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AT&T Gears Up for the iPhone
ElvaWSJ writes "In preparation for its exclusive launch of the cellphone industry's most anticipated device, AT&T is pulling out all the stops. It is adding about 2,000 temporary employees to cope with the influx of shoppers in the first few months. And it is planning for enhanced security to control the potentially large crowds and avoid theft of the phones, which will go for a steep $499 or $599, depending on memory capacity. Some sales agents expect to see people camping outside the night before. 'Apple, which plans to start selling the phone in all of its 162 retail stores on June 29, did not disclose any plans around training or staffing for the launch. Apple will also start selling the phone online on the launch date, but AT&T will first launch only in its stores ... AT&T, which is requiring iPhone shoppers to sign up for a 2-year contract, has not yet revealed the service fees it will charge iPhone customers.'"
GSM is one of the three cell protocols in use in America right now. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, and Sprint-Nextel uses iDEN/TDMA. When you're roaming, you're probably using the "other network"'s towers
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
You're obviously USian.
b ile_Communications
GSM is the standard protocol that the world uses.
Except for the US. It uses IS-95.
So, because the iPhone uses GSM, it'll only work with two US carries, and THE REST OF THE WORLD.
GSM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_System_for_Mo
IS-95: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS-95
So I should get the iPhone for $500, and dump my Samsung Blackjack, which is smaller than the iPhone
"Smaller"?
Blackjack = 113mm tall
iPhone = 115mm tall
Difference = less than 1%
Blackjack = 59mm wide
iPhone = 61mm wide
Difference = less than 1%
slimmer than the iPhone
Wrong.
Blackjack = 12mm
iPhone = 11mm
Difference = more than 1%
lighter than the iPhone
Blackjack = 106g
iPhone = 135g
Difference = 25%
This is the only one where it makes any difference, but it's not as if 135g is heavy by any measure.
gets 800kbps in Manhattan via 3G HSDPA
Great. The *one* feature iPhone doesn't have that people carp about. Well, guess what? AT&T doesn't have 3G in my city and probably won't anytime soon, and definitely not within 2 years.
And the iPhone has WiFi. Which blankets my entire campus and city. Which is much, much faster than 3G.
(And yes, I will agree that some people "depend" on 3G, and the addition of WiFi doesn't help. I'm not one of those people on either count.)
has a finish which is almost impossible to scratch
Since iPhone isn't out yet, I guess we'll have to wait and see how durable it is.
To test iPhone's durability, Thandu says, they doused it with water, dropped it on concrete and bounced it off sidewalks.
Thandu says he took the iPhone with him on long runs, sweating all over it. "We wanted to test the limits of it."
has a real full QWERTY keyboard
Great. I like the keyboard on my Treo, too. But since iPhone has a keyboard when it needs one, we'll see how good it is. Is it likely to be not as nice as a tactile keyboard? Probably not. But then:
Blackjack: 2.3", 320x240
iPhone: 3.5", 320x480
Difference: >50% size, 100% (!) pixels
Not to mention all of the other features and functionality, multi-touch, the tightly integrated music, video, photo, etc., management, user interface, more than double the battery life, and so on. Of course, anyone can say they don't "need" any of these features, but to essentially call the iPhone a piece of junk is a little ignorant.
and cost me a whole of $50.
Congratulations. You get what you pay for. If it does the job and you like it, good for you.