FCC Approves iPhone

An anonymous reader alerted us that the iPhone is one step closer to hitting shelves. "The Federal Communications Commission approved Apple Inc.'s iPhone, clearing the way for the combined phone and music player to hit the shelves. Apple expects to begin selling the phones in late June. Some of the FCC documents confirm a few features of the phone, including it will have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and will operate in the 1900MHz and 850MHz frequency bands. The phone uses GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology and the low-speed GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) wireless data standard."

Comments

Re:Apple will still need lots of luck

[rolfwind]

Another techie making the mistake that the checklist of features is all there is to a product.

Re:Radio Schematic

[Doppler00]

Well.... if they were to do that the schematics would be grossly complex now days. You'd have a circuit schematic with 100's of pins per chip.... would be very impractical and useless to all but a dozen people. Besides, the schematic doesn't really say how it works, since all the circuitry is integrated into proprietary IC's. THOSE are the schematics Apple and other manufacturers keep to themselves.

Re:Apple will still need lots of luck

[seanadams.com]

What part of 'Apple cache'' didn't you read?

I read it and I also think you're wrong. Not everybody buys Apple products for their "cache" [sic]. Some of us buy them because they WORK BETTER, and that does not mean "has the most checkbox features".

Again /. readers miss the point.

[Steve Cowan]

People don't care whether their phone has GPRS or EDGE or EVDO or 3G. The points nobody's mentioning here that will make the phone take off are:

Decent resolution camera for a a phone.
Sexy touchscreen with multi-touch! This is new to any consumer device, not just phones.
Visual voicemail. A first for any phone.
Display changes orientation when you turn the device. Again: HAWT.
The promise of web browsing in your hand that sctually renders real web pages correctly.
Built-in iPod functionality that syncs with iTunes, and lists of songs/movies you can "flip" through.

It's not how much memory it has or how fast it communicates, it is the "unquantifiable" that sells things like phones.

Re:Again /. readers miss the point.

[dn15]

The promise of web browsing in your hand that sctually renders real web pages correctly.

This is a huge feature to me. Not that I'm really going to drop all that cash on one. But its ability to zoom in and out from full page view to readable text makes it possible to use a "real" browser on a mobile device without limiting one's self to mobile-friendly sites.

Re:Apple will still need lots of luck

[Shakrai]

AT&T as a captive carrier

You know, I really don't care for Apple and I tend to think that most of their products are more marketing success then actual functionality, but even so you can't really blame them for AT&T being a captive carrier. That's the way the damn cell industry works in the United States. The carriers have all the power. Ever tried to create an app for a cell phone? Ever tried to do something in the interest of your users and not in the interest of the carriers? Good luck!

Verizon and AT&T rank as the least friendly carriers to do business with -- both for developers and for their end users. Crippled phones, disabled features, draconian terms of service, etc, etc, etc. Sprint is slightly better and T-Mobile USA is probably the most friendly but even they pale in comparison to the freedom of choice that exists in the rest of the World.

I would encourage everybody to go read this document. It explains how the industry works and advocates for an adoption of wireless network neutrality and applying the carterphone rules to the wireless industry. There is simply no excuse for why I can't just go down to Wally World, buy any phone I want (from a $20 el-cheapo POS to a $600 PDA), plug my SIM card (or RUIM card for CDMA) into it and use it.