iPhone Interest Still Going Strong

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. Many readers have submitted their favorite reactions to the shiny new gizmo including a BusinessWeek report that suggests the iPhone only costs around $220 to make, a user review from MacScoop, one user's top 10 interface mistakes, a roundup of early security concerns, and details on the hardware behind the phone. Read on for more details.

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.'"

Comments

No, really?

[borizz]

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.

$220 to buy the parts, not "to make"

[timster]

Big difference, unless you'd be happy with a big 'ol bag of iPhone parts.

Re:$220 to buy the parts, not "to make"

[timster]

those R&D folks should be canned for making so many obvious mistakes and omissions on the released product

Actually, I wonder if many other product designers fall into a trap of non-omission, that is, a need to include everything. After a few days with an iPhone I can say, sure, there are things that aren't there, but the things that are included are very good. For instance, there is no MMS, but the SMS is great. I figure that every product design team has limited resources, and maybe it was better to have great SMS that doesn't support MMS than to have mediocre SMS with MMS included.

Of course every product is a trade-off, but every criticism of the iPhone I hear seems to be a lot of anger about missing features that I, personally, don't really have a use for. To me, it's better to have a great product that is incomplete in some ways than a product that is complete and poorly-done, but that's just me.

Re:$220 to buy the parts, not "to make"

[Overzeetop]

At $5/GB of flash ($20 for the extra 4GB of flash in the 8GB iPhone), I presume they are taking bulk purchasing into account.

Re:$220 to buy the parts, not "to make"

[MCSEBear]

I kind of think an iPhone user would have to be retarded to want to use SMS or MMS at all.

There is an unlimited data provision for email in all the iPhone plans. You can send email instead of SMS or email with a photo attachment instead of MMS all day long and pay no additional fees. Using SMS or MMS just removes money from your pocket and sticks it into AT&T's.

Happily, the iPhone is software upgradeable, so you can look forward to the addition of an IM client to give you even more free ways to sling text around.

Re:Who cares really?

[utopianfiat]

*drool*
I'm sorry, did you say something?

220 - Yeah right...

[arivanov]

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.

Still going strong?!?

[RealGrouchy]

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>

Re:Still going strong?!?

[truthsearch]

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes. (I'd post more but my attention span is too short)

Re:Still going strong?!?

[Altus]

Im sorry but I really think the hype over the iPhone has gone way past apples marketing. People keep acting like apple is driving this hype machine but they really aren't. They barely talk about the iPhone compared to how much everyone else seems to talk about it.

Apple doesnt drive that hype machine because they don't have to. Not since the iPod came out.

Re:Still going strong?!?

[Lemmy Caution]

Look, it's "ad hominem" because it is, in fact, the people that give me a creepy feeling. It's not controversial that there's a broad-based fan community that enthusiastically promotes Apple products. This isn't a claim that Apple is either good or bad - in general, I think their designs are OK - but just as "even though you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you," just because Apple makes decent products that fill a need doesn't mean that there isn't a disturbing enthusiasm among its consumers.

I mean, there's a couple brands of coffee, orange juice, and shoes that I regularly buy, but I don't go around breathlessly extolling them, wearing items of clothing that advertising those brands - my shoes are non-self-advertising, or respond defensively to criticisms of them. It's creepy. Like I've said elsewhere, fannism is a kind of cultural servitude, a deference and admiration for a producer as brand that far exceeds the utility of the objects that producer creates. I find it sad.

If you can't see fanboism, it's probably because you've drank so much Kool-Aid, you're swimming in it. You also see it with Nintendo - and I buy a lot of Nintendo products, as a matter of fact - and it's just as disturbing.

Re:Still going strong?!?

[lennier]

"Has society's attention span gotten so short that "

YES

Next!

What I WANT to know is...

[svendsen]

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)

Re:Who cares really?

[sokoban]

Unless you have Apple stock, I don't think any Slashdotter is salivating. I do and have for several years. And I am.

Thanks Apple for paying for my college education and a house.

Re:STFU!

[include($dysmas)]

amen,. the intertubes need one big "STFU" notice stapling somewhere ... i mean really, its a world leader in dumb smartphones, can we please get back to news for nerds, rather than news from pr.

I bet the software development cost a pretty penny

[EccentricAnomaly]

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'.

What I find funny is...

[lena_10326]

...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.)

Re:What I find funny is...

[glesga_kiss]

...so many slashdot readers are praying for iPhone to go down in flames.

They are a vocal minority. The phrase I heard recently to describe everyone else was "circle-jerk". That's never something I'd ever even considered and I promised myself that I'd use the phrase again.

It's not that people like me want to see it go down in flames. Quite the contrary, I've been waiting for a device like the iPhone for many years. My problem is that I got that device two and a half years ago and I'm still happy with it. I welcome the competition in the market and I value Apple's UI design highly so hopefully they will drag the entire industry forward with them. I've been a mobile early adopter since GSM first came out, so to hear that another large, respected manufacturer has entered the industry is fantastic.

What annoys some of us is that it's being presented as revolutionary. It's not. It might be, if it takes off and in the future changes most peoples outlook on phones. It took the iPod to bring mp3 players to the masses but it wasn't really an evolution change in technology. It was more marketing and design, such as the white headphones serving as a constant "join us, it's great!" advertisement.

The iPhone seems to be advertised to be a leap forward. Now, it may not be Apple doing this, there is a lot of grassroots support for it as is clear based on the volume of news around it, and they may be generating this meme that it's all powerful. The problem is it's not. It would be a downgrade for me. From what I hear it has the same UI problems as the first smartphones. Having to write down numbers for example as there is no cut and paste or hyper-linking of phone numbers in text. Lot's of little quirks have been ironed out over the years; I've been running homebrew ROMs on my mine, so I've seen it at it's worst and at it's best. From reading about people using it, some of the UI is an improvement but it needs work in many places.

This is what annoys us. Sure, for most people the iPhone is a leap forward and it's sure silenced most of the "a phone is just a phone" crowd that I have discussed this with on many previous occasions on Slashdot whenever there is a story about new phone technology. So, for the majority of people, great! Enjoy it. Having the internet in your pocket is awesome, as is the lack of needing to carry around a separate media player. The integration of SMS and email is also very handy. Google maps is great, though personally I prefer things like TomTom that keep the data locally. And so on, there are so many things you can do with a device with this.

Just stop making it sound like you are the first to be doing it! :-)

Re:What I find funny is...

[glesga_kiss]

Can you give us the details of the hardware + software that you're currently using?

I've got an HTC Blue Angel, which is also known as a Orange SPV2000 or T-Mobile MDA2s. I think! The problem is that the company that makes them (HTC) has only recently began selling phones under it's own brand. The rebranding from telcos makes it complicated and has definitely killed brand recognition in their products. Don't bother with this one, it's not far off being three years old now and there are better ones available. My next one would be likely be the HTC TyTN as wifi is essential to me.

Quick feature rundown is: slide-out qwerty keyboard, wifi, bluetooth, 128meg storage (it's old), sd-card. Built in email supports imaps, which I waited years to get on a phone. SSL is essential IMHO and pop is useless for accessing mail from multiple locations. I just run my own mail server (courier-imaps on debian). Connection speed is GPRS but the one I linked is 3G. Keyboard is also essential IMHO, if you want to write anything longer than a 160-character text message. SSH on a touch-screen keyboard is horrible; the dictionary doesn't help obviously and using vi is a nightmare without a keyboard.

I also have OpenVNC set up to hook up to my router, meaning that on-the-road I get an IP on my LAN. This is handy for copying files and uploading data as you can just drag & drop onto windows shares etc. There is free software for the usual traceroute/dns queries, the one I use even has a basic port scanner.

One cool thing you can do is use it as a network access device. I've not tried it, but in theory you can use it to share a GPRS data connection over an ad-hoc wifi network. You can off course use it as a traditonal BT modem for retro dial-up fun. This is more of a novelty for me, if I had one of the 3G versions using the same platform it would likely be something I'd use all the time.

it's useless to me if I can't open an ssh connection from it.

He he, I'm sure I once saw a terminal server for mine once. There are several remote-management tools you can get; I use SSH and VNC a lot, though you can also use RDP. I mentioned the network analysis tools earlier. You can even get a serial cable so you can use it as a dumb-terminal. I heard someone suggest once that it could be used as a remote-access device hooked up to a server, giving you remote console.

Re:What I find funny is...

[Dekortage]

What annoys some of us is that it's being presented as revolutionary. It's not. It might be, if it takes off and in the future changes most peoples outlook on phones. It took the iPod to bring mp3 players to the masses but it wasn't really an evolution change in technology. It was more marketing and design, such as the white headphones serving as a constant "join us, it's great!" advertisement.

Actually the iPod starting its dramatic take-off before the slick advertising began, but you can remember it your way if it helps.

The "design" is exactly the revolution. With the iPod, Apple made something was small, ridiculously simple to use, and did what 90% of the world wanted it to do. The iPhone is the same. The revolution is not in the technology. It's in the usability. Next you're going to tell me that the automatic transmission wasn't revolutionary because it was just an improvement on the manual transmission. And, frankly, the latter offers more precise control and better fuel efficiency. But the former made automobiles much more "user friendly" for the masses. It revolutionized the way American society used cars. This, on a different scale, is what makes the iPod and iPhone revolutionary: not that they were the first ever in the world, or even the most full-featured, but they changed the way a large mass of people looked at the technology. That's a revolution.

I am happy the iPhone is doing well

[backslashdot]

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.
It seems that other manufacturers "test the waters" by making a half-ass web feature enabled phone .. obviously it fails with zero sales.. and then they assume nobody wants to web browse on the phone and stop innovating.

Come on, a high res screen for web browsing and touchscreen.. we've been wanting that for a while .. why didn't the other manufacturers come out with a decent one?

Re:I am happy the iPhone is doing well

[d3vi1]

Actually only the cell-phones in the US are half-ass web featured ones. Two years ago, the coolest cell in the US was the brain-dead, RAZR, granted it was sexy, but it was also brain-dead. On the other side of the planet, there were touch-screen phones that ran Linux and had Opera 7.5 as a pretty decent browser. They still rule because they can run Doom and Quake, and can render most pages without a problem. Come to think about-it, most of what the iPhone brings, you can get from a Nokia N800 with a basic GSM phone that also has Bluetooth in parallel. Actually the N800 is a lot better than the iPhone. I have an excelent IMAP client on it (Claws), I have Pidgin for IM, I have a very decent Opera 9 with flash and a lot of other goodies. The great thing about-it is that it only takes an incredibly small amount of time to port ANY gtk application to the Maemo platform that the N800 uses. The multitude of applications that have been ported to the N800 only proves that it's a better platform than most of the others.

I will give the iPhone the following:
1) Multi-touch. It sounds like it's more than a simple touch-screen. The Nokia N800 has a nice feature that detects if you touch with the stick or a finger and adjusts the input method and the menus accordingly, but I doubt that it's as cool as the one on the iPhone. I am sure that the Nokia N800+1 could easily implement something like this.
2) Screen rotation sensor.
3) Phone

Flame follows: (3) is actually one that can be put in both good and bad. The iPhone is an Edge phone on a 3G world. Granted that the network coverage for 3G in the US is a joke compared to Europe or Asia. Actually, the network coverage in the US is more like a joke. In Romania, the country that only a few years ago was under communist ruling, we have basically 100% coverage for the cell phone networks, and a lot of 3G, and nation-wide GPRS on Vodaphone (they are introducing 7.something Mbps HSUPA later this year) and EDGE on Orange (same as Vodafone). Vodafone currently has 2.8 Mbps HSDPA, and Orange has 3.6 Mbps HSDPA. In Germany it's even more impressing, you have almost full 3G coverage for the whole country.

Zapp, our only CDMA operator, has EVDO 2.4 Mbps since 2004, and they are going for an upgrade later this year. Now, allow me to be disappointed by the lame EDGE options available to the US market. I am also disappointed by the fact that Apple didn't allow the buying of unlocked phones and gave AT&T exclusivity.

BTW: The rates for Cell phone is the US are also huge. In 2005, a prepaid card from Cingular gave me "free calls" in the US, but having to pay an airtime rate of $.25/min for both outgoing and incoming calls. In Romania in 2005 the prepaid rates were somewhere around $.20 for outgoing calls, and free for incoming. I also found the fact that you get charged from the second that you make the call, even if the other party doesn't answer, to be a little disturbing, especially since a call to Romania costed around $.90 + airtime tax, and would usually take around 45s to connect to the Bucharest based operators. I've called Cingular and asked for my money back for the situations in which it didn't connect at all. Based on their pricing details I expected to be charged $0.25 in that minute until the person answers and until the call connects, and after that $0.25 + $0.90 for the call, but I was charged almost an extra dollar for each call. I find this wierd because in Europe, if the person doesn't answer, you don't pay anything, and if you receive a call (except for roaming), you don't pay anything. In the US, if someone hates you they simply have to send you a lot of Text messages, because they also cost if you receive them.

Anyway, to make a long story short, in the US the mobile phones are a lot more expensive and dumb (literally), the rates are a lot worst and the network coverage is a joke. This is coming from a guy that lives in Romania, not in the UK or France or Germany. I talk my ass off on my cell phone (and we all have a cell phone), and I never exceed than $45, except when I'm out of the country.

Coverage information is available at Coverage Maps.

Re:Who cares really?

[glesga_kiss]

How can you be a Slashdotter, not watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, and NOT want an iPhone?

Because we are Slashdotters, we have watched Star Trek and already own a device that does everything the iPhone does. :-)

Granted it doesn't have a cool logo and look as pretty, but as geeks we aren't supposed to care about such things!

Re:Who cares really?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They've already sold more iPhones than there are active Slashdot users.

The prediction is they will move 10+ million by the end of the year.

That's who cares. It's tech. This is a tech news site. It's the biggest thing techy to happen in the past week.

He's modded flamebait because he was baiting flame.

Re:Who cares really?

[kemapa]

The share price is only down a small amount, which can be attributed to normal market noise. This is actually an indicator that the iPhone is performing (over 500,000 sold) just about where financial analysts expected it to. If it had outperformed expectations you'd see huge abnormal gains, and if it had underperformed you'd see enormous capital losses. These two scenarios can still occur as more information comes out about the iPhone's sales, but for the moment it appears that analysts predicted sales fairly accurately and began pricing their estimates into Apple stock from when the product was first announced.

Personally, I short sold (bet against) a large amount of Apple stock last Friday. I feel like the iPhone has been over-hyped and the Apple loyalists are influencing the share price more than they should be in a relatively efficient market.

For those who are more risk averse than I am, it's potentially a bad security to be holding at the moment. Large fluctuations in share price are certainly possible in the coming weeks if analysts turn out to be wrong in either direction.

Re:Firmware

[mrzaph0d]

was it "AT&T engineers are weenies!"?

Configured my bosses - impressive

[mergy]

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.

Re:Configured my bosses - impressive

[soft_guy]

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. 1. It already syncs with Outlook. Although I'm guessing you want it to pull these directly from Exchange. Still, you can put Outlook contacts onto iPhone.
2. I have no idea.
3. Already opens Word/Excel files.
4. Already opens PDF.

I heard there was a bug related to PDF, but not sure about that as I haven't tried it yet. I would expect a bug fix software update for several issues soon.

Re:AT&T Network (EDGE) +iPhone

[Charliems]

I did a speed test today, got around 190kbs, no idea what it was before in my area. As for the bluetooth, no it can not be used as a modem. It actually can't do anything with bluetooth except a headphone. According to the apple bluetooth wizard thing, there are no services at all the laptop can use.

iPhone Interest Still Going Strong

[Colin Smith]

Not here it isn't.

Re:Who cares really?

[node 3]

Because we are Slashdotters, we have watched Star Trek and already own a device that does everything the iPhone does. Examples?

Using the iPhone is like using something *from* Star Trek. The iPhone is the single most amazing device I've ever used, although I'm more than willing to be amazed by something else and eagerly await some suggestions.

I mean, if there are existing devices that do everything the iPhone does, and I'm so utterly amazed by the iPhone, I can hardly wait!

However, I suspect a list of the usual suspects that, in comparison to the iPhone, are like using Lynx compared to Firefox (and I don't mean lack of graphics), or DOS vs Macintosh (and here I *do* mean like going from keyboard to mouse). It might be able to do the same tasks, but *how* it does it makes all the difference.

Re:Top 10 Mistakes

[topherhenk]

"8. No emoticons on the virtual keyboard: Apple someone stole the emoticons from your virtual keyboard! Seriously, it just seems like an Apple thing to do to include a few emoticons on the virtual keyboard."

God please no. I hate those critters. :)

Re:STFU!

[djh101010]

amen,. the intertubes need one big "STFU" notice stapling somewhere ... i mean really, its a world leader in dumb smartphones, can we please get back to news for nerds, rather than news from pr. If only there was some way to show what the contents of an article are without having to read it to find out if it's something you don't care about. Like maybe a headline and summary about it or something.

If only...

Time to get a new icon...

[fm6]

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.

Re:let's assume a 10% profit margin

[gnuman99]

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa714410 .aspx

Says about $90/device for Windows XP Embedded.

For Qtopia, it is somewhat less but I can't find any info on TT's site about the actual pricing. It is about $200 for the SDK. I *think* I saw that it was about $20-$30 per device some time ago. Much cheaper than Windows.

Of course, you could just hack X+Gnome and be 100% "free" (not really for free, costs money to hack the thing for a phone). But I guess some other WM would be better than having Gnome there.

As for Apple Stock, it actually fell 0.6% today to $121. Their P/E ratio is about 38 which means even if they have a 30% jump in profit, that means their P/E ratio will drop to about 29. That is still relatively high. Companies like Microsoft and IBM have their P/E ratios at about 21 and 16 respectfully. Currently there seems to be a 15% anticipated increase in profits for next year over current year. If that does not materialize, Apple stock will drop.

Apple may be a better company to invest in today than MSFT though. I'm not sure if the price is warranted though (they'll need to double their earnings to be at the same price as MSFT is right now)

Re:let's assume a 10% profit margin

[jaseuk]

Windows XP Embedded is a cut down version of Windows XP and is generally used in POS / Instrumentation / Appliances etc.

The Smartphone / CE / PocketPC OS can't realistically be any more than $5 a unit.

Anyway don't fool yourself that the iPhone is OSX. It's running on an ARM device, iPhone is as much OsX as windows smartphone is windows XP.

Re:iPhone users are willing beta testers

[cowscows]

Microsoft has been making OS's for decades, has insane resources, and spent many years getting vista out the door. They also promised the moon and a half for Vista back in the early longhorn days, and delivered something with a way-trimmed down feature list, and it still didn't work all that great for a lot of people. Sure, many complained, but many are also using Vista and being happy with it.

Apple is making their first mobile phone ever, and while only the foolish expect it to be perfect, there are already tons of people talking about how much better the interface is than any other phone they've ever had. Many of them are also sharing what they see as the flaws in the device. And while I have no doubt that many of those people waiting in line were hardcore Apple fanboys, they're probably closing in on one million phones sold already, and I doubt there are that many Apple fanatics in the US.

To sum it up, MS needed around five years to put out a mediocre new version of their flagship product, after tons of feature cutting and multiple embarassing delays. I don't know how long Apple had been working on the iPhone, but it came out the day they said it would come out, and people seem to be genuinely impressed by it.

Apple has made it to where they are primarily by developing products that its customers think are great. MS has made it to where they are by developing products that are just good enough (and some wise business decisions). The two companies are judged differently, sure, but only because each has earned its reputation.

Re:I bet the software development cost a pretty pe

[Dachannien]

I don't see why they needed to spend any money on advertising, with all the free news coverage they've been getting.

Re:I bet the software development cost a pretty pe

[arunkv]

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'. Well, Apple's hoping to sell 10 million iPhones by 2008 which only gets them a 1% share of the mobile phone market. Let's say the parts cost $220 exactly as per the Business Week article. Then Apple's making 10 million phone X $300/phone approx. = $3 billion (yes, billion with a b). Even if they spend a couple of billion (that's a high end estimate) on R&D, software development, advertising, packaging, shipping, etc. they are going to make a cool billion in profits.

Re:Good profit margin

[Grishnakh]

No, not really.

I'm completely against DRM on my computer, and I run Linux at home. I have no interest in most closed-source software for use at home or at work (most of my work is also on Linux machines).

But I looked at the iPhone this weekend and was quite impressed. It did everything a so-called "smart phone" should do, only it does it right. It was easy to use Google maps to find directions, to take notes, to play music, to watch Youtube videos, to surf the web, and lots more.

You see, an open-source Linux-y solution just isn't feasible for phones, at least not yet. The problem is the carriers, and also the handsets. You can't expect someone to roll together a phone that can do Google maps and stuff like that, and have it work really well with one of the American cellular providers due to the way they operate.

I currently have some piece-of-shit Audiovox (LG) phone with Verizon, and I hate it. It was the cheapest flip-phone I could get at the time, and I had no interest in any other features because it seems most American providers want to nickel-and-dime you to death with them, instead of just selling you a phone with lots of useful features that work well, and don't incur some ridiculous monthly or per-use charge. The phone totally sucks because hitting the camera button on the side a few times will put it into photo-taking mode, turning on the LCD screen inside and burning up the battery. Since I usually carry the POS in my pocket (because the POS plastic holster it came with broke), these buttons get inadvertently pressed, and next thing I know my battery is dead. What kind of idiot would design a phone this way? If I want to take a photo, I'll open the handset first.

So in the store, this iPhone looked really useful. I'm constantly wishing I could look up phone numbers or directions online, or surf the web, just using my phone which I already constantly carry with me anyway. I didn't get a chance to investigate further, but my only concern is what the data charges are, since carriers like Verizon like to charge more for a few bytes of data than for the high bandwidth that voice transmission requires. If it costs a fortune just to surf the web or send data, then something like this is useless.

Re:Who cares really?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"Bigger than the GPL3 license?"

In a mall, stop and ask 20 people which they're more excited about GPL3 or the iPhone.

Re:Who cares really?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Well, considering how every story posted ends up having a Windows vs Linux vs OS X discussion brought up in the comments...

Software Updates?

[ShamrawkNRoll88]

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.

Re:It's a phone

[Enrique1218]

Let me guess. You also can't understand why consumers will still pay money for Windows when they can have Linux for free.

WTF "It has been an unforgettable week-end"

[sphazell]

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.

Re:let's assume a 10% profit margin

[Watts Martin]

Your observation is fairly, well, obvious, but important to state -- the iPhone's OS is called "OS X 1.0" (it sends back crash reports through iTunes that someone's already dissected, of course), and it clearly has the same heritage as Mac OS X, just like Windows Mobile has the same heritage as other Windows. Windows Mobile has a lot of the same API as "real" Windows, but, well, it's hardly identical, and the crash reports show intriguing differences from iPhone OS X to Mac OS X (and intriguing similarities).

This is important to note, if nothing else, for those who go around saying things like, "If it's OS X, I should be able to load Mac applications on it." Yeah, we'll get back to you on that after you load World of Warcraft on your Treo, Einstein.

Re:Geeks Should Care!

[bismark.a]

1) No voice dialing.

Have you really tried shitty voice dialling in a busy, noisy place? Or even in the comfort of your home? I wonder how many calls you make using your stylus or address book compared to voice? And BTW, how many buttons do you press, before the phone;s toy voice dialling brings up voice recognition?

2) No IM clients.

This I hope would be available in iPhone in an update soon. It already has IM like interface for SMS ...

3) No Outlook syncing.

It does synch Contacts etc from Outlook. Maybe more would be available soon. Thats the beauty of having a software enabled device and is more prominently applicable in *A Software Enabled Interface*.

4) No easily swappable battery.

At 6-8 hours a charge and 400-500 charges, that would be at least 3-4 years before my battery runs out.
And considering that I can carry my charger wherever I go, Do I even care?

Re:Who cares really?

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

In a mall, stop and ask 20 people which they're more excited about GPL3 or the iPhone.

Fortunately, slashdot is not a mall. That's why most of us are here.

Though it is beginning to seem more and more like a mall, as evidenced by your other reply in this thread.

I KNEW it!

[mgabrys_sf]

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.

Re:Who cares really?

[node 3]

Consider me curious then - what features of the iPhone are like that portrayed in Star Trek, that aren't in existing phones? Feature-wise, there really isn't anything major. I mean, there's visual voicemail, but that's just voicemail, which all phones have. There's the iPod app, which is the best I've ever used, but that's still just audio and video, right? Safari, Mail, phonebook listings, etc, are all superb and better than anything else out there, but they are all available on most every other phone, and certainly every smart phone.

With current phones, from a capability point of view, they all do things that seem like they are from Star Trek, I fully agree with you on that. Where they all fall short is in the interface. That's what I mean by it actually *feels* like using something from Star Trek, and not just "has the capabilities" of something from Star Trek.

Essentially, doing something on a standard smart phone (or cell phone in general) takes quite a bit of effort. That's why most people don't do much beyond calling, taking photos, and SMS/MMSing. As geeks and technology enthusiasts, most of us here on Slashdot enjoy doing those things enough to overcome effort required--sometimes we enjoy it so much that we even completely ignore the effort, or count it as "part of the fun". With the iPhone (and all things Apple, in general), the effort is so minimized that the interface becomes almost invisible.

Take the task of multi-party calling. Pretty much every phone can do it, and I've done it on every phone I've ever had, but I've *only* done it when I really, *really* wanted to, because the interface was so limited. The process usually involved multiple, "are you there?"s because you're never quite sure who exactly is on hold, who is connected, and who you might have accidentally hung up on. With the iPhone, even though it's the exact same feature, it's so effortless that I am sure I'll use this feature more during the next year than I have on all my past phones combined. The same goes for web browsing, email, etc. With the iPhone, the actual *experience* of using it--every one one of its features--is fun and easy. With all other phones, it's quite impressive to *have* all those features, but using them can be called *many* things other than "fun", and beyond the first time, "hey, this is cool", a large portion of those features will go unused--not because they are not worthwhile features that one might want to use, but because they aren't worth the trouble.

The iPhone is the first phone (or device in general) that I've used that has me feeling confident about leaving my notebook behind, and *that* says a lot.

It's all about the experience. I suggest playing with one at an Apple Store (an AT&T store will do in a pinch). 5 minutes trying out Safari, the iPod, YouTube and the phone features will convey far more than my post possibly could. Even if, after that, you don't think the iPhone is worth $600, or that the features don't match your needs, or that you're going to wait for 3G, or any other number of things, I'm pretty sure you'll know exactly what I meant by my Star Trek comment.

Re:Who cares really?

[coolGuyZak]

And for anyone claiming that the iPhone is a tech/techie/nerdy news story, please stop pretending to be a geek and go to the mac forums or cnet or some other consumer tech site.

I think you underestimate the sheer bling this piece of gadgetry represents, not just for the "style-obsessed apple-fanboys", but for the idealistic geek in all of us that sees the iPhone and thinks... I must have a Star Trek PaDD.

I'm in that camp. Plus, I lost my iPod several months ago, and have been month-to-month with my current carrier for about half a year now...

So, I'm happy it's getting so much press on Slashdot. While I agree that the hype is getting stale, seeing people's reactions to the release (whether owners, zealots, or trolls) has helped me make an informed decision. A decision I feel I can trust, coz I browsed these articles at -1!

Thanks slashdot!