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AT&T has just announced it’s discontinuing unlimited data plans. For those watching the calender, it’s exactly one month and one day after 3G equipped Apple iPads went on sale, aka it’s now 24 hours past when you can return the devices.

Hike up your waders the marketing double speak is thick in this press release…

AT&T*, the U.S. smartphone leader, today introduced new wireless data plans that make it more affordable for more people to enjoy the benefits of the mobile Internet.

Yes, that’s an un-ironic asterisk on the first word of the press release. It doesn’t really matter though, the deal is AT&T is slashing the unlimited plan and now offering DataPlus, providing 200 MB of data for $15/month with additional 200 MB extensions for $15/each, and DataPro, providing 2 GB of data for $25/month, with additional 1 GB extensions for $10/each. Tethering, a feature that all iPhones have been capable of for over a year, will now be allowed by AT&T for an additional $20 per month on the DataPro plan.

The iPad was sold hard with this original unlimited data plan. It was sold by Steve Jobs standing by himself on a stage talking about how revolutionary this all is. How can this business relationship continue? How did Apple end up here? I wish calculating opportunity cost was an exact science; I’d like to see a tally of what Apple is paying for the ongoing damage to one of the most enviable brands on the planet.

As Yanowitz on Hackernews said:

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for the screaming matches between AT&T and Apple.

UPDATE: As of 2:40pm CST, June 2nd, 2010 Apple’s iPad product page does not reflect these new data plans.

There’s been a lot of loud belly-aching over the marketplace implications of the $0.99 price point’s popularity in Apple’s iPhone App Store. Well, Mobile Orchard blew all that out of the water yesterday. Check out the sales distribution of iPhone Apps sorted by price:

iPhone App Store Sales by price

The other day, Voltage got an iPod Touch (2nd generation) as a development machine for the office. We use it when building out our Mobile Safari sites for the iPhone / iPod Touch market. These new iPods / iPhone 3Gs don’t come with docks, just dock inserts. I didn’t want to pay $50 for a dock, and the DIY tutorials I could find online about building one were unsatisfactory. Truthfully I couldn’t even find one that used the packaging it came in, which is what I wanted. (Recycling and frugality and all that…)

So, here’s my iPhone 3G / iPod Touch Dock Build with lots of big pictures and detailed instructions. Enjoy… Read more

This is from the official marketing material posted last night by RIM’s Storm launch partner, Vodafone. It’s an interesting tactic. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but when you’re trying to take on a competitor whose main strength is slick, thoughtful products with amazing launches (Mobile Me aside), EPIC FAIL at product launch, may not be the best strategy…

[via Engagdet]

Everyone’s buzzing about the new iPhone 3G that was released yesterday. And there’s even more buzzing about the new price point: $199. Old iPhone owners are pissed, iPhone 3G perspective buyers are stoked, but the new will wear off soon enough. When the dust settles, people will start to realize that Apple actually raised the price of the iPhone by $40 over the life of the device.

Surprising? Not really: they’re adding 3G and GPS functionality. More features means more money. (And, at only $40 more, it’s a pretty good deal.) But how did they do it and still make it look like they’re slashing prices?

There are three forces at work here:

1. Several sites and several AT&T reps are reporting that you can’t buy an iPhone 3G without in-store activation. No more buying the phone and walking out to activate it “later” on iTunes (which you never intend to do.) So the iPhone 3G is just like many other subsidized phones except that you can’t buy non-subsidized version. It’s AT&T’s way or the highway. This all means that we now have to consider the price of the two year contract when calculating the cost of an iPhone, there’s no other option.
2. GoPhone prepaid calling plans will not be compatible with the iPhone 3G.
3. AT&T is raising data plan rates $10/month. This wouldn’t be a big deal except that, as we said, this has become an inescapable cost of owning an iPhone.

So… $10/month = $240 over the life of the contract. Minus the $200 price cut, you’re paying $40 more for a iPhone 3G than you would have for the $399 1st gen phone.

It might hurt less up front, but the pain is still there. They’ve just spread it around for you.

Touch screen interface design is a tricky thing for some people who’ve been designing for a mouse-bound audience. But with the coming of the iPhone and a host of other touch-screen equipped smart phones at attractive price points (Like the Palm Centro and HTC Touch) I’m thinking about touch screen interfaces more and more. Maybe you should be, too…

1. Response speed should be of utmost importance. (I know, I know… making response speed a priority is a staple of user interface programmers and designers, but it’s even more important in touch screen world.) The speed and ease with which a human can interact is increased within the touch screen interface environment. Therefore, the interface’s responsiveness must increase as well. If your hardware/software’s response time is slow, you’ll find your user’s aggravation increasing proportionally faster than it would if they were using a less intuitive system, such as a mouse or trackball. (It’s not as if a using a mouse makes us all plodding computer operators, but no matter how seasoned you are with the click-able rodent, it will never come as naturally as reaching out and touching something to interact with it.) So be lightweight.
2. More space comes in at a close second to speed. A cursor is small and a stylus may be even smaller. However, it’s a good idea to design your interface with fat fingers in mind, even if a stylus is expected to be present some of the time. This will increase the overall usability and flexibility of your system. When designing Poptakeout.com (An iPhone/iPod Touch social news aggregator) I made all the buttons 106px by 110px. Considering the Mobile Safari platform is displayed (exclusively, as far as I know) on iPhones and iPod Touches, whose displays pack 160dpi, I ended up with buttons almost 1/2″ square: plenty of room for an accurate poke.
3. Intuitiveness of your design also becomes a heightened concern. This is the same situation as number one, in the touch screen environment non-intuitive information architecture will be even more frustrating to your users. When all they have to do to is reach out and touch something, it becomes a larger source of frustration when this simple action does not deliver as expected.
4. Ambidextrous design must come into consideration in the touch screen world. Both lefties and righties will be using your interface, so plan accordingly. Delivering the same experience to all users means either vertically symmetrical navigation or an option to flip your layout. I prefer the former, it will take less development time (in general) and simplifies your interface.
5. Bright background colors or patterns can hide glare and reduce fingerprints. Solid black is the worst possible choice. (I’m looking at you, iPhone)
6. Touch screen interfaces are more suited to information retrieval than data entry.
7. Be aware of screen coverage. Flyout or rollover menus become much less useful. You may want to consider placing navigation at the bottom of your touch screen area, with results/display at the top. (Thanks, Sanj)
8. Problems with eye-finger and eye-stylus parallaxes lend even more credence to the argument for big, fat areas to press with plenty of space between them.
9. Best to worst operations: Point, select > Position, orient (rotate), define path > Enter values > Enter text. So, basically, touch screen interface’s are great for data retrieval, pretty good for data manipulation, and are kinda awful for data entry.

Further reading of interest on this subject:

• ALA – Put your Content in My Pocket Part I and Part II.
• SAP Design Guild – Interaction Design for Touch Screen Application
• Department of the Army Weapon Systems: Human Computer Interface Style Guide
• Target Size Study for One-Handed Thumb Use On Small Touchscreen Devices (PDF) (Thanks, Nirmal)

[Pic via Gizmodo]