I'm seeing a rather strange trend in the last few days in spam that I'm receiving. Specifically, the messages are coming with *SPAM* in their subject lines. Have a look:

It makes no sense to me why the spammers would be doing this. I haven't mined the headers yet to see if they're coming from any common location or not. Any ideas?

I've been hoping for an Apple wireless telephone offering, but not because it was something that I wanted to purchase. Sure, the phone that was announced yesterday is pretty neat looking, and I'm pleased with the feature set. From purely a technical perspective, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It's sexier than the Nokia N91 that I've been lusting after for awhile now, and I'm certain that it's going to be more developer-friendly than a Symbian-based device.

From a social and economic perspective, however, I'm tremendously disappointed with Apple. Given the success of the iPod, I was sure that Apple had the market share and brand equity to release a phone that would serve as a catalyst to end the idiocy that is the carrier-subsidized, long-term contract oriented, consumer-hostile Communist State of wireless telephone service providers in the United States. I was hopeful that the product would be a carrier-agnostic GSM cell phone, and that its entrance into the marketplace would be the beginning of the end of the consumer unfriendly contract-based wireless telephone service market.

As far as I can tell from the details that I've seen so far, the iPhone won't be anything more than another delivery vehicle for oppressive, unfair, long-term service contracts. Worse, given the brand equity and market domination of the iPod, I'm worried that this may reinforce this consumer unfriendly marketplace. If the only way to get an iPhone is to enter into an unfair contract w/ Cingular, then that's what people will do. *sigh*

I must not understand the market very well. My ignorant view would be for Apple to release the device w/ no carrier relationship, and make it available only as an unlocked device. Carriers would be stupid not to make it easy for new iPhone owners to sign up, given that these things are going to sell like crazy. If it was necessary to have this carrier relationship to get "advanced" features like the "visual voice mail", I'd opt for designing a published spec for the device's "visual voice mail" API, and let the carriers fight it out. (To say that not having "visual voice mail" at the outset was a showstopper is, I think, rather silly. Besides, something like "visual voice mail" should be an open, standards-based spec anyway... IMAP, anyone?)

Arguments about Cingular having the "best" GSM network and being integral to the product's success irritate me. I would think that iPhone owners would be smart enough to associate poor phone service with their GSM service provider, not with Apple and the iPhone itself. I just can't buy the argument that it was necessary for Apple to "partner" with a carrier.

You blew it, Apple. I hoped you could be the catalyst that broke the logjam of idiocy in the wireless telephone service market in the United States. So much for your being counter-culture and "thinking different".