Sébastien Page

Sebastien is the Founder and Editor in Chief of iDB. Once a BlackBerry user, Sebastien instantly fell in love with the iPhone when it was first announced in 2007. Shortly after, he decided to start sharing his knowledge of the iPhone and its nascent ecosystem, which led to the creation of this blog. Sebastien currently owns 14 iPhones, 4 iPads, a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, a MacBook Air, 2 Apple Watches, 3 Apple TVs, countless HomePods and AirTags as well as a few pairs of AirPods.

Brazil Sells the Most Expensive iPhone 4 in the World

Sébastien Page ∙ November 28, 2011

The new 8GB iPhone 4 was supposed to be a low cost iPhone. At least that's what it's like here in the US. It's a whole different story in Brazil, where the device is selling at a hefty price, making it the most expensive iPhone in the world, as reported by TNW.

Indeed, carriers Vivo and TIM just started selling the iPhone 4 8GB in Brazil for a whopping R$1,799 (US$970) without a data plan. [...] As for their competitor Claro, it only does slightly better with a Rs$1,650 price tag (US$888). [...] While subscriptions make smartphone prices go down dramatically in most countries, it is not the case there either; at Claro, subscribers will have to pay no less than R$270 per month (US$145) to get their phone for free.

That's even more expensive than India's iPhone 4S!

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The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Ain’t Looking Good

Sébastien Page ∙ November 22, 2011

Besides Verizon, it looks like no one is in favor of the $39 billion AT&T/T-Mobile merger. According to AllThingsD's Ina Fried:

You can add the chairman and staff of the Federal Communications Commission to the list of those who believe AT&T’s deal to acquire T-Mobile USA would hurt competition. [...] FCC officials said on Tuesday that the agency found in its review not only that the deal would hurt competition, but also that it represents an unprecedented reduction in competition. In every market except Omaha (where T-Mobile does not offer service), the agency found that the merger would reduce competition to a meaningful degree.

Obviously AT&T is not giving up and they'll use every possible mean to have the deal go through. Some lawyer firms are about to make a lot of money!

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Buffy, the Facebook Phone

Sébastien Page ∙ November 21, 2011

This is not the first time we've heard rumors of Facebook working on a Facebook phone, but it seems that things are now starting to take shape.

After years of considering how to best get into the phone business, Facebook has tapped Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC to build a smartphone that has the social network integrated at the core of its being.

Code-named “Buffy,” after the television vampire slayer, the phone is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications, according to sources familiar with the project.

Read the full article at AllThingsD.

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CASELLET, a Kickstarter Project That Needs Your Help [Sponsored]

Sébastien Page ∙ November 21, 2011

What I really like about Kickstarter is that anyone can come up with an idea, get funding, and turn a concept into a prototype that will eventually become an actual product.

With that in mind, it's amazing to see that product development is not only for big companies anymore, but for people like you and me to create something awesome. This is exactly what Eddie Hsieh is trying to do.

When he couldn't find what he was looking for, he decided to create it. This is when the CASELLET (case/wallet) concept was born. Eddie now needs to raise $22,000 to bring his product to life, so we sat down with him and asked him about his project...

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iPad Generates 87.6% of Worldwide Tablet Traffic

Sébastien Page ∙ November 17, 2011

Website monitoring Pingdom calculated the share of worldwide tablet web traffic. The iPad comes out first, representing 87.6% of all tablet web browsing in the world.

In this analysis iPad accounts for almost 88% of tablet web traffic, Android for about 11% and the others trail far behind. Out of these operating systems, the only one that exists purely on tablets is iOS, but we strongly suspect that this is a good reflection of reality.

Last month, comScore had found that 95.5% of all tablet web traffic in the US comes from the iPad. No doubt that there is probably a margin of error, but still, these numbers are impressive.

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TinyUmbrella Updated With Support For iOS 5.0.1

Sébastien Page ∙ November 15, 2011

TinyUmbrella, the tool that allows you to save your SHSH blobs to let you downgrade your iDevice firmware to an older version, has been updated to bring support for iOS 5.0.1.

As we had previously reported, there is currently no way to downgrade an iPhone 4S due to the way Apple now signs your firmware during the restore process (more info about that here)...

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Reviews of the Kindle Fire Start Coming In

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 16, 2017

For over a year and half, the iPad has undoubtedly been the king of all tablets. With virtually no competition, it wasn't too hard for Apple's tablet to eat a large chunk of the market in a space where no one else seems to get it.

Enter Amazon and the Kindle Fire, a tablet running a version of Android completely tailored to Amazon's needs, so much so that it doesn't have anything to pinpoint it as an Android device but the OS name.

The Kindle Fire is officially launching tomorrow, and, as usual, a few tech gurus have had access to the tablet a few days before everyone else. The reviews are coming in, and it's not as pretty as you'd expect...

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The Dog Who Hates the iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ November 14, 2011

Today is going to be a slow news day, and because I know most of you would rather be home than at work, I thought it'd be nice to entertain you with a pointless YouTube video.

This is the story of Coco, a pug that really, really, really hates the iPhone. But I won't tell you more than that. Just watch the video to see a true Android fandog in action...

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Samsung Won’t Try to Block iPhone 4S Sales in Korea

Sébastien Page ∙ November 14, 2011

Looks like Samsung changed their mind about trying to block sales of the iPhone 4S in Korea.

Samsung Electronics has decided not to seek an injunction against the sale of Apple's iPhone 4S in the domestic market. The new iPhone went on sale here last Friday. Samsung had debated until the last moment whether to file the motion after making similar applications in France, Italy, Australia, and Japan.

The decision was apparently driven by public-relations concerns. A senior Samsung executive said, "We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea."

I guess Samsung would rather engage legal battles in larger markets, like France, Germany, etc... This is obviously a work in progress.

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MobileMount, a Successful KickStarter Project [Sponsored]

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 3, 2018

A couple weeks ago, we told you about a new Kickstarter project called "MobileMount," an accessory that can serve as both a kickstand and a suction cup mount for iPhones, iPads, or pretty much anything else that has a flat surface.

Jose Sanchez, the guy behind the MobileMount, needed to raise $20,000 to start his project. Thanks to Kickstarter, some 1,300+ backers have already pledged close to $60,000 for the project, which goes far beyond Sanchez's wildest expectations and there are still two more weeks to go, as anyone can still pledge until November 29th.

We sat down with Sanchez and asked him a few questions about his project. It's actually quite an interesting story to see how someone like you and me can turn a simple idea into a real product...

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