Student Loan Blog : iPod

Goal Financial Reaches Agreement With New York Attorney General

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:53:00 GMT

Alexandria, Virginia-based Goal Financial is the most recent student loan company to reach a settlement with the New York Attorney General’s office, whose investigation into the student loan industry revealed that several lenders used deceptive marketing practices to lure borrowers, The New York Times reports (“Another Student Loan Company Settles With New York,” Oct. 30, 2008).

The attorney general’s office found that some lenders, including Goal, led consumers to believe that their direct mail pieces were marketing low-interest federal student loans and not private student loans (“Student Loan Companies in Settlement Talks,” The Associated Press, Sept. 5, 2008). “Some of the seals [used by private lenders] looked very similar to those of the federal government,” said Alex Detrick, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Goal was also accused of offering incentives like gift cards, iPods, and other items to entice borrowers into taking out private student loans. In a letter sent to Goal last July, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stated that the student loan company’s marketing collateral also gave “misleading examples of monthly payment amounts and annual savings,” the Associated Press reported.

Goal has agreed to adopt a marketing code of conduct created by Cuomo’s office that prohibits the use of deceptive marketing tactics and forbids student loan lenders from offering gifts as incentives to attract borrowers. The student loan company will also pay $350,000 to a fund that will be used to educate students about their financial aid options.

“In these times of increasingly tight credit, it is crucial,” Cuomo said, “that students and their parents get solid, truthful information on which to base their loan decisions.”

Eight other student loan providers have agreed to abide by the marketing code of conduct, and seven of those companies have already contributed more than $1.4 million to the financial aid–related education fund.

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Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:33:00 GMT

Signs of depression:

Loss of appetite
Loss of interest in daily activities
Loss of energy
Hopelessness
Self-loathing

Recommendations for treatment:

Don’t go shopping.

Primed for Sadness, People Spend More

A recent research experiment shows that people who exhibit signs of depression tend to be more willing to cough up the dough, according to a TIME Magazine article by Barbara Kiviat (“Depressed? Don’t Go to the Mall,” Feb. 8, 2008).

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Pittsburgh split up their experiment participants into two groups: one that watched a sad video clip involving the death of a boy’s mentor and one that watched an emotionally-neutral video clip about the Great Barrier Reef.

The two groups were then asked how much of the $10 they were getting paid for the experiment they would be willing to pay for a water bottle. Participants in the sad video group were willing to spend about four times more than those in the Great Barrier Reef video group ($2 on average, compared to 50 cents).

Researchers say the results from their experiment indicate that people who are unhappy tend to overcompensate by buying new things.

“Feeling blue causes people to have a devalued sense of self, so spending more money on a new object — which people may identify, in a way, as an extension of themselves — starts to undo that deflation,” Kiviat writes.

This “emotional hunger,” as the researchers call it, may also contribute to other acquisitive behaviors, like looking for a new relationship or trading big on the stock market.

Shift Gears and Step Outside Yourself

The study’s findings, the researchers say, hinge on self-focus: When researchers looked at how much the participants were dwelling on themselves, they found that those who were sad but not self-focused didn’t spend as much.

Cynthia Cryder, a Carnegie Mellon doctoral candidate and co-author of the study, says that spending is a common way for people to try to breathe value into their lives, but that there are alternatives for cheering yourself up besides doling out cash.

“If you’re sad, maybe you should seek out something other than shopping. A new book to read, a new friendship. Something that’s novel and attractive to fill the need you’re seeking to fill,” Cryder told TIME.

Or, she added, break the cycle of self-focus by shifting your mindset outward and thinking about other people.

“You could try to think about others by rehearsing a series of sentences that involve others as the subject,” she said.

Or try calling a friend, Kiviat offers, “and instead of suggesting a trip to the mall, ask how her day is.”

5 Ways to Get Happy Without Spending

Next time you come down with a case of the blues, instead of throwing the credit cards in your wallet and speeding off to the mall, try some of these activities instead, that cost nothing and feel great.

Go for a walk. Sometimes just getting some fresh air and experiencing a natural environment can boost your mood. And exercise produces endorphins, which serve as natural uppers. Plan your route to go through your neighborhood or a nearby park to reduce your chances of coming across a spending opportunity.

Volunteer. As Cryder points out, shifting your thoughts from yourself to someone else can do wonders for your mood and self-esteem. Instead of buying another pair of shoes you don’t need, more downloads for your iPod, or the latest Xbox game, donate your time to someone really in need.

Get rid of clutter. Sifting through old belongings you’ve outgrown or no longer need can help you appreciate all the things you have in your life. You might even discover items you forgot you had, turning a tedious task into a home shopping spree.

Trade with friends. Gather up a group of friends and swap your give-away clothing, CDs, or anything else. You’re killing three birds with one stone: socializing, shopping, and saving.

Plant a garden. Taking responsibility for something living can feel extremely rewarding and uplifting. Gardening not only provides you with a daily activity to keep your hands — and mind — busy, but it’s good for you. The American Horticultural Therapy Association says gardens have healing capabilities, improving health and well-being.

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Amazon and SpiralFrog Looking to Cut Into iTunes' Market Share

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:03:00 GMT

Spurred by the monolithic popularity of iTunes and the decline of CD sales, veteran online retailers like Amazon.com, start-ups like SpiralFrog and other companies are clamoring to get into the fray of digital music on demand.

With so much competition, consumers can get great deals and music options, depending on what they’re looking for.

Amazon Betting on Flexibility to Lure Consumers

Amazon’s venture into MP3 sales launched last week with an inventory of nearly 2.3 million songs from the catalogs of major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music, as well as thousands of independent labels—and none of these songs are copy-protected with digital rights management technology.

DRM technologies, which have been implemented by the music industry both on CDs and digital files, aim to restrict how consumers can use or distribute their music purchases. In the world of downloadable music, these DRM controls will typically restrict, for example, what kind of hardware (iPod, Zune, etc.) a music file will play on, or how many times a digital file can be burned to a CD.

While the Universal and EMI songs available from Amazon aren’t subject to DRM, they represent only a portion of the labels’ vast music libraries. Nevertheless, Amazon is setting the stage to compete directly with Apple’s iTunes, which has so far dominated the digital music market.

Amazon MP3, as Amazon’s digital-music virtual aisle is called, offers songs for 89 to 99 cents a pop and albums for $5.99 to $9.99 each, a slightly lower price point than iTunes, which sells individual copy-protected songs at a flat rate of 99 cents each and DRM-free songs from EMI for $1.29 apiece. Full album downloads from iTunes typically sell for $9.99.

iTunes uses AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format with proprietary DRM to encode its downloads, which means, unless you spring for the slightly pricier DRM-free songs or if you want something not on the EMI label (which is the only label currently offering DRM-free songs through Apple), your iTunes downloads will only play on an iTunes platform.

So if you have any portable digital player other than an iPod or an operating system that doesn’t support iTunes (Linux, for example), you won’t be able to listen or watch your iTunes downloads. And your iPod won’t play any DRM-enabled files that you purchased outside of iTunes.

Amazon MP3, on the other hand, by providing all DRM-free content, gives you the freedom to play your purchases on most types of portable devices (including the iPod) and through various desktop media players like iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Realizing that flexibility is the convenience factor most music lovers are looking for in their online purchases, Wal-Mart is following in Amazon’s footsteps. The low-cost retailer offers its DRM-free tunes from EMI and Universal Music for 94 cents each and albums for $9.22, which is roughly 27 percent cheaper than iTunes.

Free Songs: Too Good to Be True?

SpiralFrog is taking a different approach, offering its non-DRM downloads free instead of engaging in a price war with online retailers. But the free music comes with a catch: Visitors can download songs at no charge but “have to wait 90 seconds for each track to download, and they must answer questions each month about their buying habits,” explains Joseph Menn in the Los Angeles Times (“SpiralFrog Offers Free Songs—With a Catch,” Sept. 17, 2007).

Songs can be stored on your computer but can’t be burned onto a CD. And if you don’t visit the SpiralFrog website at least once a month to watch more ads, your SpiralFrog music library gets digitally locked, and you won’t be able to access your music. You do have the ability to transfer your music files onto two Windows-compatible portable players or mobile phones at a time—but of course, this excludes the Apple iPod, the most popular digital music player out there.

The SpiralFrog website opened with a selection of 770,000 songs and 3,500 music videos from numerous independent labels and Universal Music. According to eFluxMedia, SpiralFrog has also recently signed a deal with digital label/publisher INgrooves to make INgrooves’ full catalog of audio and video files available, which adds close to 100,000 songs and 2,000 videos to SpiralFrog’s library, including 4,000 Brazilian albums from INgrooves’ iMúsica division (“SpiralFrog Opens for Business,” Sept. 17, 2007).

SpiralFrog makes its money from displaying online advertising. The ad revenue, Menn explains, will be split between SpiralFrog and the labels and music publishers, with the music industry getting more than half.

By offering free media downloads, SpiralFrog wants to appeal to customers tired of paying for their entertainment at iTunes or other pay sites.

“This is a very viable alternative to selling music because clearly that mode is broken,” says Scott Stagg, a SpiralFrog investor, in a quote in Menn’s article. “This is very similar to TV: You get it for free and the advertisers pay the money.”

The record labels, for their part, hope that free sites like SpiralFrog will help keep users away from illegal downloading and unauthorized peer-to-peer share services like LimeWire.

Whether you decide to get your music free, by dealing with a few restrictions, or at the best deal you can find by shopping around, SpiralFrog, Amazon and Wal-Mart are just a handful of the companies competing for you. Rumor has it Google may also get into the melee of online music sales.

Let the games begin.

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Universal Music Group Combats the “Apple Monster”

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:19:00 GMT

To be hip is to be successful. And these days you see hip people, hip marketing and hip writing all climbing the success ladder with the ease with which Barry Bonds can smash a baseball out of the park.

So it’s no wonder why hip Apple products like iPods, iMacs and iPhones dominate their markets with unparalleled achievement. But there’s always someone scrambling for a piece of the Apple pie and this time it’s not just your average-sized slice of a someone, it’s the behemoth Universal Music Group.

As it ventures further into digital music sales, Universal announced its partnership with giants like Amazon.com, Google and Wal-Mart to sell music without copy protection on a trial basis until January 2008.

This audacious decision follows a similar move by EMI Music Group in April to sell music downloads free of any Digital Rights Management through Apple’s iTunes store. Music enthusiasts speculate that the Universal experiment marks its attempt to minimize Apple’s virtual monopoly of digital media consumers.

DRM technologies, which have been implemented by the music industry both on CDs and digital files, aim to restrict how a consumer can use or distribute their music purchases. In the world of downloadable music, these DRM controls will typically restrict, for example, what kind of hardware (iPod, Zune, etc.) a music file will play on, or how many times a digital file can be burned to a CD.

DRM controls are wildly unpopular with the everything-digital 30-and-under crowd, and on download-happy college campuses in particular. For college students, who tend to drive digital music trends, this latest launch of DRM-free music by Universal could play a significant role in changing their downloading habits.

So What Does It All Mean?

As it stands now, digital music lovers have three options:

1. Illegal downloads. Money-strapped college students or conscience-less piracy advocators use peer-to-peer (P2P) programs like LimeWire and Kazaa to download free, but illegal files from other users who choose to “share” their music libraries.

2. Legal, DRM-restricted downloads. Those who enjoy the ease and security of licit downloading can fork over their cash to services like Amazon, Napster or the whale of them all, Apple’s iTunes. But Apple’s $0.99-apiece downloads, with the exception of EMI’s DRM-free choices (see #3 below), will only play on iTunes-equipped computers or iPods, with additional restrictions on how many computers the songs can be transferred to and how many times they can be burned to a CD.

3. EMI’s DRM-free files. Although these files are legal and unhampered by copy protection controls they are only sold through iTunes. But unlike Apple’s $0.99 downloads, EMI’s music, priced at $1.29 per song, isn’t tied to iTunes or iPods and will play on any device that supports the AAC format Apple uses to encode its music files.

As of Friday, Universal provides a fourth and more flexible option of selling digital music outside the Apple dominion. Universal’s digital music offerings will be MP3s of upgraded file quality, from 128 to 256 kpbs.

Because Universal is offering its DRM-free downloads in the predominantly used MP3 format (as opposed to the less broadly supported AAC format used by Apple), its music will play on a wider array of digital media devices, iPods included.

According to an article on boingboing.net, Universal’s decision may play a huge role in finally steering digital music buyers away from the more fettered, “Apple-crippled” files on iTunes (“Universal Goes DRM-Free,” Aug. 10, 2007).

Universal’s announcement might sway those in the industry who have maintained a hard line on DRM controls for digital music. Certainly, it comes as a victory to consumer rights groups and music lovers who have campaigned for a downloading universe free of DRM, where purchasing a song should entitle you to unlimited listening rights.

Put simply, the rebels have won the battle, but still have quite a war left ahead of them as they wait for the record label industry to determine the success of Universal’s five-month experiment.

One Less Stupid Way to Get Yourself in Jail

College students can and do find plenty of absurd ways to get themselves in trouble with the law. No longer content just to bust the typical violations of underage drinking, urinating in public and possession of controlled substances, “The Man” of the 21^st century, technologically enhanced and on digital steroids, is willing to incarcerate college students for the simple click of a mouse.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the organization representing the record industry, had its hands full during the 2006–07 academic year, issuing three times as many copyright violation notices to college students than the previous year, according to an article by Amy Brittain in the Christian Science Monitor (“Universities Strike Back in Battle Over Illegal Downloads,” June 18, 2007).

“Statistics show that college students illegally obtained two-thirds of their music and accounted for 1.3 billion illegal downloads in 2006 alone—in what the RIAA estimates as millions of dollars in losses directly attributed to college students,” Brittain reports.

As a result, campus-dwelling students received hundreds of pre-litigation letters offering settlements of around $3,000 to dispose of illegally downloaded material and software. Not exactly the care package from mom students expect to receive in the daily mail.

Students will take advantage of anything free, whether it’s giveaway Frisbees and Bobbleheads or unsanctioned backroom music and movie downloads that come without digital restrictions—but at what price?

With legal fees looming in the thousands and the possibility of incurring a permanent rap sheet, perhaps students will find their way back to the legal music-buying world, especially with Universal’s offer appealing to those who have soured on Apple and expanding the available options of unrestricted digital music that will go or play anywhere.

With more DRM-free music on hand for legal purchase, it now becomes just another version of the college student balancing game: one more round at the beer hall or the risk-free download of a new album.

Talk to the education finance advisors at NextStudent. They have all the information and advice you need on student loans. Check out www.nextstudent.com.

Student Loan Girl

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New Apple iPhone: Huge Hype, Flawed Function

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:56:00 GMT

I remember when Krispy Kreme™ donuts and In and Out Burger™ first came to Phoenix, Ariz. It was like a feeding frenzy. The public was rabid with anticipation, salivating at the chance to get their hands on one of those “golden” donuts or mouth-watering hamburgers.

The message was clear: you’ve never had a donut (or hamburger) like this, and you’ve got to get one. NOW! Honestly, I never paid any attention to the ads. In fact, I just rolled my eyes and gave a sympathetic nod of my head whenever friends breached the subject.

It seems that a similar raucous has been created by the esteemed Apple iPhone, billed by some as the “Jesus-phone,” with its unbelievably hyped expectations, it seemed the second coming of mobile media devices. But has the device actually lived up to expectations? College students all around the country are dying to find out. (As if you don’t know already).

Sleek Looks Can’t Save iPhone

What? You consider yourself a savvy college student but you don’t actually own an iPhone? You’re not alone—and honestly—you’ll probably be glad that you didn’t buy an iPhone, priced at nearly $600, over a much-needed computer for the new school year.

People across the board are claiming that Apple’s new product is probably “the best iPod ever” according to PC Magazine (“Apple iPhone: Fun, Fabulous, Flawed,” June 30, 2007). In case you haven’t noticed, it’s supposed to be a phone. However, everyone I talk to (and the reviews back this up) say that it is absolutely the worst phone ever, even with the tons of innovations and some spectacular features.

Here’s the overall rundown from PC Mag:

BOTTOM LINE:

· It's the best portable media player ever.

· It's possibly the most fun we've ever had with a handheld device.

· It browses the Web like a champ.

· Yet as a voice phone and a messaging device, it's a loser.

· The iPhone is full of contradictions .

PROS:

· Fun new interface for navigating multimedia.

· Huge screen looks amazing.

· Terrific Web browser.

· Syncs well with PCs and Macs.

· YouTube function is great.

· Functions flow seamlessly into each other.

· Built-in speaker for voice calling and music.

CONS:

· Poor business e-mail and PIM connectivity.

· Bad audio quality on phone calls.

· Tons of "GSM buzz" on nearby speakers.

· Virtual keyboard hard to type on.

· No phone functionality with iPod speaker docks.

· No FM radio.

Version 1.0 a Big Disappointment?

Ok, the iPhone has some great elements, but it is version 1.0 after all. What do you expect? You never want to buy the first year’s model of a new car, so what were we thinking with the iPhone? There are some pretty fabulous features with the iPhone, but let’s face it. It really doesn’t live up to expectations (or at least all the hype) and it certainly isn’t what Steve Jobs (Apple founder/CEO) said it would be: "an incredibly great cell phone," "the best iPod we've ever made," and "the Internet in your pocket."

As PC Mag says, “One out of three isn't bad. Yes, the iPhone is the best iPod ever—ironic for something not even called an iPod! But it's just a plain lousy phone.” So, I guess we’ll have to wait until Apple gets it right and fixes the many shortcomings of the phone before we can say that the iPhone is the mobile media device of choice, at least for sophisticated college students.

For Full Reviews:

PC Magazine (shorter synopsis)

CNet (extensive review, user ratings and commentary)

Talk to the education finance advisors at NextStudent. They have all the information and advice you need on student loans. Check out www.nextstudent.com.

Be sure to tune in next Tuesday for my next blog about this week in student loans.

Student Loan Girl

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The iPhone vs. Duke University: iPhone 1, Duke 0

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:03:00 GMT

Maybe the iPhones are jealous of the iPods. Maybe this is how Terminator 4 starts, in Durham, N.C., with a campus turf war between Apple handhelds. Duke University, the school that gave away iPods to its incoming freshman class of 2008 and that now sells iPods to any student that wants one for a bargain-busting $99 apiece, has recently seen its campus wireless routers afflicted with outages that may be due to what could essentially be described as an iPhone takeover.

According to an article by Jennifer Epstein that appeared in Inside Higher Ed, there have been at least nine incidents since last Friday where “as many as 30 of [the] university’s wireless routers have been knocked out of service for 10-minute intervals, after being flooded with as many as 18,000 requests per second that are believed to be coming from the iPhone’s built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi adapter” (“Is the iPhone Too Popular at Duke?,” July 18, 2007).

Campus Wireless on the Blink. Prime Suspect: iPhone

The service disruptions of Duke’s wireless network started two weeks after Apple released its iPhone on June 29, which has Duke’s Office of Information Technology speculating that spreading iPhones on campus are behind the outages. But this theory is still conjecture only, as the campus, along with Apple and Cisco Systems, the provider of Duke’s wireless routers, investigate the problem. “We don’t yet know whether this is an iPhone issue, a server issue or an issue between the server and the iPhone,” says Bill Cannon, the manager of news and information at the Office of Information Technology. “It’s not at all clear that it’s even iPhones, but we still think it probably is.”

A Hectic End of Summer for Duke’s Tech Staff

The Duke wireless predicament is still relatively minor, explains Epstein, with only “about 150 iPhones registered on the Duke network and many faculty and students off-campus for the summer.” But with the fall semester—and potentially hundreds more wireless-devouring iPhones—fast approaching, Duke’s tech specialists are scrambling to pinpoint and solve the problem before it spirals out of control and interferes with a bustling campus seeking to stay connected. “It’s not like the Wi-Fi is crashing,” says Cannon, “but we don’t want that to be the case—especially as the campus gets more crowded.” So while professors and students enjoy the final weeks of their summer vacation, Duke’s tech staff is, as Cannon tells Epstein, “too busy right now to be interviewed.”

Today, Duke. Tomorrow, the World?

Duke’s tech department hasn’t yet heard of other campuses experiencing similar wireless service disruptions, Epstein writes. The problem, at least for the time being, seems to be unique to Duke. So a skeleton campus waits for the Duke diagnosticians to get to the bottom of what, for right now, is still merely an annoyance. As for the rest of us? We can keep an eye on our iPhones. And if the wireless in your office, or at your school, or in your neighborhood starts crashing, start looking a little closer. Your iPhone might be trying to tell you something.

The Education Finance Advisors at NextStudent can help you figure in all your college expenses so that you get the student loan that best suits your needs. Don’t get caught short. Go to www.nextstudent.com for all your student loan needs.

Check back here next Friday for my next blog on Campus Life.

Student Loan Girl

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Your Video iPod: It Plays Music, It Plays TV and Now It Preps You for Your SATs

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:35:00 GMT

Thick books full of practice tests. Books with vocabulary lists. Books offering tips for word problems, reading comprehension and timed essays. Special tutors, rigorous training sessions, and now—the iPod.

As high schoolers gear up for SAT season in the fall, their indispensable iPod has just become an on-the-go way for them to prep for their SATs.

Kaplan Test Prep Comes to an iPod Near You

As reported by Maria Aspan in The New York Times, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, known for their test preparation services and publications, released three interactive SAT prep programs for sale on iTunes (“Prepare for the SAT Test, or Play With Your iPod? Have It Both Ways,” June 25, 2007). Available as of June 21, the programs can be downloaded for $4.99 each from the iPod games section of the Apple iTunes store. The programs need to be downloaded to a video iPod (the fifth generation iPod) to work; they can’t be used within iTunes itself.

The three prep programs—in critical reading, math and writing—correspond to the three graded sections of the SAT and include about 1,000 practice questions, along with pointers and strategies like “SAT Math Basics” and “Top 10 Test-Taking Tips.” According to Kaplan’s press release, the reading program features quizzes in sentence completion and reading comprehension, the math program tests you on algebra, geometry, word problems and other math questions, and the writing module aims to help build up your writing skills with activities geared toward improving sentences and paragraphs and identifying common errors. Each download also includes explanations on the exam structure.

Your SAT Books Can’t Do This

The Kaplan programs are interactive, so they’re designed to talk back to you and let you set certain parameters. In each program, you’ll get feedback and a detailed analysis of each quiz you complete. You also have the option to take the quizzes timed or untimed, with or without music, and you can track your quiz score progress with charts and graphs that identify key strengths and weaknesses.

But as Aspan notes, the Kaplan iTunes downloads are meant as supplements, not replacements, for your other SAT prep regimens. Kaplan doesn’t expect high school students “to entirely forsake their books and tutors in favor of playing with their iPods on the beach or taking digital quizzes during coffee breaks on the summer job.” According to Aspan’s article, Kristen Campbell, the national director of SAT and ACT programs for Kaplan, recommends that you still prepare with “traditional” classroom and tutoring methods as well, and she offers this reminder: “Keep in mind that the SAT is a pencil-and-paper-based test.”

Check back here next Friday for my next blog on Campus Life.

Student Loan Girl

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Apple iPhone Release Draws Near

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:40:00 GMT

June 29^th, 2007. No, it is not a holiday, or the birthday of any historical figure of repute that I am aware of. That date will go down in history as being the birth of Apple’s new much-lauded iPhone. Even if you are not a college super techno-geek, you probably still know what is going on. After all, you could barely open your browser in the last six months without seeing one of many commercials promoting this fabulous new gadget, part phone, iPod, and internet browser.

If you are like me, you may be absolutely sick of seeing all the ads, which have oversaturated the marketplace to the extent that you may no longer pay any attention to them. You have got to hand it to Steve Jobs for the vision in putting something like this together, however, we have only a couple weeks to see if the “real deal” lives up to all they hype.

Limited Supplies to Create “Feeding Frenzy?”

The average college student is probably salivating, waiting to get his hands on something this cool, but those that actually attain one will probably be few and far between, as they say. In fact, I heard somewhere that Apple is only shipping 60 phones to any single AT&T store for the release date. So, if you want one, you may have to camp out over night or skip summer school classes or take a sick day from you new job so you can make sure you score the phone. Believe, me, there will be tons of competition.

I even talked to a few people that are planning to snatch up several phones, then immediately sell them on eBay for double or triple the retail price. And, oh, yeah, let us not forget the price. To be in the “hip elitist crowd” of brand new iPhone owners, you will need to shell out $500 for a 4GB unit or $700 for a phone with twice that memory. While the average college student probably will not be able to spring for it unless appealing to mom and dad, those of you who have just graduated and landed a great first gig, may be in luck. Is it worth the huge chunk of change? I guess we will have to wait and see.

The New RockStar of the Mobile Web Market?

From what I can gather, the phone has some pretty innovative features, all bundled into one pretty radical piece of technology. From the Read/WriteWeb blog, located at www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iphone_macworld07_keynote.php , “Steve Jobs said about the iPhone: ‘it's the internet in your pocket for the first time ever.’ He also called it ‘the ultimate digital device’.”

Check Out the Specs

Again, according to the ReadWriteWeb blog, here are some of the IPhone’s features:

“Instead of a standard keypad, the iPhone uses a patented Apple technology called "multi-touch". It doesn't use a stylus, has "multi-finger gestures" and claims to ignore unintended touches. Jobs compared it to two other revolutionary Apple UIs - the mouse on the Macintosh and the click wheel on the iPod.
3.5 inch touchscreen with a virtual keyboard.
iPhone runs OS X, Apple's standard operating system; according to Engadget's superb coverage : "It let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the cripled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications."
Syncs with iTunes: ‘iTunes is going to sync all your media to your iPhone -- but also a ton of data. Contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks, email accounts...’
Apple's design chops is all over the iPhone: ‘3.5-inch screen, highest resolution screen we've ever shipped, 160ppi. There's only one button, the ‘home’ button [...] thinner than any smartphone...’
2 megapixel camera built in
Outstanding media features - scroll through your music, widescreen video, album art, built-in speaker...
Sync your iPhone with your PC or Mac (for contacts etc)
Standard phone features - SMS, calendar, photos, etc. With photos there is a motion sensor that rotates photos when you turn the phone.
Visual voicemail
Rich HTML emails - works with any IMAP or POP3 email service. This spells trouble for Blackberry!
The Safari browser runs on iPhone – ‘it's the first fully-usable browser on a cellphone.’ Jobs shows the NYT running in the iPhone - the actual website, not a puny WAP version.
Google Maps
Widgets that connect to Internet seamlessly (via WiFi and EDGE)
Free ‘push’ IMAP email from Yahoo”

OK, so I learned something new too. The iPhone has a camera and some other features that I have never seen available on any other portable/mobile device. It appears to be quite user friendly (although many detractors claim otherwise) and even intuitive. I wonder what is going to happen with Blackberrys and other devices once the iPhone makes its appearance. Will it revolutionize the industry like the Mac did for graphic design? We will know soon enough!

Check back here next Friday for my next blog on Campus Life.

Student Loan Girl

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