3G iPhone Going Into Production In May

A few folks noted the rumor mill churning over 3G iPhones coming soon. Apparently they might be going into production as early as May, and announced somewhere in the 2nd quarter. Hopefully they manage to stick a GPS and another 16 gigs of memory in this one.

Comments

Re:Why does iPhone succeed?

[MistaE]

Never underestimate the power of the 'coolness' factor. Also, you write off the nicer interface as if its somewhat insignificant. That's the CORE component of any consumer electronic market. The public is going to interact with the most part through the interface, if it sucks, they're not going to spend the time to learn it.

Like it or hate it, you got to admit that the iPhone has a pretty nice interface and it's not too hard to learn. When my mom and aunts, who are in their 40s and not very technologically adept, decided to pick up iPhones and can use them as well as me, you know they're doing something right.

Re:why

[morgan_greywolf]

Because the iPhone was a flop outside North America. And you'll see a lot of comments from Apple fanboi's defending Apple all the way, but here's the truth, uncensored. (Go ahead, mod me down, fanboi trolls) what a lot of North American (like myself) readers don't seem to understand is that while we just got 3G services and phones rolled out within the last 2 years by the likes of Sprint, Verizon, etc., here in the States, abroad, they've had 3G for quite sometime and are completely spoiled by it. In the EU, any smartphone that's not 3G is immediately destined for failure, especially since they're already rolling out '3.5G' and '4G' in Europe, while we think 3G is the newest thing, Europe is already moving on.

Re:why

[Bedemus]

what a lot of North American (like myself) readers don't seem to understand is that while we just got 3G services and phones rolled out within the last 2 years by the likes of Sprint, Verizon, etc., here in the States, abroad, they've had 3G for quite sometime and are completely spoiled by it. In the EU, any smartphone that's not 3G is immediately destined for failure, especially since they're already rolling out '3.5G' and '4G' in Europe, while we think 3G is the newest thing, Europe is already moving on. What a lot of North American readers (like yourself) don't seem to understand is that the population density in the countries where 3G coverage is widespread justifies that widespread deployment of 3G technology by giving companies a speedier return on their investment.

Such is the case for most of the connectivity technologies that see more rapid adoption overseas. There are large areas of the USA that are simply not densely populated enough to justify the expense of rolling out cutting-edge networks there. It isn't a matter of the US simply being behind the technological curve, as some like to assume.

Pardon the PHB nature of this next statement, but these are the types of differences that turn a 3 year ROI into a 10 year ROI, and slow down adoption.

Re:Why does iPhone succeed?

[teh kurisu]

Apple appear to be taking advantage that many people are unaware how almost every phone (even cheap ones) can do Internet access as standard, so they are able to promote it as a new and wonderful thing (even on Slashdot, I see this happening).

I'm sure they're also attracting the people that have tried out the browsers on their phones, and found them so painful to use that they've just given up. I'm one of them - I never use the browser on my Samsung Z560 unless I really have to. In contrast, I'll browse the web on my iPod Touch quite happily - it's not as good as a desktop browser, but it's not that far off.

In fact, I was ranting to my boss just now about the fact that my phone browser forgets cookies when the browser is closed (which happens every time you close the clamshell, annoyingly). It's particularly apparent when using PayPal Mobile, which shows you a regular login page by default. You can opt to log in using your mobile number and a PIN, and if you've got the cookie you'll be automatically redirected. Mine, unfortunately, forgets the cookie.