The iPhone ringtone cat-and-mouse game

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Apple and iPhone users continue to play a game of cat-and-mouse regarding ringtones.

Initially, there was no way to add custom ringtones to an iPhone.

Eventually, hackers found a way in the back door. Several alternative methods emerged, each new one easier than the one before—culminating with Ambrosia Software’s iToner, a no-brainer ringtone installer “for the rest of us.”

The ink was hardly dry on iToner’s press release when Apple released iTunes 7.4. This new version added support for Apple’s own .99¢ ringtone option. Unfortunately, whenever you synched your iPhone after installing the update, it had the side effect (intended or otherwise) of erasing ringtones installed by iToner.

Not to worry. It took only about 24 hours before word spread on the Web that you could make your own ringtones for free and, simply by adding a “.m4r” suffix to the music file, the item would appear in the ringtones tab of iTunes. From here, the files would sync to your iPhone the same way as ringtones you purchased from the iTunes Store. The hack worked beautifully. I know. I tried it.

Ironically, people were adding their own custom ringtones, using the Apple supported technology, even before the official Apple-supported tones were put on sale in the iTunes Store!

Within 48 hours of this development, Apple updated iTunes to 7.4.1, whose sole “improvement” is to disable the just-discovered home-grown ringtone hack.

Meanwhile, Ambrosia released an iToner 1.0.1 update. Guess what? It adds compatibility with iTunes 7.4, making it a viable ringtone tool once again.

Not to be outdone, I have already seen reports claiming that you can still get home-grown hacked ringtones to work in iTunes 7.4.1; Check this thread, for example. However, there may be some additional hassles to work around.

Does this mean there is an hack-blocking iTunes 7.4.2 in our immediate future?

Round and round it goes. Where it stops nobody knows.

And, with each iteration, I have had to start over and reinstall all my custom ringtones. For me, I am getting off the merry-go-round for the time being. Better off doing without custom ringtones until the dust finally settles on all of this. I don’t need to waste my time on this minor convenience any more.

New iPhones in January?

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I admit it. I have absolutely no hard evidence for what I am about to say. None-the-less, I am almost certain it is true: New iPhone model(s) will be introduced at Macworld Expo in January.

What’s the basis for this prediction? It all comes down to parsing Apple’s (and Steve Job’s) language regarding the just announced price drop for the current iPhone.

Take a look at the Apple press release regarding the price drop. The release is titled “Apple Sets iPhone Price at $399 for this Holiday Season.” It goes on to state that Apple wants to “make iPhone affordable for even more customers this holiday season.”

Notice that the expression “holiday season” is always included in any mention of the price drop. Why? Why not just say, for example, that Apple wants to “make iPhone affordable for even more customers” without the “holiday season” addition?

It happens again in Steve Jobs’ “open letter” to iPhone customers, where he writes that all of us who purchased an iPhone prior to the price drop will get a $100 credit at the Apple Store. In this letter, he states: “iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season.” A few sentences later, he writes: “We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.”

Once again, there is that repeated and unneeded addition of the phrase “this holiday season.” Why?

I believe the answer is that the price will go up again after the holiday season is over. I specifically asked Apple reps about this at the Special Event on Wednesday. They denied there was any plan to raise the price in January. But their wording did not entirely rule the possibility. Just because there is no “announced” plan, for example, doesn’t mean that there is not an unannounced one. In any case, Apple reps at a “hands-on” display of new products are not about to reveal anything about Apple’s future plans that Steve himself had not revealed. So I don’t put much stock in these denials.

However, I seriously doubt that Apple will simply raise the price of the same 8GB model that is on sale now. Raising the price of an existing product is almost never done in this business. If anything, prices go down for existing or even improved technology over time; not the reverse.

So, if as I predict, the price will go up again in January, the justification for the price hike must be that a new model (or models) will be replacing the existing iPhone. Given the current price drop from $599 to $399, I expect that the price will not jump back to $599 again. Instead, my guess is that we will see a new iPhone model priced at $499. This could be simply a 16GB iPhone. Such a move would make sense because, with the 16GB iPod touch selling for $399, it would be awkward to offer a 16GB iPhone for the same price. Or, just as likely, Apple could introduce an “iPhone 2.0” with new features such as built-in GPS.

The only thing that doesn’t quite fit in this picture is this: Even if a new and improved iPhone is coming in January for $499, why not continue to sell the existing iPhone for $399? If that is the plan, all the caveats about “this holiday season” would not be required, as the $399 price would remain in place. So if my theory is correct, this is not going to happen.

Perhaps Apple isn’t quite ready to make $399 the permanent price point for an entry level iPhone. They still believe they can get the sales they want and maintain the higher margin of a $499 price. So they use the introduction of the new model to get rid of the lower price. Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s something else.

Regardless, I remain convinced that the repeated use of the “holiday season” phrase is not just superfluous language on Apple’s part. There is a reason behind it. And now you have my theory as to what that reason is.

Mortgage meltdown: An easily avoidable crisis

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When I listed my Michigan home for sale in 2003, several months went by without an offer. At one point, a friend suggested that I contact their cousin, who was a mortgage broker. We could work out an arrangement where he left flyers in our home with info about how potential buyers could get a great deal on a loan from him. This, in turn, might get the house to sell sooner.

It turned out that the loans would be the interest-only zero-down payment type loans that are the fuel behind the current mortgage meltdown. When I discussed this with my real estate agent, she said that she could not support doing this, as she was ethically against these type of loans.

Later, in 2004, when looking to purchase a home in the East Bay of San Francisco, I was generally aghast at how high the home prices were. I wondered aloud to my real estate agent how anyone who did not already own a home in this area (or did not already have the money stashed away for a huge down payment) could afford to buy here. His answer was that they were all getting the same risky loans that my Michigan real estate agent had rejected. My California real estate agent was against them as well. As was I. We all saw the looming problem: If home prices ever started to fall, the homeowners could not afford to sell their homes because they would get less cash than they would need to pay off their mortgage. The result, if they could also no longer afford their mortgage payments when the adjustable rate started to rise, would be foreclosure. We all clearly understood this. And this was back in 2003 and 2004.

My point with these two anecdotes is that the current mortgage crisis should not have surprised anyone. The risks were clear. So how did it all happen? Who’s to blame?

I believe there is enough blame for everyone to share a bit. But not in equal parts.

The homeowners who purchased these loans deserve a bit of blame. They should have been aware of the dangers involved and resisted these ethically-challenged loans. This is especially so when you are talking about unnecessarily risking a home you have owned for 40 years so you can get startup cash for a new business venture (as was described in this San Francisco Chronicle article). I suppose some sort of “bail-out” effort is needed in the current environment. But there is a limit to what should be done. People who took foolish risks should not be rewarded by getting bailed out of their foolishness.

Still, showing restraint can be very hard to do when almost everyone else is getting these loans, your mortgage broker is pushing for you to go along, and there is no other way you can afford any home at all in an inflated market like the Easy Bay.

Real estate agents should have warned their clients away for these loans. Indeed, as my anecdotes suggest, many did. But not enough. Still, I understand the dilemma. If you are one of the few real estate agents taking a stand on this, it won’t stem the tide. All that will happen is that your clients will go elsewhere to get the loan, while your personal income plummets. It would have required a concerted effort from real estate agents as a group to do something effective. Simply depending on each agent’s personal integrity is not enough.

Mortgage brokers deserve most of the blame in my view. There were rules in place for decades that prevented these type of loans. In the last several years, these rules were abandoned so that brokers could make a quick buck at the expense of a desperate and too gullible public. The sub-prime lenders are the worst offenders here, and they are the ones in the most financial trouble now. But even huge institutions such as Countrywide contributed to this mess.

Finally, the Bush administration deserves a hefty amount of the blame. They could have acted to restrain the policies that allowed these dangerous mortgages to proliferate. But, as usual, they stood by and did nothing—letting the “free market” police itself. It’s the same attitude they take toward environmental regulations, communications policy, and more. It’s a sad case of putting the wolf in charge of the henhouse. I can only hope that next year’s elections send a clear message that we no longer want to support such policies.

Others could be added to this list. Recently, I have read speculations that offer institutions such as the Federal Reserve and Wall Street as culprits. Perhaps so. But my main point remains: Whoever is to blame knew that this day of reckoning would come and did nothing to prevent it. This was an avoidable crisis.

Gallup poll and evolution folly

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Scientific truth is not determined by a popular opinion. it wouldn’t matter if 99% of the American public believed that the sun revolved around the earth—instead of the other way around. Such poll results would have absolutely no effect on the behavior of the sun and the earth.

When it comes to the subject of evolution, despite the distortions you may have read elsewhere, evolution is an established scientific fact. It is as much of a fact as gravity, or black holes, or atoms and molecules.

Have you actually seen gravity? How do you know it really exists? Couldn’t the reason we feel the apparent pull of gravity be due instead to some supernatural force that we don’t understand? How do you know that atoms truly exist and, more importantly, that atoms behave the way scientists say they do? On what basis do you accept the idea that black holes, whatever they may be exactly, exist in outer space?

My guess is that the overall answer to such questions is that, when it comes to such matters, you accept the consensus reached by the scientists that work in these fields. You may not understand the physics of gravity or atoms or black holes. But that does not lead you to dispute their existence. In fact, it is largely because of your lack of understanding, because you have not made the effort to study the facts yourself, that you defer to the experts who have done so.

The truth of a scientific theory also doesn’t depend upon whether or not you are pleased with its conclusions. You may not be happy to discover that you can get HIV from having unprotected sex. You may be irritated to learn that you cannot cure severe depression simply by telling a person to “Cheer up;” medication may be required to help the person. But your unhappiness and irritation does not change anything.

All of this applies in the same way to evolution. You may be offended by the idea that humans are descended from apes. You may find it difficult to understand how the process of natural selection could account for the range of species on the planet today. But such offense and incomprehension has no bearing on the overwhelming evidence in support of evolution.

Unfortunately, although the above logic is indisputable, people somehow are willing to make an exception for evolution. The same person that would never think of denying the scientific evidence that links HIV to AIDS or that supports the existence of black holes in outer space—has no problem making such an assertion about evolution.

The data in this regard are staggering. According to recent Gallup polls, close to 50% of all people surveyed say that they “do not believe in evolution.” This is consistent with similar surveys taken over the past several years. I am sure that much of the reason for this, aside from what I have already said, is that people view evolution as in conflict with their religious beliefs. Forced to make a choice, they go with religion.

For the scientific community, such poll results are equivalent to finding out that 50% of the American public does not believe in gravity. On the one hand, the poll results are a depressing statement about the state of scientific education in our country. On the other hand, it has no bearing as to whether or not gravity really exists.

Scientific assertions based on ignorance of the relevant science (how many people that say that they don’t believe in evolution have actually studied the evidence?) or on religious prejudices is not a particularly effective way to get to the truth. It doesn’t work for deciding on the veracity of gravity, black holes, atoms, or AIDS. And it doesn’t work for evolution.