‘I dropped it from a hot air balloon’ and ‘my dog mistook it for his favourite toy and chewed it to bits’ are among the bizarre insurance claims made for lost and damaged iPhones over the last 12 months, it emerged yesterday.
Other unusual claims include ‘I lost it while skydiving’, ‘I dropped it in a blender’ and ‘It fell into the kettle’.
The weird and wonderful claims came to light in a study by gadget insurers www.protectyourbubble.com.
It also emerged one in five iPhone users have made an insurance claim during the past 12 months.
Most common claims include cracked screens, lost or stolen iPhones and iPhones dropped in the toilet or bath.
A spokesman for Protect your bubble said: “With so many people carrying an iPhone with them wherever they go, it’s no surprise that they are being lost or damaged in a host of unusual ways.”
“Most of us know someone who has managed to drop their iPhone in a pint of beer or down the toilet – but these bizarre claims we have uncovered must be one-offs.’’
The study also found 45 per cent of claims have been for accidental damage to iPhones.
One unlucky customer lost his iPhone after leaning over the side of a boat in Cyprus, to see it fall out of the rucksack and plop into the sea.
And one owner reckons he was happily sitting in the local pub, when a friend spilled his pint of beer all over his phone.
Another unlucky male drove sharply round a corner, to witness his beloved iPhone sliding across the dashboard and straight out of his open window.
Other iPhone insurance claims include losing the phone under the wheels of a bus after it flew out of a pocket, and a teenager being forced to hand over his phone to thugs after they threatened him with a machete.
And one coffee shop assistant was busy making an espresso for a customer, only to turn around and find he had walked off with his phone which was sitting on the side.
The spokesman for Protect your bubble added: “The amazing ways people manage to be separated from their iPhone goes to show that you never know what’s around the corner – and it pays to get your iPhone insured.’’
Other more usual claims include losing internet connection, screen freeze, pets knocking the phone off a work surface and the fact the phone doesn’t charge.
TOP 10 MOST BIZARRE IPHONE CLAIMS
TOP 10 MOST COMMON IPHONE CLAIMS
Well it’s been a busy and crazy week but I’ve finally got some time to tell you all about my 3 Days in London attending The mashup* demo event and of course the awesome Future of Web Apps Conference and Expo which included the Live Filming of Episode 118 of Diggnation and the Carsonified Relaunch Party!
Unfortunately I didn’t have a laptop to do any Live Blog coverage
like I would have liked to so instead I took what notes I could on paper and took plenty of photos along with a couple of videos.
Mashup* Demo Event – Day Before FOWA
First up let me tell you about the Mashup* Demo event, In running order the following companies demoed, yes they only had 5 minutes to demo, this made sure they got to the point of why we should try out their site/service/product etc and why investors should invest in them:
3.30pm – Serena Software
3.35pm – Mobestar
3.40pm – 15 Second TV
3.45pm – BabelTV
3.50pm – WeLoveLocal.com
3.55pm – Rummble
4.00pm – Magpie
4.05pm – Inspire
4.10pm – Bondaii
4.15pm – Meecard
4.20pm – Serena Software
4.25pm – Rollsense
4.30pm – Fav.or.it
4.35pm – Kwiqq
4.40pm – Tipped
4.45pm – testcard.tv
I have yet to test fully every site/service/product on this list; however I hope to do very soon. The venue it’s self was great and I had some interesting talks with people such as James Dyer (TestCard.Tv) and Dominik Grolimund, Co-Founder and CEO of Caleido who has created Wuala, which is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet.
I would however like to make some suggestions for improvements, mainly on the after party hosted by Blognation, as part of their UK Launch of Blognation. Me and a few others agreed that some music would have been nice to go along with that disco ball they Club had, along with some food/nibbles as it was dinner time by then…
Other than that it was pretty good, I’ll be sure to be checking out each and every site/service/product in more detail. By the way Richard Brooks (Managing Director of The 100 Year Website) where were you – someone said they talked to you but we couldn’t find you again – hope you had a good time and that my invite for you to come was worthwhile!
The Future of Web Apps Conference and Expo (FOWA) – Day 1
Ok now let me tell you a little lot about The FOWA Conference and Expo.
Welcome from Brian Oberkirch & Simon Willison, the FOWA Conference Chairs
We were first welcomed by Brian Oberkirch & Simon Willison, the FOWA Conference Chairs, along with Ryan Carson, co-founder of Carsonified (Carson Systems), they gave us a quick talk on what we could expect over the next 2 to 3 days at FOWA.
What is the Future of Web Apps? We Discuss! – Om Malik, (GigaOM) & Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
After this brief welcome to FOWA there was a discussion between Ryan Carson, Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc and Michael Arrington, serial entrepreneur and operator of TechCrunch. In this talk they talked a about how web apps are changing the web and how we can benefit from them.
10 Real-world Apps That Represent The Future of Web Apps – Ben Forsaith (Adobe)
10 Real-world Apps That Represent The Future of Web Apps was a fast pace session presented by Ben Forsaith (Andrew Shorten), product specialist with Adobe UK, in which he demoed 10 Web Apps that were using Adobe technology such as Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime)
High Performance Websites – Steve Souders (Yahoo!)
High Performance Websites was the first developer track session of the day, and was presented by Steve Souders, who works at Yahoo! as the Chief Performance Yahoo!, where he has developed a set of best practices for making web sites faster.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
The Future of Search – Tony Conrad (Sphere)
The Future of Search was the second business/entrepreneur session of the day, and was presented by Tony Conrad, who is a Venture capitalist turned entrepreneur who co-founded Sphere (previously Yodel Search).
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
The Art of Attractive Yet Useable Sites – Robin Christopherson (AbilityNet)
The Art of Attractive Yet Useable Sites was the second business/entrepreneur session of the day, and was presented by Robin Christopherson, who despite being blind, uses a computer very effectively by relying on speech output to access the full range of mainstream software including email and the internet. So he has a first-hand appreciation of the importance of good web design practice to accessibility, which is great for AbilityNet’s Web Consultancy services which he manages.
In his talk he talked about how over 90% of sites are still illegal because they do not meet the required accessibility standards and how sites which are accessibility friendly are really easy to use for people who are vision impaired.
*Lunch Break*
It’s Lunch Time, so I took a walk around the ExCeL Building and the FOWA Expo Hall.
How User Feedback can Influences Design – Daniel Burka (digg / Pownce)
How User Feedback can Influences Design was the third developer session of the day, and was presented by Daniel Burka, who is the creative director at Digg and is one of the cofounders of Pownce.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
The Architecture Behind WordPress.com – Matt Mullenweg (WordPress)
The Architecture Behind WordPress.com was the fourth developer session of the day, and was presented by Matt Mullenweg, who is best known as the founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software tool.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Building a Community (Creating and Running Communites) – Matthew Haughey (MetaFilter)
Building a Community was the fifth developer session of the day, and was presented by Matthew Haughey, who is best known as the founder of the community weblog MetaFilter, where he is known as mathowie.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Taking Your Application Mobile – Heidi Pollock (BluePulse)
Taking Your Application Mobile was the sixth developer session of the day, and was presented by Heidi Pollock, who having left Yahoo! Mobile, started to work as a contractor for Twitter and then more recently started work for the Australian start-up, Bluepulse, fulltime.
In her talk, she talked about some of the following points:
The Future of Firefox and JavaScript – John Resig (Mozilla Corporation)
The Future of Firefox and JavaScript was the seventh developer session of the day, and was presented by John Resig, who is a programmer working for the Mozilla Corporation. As well as being a programmer for Mozilla, he is also the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library. He is also the author of the book ‘Pro Javascript Techniques.’ And is currently located in Cambridge, MA.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
7 Things You Probably Don’t Know About That You Can Use in Your Future Web Apps – Mark Quirk & Jon Harris (Microsoft)
This session was presented by Mark Quirk who joined Microsoft UK in 1992 as a senior support engineer for Microsoft development tools and is now the product manager responsible for Visual Studio and web development at Microsoft UK. And also by Jon Harris who used to work for Macromedia but is now a Microsoft User Experience Evangelist.
Lessons Learned From Launching Digg & Pownce – Kevin Rose (digg / Pownce)
Kevin Rose was up next for this last session of the day
In his talk he talked about some of the following points:
Live Filming of Diggnation @ FOWA London
What can I say about it – The Live Filming of Diggnation with Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht was more than awesome!
The place was packed out with people wanting to watch the show – The Crowd went wild – And I had a front row side seat!
Watch Diggnation Episode 118 London Here.
Carsonified Relaunch Party @ FOX@ExCeL
Yet more fun, a big thanks goes to both Kevin and Alex for allowing people to take photos with them!
Me, Kevin Bing (uni student) and Alex Albrecht

The Future of Web Apps Conference and Expo (FOWA) – Day 2
The Future of Web Apps (FOWA) continues on Day 2…
Developer Stage: Welcome from Brian Oberkirch & Simon Willison, the FOWA conference chairs
The Future of Web Startups – Paul Graham (Y Combinator)
The Future of Web Startups was presented by Paul Graham, who is the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004).
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Predicting The Future of Web Apps – Edwin Aoki (AOL)
Predicting The Future of Web Apps was presented by Edwin Aoki, Chief Architect AOL.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Web app do’s and don’ts – Practical lessons we learned – Leah Culver (Pownce)
Web app do’s and don’ts – Practical lessons we learned Predicting was the first developer session of the day, and was presented by Leah Culver who is currently best known for founding Pownce with her friends Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka as a way of sending messages, links, files and events to each other.
In her talk, she talked about some of the following points:
Thanks goes to Jenifer Hanen for the gap filling – check out her post here!
The Story Behind The Facebook Platform – Dave Morin (Facebook)
The Story Behind The Facebook Platform was the second developer session of the day, and was presented by Dave Morin who is the Senior Platform Manager at Facebook where he leads platform strategy and community
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Preparing for Enterprise Adoption (The Future Of Blogging) – Suw Charman (suw.org.uk)
Preparing for Enterprise Adoption was the third business/entrepreneur session of the day, and was presented by who Suw Charman, a social software consultant and writer who specialises in the use of blogs and wikis behind the firewall. Suw is also founder and board member of the Open Rights Group, a digital rights advocacy group which aims to raise awareness of digital rights issues, to campaign against bad legislation in Britain and the EU, and to support grass roots activism.
In her talk, she talked about some of the following points:
*Lunch Break*
It’s Lunch Time on Day 2, so I thought id go outside down by the water to take some photos.
On the ExCeL Victoria Dock Bridge I witnessed the filming of a film/movie/soap/drama/documentary… ehhh… no idea what it was but we were not aloud to cross the bridge until they were finished and as we were approaching we were told to be quite!
I heard one of the actors say “Dial 999″ quite loud….
Click on this photo and Zoom in and you’ll notice they are still up there
Putting Users First – Thomas Vander Wal (InfoCloud Solutions)
Putting Users First was the fourth business/entrepreneur session of the day, and was presented by Thomas Vander Wal, who is the The Principal and Senior Consultant at InfoCloud Solutions, Vander Wal is an information architect best known for coining the term “folksonomy.” He’s also known for initiating the term “infocloud”. His works has been with the Web and with information design and structure.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Next Generation Visualisations – Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen Design)
Next Generation Visualisations was the fith business/entrepreneur session of the day, and was presented by Eric Rodenbeck, Stamen’s founder and creative director. He is a 10-year veteran of the interactive design field, and has spent this time working to extend the boundaries of online media and live information visualization.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Comet: Making the Web a 2-Way Medium – Joe Walker (DWR)
Comet: Making the Web a 2-Way Medium was the sixth developer session of the day, and was presented by Joe Walker, a developer and consultant working on advanced web development techniques like AJAX. He recently developed Direct Web Remoting, (DWR) which has become one of the most popular Ajax toolkits for Java by making browser/server interaction intuitive for web developers. See www.drectwebremoting.com. He currently works through his consultancy, Getahead (http://getahead.org/), which is supplying a growing number of customers with AJAX and advanced web solutions.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
An Insight to FireEagle – Tom Coates (Yahoo!)
An Insight to FireEagle was the seventh developer session of the day, and was presented by Tom Coates, who works for Yahoo Brickhouse where he develops new concepts in social software, future media and the web of data. He focuses on the shape of the web to come and how to make things that thrive as part of it. He’s worked for many of the UK’s most prominent web companies including Time Out, UpMyStreet and the BBC where he ran a small near-term R&D team for the BBC exploring media navigation, annotation and distribution. A regular speaker at conferences including ETech, XTech, IASummit and The Future of Web Apps, Tom also writes extensively at plasticbag.org as well as running the experimental online community barbelith.com.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Air – Next Generation Development – Ben Forsaith (Adobe)
Air – Next Generation Development was the eighth developer session of the day, and was presented by Ben Forsaith, product specialist with Adobe UK.
In his talk, he talked about some of the following points:
Best Tips & Screw Ups – Panel of FOWA speakers
This last session of the day was a discussion talk between Ryan Carson, Kevin Lawver, Lane Becker, Rashmi , Dick , Ted Rheingold, Simon Willison and Brian Oberkirch.
Well it’s lunch time and so far The Future of Web Apps Conference and Expo here in London has been pretty cool. Yesterdays mashup* demo event was also quite interesting, though I do have some things that I would like to see next time…
I shall be posting a full review along with photos of both todays Future of Web Apps Conference and yesterday’s mashup* demo event once I get home.
Don’t forget that if you fancy meeting up while I’m here today and tomorrow at The FOWA Expo that you can give me a call or text on 07944160953.
Going to see Daniel Burka’s “Design for web apps vs the web” developer session next, then I’ll see Matt Mullenweg (founding developer of WordPress) and his session titled “The Architecture Behind WordPress.com”.
Following the successful launch of the six free Talking Mobile Phrase Books for Nokia and Sony Ericsson cell phones in May earlier this year, software developers Coolgorilla have today announced an all-in-one version of the talking phrase books for Apples new iPhone.
Sponsored by online travel and leisure retailer lastminue.com the iPhone Translator is a completely free service providing travellers with both text and audio translations in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German with a Greek version to follow shortly. Simply select your required language and phrase and the iPhone translator will display a written translation on screen along with a native audio translation provided by a professional voice-over artist.
As the first product of it’s kind for the iPhone it is also a pioneering move from lastminute.com to use the device as a way of engaging customers through value added advertising.
Easy to use, the iPhone translator requires the user to select the required target language and then provides a structured menu system much like a standard phrase book. Simply find your required phrase, press select the iPhone then “speaks” the phrase using the recordings of real, native voice-over artists and also supplies a text translation on screen.
Quicker and easier than a standard phrasebook, the added functionality of audio translations means you can be sure of your pronunciation before attempting to speak the lingo or should you wish, just play the recipient the translation through the phones’ speaker
Mark McCulloch, Head of Brand Development of lastminute.com said, “lastminute.com are dedicated to providing travellers with additional products that will enhance their holiday experience. Our range of translators & phrase books are fun to use and will keep you in favour with the locals!”
Roy Forsdick, Managing Director of iDev Entertainment AKA Coolgorilla added, “As part of our ongoing mission to provide free quality translation tools to the increasing number of mobile surfers, developing an iPhone version was a must.”
Today at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) Keynote in San Francisco, Apples CEO Steve Jobs, announced that the Mac OS Web browser, Safari (beta 3), is now available for Microsoft Windows PC’s.
Launching in open beta today, the latest version of Safari includes a number of new features, including a new functionality for automatically creating widgets from web page elements. It’s understood that this feature will also work with Windows. Another new feature is advanced tab dragging, which even allows for tabs to be dragged off into their own new windows, which I have to admit is pretty neat, and should be available in Internet Explorer (IE7), as I’ve wanted to do this before with Tabs!
According to Apple, Safari (beta 3), is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Though I’ll let you make your own mind up on that!
Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.
Today marks a very special day for Apple Inc, as today is the 3oth Anniversary of the Apple II, the first ever personal computer to go on sale. 30 Years ago hey, that’s some time ago, I bet it wasn’t predicted that the Apple Brand would be where it was today in the year 2007.
The Apple II (sometimes written as Apple ][ or Apple //) was the first popular microcomputer manufactured by Apple. Its direct ancestor was the Apple I, a limited production circuit board computer for electronics hobbyists which pioneered many features that made the Apple II a commercial success. Introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977, the Apple II was one of the very first and most successful personal computers. A number of different models were sold, and the most popular model was manufactured with relatively minor changes into the 1990s. By the end of its production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers (including approximately 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) had been produced.
Apple has confirmed that its much-anticipated iPhone product will launch on 29 June in the US. The date was given in a series of TV adverts broadcast on Sunday, and was later confirmed by a spokesman for the California-based company.
The device, which combines the features of a mobile phone and personal digital assistant, will sell for $499 (£251) and $599, depending on configuration.
Not sure how many of you haven’t seen the interview Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg conducted with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the D5 (All Things Digital) conference on May 30, 2007. But here’s a bunch of text and video coverage links to the complete Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview:
Here’s the Highlight Reel in full view:

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