DETROIT -- Justin Verlander may not have been the first player with an iPhone; knowing Junior Griffey's penchant for toys, he probably presented his son Trey with one at 7 a.m. Friday.

This is the real world for which Marshall Crenshaw's "Cynical Girl" had no use 20-something years ago. Verlander was scheduled to pitch Friday night against the Twins, coincidentally the iPhone release day, a day in which AT&T/Cingular customers -- including the mayor of Philadelphia -- stood in line for four to eight hours in anticipation of the new toy.

Not Verlander, he of the no-hitter and the electric explosion onto the baseball consciousness. He sent a text message to someone at the Apple Store. "They texted me back and said they had plenty," says Verlander. "My girlfriend went to the store and was able to get one for Justin Morneau, as well." Same agent, Mike Milchin. Nice present for the reigning MVP from a future Cy Young winner.

Verlander also knew he didn't have to go to the AT&T/Cingular store to activate his toy. No, simple. "All you have to do is download iTunes into the phone," said Verlander. Before he went to warm up Friday, he could listen to Timbaland (actually, he might want to to listen to a little Jay-Z to get ready for the All-Star Game party he and Barry Bonds are throwing), call friends, check the weather and go online. Actually, Saturday morning, Verlander's show 'n' tell site was YouTube, although he refused to check out his own YouTube videos. "Too embarrassing," he said.

Across the Tigers clubhouse, Curtis Granderson had made his iPhone preparations Friday. Despite being the ninth player in 50 years to reach double figures in doubles, triples and homers before the All-Star break, he realized there was a chance he might have to spend the break at home in Chicago because he was not on the All-Star ballot, even though he garnered more than 375,000 write-in votes. So Granderson texted his friend at the Apple Store in Chicago.

"I'll have mine on the first day of the break," said Granderson, the cerebral future face of all things good in baseball. Yes, he will try to do his ESPN.com blog on the iPhone.

Somehow, it's unlikely that Virgil (Fire) Trucks blogged on an iPhone (or even downloaded grand nephew Derek Truck's brilliant music), or that Norm Cash watched YouTube.

"Kids," says Verlander, "need toys. We're just kids."

Now, even after picking up Jose Capellan from Milwaukee, the Tigers probably need relievers in front of Todd Jones, who like Granderson is a journalist of some note. Joel Zumaya is having his finger examined Monday to determine if he can begin throwing, but his return may be in September, at best. There is no assurance Fernando Rodney's shoulder tendinitis will clear up.

So Dave Dombrowski is shopping, but there are no iArms at the Apple Store. There doesn't seem to be much interest in Detroit for Eric Gagne, and Akinori Otsuka may not be available. The Tigers would like one of the three Houston relievers, but the Astros thus far haven't given up on the season, Brad Lidge, Chad Qualls or Dan Wheeler. Washington has been dangling Chad Cordero and Jon Rauch in front of the Tigers and Indians, but neither team will give up the likes of Cameron Maybin or Jeremy Sowers. "This may go down to the last few days of the month," says one GM. "And the likelihood of anything major is extremely slight."

Soon, GMs like Dombrowski will be able to take their iPhones, download the last few appearances from a player like Gagne and watch them.

Meanwhile, the toys can be used for other purposes. The best Internet battle for the final All-Star spot?

"The [Pat] Neshek-[Hideki] Okajima balloting will be a fight to the death," says Joe Nathan. "Neshek has a Web site with some of the craziest fans in the world. We know Okajima will get all the Asian and Boston Internet votes. It'll be great."

Easy to circumvent- iPhones are not sold outside of the USA so apple is not obligated to 'abide' by them rules

It'll be like the Blackberry... You can probably unlock it, but the service itself still needs to go through Apple, and it isn't hard for them to "lock" the phone to only let service onto their systems from one operator.

Oh of course I know that, but arent they planning on selling them somewhere other than the US?

Apple has fixed the link on their web site:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/keyboard.html

As for it being illogical? Try again. Let's say you're typing along, the logical keystroke after typing out a word is 'space'. So let's say you're typing out the word 'illogical' but instead you typed 'illogocal'. iPhone recognizes the error and suggests 'illogical'. by tapping on 'space', you tell iPhone to use the suggested word (one less keystroke to select the suggested word then tap 'space'. what's so illogical about that? it's brilliant actually.

We'll see what happens then, won't we.

Are any of them getting a major advertising push from anyone?

Because if they don't get it, they will sell a fraction of what the iPhone does.

Ask Creative Zen and iRiver about that. These and other manufacturers had better specs. than iPods for years and their sales went nowhere.

There were enthusiastic geeks, who only read spec. sheets or who just wanted to avoid iPods for whatever reason, but there were not enough of such customers to provide any real competition.

LG, Meizu and the rest better be prepared to spend several hundred million on a marketing campaign because that is what AT&T and Apple will do.

And if they do spend enough to get a lot of people (more than just gadgetphiles) looking for their products, they better deliver a user experience that appeals to the mass market, meaning easy and intuitive as well as flashy.

Microsoft can't wait to revise their mobile OS to offer a comparable experience as long as they did to come out with the Zune. And when they did, it wasn't better and they tried sort of to copy the click wheel.

Ok course, the big difference is that if you wanted an IRiver or something you would have to go out and find it. If you want a smartphone from anyone but ATT you walk into the store and are presented with an array of them. And they already sell a lot of them.

Um, I had to buy my Nokia E61i sight unseen.

I couldn't demo the product in the SF Bay Area.

I waited until it was available through a more well-known site, buy.com, than ordering from an eBay seller.

I think even iRiver sold at Best Buy. Creative definitely. Some of the lesser known Korean brands, maybe not.

Over time, Best Buy and other retailers probably went to iPod and iPod accessories (which carry the real margins) as well as go with more aggresive Sandisk Sansa.

I don't know how much the Meizu will be but isn't the LG Prada like $800 unlocked? I don't know the specs. of hand but even if they're better, I will venture to guess that iPhone will have a UI which appeals to more people than either the Meizu or Prada.

Im not talking about stuff like that. Anyone that goes to a cell phone store from TMobile or Verizon will have a whole range of competing products available to them. The vast majority of cell phone buyers buy the in a store where they sign up for service. That is very different than with music players which arent linked to anything.

Right but I'm not talking about Treos or Blackberries.

I think when people refer to competition for the iPhone, they're talking about the more exotic HTC models or the Prada or the Meizu.

I know some HTC are carried by TMobile and AT&T but even then, these are not going to receive the marketing that iPhone will get.

We'll see though, because I think the HTCs sell a fraction of the Treos and Blackberries.

Treo is really hurting unless the new executive team can come up with something big.

Blackberry is the real formidable competitor. I've not tried BB but I know people are fanatical about them. Yet I hear BB users worldwide is under 10 million? If Apple hits their 10 million target by the end of 2008, they will be neck and neck.

The major competitor is Nokia, who sold nearly 8 million N-series phones last quarter.

That would be because no US carrier was willing to partner with them on that or the N-series phones.

Yup - and given iPhone sales I bet the other US carriers are making plans for more smart phones. Given unsubsidized unlocked N-series Nokias are less than an iPhone not hard to see plenty of room for other entrants.


I see a bunch of US centric thinking around the iPhone.

...and on the THIRD DAY, the MIGHTY IPHONE, would-be slayer of the Blackberry and destroyer of the Q, raised up its powerful, furious fists, and...

...crapped its pants.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1192626

But those wouldn't all be smart phones? Probably a lot of them under $400, not the N95 which is at least $750?