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The Friday Four: This Week's Top Tech Stories and Why They Matter
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We're only two weeks into 2011 but the New Year is already in full swing to the tech world-- and so is the pendulum on our information overload meter. Enter the Friday Four, a new series of blog posts by the recently resurrected EE Tech News blog that will provide you with a smattering of the top stories in tech for the week—and why you should or shouldn’t care about them. On this week’s list: the Apple sized elephant in Verizon’s closet, an Android that’s set to surpass that elephant in 2014, The Daily that still isn’t and might never be and one WebMatrix to rule them all.
In case the news hasn’t reached the rock you live under, the iPhone 4 is coming to Verizon on February 10, 2011. With so much speculation about the iPhone’s arrival, we decided to talk brass tax with an actual sales representative from our local Verizon store. Here’s a breakdown of the conversation and here’s Verizon’s iPhone FAQs for all the other questions you might have:
Experts Exchange (EE): How much will the iPhone 4 cost?
Verizon Sales Rep (VSR): $199.99 for the 16GB model, and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new 2 year agreement.
EE: Do I get a discount if I’m eligible for an upgrade?
VSR: Yes, probably around $20.
EE: What about a rebate?
VSR: Probably not, but I can’t say for sure until it is released.
EE: How does the cost of the iPhone 4 compare to the price of the latest Droid?
VSR: The Droid Pro or Droid X cost $279.99 and $299.99, with a new 2 year agreement. They also come with a $100 mail-in rebate and if you’re eligible for an upgrade, you can save around $20 extra bucks.
EE: What about the data plan for the iPhone 4? $30 for unlimited data?
VSR: We won’t know that until February 10.
EE: Are you guys getting the iPhone 5 later this year? Will it run on Verizon’s 4G network rather than the 3G network that the iPhone 4 will run on?
VSR: We won’t know those answers until closer to the iPhone 5 release.
EE: What about this whole two-year agreement thing that Verizon tries to lock us into every time we upgrade to a new phone? The smartphone market changes pretty rapidly, and I don’t want to lock myself in to a 2-year agreement when I know I’m gonna want to upgrade to a new phone in one year.
VSR: (Lowering voice, scanning the room for his manager.) You can do a one-year agreement. You just have to ask for it.
While Apple may rule the smartphone market (for now), it appears that the Android OS is beginning to surpass Apple’s iOS in mobile advertising. This report from Millenial Media adds fuel to the fire started in September by Gartner research that the Android OS is on pace to be the leading mobile OS by 2014. Why does this matter? Right now, it doesn’t, unless you work in mobile advertising. What it does mean is that we’re likely to see more budget-based smartphones in years to come, which is good news for those of us whose wallets can’t quite bite the iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry bullet.
And while we’re still talking about Apple, the launch of News Corp’s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, has reportedly been delayed a few weeks. We won’t speculate on the reasons for the delay, but we will tell you that Apple is planning to charge $0.99 per edition/just under $365 per year. A subscription to the print and online version of the Wall Street Journal, NY Times and Washington Post (which all come with iPad apps) will cost you around $140, $384 (seriously?) and $199 per year. What do you think, iPad users? Is an iPad-optimized reading experience enough to make you purchase a subscription to The Daily?
Finally, since we still think they have a solid product and we don’t want to leave them out, Microsoft released WebMatrix live this week after three rounds of beta testing. The free web development tool allows users to “create, customize and publish websites” that are compatible with the Microsoft products like Visual Studio and SharePoint and fully integrate with other Web development apps like WordPress, Joomla!, DotNetNuke and Umbraco. It’s still too early to tell how much of a splash this will make in the development community; and since we’re not developers ourselves, we might need you to tell us.
Thus concludes our inaugural Friday Four post. Want us to cover your favorite technology topic in future posts? Post a comment about the software, hardware, applications or other stuff you’re most interested in and we’ll keep our finger to the pulse for you.
In case the news hasn’t reached the rock you live under, the iPhone 4 is coming to Verizon on February 10, 2011. With so much speculation about the iPhone’s arrival, we decided to talk brass tax with an actual sales representative from our local Verizon store. Here’s a breakdown of the conversation and here’s Verizon’s iPhone FAQs for all the other questions you might have:
Experts Exchange (EE): How much will the iPhone 4 cost?
Verizon Sales Rep (VSR): $199.99 for the 16GB model, and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new 2 year agreement.
EE: Do I get a discount if I’m eligible for an upgrade?
VSR: Yes, probably around $20.
EE: What about a rebate?
VSR: Probably not, but I can’t say for sure until it is released.
EE: How does the cost of the iPhone 4 compare to the price of the latest Droid?
VSR: The Droid Pro or Droid X cost $279.99 and $299.99, with a new 2 year agreement. They also come with a $100 mail-in rebate and if you’re eligible for an upgrade, you can save around $20 extra bucks.
EE: What about the data plan for the iPhone 4? $30 for unlimited data?
VSR: We won’t know that until February 10.
EE: Are you guys getting the iPhone 5 later this year? Will it run on Verizon’s 4G network rather than the 3G network that the iPhone 4 will run on?
VSR: We won’t know those answers until closer to the iPhone 5 release.
EE: What about this whole two-year agreement thing that Verizon tries to lock us into every time we upgrade to a new phone? The smartphone market changes pretty rapidly, and I don’t want to lock myself in to a 2-year agreement when I know I’m gonna want to upgrade to a new phone in one year.
VSR: (Lowering voice, scanning the room for his manager.) You can do a one-year agreement. You just have to ask for it.
While Apple may rule the smartphone market (for now), it appears that the Android OS is beginning to surpass Apple’s iOS in mobile advertising. This report from Millenial Media adds fuel to the fire started in September by Gartner research that the Android OS is on pace to be the leading mobile OS by 2014. Why does this matter? Right now, it doesn’t, unless you work in mobile advertising. What it does mean is that we’re likely to see more budget-based smartphones in years to come, which is good news for those of us whose wallets can’t quite bite the iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry bullet.
And while we’re still talking about Apple, the launch of News Corp’s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, has reportedly been delayed a few weeks. We won’t speculate on the reasons for the delay, but we will tell you that Apple is planning to charge $0.99 per edition/just under $365 per year. A subscription to the print and online version of the Wall Street Journal, NY Times and Washington Post (which all come with iPad apps) will cost you around $140, $384 (seriously?) and $199 per year. What do you think, iPad users? Is an iPad-optimized reading experience enough to make you purchase a subscription to The Daily?
Finally, since we still think they have a solid product and we don’t want to leave them out, Microsoft released WebMatrix live this week after three rounds of beta testing. The free web development tool allows users to “create, customize and publish websites” that are compatible with the Microsoft products like Visual Studio and SharePoint and fully integrate with other Web development apps like WordPress, Joomla!, DotNetNuke and Umbraco. It’s still too early to tell how much of a splash this will make in the development community; and since we’re not developers ourselves, we might need you to tell us.
Thus concludes our inaugural Friday Four post. Want us to cover your favorite technology topic in future posts? Post a comment about the software, hardware, applications or other stuff you’re most interested in and we’ll keep our finger to the pulse for you.
About This Blog
The EE Tech News blog is produced by Jenn Prentice, Gary Weyel and Matt Stanford. Prior to joining Experts Exchange in 2009, Jenn worked as an editor at Metro Magazine (Raleigh, N.C.). Gary is a 10-year veteran of the advertising/marketing industry and has done work for numerous global brands. Matt is the Experts Exchange Marketing Coordinator by day and Penn State legal student by night.
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