Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Deal alert: 50% off Incase headphones

March 15, 2012 by Marianne Schultz Leave a Comment

I subscribe to local deal alerts from LivingSocial and Groupon, two of the largest and most well-known deal-of-the-day services in the U.S. This morning, a deal from LivingSocial caught my eye and I thought it may be of interest to you as well if you come to my site for gadget-related information. Today, LivingSocial is offering up to 54% off Incase headphones, bringing the price of the company’s most expensive model, the Sonic headphones, down to just $72 (with free shipping) from $149.95.

Incase entered the headphone market last year, a surprising move to me given their focus on bags and other small accessories to date. However, their headphones are decent according to the reviews I’ve read (you can read one at iLounge here and one at Cut of Mac here) and all of them include an inline microphone and remote control (with volume buttons) that work with the iPhone and portable Macs.

Here’s what the LivingSocial deal offers:

  • $32 for the Pivot headphones (regularly priced at $59.95)
  • $42 for the Reflex headphones (regularly priced at $79.95)
  • $72 for the Sonic headphones (regularly priced at $149.95)
Free shipping is included (Incase normally charges between $5 and $12 to ship items within the U.S.).
Incase Sonic Headphones in black

Incase Sonic headphones, image courtesy of Incase

This deal will be available for 4 more days, making its end date March 19 (I’m not sure of the exact time). You can see the deal and purchase it here. Though I’m not exactly in the market for a new pair of headphones, I couldn’t pass this up and purchased the Sonic model.

In case you’re not familiar with how LivingSocial and Groupon work, you make your purchase and then you’ll receive a voucher via email, which is usually also accessible through the respective iOS apps each company offers, with additional details on how to redeem your purchase. When I’ve purchased physical products through these companies before, the voucher usually contains a coupon code that can be used to order directly from the offering company’s website.

I hope this is useful to you! Please be sure to read the fine print and terms and conditions and know that I’m not affiliated with Living Social or responsible should anything go awry or not meet your expectations.

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Filed Under: linkety-link Tagged With: accessories, iPhone

Inconceivable!

March 2, 2012 by Marianne Schultz Leave a Comment

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

That is probably my favorite quote from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride. It came to mind as I read recent news about AT&T’s policy changes regarding its “unlimited” data plan. I put “unlimited” in quotation marks here since it sounds like AT&T no longer knows what this word means and has decided to make up its own definition for it.



 
Here’s the situation in a nutshell:

  • AT&T used to offer an unlimited data plan for $30/month (this plan was available, most notably, for those who purchased the original iPhone in 2007).
  • AT&T stopped offering unlimited data plans for any phone in June 2010 though those who already had this plan could keep it. However, if anyone left the plan, there was no going back.
  • AT&T starts throttling (intentionally slowing the connection speed) of those on unlimited data plans who are in the top 5% of data users in some areas. These areas are not defined for users and the top 5% metric varies from area to area, with no way for users to find out in advance what could get them into the top 5% and subject to throttling.
  • AT&T announces that they’ve done away with the “top 5% of users” criteria and are now beginning throttling for all users on unlimited data plans who go above 3GB of data transfer in a billing period.

You know, I get that AT&T’s network may no longer be able to handle its customers data needs and it needs to take steps to manage this before even more customers are negatively affected. But I think they’re going about this in the wrong way entirely.

AT&T: Just do away with the unlimited data plan if you’re not going to honor it anymore. It makes no sense to even keep calling it unlimited it if it no longer is. Migrate current unlimited data plan users to the 3GB plan (and allowing them to leave if they choose to instead) and deep-six the unlimited plan altogether. This would be a more appropriate and honest way to handle this situation instead of trying to redefine what “unlimited” means and dealing with the negative PR as a result.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: at&t, iPhone, musings

Review: Case-Mate Pop! With Stand for the iPhone 4/4S

February 27, 2012 by Marianne Schultz Leave a Comment

Through Google Offers, I recently had a chance to get a Case-Mate product at a discount and chose the
iPhone 4/4S Pop! Case with Stand
. There are a few different cases in the new Pop! line and this one has a pop-out stand on the back to hold the iPhone upright in landscape or portrait orientation. This case retails for $40 and comes in a variety of colors. I chose the all-black color option and after using it for a couple of weeks, I’ve found it to have some great features combined with a handful of negative aspects that put it just out of the running as my go-to case for my iPhone 4S. Read on to find out why.


[Read more…]

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Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: accessories, cases, iPhone, review

Upsell me

February 21, 2012 by Marianne Schultz 1 Comment

Upselling is a sales technique whereby a seller induces the customer to purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale.

Wikipedia

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have already seen that I’m visiting my mother in Los Angeles and went with her to an AT&T store to upgrade her ancient Samsung flip phone to a shiny new iPhone 4S. The experience was a little exciting for my mom but it was marred by the upselling we were subjected to during the process.

(Though AT&T is not my favorite, my mom is relatively happy with them and had no desire to change carriers while upgrading to an iPhone.)

When we arrived, we were greeted by a chipper girl with an iPad in an open, messenger-style case that was slung over her shoulder. She used it to take down my mom’s name to check her in, telling us that someone would help us in a few minutes.

Rosa*, a woman who appeared to be in her early 20’s with long brown hair and enough make-up to be a Kardashian, came to assist us a few minutes later. We told her what we wanted to do and she took us through the process of upgrading my mom’s line, transferring her contacts from her old phone and explaining everything fairly painlessly. Though she was proficient at these tasks, there were times that I wanted to throttle her with my bare hands.^

As we were going through the upgrade process, my mom mentioned something about a friend having an iPad as she noticed the iPad display against a nearby wall. Rosa paused and took that as an opportunity to show my mom a brand new iPad in a sealed box and tell her about its features.

My mom went along until she heard the price tag (she was already balking about the $20 data plan she needed to add for the iPhone) and declined.

Next, when my mom was handed her shiny new iPhone, she noticed that the screen picked up fingerprints very easily and said so aloud. This launched Rosa into an introduction to some anti-glare screen protectors they sold as well as the new warranty program AT&T now offers that covers accidental damage. I think this is the point when I started to feel the urge to cause someone, namely a young woman with what appeared to be an entire bottle of mascara applied to her eyelashes, some pain.

Not having learned her lesson from my mom’s reaction to the price of the iPad, she explained the warranty in depth. When she got to the price ($9.99 per month), my mom hesitated and looked at me. I half-expected her to voice her frustration at being offered so many extra things to buy at that point, but Rosa’s spiel was better than I thought (that devious wench!) and she asked me if she should buy it. I told her no.

Rosa was not to be deterred, though. When were were almost done and ready to hand over a credit card to finalize everything, she whipped out another goodie. The Jawbone Jambox, a portable Bluetooth speaker. And this is the point when, I’m ashamed to say, my own ears perked up.

A Jawbone Jambox? Hmmm. I’d been eyeing one of those for myself since I’d seen some very good reviews about it when it was released. I like to listen to music when I wash the dishes and clean and normally use a pair of headphones with my iPhone to accomplish this. However, headphones blocking my ears usually leads to my husband scaring the bejesus out of me (complete with high-pitched girl screams) when I don’t hear him enter the room. He always finds this funny. I never do. A Jambox would be helpful to avoid those situations.

Rosa gave us a little demo of the speaker using a smartphone connected via Bluetooth. And it sounded pretty good, matching the impressions I’d seen in the reviews I’d read.

Rosa then said the magic words: “If you’d like to buy this today, we could offer you a deal.”

I looked at her, my eyes narrowed and my entire expression intended to convey suspicion and doubt in an attempt to dare her to give me a deal I couldn’t refuse.

“What kind of deal?” I asked.

“We could offer you a $50 credit on your next bill if you buy one of these now.”

Huh. $50 off? I’d searched for deals on the Jambox myself every now and then and hadn’t found any that steep. Dammit. I was going to bite.

“I’ll take one in black,” I told her. She smiled widely enough that I was reminded of the Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week event. I had to stop myself from taking a step back away from her. Her teeth were so white. And big.

So, yeah. She got me. Despite the fact that I knew exactly what she was trying to do (earn commission) and my irritation at her persistence. But my Jawbone Jambox sounds pretty damn good right now as it plays the excellent “1009” by Bonobo as I write this. 😉

—–

*Rosa is not her real name.

^I want to note that I am kidding about wanting to physically hurt Rosa. She was very nice and patient with all of my mother’s questions and in the customer service survey I received afterward, I rated her very highly. The fact that I succumbed to the charms of the Jawbone Jambox she presented was my own fault, not hers.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: at&t, iPhone, musings

everythingiCafe: the show “Faster Horse”

February 18, 2012 by Marianne Schultz Leave a Comment

Chris Meinck and I recorded episode 51 of the everythingicafe.com podcast earlier this week and it’s available through iTunes now for your listening pleasure. If my site cooperates, it should also be available right in this post using the embedded player above if you’re using a Flash-capable browser.

Chris and I talked about iPad 3 rumors that peg March 7 as the announcement date for the next iteration of Apple’s tablet. We expect it to have a retina display and quad-core processor at the very least when it comes to new features. Rumors also indicate it will have 4G LTE though I’m not sure if Apple will make the leap to 4G quite yet when it’s not available yet in the iPhone.

Also on the agenda was an article from the Wall Street Journal claiming that Apple is testing an 8-inch iPad. I, for one, would love a smaller iPad since I mostly use my current iPad 2 as an ebook reader and I’d like a more portable version. I’ve owned a Kindle before and think that size is pretty ideal for ebook readers.

We also talked about Foxconn a little more, a topic we covered quite a bit when the company was getting a lot of coverage in the news a few weeks ago because of poor working conditions. The manufacturer is going to getting a visit from the Fair Labor Association who will conduct audits of the working conditions. We hope that some improvements will result from this.

Last on the agenda was some news about Path, an iPhone app that got a lot of publicity recently since it was uploading the entire contents of users’ contacts lists without requesting permission to do so. Path has since changed this but they caught a lot of flak for this, and rightly so, in my view.

We did have a listener question from nanikai (thank you!) about apps that come in separate iPhone and iPad versions compared to universal apps that are optimized for both the iPhone and iPad at the same time. This is a hot topic for many since I’ve seen a lot of people get upset when they have to pay twice to get an app for both an iPhone and iPad. Chris and I have had a lot of experiences with these and have some fairly strong opinions on the topic.

My Teh Awesome of the week was Temple Run, a great game by Imangi Studios that I’ve been playing a lot lately. Chris had two selections for the Teh Awesome part of the show this week. The first was the app Mealtime, a neat app that helps you discover new restaurants. His second selection was the Spigen SGP GLAS.t screen protector for the iPhone, which he recently reviewed.

I’m out of town for a week and will not be available for a podcast on our regularly-scheduled day this week so we’ll pick back up on our regular Tuesday recording schedule on February 21.

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Filed Under: audio Tagged With: ipad, iPhone, podcast, rumors

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