Arthur Freydin’s Blog

Online marketing, gadgets, business, and thoughts.

Such a huge fan of reviews done months after product release (and John Gruber agrees). Check this out for the Palm Pre: http://bit.ly/3PCdRf

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Very interesting indeed. Going to try & get in touch with a rep to figure out the economics. I’m purely guessing here, but I’m thinking that it might be more profitable to do business with Walmart than Amazon. Walmart is getting into a new channel here and will need to undercut their most obvious competitor.

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Disney To Acquire Marvel Entertainment For $4 Billion

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Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0022.MOV (3810 KB)

Forgot the name of the monkey but goddamn was it cute. Enjoy

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Well, that title is a bit misleading. In reality, I trashed Sprint for AT&T. I’ve heard many people trash AT&T’s service in the NYC area (only about 30 minutes north of me) but I’ve had exceptional coverage in NJ. So that’s that; I’m back to AT&T and done with Sprint for good.

 As far as phones go, I loved the Palm Pre, even more than the iPhone. However, even aside from the service issues, the phone had a few glaring setbacks:
*Even after numerous updates, the Palm Pre would still have substantial lag when performing even basic tasks like scrolling through the contact list.
*The hardware was great to hold in hand but just didn’t feel like it would last the test of time or a single drop. Actually, after the only time I’ve dropped the phone, it would restart randomly without notice or cause.
*I made more mistakes on the Palm Pre keyboard than I did when I was first getting accustomed to my iPhone keyboard. The Palm Pre keyboard is just too damn small and its error recovery is pathetic.

 Even with the above in mind, I was very (and still am) optimistic about the WebOS platform and can’t wait to see the future. But for now, service is king and the phone comes second. I just wish I could have experienced the Palm Pre on a more competent network.

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So I’m gonna start using Posterous from my iPhone (not the actual app, just through email) to post everywhere. We’ll see how it works out.

  
Thanks,
Arthur

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So I’ll admit that I’ve been out of touch with Twitter for the past couple of months. I signed up for an account a few months ago and had maybe like 20 tweets to my name.

I thought I might give it another go and here’s what I get:

Go get it. My download just finished

The new iPhone (iPhone 3G) is coming out on July 11 so that just leads to one question: How are you going to sell your old one?

Lucky for you, there are plenty of ways you can sell it:

• Cell For Cash – $100-$280 depending on iPhone model
  I have actually used Cell For Cash to get rid of my old phones and they are very dependable. You tell them what phone you have and they tell you how much they will pay you. After you submit your info, they send you a postage-paid box to be used to send them back your phone. Within approximately 1 month, they will have verified that your phone works and will then cut a check back to you. Simple.
• simplysellular – $84-$150 depending on iPhone model
  This service works the same as Cell For Cash above but pays out a bit lower, especially for the 16gb model.
• eBay ~ $350 depending on model

I for one will probably go the eBay route and let it completely pay for a new 8gb 3G iPhone. It’s a bit more hassle than Cell For Cash but worth it.

I wouldn’t trust myself locating my car in the driveway without using a GPS. I’ve left the house in the morning on my way to work and have turned around because I’ve forgotten my handy TomTom OneXL (I’ve been making the same exact trip to work for a few months now and can get there blindfolded). Needless to say, I’ve become pretty dependent on that little piece of gadgetry.

GPS units have come quite a long way since the first models came out – but they still have a long ways to go. Below is a list that I, a heavy GPS user, have put together over the past month or so.

1. Compute Toll Charges
   Computing toll charges would be a huge bonus to anyone that lives in a state where you are constantly slowing down for a toll plaza (hi New Jersey).
2. Compute Gas Cost
   This one’s a bit more difficult since the GPS unit will require quite a bit of information about your car, amount of gas you currently have and aggregate $ /per gallon (which some GPS units already have). Even without all that data available, a GPS unit can also provide the user an option to estimate total cost.
3. Add 1+2
   This little mashup of tolls & gas cost can give you a pretty extraordinary result: total trip cost! So now you can tell your parents “Hell no, I’m not paying $34.87 to drive to grandma’s house just so she can pinch my cheeks”.
4. Driving / Cost Analytics
   We (or maybe it’s just me) love the word “analytics”. How does a weekly/monthly/yearly breakdown of driven miles/costs/frequently traveled areas sound to you? This would be huge for fleet managers & those that expense travel expenditures. Said report can be automatically generated and emailed once a month to your superior for review & compensation.
5. Walking Mode
   Some GPS units may already have a walking mode but not as comprehensive as it could/should be. Walkers would typically use the GPS for site-seeing in tourist towns so why not also provide them with pertinent touristy information?
6. Scenic Travel Mode
   Bored on a Sunday at 6pm and realize that everything is closed and you now have nothing to do for X hours? Great! Fire up that GPS and look through all the scenic routes you never thought existed in that boring state of yours and go for a drive!
7. GPS Radar Detector
   Duh! When do you use your GPS the most? If you’re anything like me, you use it most on the highway. You also wish you didn’t have to use that stupid cigarette lighter splitter (why we haven’t replaced those cigarette lighters with usb plugs is beyond me) to power both your GPS and radar detector. What do you do? You take your GPS and your radar detector and smash them together to form one wonderous trip companion!

There. Now your GPS is actually useful.