By JEREMY CAPLAN

Poor Harry Potter. As he prepares for his swan song, it's the iPhone's wizardry--not his--that's stirring up the fevered anticipation usually reserved for a summer blockbuster. Nineteen million Americans say they want the hyper-hip gizmo sight unseen, reports research firm M:Metrics. And that collective clamor is not just about branded bling. It's about a widespread yearning for a better phone, a cooler calling tool that always works, that is easy to use, fun to play with and comes in a stylish, sexy shell

In Apple's shadow, a slew of mobile upstarts is quietly rethinking what phones can do, making them operate a little better for the millions of Americans who will still be non-iPhoners after Apple launches its latest gizmo on June 29. GrandCentral, for instance, consolidates all your phone numbers and personalizes the device you already have. EQO circumvents the carriers' steep rates for international calls. Spinvox and SimulScribe turn your voice mail into text. And TellMe lets you operate your phone with your voice, promising an end run around those confusing option menus. "Features have never been the carriers' strong suit," says GrandCentral CEO Craig Walker. "They're few, expensive and never work the same from one carrier to the next."

Apple expects to sell 10 million iPhones
within a year. Its mobile phone rivals are
juicing up their services to compete.

Until recently, carriers have had little incentive to improve the software that runs on their phones. Like network TV in the 1980s, the U.S. mobile-phone system is dominated by a handful of established giants: Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile control nearly 90% of the market. They have used that power to maintain tight control over their networks. In this so-called walled garden, when you sign up to use a carrier, you can use only the services they want you to use. Imagine if Seinfeld were available only on RCA televisions. Or if your broadband service let you use Hotmail but not Gmail. That's not far from the state of the mobile-phone system today. The carriers rule.

That was O.K. when most consumers just wanted to make a call. But today Americans are trying everything from video messaging and mobile blogging to photo sharing and customized ringtones. One ringtone alone, "Crazy Frog," has earned more than $70 million. Data demand increased about 68% last year, and it now constitutes 16% of the carriers' revenue. To guard that growing income stream, the carriers restrict the features available on your phone. They control the billing for add-ons, and most companies selling ringtones and games are so new that they need the carriers' help to gain a foothold.

But this new wave of mobile start-ups is finding ways to release consumers from the carriers' grip--by using the Web to get around carrier control and by training users to switch carriers for better add-ons. Other new services, though, still rely on the carriers because they are installed on phones or piggyback on the carriers' networks.

The big mobile-phone companies insist they have been responsive to consumer demands. They have bolstered their networks for better coverage, improved call quality by searching for and fixing dead spots, and made it easier to download ringtones and other add-ons. "There has probably been more change in the way phones operate in the past three years than in the 10 years prior," says Carlton Hill, a vice president at AT&T.

They may be forced to change even more. If the army of innovators, led by the iPhone, can build on their promise, the carriers will face stiffening competition and pressure to offer similar or better services. Lumbering giants, after all, have the furthest to fall. *

Source :

Relate (TIME.COM):

• Next-generation gadgets like the iPhone are turning your mouse into a dinosaur and introducing hands-on computing LINK
• When it comes to Apple's widely anticipated new gadget, both companies are starting to see the benefits of friendship LINK
• With its touchscreen, keypad-less cell phone, Apple once again kicks off a revolution. A behind-the-scenes look at iPhone's birth LINK

Triggers, The Cue, and others in How to Change a Habit

This is a review or are some notes of How to Change a Habit's Book by Scott Young

The Notes are:

Triggers
It is The first advanced tool for making habit changes stick. A trigger is simply understanding and reinforcing the cue that starts your habit. Before you can use a trigger to make your habits more resilient, you need to understand how a habit works.

What most people consider a habit, isn’t one habit, but many minor habits linked together. These minor habits are small links of thought and behavior that form a larger pattern you generally call a habit. Although smoking may be seen as a habit by some, it is actually many habits linked together. The chain of habits for smoking might be:
1. Feel the impulse for a cigarette
2. Look for cigarette
3. Pull cigarette out
4. Light cigarette
5. Smoke

The goal of creating a trigger, is to make a highly consistent ritual based on some initial stimulus that automatically redirects your behavior. The ritual has to be short, simple and highly focused to lead to the new habit you want to install. A trigger you create for your habit has two components, your cue and your ritual.

The Cue
The cue is a piece of stimulus that precedes your habit, like the bell for Pavlov's dogs. Some habits have a fairly uniform cue, while others may have a couple different initial signals. This may sound a bit complex but the cue for your trigger is actually fairly simple.

Consider you want a habit of waking up early, what would be your cue? This has to be one of the easiest: the sound of your alarm clock. That sound of your alarm clock is a universal piece of stimulus that gives you the option of waking up. If you wanted a habit trigger for an early riser habit, the alarm clock would be an obvious cue....

The best cues are external (time of day, alarm clock, after tasks, work, etc.) but when there aren’t any consistent external cues for when you should perform your habit, you need to look for internal cues. Internal cues are harder to make triggers, but they will work.

The Ritual
This is the most important part of your trigger. This should be a concise set of actions no more than fifteen minutes long, and often it can be as little as a few seconds. Your ritual needs to be strongly associated with your habit, so it should be done every time in the same fashion.

Because rituals develop naturally, consciously using a trigger is the process of ensuring two things: practice and consistency.

Practicing Your Ritual.....LINK (or Download)