Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Interest Still Going Strong
Only $220 to Make an iPhone. Bomarc writes to tell us BuinessWeek is reporting that according to a recent analysis the new iPhone only costs Apple in the neighborhood of $200 ($220 for the 8-gigabyte model) to manufacture.
iPhone User Review. Alexandros Roussos writes "It has been an unforgettable week-end for the first iPhone buyers and MacScoop will now put the focus on one of them who provided to a complete review of Apple's very anticipated gizmo."
Mistakes in the iPhone Interface. Rakesh writes "I love the iPhone. It 's here to stay as my primary cell phone. But I've come across a bunch of things that make me think Apple rushed at the end to get this thing out there. Here's my list of the top 10 mistakes Apple made with the iPhone interface."
iPhone Security Roundup. An anonymous reader writes "Although some security researchers noted problems getting their iPhone activated, others wasted no time tearing the new device apart. Seth Fogie, from Airscanner, reported passwords can be found for the device from running strings obtained from the backup images through a password cracker. Robert Graham, from Errata Security, writes about Safari and Bluetooth bugs on their blog."
iPhone Hardware Details. abdulzis writes "Engadget has the scoop on the iPhone's hardware specs through a leaked firmware. 'Sascha at Gear Log seems to think given the recently discovered Samsung chip in the iPhone, perhaps the processor in question is a Samsung S3C6400, a recently-produced 667MHz ARM1176JZF-based CPU that seems to fit the bill.'"
I mean at least who on Slashdot cares? Unless you have Apple stock, I don't think any Slashdotter is salivating.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It's been out for what, a day or two? Longer? I wouldn't have expected it to die out so soon. Especially because it's an Apple product and they really rule at building up some hype.
Okay, MAYBE we need SOME news about the iPhone, HOWEVER, WE DON'T need STORIES ABOUT NEWS ABOUT THE iPhone.
Big difference, unless you'd be happy with a big 'ol bag of iPhone parts.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
There's also an iPhone security concern that's the fault of weak authentication in the AT&T/Cingular voicemail system:
- concern
http://shiflett.org/blog/2007/jul/iphone-security
This shows how Apple is really good at playing the game, where it's often about cheaper is better. They show style and quality is worth it. Most people will buy Fords, but some with the money will pay a premium to own a Mercedes. Apple is just the Mercedes of computing.
That does not include essential and unavoidable licenses which in the GSM world push the BOM by further 30-40$ (depending on volumes). Add to that licenses related to digital media playback (encoders, decoders) and the phone BOM approaches 300+. That is all before the cost of developing the software. So while the margins are very "applelike", they are nowhere as obscene as the article suggests.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Are you kidding me? It's been three fucking days!
Has society's attention span gotten so short that we are surprised when news reports on a high-profile new product spans past the Friday it was introduced through the weekend following its introduction?
Or are we just surprised that the iPhone has managed to steal a few seconds of airtime from the whole Paris Hilton thing?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Where is the article that does the in-indepth coverage of:
1. First iPhone user looking at porn
2. First iPhone user sitting on toilet and surfing web
3. First iPhone user to get laid because of it (those with significant others don't count).
4. First person to have an orgasm just by touching it (it being the iPhone you sicko)
Somebody please say "There is nothing to see here... Move along".
We can have a realistic discussion about IPhone after 2 months, not before that.
http://monkeynesianeconomics.blogspot.com/
Apple clearly spent a lot on development of the device and on the software especially... not to mention all of the prime-time ads. I bet it will take a while before those costs are covered and they start raking in the big bucks with the $380 'mark-up'.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
...so many slashdot readers are praying for iPhone to go down in flames.
Who cares. It's another product. It'll make some people happy, some not. Don't get so wrapped up in the drama.
(And no, I won't provide links or references. This is my opinion. I don't have to prove it.)
Camping on quad since 1996.
I bought the iPhone, but I don't own apple stock. I am happy the iPhone is doing well. I hope it spurs the industry to have a spurt of innovation. .. obviously it fails with zero sales.. and then they assume nobody wants to web browse on the phone and stop innovating.
.. why didn't the other manufacturers come out with a decent one?
It seems that other manufacturers "test the waters" by making a half-ass web feature enabled phone
Come on, a high res screen for web browsing and touchscreen.. we've been wanting that for a while
Breaking story: Apple employs some of best UI developers, programmers in world, saves money to pay them (as well as assemblers, shippers, distributors, management, etc). This kind of mark-up is rather typical for brand name products with warrenties.
Even though the iPhone has already been released into the wild, the amount of excitement surrounding this device doesn't seem to be subsiding by any measurable degree.
Perhaps "the amount of media hype and saturation" would be a better description... Going by Slashdot's reaction, you'd think they'd invented an orgasmatron or something.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Since the iPhone stores vmail locally, will this security problem with AT&T in general even be an issue with the iPhone I wonder? I'm not sure if the vmail is still held on the server after the phone receives it.
---> Kendall
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Only $220 to Make an iPhone. Bomarc writes to tell us BuinessWeek is reporting that according to a recent analysis the new iPhone only costs Apple in the neighborhood of $200 ($220 for the 8-gigabyte model) to manufacture.
Someone's forgetting software development, R&D, support, distributing, warranties, shipping, licenses, patents, and around a 50-60 other things like that, which go into a product you buy from the local shop.
IIRC, the firmware is available from an Apple website
And they've cracked the root password for the iPhone OS
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The night before the launch I noticed several reports of people saying AT&T seemed to have opened up their network quite a bit. I have been searching for any confirmed network speeds on the phone.
Also, would like to know if anyone has been able to make the thing work as a bluetooth modem for internet on a laptop.
Do you have a spare phone for CmdrTaco?
Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Never mind. Yeah, you can use your penis. What else are you going to use it for?
hey guys i'm curious. Does the "$220 to make" include only the manufacturing and material aspect, or also shipping and marketing and all that. in other words, does all of that $220 including paying back for R&D and sales and all sorts, and the other $380 or $280 is pure profit? Thanks
...although, I think they ought to go for being the Volkswagen.
Even though the iPhone has already been released into the wild, the amount of excitement surrounding this device doesn't seem to be subsiding by any measurable degree.
And when did the product come out? Oh that's right - yesterday! I know it's just an introduction and it's just tech "reporting" (read: hummers) but stupidity like that should be painful. Should the general population become bored with a product as soon as it has launched? No, and we would all prefer it if the tech media wasn't either. I, for one, am sick of seeing all hype and no follow-up. How does it actually work? How did people who actually tried using it like it? What was their overall experience so far? Heaven forbid anybody keep track of that in case some of us may want to consider the product based on real-world experiences rather than OMG-factor.
Some of the "mistakes" are just silly!
...Having to click on an icon in the far upper left upper corner of the screen is a pain."
"2.
Haha. I suppose it the far bottom left corner is less painful? He is right about the period being on a separate screen in the keyboard. That is an actual mistake.
I didn't buy into all the hype but my boss came in today with it and after setting it up on our WPA wireless network, getting his mail running to our servers via IMAPS, etc. it is a VERY nice device.
The EDGE network blows. But, browsing off of it from our wireless network is a breeze. The screen is solid and I was amazed at the clarity of the screen with fonts, images when zooming really close. After setting it up on the network, it does need a few things.
1. ActiveSync or something to sync to our mailserver so the user can get contacts, calendar and mail.
2. IPSec VPN ability - maybe Cisco will get a client in this?
3. Open Office documents (Excel, Word)
4. Open PDF docs.
I am sure this will get better as it goes. But, far far better than I would have expected as a first gen device. It does make my Treo 700p look poor.
I mean it has been three days and we still do not know if Paris Hilton has purchased an iPhone.
And they call themselves journalists.
I guess with all the hype, even working girls know the price and will accept it as payment...
The number one design choice I don't get so far is the non-replacable battery. From the tear-downs it seems like a trival (and relatively inexpensive) bit of engineering to have altered the back shell to allow for a clip-in battery. Is Apple really that desperate for their cut of battery replacements? They could even have designed around a smaller battery trusting that heavy users would buy a backup anyway.
The interface blog entry is worth the read. If only for the dicking er the clicking.
I don't know if it's my layout or what but the font he uses has literally no whitespace between a 'v' and the next letter. So clicking becomes . . .
I find being offended by me offensive.
Not here it isn't.
Deleted
The question is not what it does, it's how it does it. Are you excited about Jeff Han's multitouch displays? Then why are you not excited about having one in your pocket?
From the "review":
The virtual keyboard is really not an issue for me. I've never had any trouble typing with it... I did fine from the first time I used it. I think it's much more practical than a tiny hardware keyboard, especially because I have thick fingers. The thing is that you shouldn't try to fix all your mistakes; just trust the dictionnary, keep typing, and the error-correction engine will find the word you intended to type.
I really, really hope mispelling "dictionary" was an attempt at humor...
If I want a longer use duration (say, international flight), I can use one of the many iPod external battery packs.
Otherwise, who really needs to replace the battery that easily? I fully expect to get many years of use out of this one. I don't see making the case less sealed than it might be a good tradeoff for something I will almost never want to do.
I thought the same thing, back when I purchased my Palm V - I had no need for a removable battery then, nor do I now. I prefer the longer battery life that a sealed solution invariable gives, along with the smaller form factor. It takes space to engineer a robust doorway into a device!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, it shows that the people who figured it cost 220 bucks have no clue. Apple's profit margins have always been around 20-30%. I would be extremely surprised if they suddenly sold a 220 bucks device for 600 bucks.
People always guesstimate iPod margins way too high, and invariably, they turn out to be wrong during the next Apple analyst call.
First I agree. There's more to the phone than a bag-o-parts. In addition to all the engineering and custom software they are leveraging the enormous implicit value of the already developed OS. The latter is free to them but would cost a competitor plenty. (how much do other phones pay to use windows?). Also factor in the giant risk costs. What if there's a defect that requires a recall. What if it's craters like a newton. Not every project succeeds and you have to amortize the losses over the ones that succeed. And of course one has to keep the lights on in the store. One has to pay the interest on the borrowed capital to make the device (even if you borrowed it from yourself--it's still lost earnings). Lastly if this is like other Apple and NExt Product then they usually are selling initially at a loss to keep the price reasonable while using expensive advanced tech, and expecting the component prices to fall swiftly enough to make all the profit on the tail end. In any case assume once the risks amortize then the price settles to a profit margin of 10% like other apple products. Now that would be about 60 dollars a unit. Now if they actually achieve their stated goal of ten million in a year, then that's 0.6 billion dollars profit. apple's net profit last year was 1.9 billion. so thats about a 30% increase in the company in one years time. holy shit. That would drop their price to earnings ratio down to to the 20's, which is way too low for any innovative company, let alone apple. So we should expect to see a huge jump in apple stock price when they report their quarterly earnings.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
All the same, I never saw a chart that said "distribution" more clearly than this one:
a sp?symb=AAPL&sid=609&dist=TQP_chart_date&freq=1&ti me=3mo
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.
"But don't take my word for it, go and see for yourself" (RD Laing).
The horror. The horror.
It's a phone. It plays some music files. It browses the web. Whoop-de-doo. There's nothing revolutionary about the iPhone, other than the marketing. I'm sick of seeing these damn stories, and I wish the damn Slashdot editors would read the damn comments. GEEKS DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE IPHONE.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'd be willing to consider one if they had bluetooth laptop tethering but that doesn't really sound like the sort of thing that AT&T would go for.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Lets contrast that with Apple, and their beta product, the iPhone. It is still lacking some features. Other features aren't polished. Very few people clown the iPhone adopters and even the adopters themselves are comfortable justifying their purchase in terms of, "Well, I don't really need those features." I think that Apple is relying on the fact that their users are complete fanatics who will put up with a beta product. I predict that what we are going to see is Apple will eventually push out updates for the phone, and Apple users are going to say, "See, Apple is a great company. They LISTEN to what I have to say. They implement the features that I tell them that I want. I love Apple." Very few are going to point out that the features weren't even there in the first place.
The main icon for this story is the one for the handhelds category. Which makes sense, except that the icon is a photo of a Palm V, or something similar. Sadly, a pure PDA is no longer a representative handheld. More typically, a PDA is some kind of feature-bloated "smart phone." The iPhone's a good example of that, and probably the best candidate for the new handhelds icon.
Not to trash the iPhone. It just isn't something I'm ever going to want. I want a simple phone, with easy-to-use PDA functionality. (I'd prefer to have separate phone and PDA, but that train has left the station.) If I want to watch video, I'll get out my LE 1600.
Out for four days and no ones put Linux on it yet?
(I believe OS is some version of Apple UNIX.)
There was a reference to the idea of iPhone - iPhone texts should be free. I know on my 1000 message plan that all ATT-ATT text messages are free, and unlimited.
I'm glad to see phones (in general) feature complex functionality and come with applications previously found on the desktop. There'll be a day when your cell phone is your laptop. Plug in a standard keyboard, mouse, and monitor and away you go.
Unfortunately the N770/N800 beat them to the punch with that. The only thing missing with those is the cellphone's radio. Unlike the i****e, you're not locked in, and they dont mind being open.
Phones like the Treo, Blackberry, and Nokia Communicators are the precursors..
Fixed that for you.
With a good chunk of the "smartphone" base (and a sizable part of the rest), they have to be doing something right consistently.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"No wireless"
?
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
A little reading around here would appear to contradict you.
_ tech/index.php?pf=1
In fact, as does this "geek":
http://www.macworld.com/2007/07/firstlooks/iphone
I don't see why they needed to spend any money on advertising, with all the free news coverage they've been getting.
On a different forum that I post on I brought up an (I like to think) interesting (if speculative) point. The iPhone is OS X people, and its totally under Apple's control, they can do whatever they want with the hardware they have by releasing software upgrades... and in a lot of cases the hardware is there, they just need to release the software. The bluetooth isn't physically limited, its limited by software, so syncing can be added. A whole bunch of other goodies can be tossed in using the Apple Updater that comes with iTunes. Which brings up another interesting point to ponder, Apple took teams away from Leopard so that the iPhone would be somewhat stable and usable for its release, and most of its bigger core functions are in place. Which isn't to say that everything that was supposed to make it in by June 29th actually did make it. I imagine we'll be seeing quite a few updates in the close future, and probably a few new features from the Apple and the Google side of things that were supposed to be on the phone originally but didn't make the cut or ran out of time. Personally, I believe Apple has vested too much interest in the iPhone to leave it (software or hardware) in the state it is in at the present time. And we'll probably see numerous (and better) revisions in the months to come. If, however, that is the case, it makes me wonder about Apple's release schedule/marketing strategy.
You mean like selling ~500,000 units in a weekend?
Raking in (500,000x$550=) $275m in said weekend. Before costs, of course, but that's still probably enough to cover all the R&D and advertising for the iPhone.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
In summary, the iPhone is the nerd-media equivalent of Paris Hilton. I am actually fed up with being confronted with more no-stories about the both of them, let alone the both combined, the horror!
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
if you think ppl going gaga for a cell phone are a little off you might enjoy this. if you're a fan who can take a step back and laugh at yourself you might like it too. The iPhone Song!
I Like the comment "It has been an unforgettable week-end" FFS its only a phone whats sort of boring miserable lives do these people live.
No contacts search. What was Apple thinking not including a contacts search feature on the iPhone? I have 700 contacts in Outlook and that's only the start of the problem - some of my entries have last names and some don't... plus I've got keywords stuffed into some of my contacts (for example, first name: Johnny plumber, last name: Appleseed). So when I'm looking for the plumber and I don't remember his name because I call him once a year, I want to type in 'plumber'. Come on Apple, gotta have contacts search!
I'm *addicted* to hitting "find" on PalmOS and having it search through *every* application on the device. It's just like Spotlight... except it came out almost a decade earlier. And it's faster, even on a 16 MHz 68000.
How could Apple have left search out of the iPhone?
re:""There are no markings indicating exactly who built it." BusinessWeek reports.
Soooo, from the future - or alien tech?
I'd be careful out there I smell a Dr. Who episode in the making.
The Tech specs are ok but anyone know how much memory it has?
I know it has 8 or 4GB of flash storage, but does it also use this as RAM, or does it have a "fast" RAM, say 64MB or something?
Just drag your finger from .?123 to Z!
Multi touch!
Like when Geordi draws his fingers down the surface of his console to control the various transporter parameters.
Or when Crusher taps multiple places on her Padd while diagnosing a patient while the thing beeps and squeaks.
Or when Data deftly "draws" on his Padd doing engineering tasks like pulling data from a stream of spaghetti.
That is how you interact with the iPhone, now. Flick through lists with your finger, resize images with your thumb and forefinger, selecting complex menus with a tap here and there, turning on and off features with a slide and a swish.
Just like the Wii is virtual reality, the iPhone is science fiction.
GPL Deconstructed
What is this building you are speaking of?
I have been watching your comment as the score moves around. Right now you are at a 3. Consider yourself lucky if it remains this high.
/.er that has posted such messages they say they have NEVER seen as much activity! All the apple fanbois try to bury you in Karma Hell.
/. as the apple ones. I think they actually run /.
Even though I have an Ipod, and think it has serious design issues and that Any time I have used Itunes on a windows PC I felt it was inferior... I would NEVER actually write a post mentioning it. Every time I talk to a
There is NO group of fanbois as strong on
The iPhone's R&D costs will have been recouped already.
Let's do some simple maths, with the numbers we have already and a few reasonable assumptions.
1. 500,000-700,000 units shipped so far.
2. Sale price of $599 for the 8GB model, assumed component cost price of $220.
3. Sale price of $499 for the 4GB model, assumed component cost price of $200.
4. Assume a ratio of 4:1 in favour of the 4GB unit (I guessed this, and a quick google provided vindication; it turned out to be the ratio that's been widely reported).
5. Assume that 5 percent of the sale price goes to the retailer and that none of that 5 percent makes its way back to Apple. (The actual figure may be zero, but let's assume 5 percent anyway.)
6. Assume that the manufacturing and shipping processes (putting all those components together, boxing them up and getting them to the stores) takes another 15 percent.
Based on those numbers, Apple is making $259.20 on the 8GB models (($599*(1-0.05-0.15))-220)and $199.20 on the 4GB ones (($499*(1-0.05-0.15))-200).
With half a million units shipped, Apple will have made $123.6 million after accounting for the aforementioned costs. With 700,000 units shipped that figure rises to over $173.0 million.
There's no way that Apple's R&D spending on the iPhone came to over $100 million.
And that's before Apple's sold a single accessory, before it's sold a single additional media file or service via iTunes, before you account for all the free press that Apple's got over the last year from the iPhone hype, and, most importantly, the extra boost that that hype has given to the ever-increasing Apple share price.
The Apple share price has more than doubled in the last year, partly because of other things but partly because of the iPhone frenzy. Since the beginning of the year, when the iPhone was unveiled, Apple's market capitalisation has risen by over $30 billion. If only one percent of that rise was due to the iPhone then that alone was $300 million. R&D costs? What R&D costs?
To be honest, I was rather skeptical of Apple's iPhone sales forecasts for the year. I had to temper that skepticism when I saw the sheer numbers that they shipped in the first weekend alone. Granted, (in the US, at least) almost everybody who wanted one right away has one now but I can imagine iPhone sales being steady for the rest of the year (plus getting the usual bumps in the gift-buying seasons) and Apple hitting their targets with ease.
I still doubt that the iPhone will displace the iPod as Apple's main cash cow any time soon but I certainly don't doubt that it's made Apple a huge profit so far and will continue to do so.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when it's close to your face www.mp4-converter.net/iphone-converter/dvd-to-ipho ne/
Nope, he's wrong about the period. As one of his responders pointed out, just touch the ".?123" button, and, without lifting your finger, slide it over to the "." button, then lift your finger. Viola! Also works for the other common punctuation and digits. A pretty cute UI idea, I think.
The iPhone is the salvation of all mankind!!! My cousin Cletus was blind with a clubfoot and the moment I touched my iPhone to his forehead he went into convulsions, and a phone call came in and the convulsions stopped, and then they started again after I hung up the phone!!! After the convulsions ended, he started dancing to the tune of Inna Gotta Davida, by Iron Butterfly (the DRM free version) on my iPhone, and his clubfoot was gone. He was also able to see his illegitimate children for the first time on the crisp and bright screen of the iPhone, and he even managed to type YHNFDHERROU on the keyboard without any training at all!!!!! He then ran across the street and bit the neighbor in the leg.
Well, not really. But I am a user of Nokia 7710 for about two years and I just don't get it what the fuss is all about. I've seen dozens of smartphones with features Apple advertises, I've seen people using them and dumping them the next time they bought a new phone ... Mainly because all the features are not worth the money.
Maybe it is because I am European, but I shall not buy iPhone. I would rather die than be a member of the flock. My Nokia is serving me well, it has all I need and when i decide to buy a new phone it will be an ordinary one. I am only using about 10% of the features it has anyway.
Apple has the best advertising in the world and enough people to fall for it. If I would have iPhone I would be ashamed not proud, if I would have an iPod I would hide it not show it as it would clearly project a wrong image of myself. Having those gadgets is like carrying a big sign above the had saying: "Small brains here!"...
I find it pathetically lame to read a huge "Digg/Slashdot/Blogs/Journalists read this first" on the public Wiki containing hacks and finding about the iPhone (they ask to not put the link here, so I won't, even tough I find it pathetically lame [once more] to make such a noobish request). These guys put a huge disclaimer called "Popularity problem" stating that Web servers can only handle so much trafic and that they're concerned about "vandalism".
/. trafic (or simply accept that you'll be flooded for 24 hours) nor deal with online vandalism I do think you're not experienced enough to pose as wanna-be hackers and run such a website.
/. effect on not-that-big servers. If you're concerned about the security holes of the Wiki you're using and the non-scalability of your server (located behind a dial-up connection?) then fix this first and come back playing the "wanna-be iPhone hacker" once you can deal with that. Thank you very much.
I'm sorry "wanna-be hackers" running that site, but if you can't handle
I've seen people handling the
It's rather ironic that the processor has a Jazelle Java accelerator, considering what Steve Jobs said: "Java's not worth building in [to the phone]. Nobody uses Java anymore. It's this big heavyweight ball and chain."
None of the 10 are necessarily deal breakers in and of themselves, but when taken together I can't justify buying an iPhone just yet. I trust enough of these issues will be resolved in the second generation:
... are you kidding me?
1) It's best to avoid the first generation of a product from any manufacturer. There are sure to be issues.
2) Lack of 3G support. I'm an AT&T wireless customer and I don't live in an area that has 3G coverage yet, but I'm very close to areas that do and coverage in my area will happen sooner or later so why waste the money when you know that a version of the iPhone that supports 3G will happen. Likely sooner rather than later if they plan on having any success when they launch in Europe.
3) Lacks the ability to record video. I don't record a lot of video on my phone but in this day and age with a phone that costs over $500
4) Lack of Flash and Java support on the browser. You can't claim to have a full fledged web browser on your phone unless you've got a browser that supports both Flash and Java. There's too many web sites out there that use them. I don't necessarily think they need to be turned on by default, but support for both should be there if you want to enable it.
5) The 2.0 megapixel camera. If I'm dropping several hundred bucks on a phone, it would be nice to have at least a 3.0 megapixel camera to take pictures with.
6) Lack of a built in GPS receiver. Google maps is great, but I can run it on my current phone (sans the sleek touchscreen interface). If I'm spending several hundred dollars on a phone I'd like one that can give me turn by turn directions as I'm en route (and can recalculate the route if I make a wrong turn) and I don't want to bother having to type in my starting address first, especially if I'm in an area I'm not familiar with.
7) Lack of a proper SDK so third parties can write apps for the phone. I'm sorry but Ajax as a third party development platform doesn't cut it for me. I want a smart phone that offers developers a way to write real third party applications that take advantage of the phones features. There is no way the manufacturer of a device can or will think of all of the ways in which a device can be used. A proper SDK extends the both the usability and the shelf life of any device.
8) Recessed head phone jack. I want a cell/phone MP3 player combination to have a standard headphone jack and that I can use with any pair of headphones that I either own now or will own in the future.
9) Inability to use the wide screen keyboard outside of Safari. I want to be able to use the wide screen on-screen keyboard in every application on the iPhone.
10) Inability to "search" in the contact list. I've got a ton of contacts and I don't want to have to scroll through them to find the contact I'm looking for.
Steve Jobs could collect organic waste from septic tanks, and there will be a stampede of these degenerates who'll not only buy it, but then go online and crow in detail about how good the shit actually tastes.