[JimiMac]

"Dear Apple: I'm sure you have plenty of old graphite ABS's laying around (and probably even more of the newer white ones!)....why not start giving them away to the major coffee houses and book stores, along with a big banner that says stuff like:

"This Bookstore Has an Airport."
"This Coffee House Has an Airport."

Now instead of people just reading their papers, you can have a whole coffee house or bookstore of people wirelessly communicating with each other, playing games, surfing the internet, all the while showing off their spiffy iBooks and PowerBooks in these public places where people can OOH and AHHH!!! And once the PC people realize they can join the party if they have laptops with the 802.11 capability, then you show Mac people and PC people communicating, working, and playing together, something most of the world still doesn't think is possible! And once they see how much cooler those Macs are than their boring PC laptops, and onlookers see people using programs like iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, etc, they are gonna want one! This is the greatest idea to get your Apple product out in front of the masses so they can see how much fun a Mac can be!

Jim Alden"

[ghporter]

Go to Starbucks' web site and look for the link to "Hot Spots." There are a surprising number of them, and in some surprising locations.

Why not advertise as "AirPort?" That's only Apple's name for IEEE 802.11b wireless networking. The folks with Dells and Compaqs would like to see that their wireless access isn't tied to a particular platform, so it makes sense to keep things either generic ("We have WiFi wireless here!") or to give it a store-linked brand, such as "Hot Spot." In fact the T-Mobile phone folks seem to have hitched a ride on the "Hot Spot" wagon-my local Starbucks has a wireless network and a nice big T-Mobile sign in the front window that says it's a T-Mobile hotspot, too.

[JB72]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Go to Starbucks' web site and look for the link to "Hot Spots." There are a surprising number of them, and in some surprising locations.

I'm finally going to bite on this now that I got a free 24 hour pass at Starbucks. Seems like a nice idea, not that I need any more coffee.

T-Mobile HotSpot.

[xtal]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Go to Starbucks' web site and look for the link to "Hot Spots." There are a surprising number of them, and in some surprising locations.

Unfortunately, they haven't made it to Canada yet.

I like the original poster's idea about encouraging the use of wireless in the outside (of work) world. Personally, I'm not a fan of the Starbucks variety of coffee shops, but prefer the little independent ones. Now if THOSE stores had Airport base stations and fired up a 802.11b network...