According to iSuppli, “The T-Mobile G1 smart phone, the first wireless handset to be based on Google Inc.’s Android mobile operating system, carries a Bill-of-Materials (BOM) cost of $143.89“  Compared with the iPhone’s BOM of $229.85. Here are the details:

Inside the G1

iSuppli determined the $143.89 BOM based on information from its Mobile Handset Cost Model (MHCM), which provides detailed analysis of present and future expenses to build mobile phones with any possible feature set. This estimate includes only the component and material costs for the G1, and doesn’t account for other expenses including software, research and development, manufacturing and accessories. iSuppli hasn’t yet conducted an actual physical teardown of the G1.

The most costly segment of the G1 is the baseband, at $28.49, or 19.8 percent of the G1’s total BOM. Similar to other recent handsets from various brands examined by iSuppli, the baseband employs a combination of an ARM11 microprocessor for multimedia applications and an ARM7 core for modem functions.

The next most costly section of the G1 is the display, at $19.67, or 13.7 percent of the BOM. The G1’s display is a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with HVGA resolution, at 320 by 480 pixels. The display uses projective touch-screen technology.

I was riding in my car last night and while listening to All Things Considered I was shocked to hear them talking about ShopSavvy.  Not only were they talking about the application, they called it the ‘Killer App’.  Very cool.  Here is the story, click on the audio link to hear the recording.

It is good news for Circuit City and consumers and bad news for their ‘former’ shareholders. It is amazing that in this tight credit market Circuit City was able to arrange a $1.1 billion in debtor-in-position (DIP) credit facility. I suspect this means a smaller, smarter Circuit City will emerge from bankruptcy next year. At least they will make it through Christmas. What does this mean for you? Better deals to be sure…

T-Mobile just bought one billion impressions over the next two days from AOL.  Peter Kafka reports, “Michael Learmonth talks to industry sources who think the buy could cost T-Mobile around $1.5 million, which would work out to a CPM (cost per thousand) of $1.50. Ad folks I talk to think that number sounds high, and guesstimate that the CPM will be closer to the $1 to $1.10 range.” Sort of amazing AOL can deliver a billion impressions in two days.  Now all ‘we’ need to do is convert those new T-Mobile customers into ShopSavvy users.  Any ideas?

We parsed ShopSavvy scan data for a single day in Texas and here was the result:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

We parsed ShopSavvy scan data for a single day in the UK and came up with the following picture:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

We parsed scan data for a single day in Hawaii and here are the results:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Jim Grimes, an anchor for CW33 (a Tribune company), stopped by the Big in Japan offices on Friday for a look at ShopSavvy.  Jim did a great piece found here.  Here is the embed (I was having problems with it):

Check out the map below, each pin represents a scan (or set of scans for multiple scans in the same location on that day) from November 6th. We tried to map all scans for the last three weeks, but we crashed Google Earth so we had to settle for a single day:

There really isn’t anything surprising about this map if you consider the distribution of T-Mobile’s 3G coverage.

Many of our users had no idea that ShopSavvy allowed for manual entry of hard to read barcodes or title search for items without a handy UPC symbol.  On the application, after you select “Search for a product” you can click on the tab on the far left of the screen that says ‘use keypad’ (just under ‘use camera’).  Alternatively you can simply open the keyboard and you will see the option that allows you to either type the barcode on the screen or the title of the item you are searching for.  I uploaded a quick video to help show this feature (it is a bit fuzzy, but I think you will get the idea):

I was reading an article on CNET titled, “Ballmer dismisses Google Android” when I laughed out loud at the irony of the situation.  Ballmer (Microsoft) and Trujillo (Telstra) were demonstrating their new 21 Mbps Next G network when reporters asked about Google’s Android mobile platform.  Ballmer and Truillo dismissed Android as “not ready”, with Trujillo suggesting that Android was “not compelling”.  The irony was both Ballmer and Trujillo were killing time because their demo was busted - the Next G network didn’t work.  Ballmer tried to take the blame suggest, “I do have to say, I think I probably did it” - what is the old saying about ‘Glass Houses’?

Here is the article.