From the surprisingly poplar PR manual in how not to win customers and engender goodwill, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson’s email address doesn’t seem anywhere near as likely to receive a Steve Jobs-style terse if direct response. Indeed:

Giorgio Galante found out today, sending AT&T’s CEO two emails in two weeks results in a phone call from AT&T’s Executive Response Team and a warning that further emails will result in a cease and desist letter.

Galante reportedly first emailed to ask about his eligibility date and to request tethering, the second to complain about AT&T’s new, tiered data rates released yesterday and inform them he’s switching to an HTC Evo 4G on Sprint.

We hope there’s something we’re missing in this story (including AT&T’s side of it), because they could use a few feel good endings about now.

[So long and thanks for all the fish, via Engadget]

Email Apple CEO, get response from Jobs. Email AT&T CEO, get legal threat is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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In stock: iPad cases from iLuv, iFrogz, and Incipio

iLuv Flexi-Clear iPad Case for iPad

The iLuv Flexi-Clear iPad Case is a light and flexible resistance case is designed to protect your Apple iPad from significant wear and tear.

ifrogz Luxe Case for iPad

The Luxe Case from ifrogz is a hard shell plastic case that is unbelievably sleek and finished with a stunning metallic facade and a velvety “soft touch” feel for the iPad.

Incipio underGROUND Case for iPad

The Incipio underGROUND felt textured pouch is a high quality handmade/stitched pouch designed for the iPad.

Incipio Kickstand for iPad

The Incipio Kickstand Case is made of rip-stop nylon and accentuated with luxurious microsuede lining.

Incipio Executive Folio for iPad

The Incipio Executive Folio is made of high quality, top-grain leather and lined in luxurious soft suede and also offers excellent protection, elegant style and focuses on simplicity.

In stock: iPad cases from iLuv, iFrogz, and Incipio is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Galactic Untangle HD for the iPad is a puzzle game. It is simple, yet challenging, and can easily keep you occupied for hours.

In each level, you are a given a bunch of points connected by lines, and your goal is to move the points around until there are no lines crossing. In mathematical terms, you are given a graph and it is your job to rearrange the vertices until no edges are crossing, i.e., result with a planar representation of the graph. This game is very strait-forward and simple, but not generally easy to beat. As you progress, the graphs become much more complicated and difficult to beat.

There are two modes in Galactic Untangle HD. In “free mode”, there is no stress of being timed and you can relax and play at a leisurely pace. In “challenge mode” you are being timed and you have an option to submit your score to the world scoreboard. However, even though you are asked to enter your name, the world scoreboard does not display names. As someone who holds a few of the records, I find this annoying.

Galactic Untangle is an excellent game. It is designed well and looks beautiful on the iPad’s screen. It has a simple objective, yet challenging gameplay. And best of all, it’s a fun way to give your brain some exercise!

Video and screenshots after the break!

Pros

• Fun and easy to play
• Simple objective
• Challenging
• World scoreboard

Cons

• No landscape support
• Scoreboard does not display names

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Galactic Untangle HD for iPad – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Phil Nickinson over at Android Central has just posted a full review of the Sprint HTC Evo 4G, which he’s billing as the baddest Android on the planet. Big screen, front facing video call camera, brand new OS in the pipeline, it’s not hard to see that this will be Sprint’s answer to the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G (unless and until they’re able to offer the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G on Sprint — just sayin’).

It’s at the top of the Android smartphone pile, for the moment. That’s not to say that phones like the HTC Incredible and Nexus One (and very possibly the Samsung Galaxy S) aren’t right up there. But the screen size, 4G data and promise of an upgrade to Android 2.2 make the Sprint Evo 4G the phone to beat, and it may well hold that title through the end of 2010.

Check out the galleries, the videos, and all the words holding them together and then come back and let us know what you think about the Sprint HTC Evo 4G — is it the right handset, on the right network, at the right time, to give the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G a run for your money?

Sprint HTC Evo 4G — here comes the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G competition is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Footages from Star Wars of the Deathstar attack briefing overlaid with audio of Steve Jobs introducing the iPad. Geek cute to be sure, but they could have gone the extra Star Wars fanboy mile and overlaid Jobs’ head on the old dude and the iPad schematics over the Deathstar.

Still, a ton of you sent this in, so enjoy!

YouTube link

Steve Jobs intros iPad as Deathstar — Thursday fun video! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

How does a self-employed, creative carpenter use his iPhone to get the job done and what iPhone apps help get him through her day? TiPb’s iPhone at work contest aims to bring you just such slices of the iPhone life. Here’s Farmdread’s answer and as a small token of thanks we’re sending him a $20 iTunes gift certificate. If you want to see your name up on the TiPb home page and get a gift certificate all your own, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forum and share your story now!

I’m a self-employed general contractor specializing in creative carpentry (oh, and I also build giant puppets.) Here's my story:

My work day starts when I get up, and that starts with my iPhone. The Clock alarm is set to a peaceful tone that doesn't annoy my wife (she got sick of "marimba" real quick so currently it's set to "strum." We'll see how long that lasts.)

From here I check TiPb and my Mail in bed as I wake up. Hopefully there aren't any emails from a client that said that their house burned down last night due to something I did. I would expect that in a text, not an email. As I make my morning elixir – coffee – I check my Calendar to see what is on my schedule. Ah, today I am building a fence out of old reclaimed doors and windows.

I jump in my dilapidated truck (needed a new truck, got an iPad instead), record my starting miles using Trip Cubby and find my route using Google Maps. On the way I plug in my iTrip to listen to Pandora (I swear, I don’t have a Michael Buble channel) while using my bluetooth headset to call the lumber store to order the framing materials. When I get to the lumber store, I realize that the coffee hasn't totally kicked in (did I even remember to put the espresso in my mocha?) and I need to use Convertbot and Calculator to figure out how many 4×4's and 2×4's I need. Simple math but it's just too early to strain my brain.

As I get set up at the job site, I plug my iPhone into my Ridgid job site radio which conveniently has a 30-pin dock for Apple products. More Pandora ensues (what can I say, Buble is my muse) as I create a masterpiece of wood and glass. Now the end of the work day is near. I open Notes to list the materials needed for tomorrow (easier than trying to remember in the morning.) Then I check the weather using Accuweather to see if I'll need rain gear tomorrow (it is Oregon after all) and I squeeze in a few levels of Angry Birds, check TiPb again for the latest Apple news, and check my Facebook while the homeowner isn't looking. Before leaving, I snap a few photos of my work for my portfolio using the Camera. Driving home I listen to my iPod app for a change of pace (More Buble, different album). As I pull up to my house, I record my ending mileage using Trip Cubby and set my Clock alarm for tomorrow to start it all over again.

The iPhone has become my most important tool. If only it has a "hammer" feature then it would be just about all I would need. I have found that by pluging it into my Ridgid radio I have a full charge throughout the day. That way when I go to lunch I can hit the internet, play TowerMadness and frequently check TiPb (shameless plug but true!)

Are you a carpenter or craftsperson? How do you use your iPhone to get you through the day? What apps get your job done?

iPhone at work: Creative carpentry is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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AT&T introduces tiered data plans, Steve Jobs speaks at D8, WWDC 2010 predictions, Slacker 2.0, Documents to Go 3.0, Fishies, and all the week’s news, how-tos, and app reviews. Listen in!

We’re trying an experiment! We’ve posted video for the first 20 minutes of the show on YouTube and embedded it below. Drop us a comment and let us know if you want to see more. (And if you work for YouTube, can you get us one of those accounts that doesn’t force us to chop it into 10 minute chunks? Kthx!

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Part 1

Part 2

iPhone live! podcast #102: AT&Tiered – with video! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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You may have seen them before for MacBooks, but did you know you could get great great decals for your iPad as well? Follow on after the break for some of my favorites!

Here’s one from Dieter as well. Did we miss any other great iPad decals? Let us know in the comments.

10 great decals for your iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Since the iPad launch on April 3, TiPb’s been getting tips about desktop/dashboard/widget-style apps being removed first from the iPad App Store, then from the iPhone App Store as well. There are a number of examples, some well known by now, some relatively unknown. The commonality between all of them is that they’ve tried to somehow make the iPad or iPhone into a Mac- or PC-like screen filled with mini-apps like browsers, email clients, calculators, weather, etc.

Some look almost exactly like Apple’s Mac Dashboard, other like Windows of various flavors. Others don’t look like desktops at all but rather place widgets on top of photos or other, more specific backgrounds.

Devs have worked around this by using a much more restricted metaphor, like a double tiled display, or by going the Jailbreak route, or they haven’t worked through it and just gotten frustrated at the opacity of the App Store review process and not known how to proceed.

I can’t claim any special insight or information on this, but my best guess is that Apple is removing (or advising they will be removing since not all of them have been pulled yet) the apps for the same reason they originally didn’t include cursor (arrow) keys on the Mac. It’s a pretty well known story and one that’s been used a few times in different commentaries on the iPhone and iPad and Apple’s direction thereof, but it bears repeating.

The Mac was the mainstream transition from CLI (command-line interface) to GUI (graphical user interface). People had to become comfortable using a mouse to drive the new interface, and Apple felt that if they gave them arrow keys users would just launch text windows, abandon the mouse, and revert to what they were comfortable with at the first opportunity. They’d never learn the new paradigm because they wouldn’t have to. So, like the metaphorical bird, they pushed us out the CLI nest and made us madly flap our GUI wings (or risk crashing).

The iPhone and now iPad mark a similar mainstream transition from GUI to multitouch user interface (I’m not calling it MUI). The iPad’s display is bigger, but Apple doesn’t want it treated like an old-fashion PC or Mac desktop, and they don’t want apps in the App Store that encourage users to treat the iPhone or iPad like desktops.

Developers who have invested time and money into building those apps get crushed, of course, and Apple really has to figure out a better way of advising people which apps are on the “unforeseen” list as soon as they can possibly foresee them. I’m not defending Apple’s process or policy here — as I said I have no idea if I’m even right about the reason — I’m just trying to figure it out. Curation isn’t bad, but bad curation is chilling.

Users also will no doubt be upset they can’t get these apps, just as users were probably upset Apple didn’t include arrow keys on the original Mac. I don’t know if Apple realizes that and just banks on having enough momentum and cool tech that users will once again forgive an App Store removal in light of what still remains and is coming. (That bank of user good-will isn’t limitless, however, and I certainly hope Apple realizes that).

[Yes, or Apple could be getting ready to announce their own widget platform for iPhone OS as a special feature for that large-resolution iPhone HD/iPhone 4G at WWDC 2010. Those types of things are always possible.]

Why Apple may be removing desktop/dashboard/widget apps from the App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog