Category: News

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Group Buying Landscape

Over the past six years group buying had grown into a multi billion (US) dollar business. Among the many sites focused on group buying around the world, Groupon.com is the largest with global presences in 24 countries or 168 cities, and Woot.com pioneered the concept when it started in 2004.

If you are not familiar with group buy please allow me to explain, the concept is fairly simple. A merchant (shop) subscribes to a group buying site (site). The shop creates an offer for it’s services or products at a discounted price; something that is very attractive (around 50% off or more). The shop specifies a minimum number (tipping point) of sales for the offer before it becomes valid. The site will then list the offer along with customized marketing copy on its site and all channels the site has at its disposal.

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Porn Vote of Confidence

HTML5 has long been promoted by Apple, Google, Mozilla, Opera, Microsoft, etc. as the future for the web. Apple even went as far as not supporting Flash on its mobile platforms (iOS) to further promotes the use of HTML5 in web site development.

Apple’s decision caused a major war of words between Adobe and Apple, plus all sort of underhanded tactics from both companies in an attempt to cripple the other’s technology/platform. Adobe recently released a new version of its mobile Flash, but it done so for almost all mobile platforms except for iOS. This is often seen as a retaliation of Apple’s modifications to its iOS Developers’ Terms of Use, to exclude tools like the one found in the latest Adobe’s Flash development environment.

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HTC Hero Available from Smartone-Vodafone

Smartone-Vodafone logoThis afternoon the mobile carrier Smartone-Vodafone has announced the price and tariff plans for the HTC Hero.

The top of the line plan is identical to the tariff planSmartone-Vodafone is offering iPhone users in Hong Kong, which they called “The Ultimate iPhone Experience“. The main difference being for the iPhone tariff plan, Smartone-Vodafone is not selling the iPhone 3GS themselves. Customers just have to bring in a proof of purchase from a Hong Kong Apple Authorized Reseller or Apple HK that is dated within 3 months.

The plan requires a 24 months contract with the carrier, plus a minimum subscription of HKD36.00 VAS per month. Giving the unlimited data plan a total monthly cost of HKD446.00 after taken into account the mandatory HKD12.00/month Administration fee.
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Barcamp Hong Kong 2009


Barcamp Hong Kong 2009 is now accepting registration.

Please add the hashtag #barcamphk for any conversations relating to the event on Twitter or other social networks. The tag “barcamphk” should be added to any photos relating to BarcampHK on Flickr, and they can be added to the Flickr group BarcampHK

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Last of OS X for PowerPC

Apple Blue LogoShortly after the release of OS X version 10.5.7 Apple released 10.5.8 to its developers for testing. This version of OS X is rumored to be the last of the OS X versions that continues to support the PowerPC Macintosh. With an educated guess this rumor is definitely believable, as OS 10.6 is expected to be released sometime in September 2009, and it will not support Macintosh hardware with PowerPC architecture.New Updates

Yesterday (Cupertino time) Apple made version 10.5.8 of OS X available through Software Update, you can see the list of fixes it includes from Apple’s Knowledge Base article.

Since the list of security fixes is so comprehensive, it is recommended that all OS X users upgrade to this latest version.

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Apple Privacy Caused Death or Is It a Conspiracy?

I was reading the article, Chinese Worker & Apple iPhone 4G, from VentureBeat yesterday and it made me think that we are getting too much pressure at work.

According to the story from Chinese sources [Chinese], last Thursday (July 16th) an employee of Foxconn, who is responsible for shipping prototypes from the factory in Shenzhen to Apple in Cupertino, committed suicide after being questioned for loosing one of the 16 prototype next generation (4th generation) iPhones. Is there a conspiracy?

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iPhone 3GS Inventory in Hong Kong

iPhone3GSThis morning 3 HK, the official Apple carrier partner, began selling iPhone 3GS in Hong Kong.

At the same time Apple Online Store Hong Kong began selling versions without carrier-contracts at a price of HKD5388.00 and HKD6288 respectively.

Now (16;00) Apple has changed their estimate shipping duration from “24 hours” to “5 – 7 business days” for both models of the iPhone 3GS, which is an indication that the iPhone is sold out at their online store.

Similar reports are also coming in from various 3 HK store outlets throughout Hong Kong.

Although, we do not know how many units of either channels had sold but we can be sure that it was at latest more than 5. I bought mine from the Apple Online Store and I have heard from others also done the same. My order is still showing a delivery date of this coming Monday. I presume that means my order was prior to Apple Online Store Hong Kong selling out.

This further means that the likelihood for Authorized Apple Resellers to receive enough quantities to sell through their stores within next week is slim.

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Prices of iPhone 3GS in Hong Kong [Updated]

iPhone3GSThis afternoon 3 HK, Apple’s official carrier partner in Hong Kong released details of their iPhone 3GS tariff plans.

From the prices of these plans, it indicates that the “contract-free” version to be sold at Apple Online Store Hong Kong and other Authorized Apple Resellers will be around the same HKD5400.00 and HKD6200.00 prices respectively; as with the iPhone 3G, for the 16GB abd 32GB models.

These phones and tariff plans will be available to all starting tomorrow, July 10th, along with a 2-year contract. For existing 3 HK customers there will be 12-month contract at special upgrade prices. Details of which will most likely depends on the number of months into and the tariff plan of the existing contract.
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Apple Asia Sent Out iPhone 3GS Marketing Email

Just received the following email from Apple Asia. This was sent to several of my email addresses I have registered with Apple, including my MobileMe email address.

There are no further information as to pricing or whether this pending availability is only through 3 HK, Apple’s official carrier partner in Hong Kong.

I am hoping that since the email is from Apple Asia, it will mean that the iPhone 3GS will be available at the same time through Apple Online Store Hong Kong.

There are currently rumors in Hong Kong stating that the Friday launch is exclusive to 3 HK for a fix period; this may be as long as the wait non-3 HK customers (or want to be customers) had to wait for the iPhone 3G last year.

Marketing Email from Apple Asia