On the eve of the expected announcement that the wishes of many mobile phone customers would be fulfilled with the arrival of the iPhone on Verizon’s network, there’s a larger question that’s not so easily answered. That question is whether a large number of supposedly disgruntled AT&T customers will switch as soon as their contracts […]

With CES in action this week in Las Vegas, as usual, you can bet that Apple’s absence will be felt more than ever. Apple doesn’t do the trade show circuit; they even stopped attending the Macworld Expo, emphasizing their own specially targeted media events, and the ability to reach customers via a growing retail chain […]

As most regular readers know, I’m not enamored of Consumer Reports and the way the magazine handles personal technology. Their efforts to simplify and generalize possibly complex information ends up helping nobody. While they no doubt accurately represent reader surveys about product and service reliability, the actual reviews are tragically flawed. I’m also concerned why […]

It’s part of the human condition to tell stories and, often as not, to embellish the ones you hear in the retelling. Sometimes you wonder how information conveyed orally passes on through generations supposedly without loads of changes. So here’s a little story: Years ago, the late comedian Steve Allen would occasionally conduct an informal […]