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All Things iPhone
With the iPhone release coming soon there is no shortage of stories being submitted. Here is an overview of all of its features and specifics on its technical workings. A list of applications is out and still growing. There are warnings however that some applications and peripherals won't be ready or compatible in time for the release. Finally with all the hype associated with the iPhone, we have a reminder of some previous Apple products that ended with a whimper instead of a roar.
In your post, you have only mentioned negatives about the iPhone; high cost, shitty price plan, no GPS, no 3G. The one positive thing you listed is the UI and "non-crashyness." How anyone could be sure that the iPhone doesn't crash as "often" as existing smart phones on the market is beyond me or how anyone except for the select few reviewers that have actually used an iPhone can know that the UI is better. And still, you're planning to buy the phone on launch day.
How can you know that the iPhone is worth the money or even decent? You can't. It is all hype and 900 million dollar pre-launch marketing, probably more than the total development cost for the device.
Football Odds
"The hype surrounding any product Apple unveils"
The paltry 200 txt msgs standard to each plan is also annoying (so now I'll have to drop $10 or $20 per phone for extra). But even still, I'm firmly in the demographic that is willing to pay extra for the phone, the service, just for the UI (and non-crashyness) that Apple will bring to the table.
As something of an Apple fanboi myself, I'm actually going to wait awhile, maybe a really long while, for the simple reason that the data rate with EDGE absolutely sucks and Cingular's signal coverage is pitiful. I love the UI, I've been drooling over this thing since I first heard about it, but I'm not about to drop $500 on a phone I can't actually use productively in the real world. It's almost painful to watch this unfold; I so wish Apple had gone with Sprint or Verizon or almost anybody except Cingular (well, okay, T-Mobile would have been worse). And with a 5-year exclusivity no less!?! Egads, wtf is the Jobster smoking?
I'm sure the battery will be replaceable for anyone with five minutes, just like the iPod is now. It would be strange to expect any differently of a small Apple device. 3G isn't a practical expectation or a useful feature given that this is a GSM device. If you want a 3G phone, wait for a later version, to be launched around the time AT&T has a useful 3G network to take advantage of it.
It is not Jesus. It is not sex. It's just a handheld electronic device. But damn, if people don't try to find any little thing to put on a 'con' list. Some of this stuff just doesn't make sense--what is their reasonable base of comparison? Why not add "it doesn't run Windows" to the list? It's like someone put this whole thing together without even stopping to consider that there might be alternatives to some of these "essential" features.
And now it seems they were possibly right... So even if it was a flop, it's not clear that that wasn't exactly what Apple wanted.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
i tried to like my treo 700p. i spent a lot of money on it and software for it. it was simply the worse piece of technology i have ever owned. if palm went out of business tomorrow it wouldn't phaze me one bit. they released a product that was defective and basically never admitted it nor fixed it. mine was stolen under stressful circumstances. but even after it was stolen at gunpoint, i was pretty relieved to be rid of the damned thing.
It's not really about the grandma any more. Grandma doesn't want an iPhone, I'm (pretty) sure. It's the younger, or even middle aged people who would really really like to have a phone that is for once easy to use and is useful as well.
You know what happens when a person buys an Apple computer? They start using iPhoto to organize their digital photos. They start using the iMovie and iDVD to make movies. All of a sudden they do all the things they were supposed to be able to do on their PCs. I know this because my sister and about a half a dozen other people who switched are doing it.
So all of a sudden now, they see their computers as appliances that are actually useful and easy to use too.
Same will happen with the iPhone.
I'm sure that my shitty Motorlla has an address book function in it somewhere. And it charges via a USB port. But you know what, I can't for the life of me figure out if I can move my contacts onto it. Hell I don't even know where the address book on it is! But I only have 2 college degrees, so maybe I don't meet Motorolla's requirements for a cellphone license.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
You have the freedom to message any way to any one - text, picture, video and IM - without worrying what each message costs. That means every message counts the same. You can send and receive ANY combination of messages. Want to send all picture messages? No problem. All IMs? Go ahead and chat away - send and receive messages for less than pennies per day! What does "less than pennies per day" mean? What does that even mean?!! Okay, when I think "pennies," I don't think 66 of them. At that point, I think we're talking "quarters per day" not "less than pennies per day." Is $0.99/min roaming "pennies per minute?"
Added to the fact that the links throughout their rates site keep casually dumping you back to voice-plan information as you navigate between sections and such, they're really pissing me off by making information as hard as possible to find AND read. Anything that doesn't read like it came from a lawyer may as well be an outright lie it's so misleading.
I can't wait to get charged for incoming messages every weekend while roaming in Canada.. at least with WiFi I can finally dodge data-rate raping (otherwise 50kb/$1, perhaps $1-2 per page view these days! YouTube? I'm scared it'll unlock and I'll bump the icon in my pocket..)
When AT&T coughs up their next north america plan, I damned well better be able to switch to it. If I can't, that'd be a deal-breaker.
And yes, I use all the skype like tricks whenever possible... too bad I can't do wifi+skype on the iphone. But it's their misleading advertising I want to bring up rather than starting a skype/whatever thread.
Oh well, hopefully only another few years of this bullshit until we're able to get all this for free wherever an internet connection is available. I suppose we've all been thinking that for a while..
Oh well. I'll give it a shot on friday and if the new shinyness isn't truly worth the massive massive additional cost, I will be returning this phone.
It has been confirmed that the iPhone can stream audio and video using the H.264 codec through Safari.
What you won't see ANYWHERE on the iPhone is confusing drop-down menus, deeply rooted sub-menus, and the hierarchal, linear constraints of nearly all current cell phone offerings. If you can't figure out the iPhone with a few exploratory clicks, or if you get lost in the interface (which is common on every other phone), then you can say it isn't anything new. But having watched all the demos and commercials, it is blatantly obvious that this thing is a no-brainer with the interface.
Rumor also has it that they're going to pass out numbered armbands as the line builds. So the "friend" standing in line will only get one band, hence one number, hence cutting in won't be possible... nor, as you suggest, smart.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Keep in mind that Apple did approach Verizon first; Verizon turned it down.
I've seen a Verizon executive quoted saying that Apple wanted their share of the monthly revenues which Verizon denied.
So one may speculate whether AT&T/Cingular have been more "co-operative" in their negotiations with Apple or not...
Walter.