Slashdot Mirror
Apple To Unveil iPod Cellphone Next Week?
Mictian writes "Apple Computer is planning to hold a major press conference next week (September 7th) in San Francisco and the rumours say that it will be the unveiling of a new iPod cellphone (NYT). The phone would incorporate the popular iTunes software, be built by Motorola and marketed by Cingular Wireless. The companies have declined to confirm or deny the report, which would fit Apple's past pattern of being secretive to maximise the splash on announcement day."
Nice, but apparently it'll only hold 100 songs. And if that is true, it is not nearly enough capacity to make me switch from carrying both an MP3 player and a mobile.
Why Cingular?
First, they sell Motorola phones, and Motorola partnered with Apple to build it. Also, they're a GSM carrier, and they seem to sell bleeding edge phones a little bit quicker than other carriers. Motorola probably built the first version as GSM because more carriers use that protocol. I love Verizon, but ditched 'em for Cingular because Cingular gets cooler phones faster. Granted, the coverage isn't as good, but hey, geeks love toys.
What's your damage, Heather?
64kbps is the technical limit of vanilla GPRS. However, T-Mobile is pretty far along with their EDGE rollout in most metro areas - here in Atlanta I have to go outside the perimeter before I lose EDGE coverage. Real-world transfer rates are in the 80-100kbps range almost everywhere I've checked where I have more than one bar. Check this forum for user's reports.
AFAIK T-Mobile is waiting for the deployment to be completed before they begin marketing the service, but there's not going to be any additional charges for it beyond what they charge for GPRS today. They have just begun to sell the v330, which has EDGE support (I use an unlocked v551).
As far as T-Mobile's coverage, I will note that the higher-frequency band (they're on 1800 or 1900MHz in the US, Cingular uses 850) does cause the signal to drop out sooner inside buildings than Cingular's - for some reason it happens a lot in supermarkets - due to faster attenuation of higher-frequency signals. But other than that, I don't have problems in metro areas. Rural/suburban areas are a different story, I've heard...