I’m really enjoying the Kindle. But since writing my review, I have come across something that’s a bit frustrating: Books seem to be disappearing from the store.
We’ve been wondering what the Microsoft’s retail shops are going to be like. Well, according to a Powerpoint presentation leaked to us, it’s going to make the Apple Store look downright boring.
If you were wondering about Nintendo’s DSiWare download store in the US, it will be available when the DSi hits retail on April 5, with games available for either free, 200, 500 or 800+ points.
The guy grinning in this photo is called Jonny Gladwell, and he’s from Auckland, New Zealand. Why’s he grinning? He’s first in the queue at the Auckland Vodafone shop. And due to the timings involved, that should make him the first person in the World to buy an iPhone 3G. Lucky bastard. [Image credit: Darryl Carey]
AU: Well, he’ll be one of the first three people in the world – Vodafone NZ are opening three stores at 12:01 on Friday morning: Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. We’ll be at the Auckland launch, so we’ll try and have a chat with Jonny here and find out all his hopes and dreams on Thursday.
It seems that opening large stores is all the rage at the moment. After Apple’s Sydney Store opening last week, Telstra yesterday threw the shackles off its new T[life]store on the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets in Melbourne.
Unlike Apple, there were no people camping out overnight; there’s no gigantic glass panels or Italian sandstone; instead there’s two levels of Telstra, crowned by a giant 22 x 2.5 metre LCD screen.
As with other T[life]stores, you can tell the obvious Apple Store influence, from the free daily training sessions and demonstrations, areas dedicated to getting your hands on the products and other areas dedicated to business users and home networking. Considering that this is their fifth T[life]store, they must be doing something right as well.
Telstra also used the launch to show off their new QR codes yesterday, and for everybody keeping notes, they refused to discuss the iPhone (although Uncle Sol did pull out the new HTC Touch Diamond for a bit). Uncle Sol did, however, go on to say that Telstra was bigger than Apple.
AppleInsider has a scoop on the iPhone App Store and the limitations Apple is placing on them. Each individual app will have a hard limit of 2GB, as well as a ceiling of $999 for each app. These two look like pretty reasonable limits for all but the most extreme of cases. If someone wants to charge more than US$0, the lowest possible price is US$0.99. There are other details, such as how an App looks, how they’re rated inside the store, and region control, but Apple’s legal team had AppleInsider take those images down–always a sign that there was some good stuff there. [AppleInsider]
This is good news: It looks like Android will have a one-stop shop for applications, making it easy for developers to get their goods out there and users to pick ‘em up. While the “Android Store” isn’t confirmed, project lead Andy Rubin said at the Google I/O developer conference yesterday:
Those small camera stores in NY are notoriously shady, shipping broken parts, ripping people off and being all-in-all unresponsive to complaints. What’s interesting about this case of a customer being unsatisfied with their service is the fact that the company emailed the customer and offered a US$75 credit in order for him to take down the negative review he posted on Amazon. “If you do decide to remove the feedback left in exchange for the refund please follow the instructions below.” Stay away from Cameta Camera or any company that offers to pay to get rid of negative feedback. [Dethroner]
