were correct, and my local Vodafone retailer did indeed get a supply of iPhone 4s just before noon. An orderly group of about a dozen customers lined up outside the store while Vodafone employees set up iPhone promotional materials and waited for clearance from corporate to sell the units. In a case of "better late than never," Vodafone sent a text to all iPhone owners at exactly 12:00 telling people iPhone 4 was available in limited quantities. By that time, it wasn't clear if there'd be enough stock to go around for people who may have given up hope earlier in the day, although store employees didn't seem to be worried about having enough iPhones for the group which showed up at mid-day. There's no way to know how many potential early adopters might have gone home with an iPhone 4 this morning, but who will now have to wait for more available stock to arrive. I now have a 32 GB iPhone 4 syncing with my Mac, thanks in large part to the efficiency and friendliness of the retail staff at my local Vodafone store, who handled the launch with brilliant professionalism. If their company's upper management had handled things half as well as the rank and file, I might not have needed to write this article in the first place.
Blue Screen of Death amongst issues that plagued Deepwater Horizon
A recent report in the New York Times details a myriad issues that led up to the eventual explosion that started the mess known as the "BP oil spill," but aside from obvious mishandling of warnings and red flags, one particular issue was troubling those working on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig long before April 20th. Mike Williams, the rig's chief electronics technician, has come forward with a multitude of icky details surrounding the negligence that was involved in the catastrophe, with the one most germane to our discussion being the following: "For months, the computer system had been locking up, producing what the crew called the Blue Screen of Death." Williams continued, noting that "it would just turn blue," with "no data coming through." Of course, it's not as if BSODs are totally uncommon out in the working world -- Microsoft's Windows powers the vast majority of systems that corporations rely on daily -- but this one rubs just a wee bit differently. Hit the source link for the full spill. [Image courtesy of Ultrasaurus]
Harmonix gets its 'Brain Stewed' by Green Day: Rock Band
The one track we were most looking forward to from Green Day: Rock Band was, of course, "Brain Stew/Jaded" from the outfit's 1995 album. It's a powerful, triumphant tune -- and, apparently, it's also super hard. The Harmonix crew attempted the song during last night's "Rock Band Bar Night" event at GDC, and -- well, it ended in tears. Or rather, jeers. You can check out some off-screen footage of their tremendous failure above, or footage of them actually playing the game past the jump. To be fair, the drummer didn't see the flurry of notes coming at him, due to his attempt to refresh himself with some libations. You know who else was enjoying a few beverages? The drunk dude who kept trying to throw the devil horns up in front of our camera while we were filming. Really, drunk dude? Really?
Robot gymnast starts training for 2050 Olympics
Well, it looks like robot gymnast training is just like anything else. Two steps forward, one step back.
Nook fails to communicate, download purchased ebooks
You didn't think the whole Nook saga was over, did you? After just succeeding in delivering devices to expectant pre-orderers in time for Christmas, Barnes and Noble is today cleaning up yet another mess courtesy of its ill-prepared content servers. Judging by customer feedback on its support forums, it appears a glut of download requests over gift-giving day jammed the B&N net pipes and left a great many disappointed Nook users. All attempts at downloading an ebook yesterday -- even by those who got their Nook a little earlier in the month -- were greeted with a "Queued: Will complete shortly" message, which apparently remained that way until early this morning when downloading finally resumed functioning. The biggest perceived failure here, though, is the book retailer's silence on the issue, which illustrates the importance of communicating with your customers -- most people seemed tolerant of the setback once they realised they didn't have faulty hardware. [Thanks to all who sent this in]
HSN teaches valuable lesson about Wii accessory safety
We were certain -- absolutely certain -- that the epidemic of fractured television screens which cropped up with the release of the Wii had passed. Everyone's heard the horror stories, seen the blackened eyes and witnessed the ruined electronics, we thought. Everyone now knows the methods of avoiding Wiimote accidents during their exuberant Wii Sports bouts, we thought. The Home Shopping Network recently proved the inaccuracy of this observation. The hilarity unfolds in the video after the jump. While some might grimace at the fate of the poor television featured in the video, remember that they're charging $330 for a Wii and 15 completely unnecessary controller attachments. Call it an accident, if you'd like -- we call it Karma in action.
Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups
Backing up your personal PC to external media might still be a novel concept for some, but any IT manager fresh out of school can tell you that regularly backing up mission-critical servers -- and storing those backups in multiple physical locations -- isn't merely important, it's practically non-negotiable, and it only becomes that much more critical before undertaking hardware maintenance. Alleged details on the events leading up to Danger's doomsday scenario are starting to come out of the woodwork, and it all paints a truly embarrassing picture: Microsoft, possibly trying to compensate for lost and / or laid-off Danger employees, outsources an upgrade of its Sidekick SAN to Hitachi, which -- for reasons unknown -- fails to make a backup before starting. Long story short, the upgrade runs into complications, data is lost, and without a backup to revert to, untold thousands of Sidekick users get shafted in an epic way rarely seen in an age of well-defined, well-understood IT strategies. The coming weeks are going to be trying times for both Microsoft and T-Mobile, a sideline player in this carnage that ultimately still shoulders responsibility for taking users' cash month after month and keeping tabs on the robustness of its partners' workflows. We're betting that heads are going to roll at both of these companies, formal investigations are going to be waged, users are going to be compensated in big ways, lawsuits are going to be filed, and textbooks could very well be modified to make sure that lessons are learned for the next generation of college grads tasked with keeping clouds running. Why there weren't any backups -- even older ones -- that could've been used as a restore point is totally unclear, so we're hoping Microsoft has the stones to come clean for the benefit of an entire industry that wants to understand how to make sure this never happens again.
TUAW Review: StuffIt Deluxe 2010
If there's one Mac application that has seemingly been around forever, it's StuffIt. This compression and archiving utility was the tool to use for compressing files years ago, and I'll still occasionally run into a .sit file extension when pulling up old files. The original application was the source of a bit of Mac folklore, as it was developed and supported for quite a while by a young student by the name of Raymond Lau. Mac OS X did its best to kill off StuffIt by adding built-in support for Zip compression, but the utility has continued to flourish over the years. During the last week, Smith Micro released the newest version of the application, StuffIt Deluxe 2010 (US$79.95, with an introductory price of US$29.95 through October 15, 2009). Since compression has been part of Mac OS X for quite a while, you might think that this application would have limited usefulness. Smith Micro is spinning StuffIt Deluxe 2010 as a better way to share large files over the Internet. How does it work? Read on, my friends...
Breakfast Topic: Feats of Fail
The other night, I dinged while dead. I was waiting to be resurrected by the Spirit Healer in the cave of Alterac Valley and leveled. This is happening a lot now that Battlegrounds give experience, so I'm sure many of you have done the same.I am not normally a Dinger in guildchat -- that's just so EQ -- but this time, I had to announce the dubious honor of dinging while dead. A guildie suggested that Blizzard implement Achievements specifically to commemorate events like this: Feats of Fail. The Achievement for leveling while dead could be called "Better Late than Never". (See what I did there?)I would love to see this implemented and there would be so many I could easily get, like an Achievement for dying in the Undercity Elevators X number of times. (It's a Doozie!) I'd also easily earn one for how often I've shape changed on my druid in a small space and gotten stuck. (Time to Change Classes.) The Spousal Unit has accidentally drowned so frequently, he deserves a "Not a Witch" Achievement.What Feats of Fail would you earn?
Microsoft sucks at Photoshop
Officially. Update: Microsoft tells CNET, "We are looking into the details of this situation. We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the [Polish] image." Update 2: And... it's down. The un-shopped image is now up on the Polish site, although whatever harried graphics monkey that got the call to fix it didn't do so well lining up the text box. At least that's one mistake that won't get you fired though, right? [Thanks, David and Matt W] Read - Microsoft's English site Read - Microsoft's Polish site
Microsoft responds to Xbox 360 54.2 percent failure rate report, doesn't dispute the data
Admittedly, when we saw Game Informer's survey that pegged Xbox 360's failure rate at 54.2 percent, we were thinking that was a bit steep of a number, possibly bumped up a few digits from some possible sampling errors. So when we were gearing up to read Microsoft's statement responding to the data, we fully expected some harsh rebuttal of the number. Turns out we got disappointed. A spokesperson for Redmond pointed to its superior entertainment value, its "best warranty in the industry" and its "constantly improving design, manufacture, and performance." At no point is there a dispute or even direct reference to the findings, which is really something that could've helped public perception on a nagging issue. How about taking a page from Fujifilm, eh Microsoft?
Air Force says that GPS situation is 'under control,' urges you to 'chill out'
Responding to a Government Accountability Office report that warns of major GPS failures as early as next year, U.S. Air Force Col. Dave Buckman has responded, saying: "No way! As if! The issue is under control." If anything, he said, "there's only a small risk we will not continue to exceed our performance standard." Whew, that's a relief... we don't know what we'd do without our Knight Rider GPS to keep us company on those long, lonely car rides.[Via Pocket-lint]
GPS System might begin to fail in 2010, Government Accountability Office warns
Get all of your geocache games in while you can, kids... if the Worst Case Scenario® goes down, the nation's GPS system could begin to fail sometime next year. According to a Government Accountability Office report, the Global Positioning System has been so mismanaged that when aging equipment starts to fail, there may be no new satellites to take their place. "If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites," the report states, "there will be an increased likelihood that... the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to." All we can say is that between this, Internet Doomsday, and the imminent Robot Apocalypse, it's gonna be a fun couple of years. [Via Fox News]
Dean Kamen wrestles with decision: should he quit the Segway?
It's something that any hard-nosed entrepreneur likely deals with when their invention / startup is on the edge of fail: should they simply throw in the towel, or forge ahead like no one's looking? The father of the Segway, Dean Kamen, is also wrestling with that question. In a recent interview, he stated: "You end up lying there saying, 'I'm not stopping. It would be an act of shallow cowardice. Or you decide to quit and you say, 'This is one of those ideas that just isn't going to work.' " He also noted that "it's not nearly as glamorous as people think to keep working on something and to keep hitting roadblocks and to keep going." On one hand, we could definitely see the rug being pulled from the two-wheeled transporter that never revolutionized public movement, but considering all the days in which it has lifted our spirits, do we really want it to?[Image courtesy of SimplyMoving]
Call of Duty: World Fails at Buying It
Or the United States does, at least. Arguably due to a lack of minigames, GameDaily noted that Call of Duty: World at War sold miserably on the Wii (and DS). The latest NPD numbers saw the Xbox 360 (1.41 million units) and PS3 (597,000) versions in second and sixth place respectively, but the Wii iteration was nowhere to be found -- something you guys also picked up on. In fact, the Wii game lagged embarrassingly far behind its high-definition cousins: according to GameDaily, the PS2, PC, DS and Wii editions sold around 200,000 units combined. This makes us genuinely fear for games like The Conduit. Call of Duty is pretty much the biggest name in the console shooter business, so if that can't shift copies on Wii, what chance a brand-new IP?
Red 5 Studios interview: How to fail-proof your MMO
During a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Red 5 Studios' Mark Kern described his views on why games like Tabula Rasa and Hellgate: London had recently failed, and how his colleagues at Red 5 are making sure an early game closure isn't in their future."I think the key is that you need to marry whatever your theme is to the nature of the gameplay," Kern advised. "I think that the issue comes in when you take a theme or a genre that doesn't fit with the style of gameplay that you're making. I think that's some of what you've seen with these failed games. If you just go out and try to make a WoW-type of game with a few tweaks, then try to place the sci-fi genre on top of it, I think you've got some big issues there." Ouch! We can only speculate as to which game he's referring, but we tend to agree with his point here. Shoot us your opinions on a topic that's probably not going to go away any time soon.
Windows commercial gets wrong message across on 4:3 sets
We can't say we spotted this one in person (sorry, Chuck lost its luster after about six episodes), but we'll still join in the chorus of laughter. The image spotted above was an advertisement for Microsoft's little 'ole operating system, known around the underground as Windows Vista. What you're supposed to see there is "Windows: Life Without Walls," but instead, you're missing the final "s." In fact, Michael Smith points out that most 4:3 set owners actually saw even less than that (think "Windows: Life Without"). The capture was taken from a locally broadcast 4:3 NTSC feed of the show, and amazingly enough, it wasn't the only commercial aired that night with some of the critical information hanging off in no man's land. Have any of you spotted this recently, or was this just a one-time screw up?
Opinion: What Wii has done wrong
GameSetWatch has been running an interesting two-part column on the success and failure of the Wii in its first two years on store shelves (2nd anniversary arriving soon, read our 1st anniversary theme week here!). The second part of the piece, which focuses on the negatives, has a couple of interesting tidbits worth pointing out. The first thing the piece focuses on is waggle and how the early promises of a more immersed experience for the gamer have not been fulfilled. We're willing to concede that, because of how great the console has sold in such a small period of time and how many developers and publishers have proceeded to churn out shovelware and dirty ports just in an attempt to cash in. There are always exceptions to the rule, however, with not only Nintendo showing us the amazing and unique things that can be done with the control scheme, as well as some other third party developers and their titles (Zack & Wiki, Let's Tap, and No More Heroes, just to name a few). We won't spoil the rest of the piece for you, but, to be honest, it's really good. It calls the Wii out for a lot of its shortcomings, and not in a totally biased tone. And, if bashing the Wii doesn't sound like an interesting topic for an article to you, read the first part, where it's nothing but Wii love. Source - Two Years In - The Wii's Successes Source - Two Years In - How the Wii Has Failed
Pingdom posts insight into latest Mobile Me outage
Despite the server-side updates Apple detailed last week, the company's beleaguered Mobile Me service is still problematic for many users. Yesterday, we received a number of e-mails complaining that Apple's Me.com domain was reporting 404 errors. Today, the fine folks at Pingdom.com (which monitors website uptime), posted some details about what was going on. It appears that there was an issue with the Me.com redirect. If a user directly typed in http://me.com/mail, he or she could successfully access the server. Trying to access the Me.com domain, however, led 404 HTTP error response with the words "Not Found: Resource does not exist," appearing on the page. This outage lasted nearly seven hours, from 2:29 AM EST - 9:25 AM EST on November 3, 2008. Because the outage occurred at night in the continental United States, most affected users were from Europe, where the outage lasted for most of the work day. If this was a simple redirect error (which it appears to be), why did it take seven hours to fix? My guess is that no one at Apple was alerted to the problem until someone came into work at 6:00 AM PST and started seeing error request e-mails or had problems accessing the domain. This is a problem. If Apple is truly dedicated to making Mobile Me a service it can be "proud of by the end of this year," the company should really consider having either dedicated 24-hour Mobile Me IT support (or more support) or figure out a way to resolve errors like this in a more timely matter. Redirect errors or glitches are not uncommon, but any company trying to run an international communications service needs to get on the ball. Despite my vocal misgivings about the service, before it even launched, I signed up for a 60-day trial in early July -- so I could "eat my own dogfood" -- as they say. And even though my service was extended for free until December, I canceled in September. Why? Because the service proved it wasn't reliable enough for any sort of e-mail communication, its calendar syncing was complete junk, and it seemed like every time I tried to access the service, it was either slow as all get out or unavailable. Free or not, that just isn't worth the hassle. At least with Google, it apologizes when it has an outage and if you pay $50 a year, you get actual phone support that doesn't just go to a random Apple Care person with no knowledge or information about the issue. Are you still a Mobile Me subscriber? Sound off in the comments!
Officers' Quarters: /facepalm
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Sometimes I get an e-mail describing to me a guild leader who fails for so many reasons that I am simply at a loss for words. However, words are all I have to work with here, along with my trusty Picard ASCII (courtesy of Blizzard poster Datth), so I will do my best. I warn you that this e-mail is a very long read. But those of you who want some insight into exactly what not to do as a guild leader, read on! Dear Scott, Around May the more progression-ready members of my casual guild started filling in spots for an established raiding guild doing 10man content with promises of moving to 25man content fairly quickly in order to see the BC raid instances pre-WotLK. One thing led to the other and I ended up gutting my guild of those more dedicated members and all of us joining up with the raiding guild which seems to be usually how these things go. What I ended up discovering is the guild I joined into had been much bigger and more organized at one time but was in its last throes and the person who brought the two guilds together was given the GM role in order to facilitate his, and others, dreams of 25man content. Long story short the raid guild had long since mastered Kara, but always struggled on ZA, and had only barely glimpsed the insides of the 25man instances.
