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WWDC '08 Sees Slimmer, Improved, 3G iPhone
Many of us have been watching Apple's WWDC 2008 keynote unfold live. There are many exciting tidbits, but most of all is the announcement of the 3G iPhone. Featuring an even thinner profile, black plastic back, metal buttons, flush headphone jack, improved audio, GPS support, and improved battery life, this is bound to make quite a few people stand up and take notice. Update 18:54 GMT by SM: Best of all it looks like they really took the price point to heart, 8GB iPhones are now $199 and a 16GB model will be available for $299, coming to an Apple store riot near you on July 11,2008.
3G 8 GB iPhone at $199!!!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
$199/8GB, $299/16GB. Available 7/11 in 22 countries.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
All of the featrure you mentioned will be available in "early July" to the original iPhone users when the 2.0 version of the firmware is released. Only hardware upgrades like GPS and 3G won't be.
Or really interest those of us who are already pissed off at Verizon.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Oddly enough, one program, "Loopt" is available on both providers, but I cannot find it in any of the App listings on Vz's website.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Does Apple allow existing users to upgrade, possibly restarting their 2yr contract, or are they forced to hold to the terms of their previous contract with the old hardware?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
To be fair, he did say right at the beginning that there'd be a presentation offering a glimpse of OS 10.6 'Snow Leopard' after lunch and that this morning's keynote was just about the iPhone.
i never buy revision A apple hardware. let the fanatics bug test the hardware.
damn glad I did too. with built in GPS, better battery life, real apps.
I just feel sorry for the 6 million original iPhones that are about to hit ebay. Then again if Apple sold 6 million regular iPhones with version 2 coming out in a month in 70 countries just how many more will they sell? the 10 million iphones sold is going to be a drop in the bucket. i would almost expect 12 million units shipped by the end of the year.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I am not upset about purchasing/owning the iPhone 1.0. It's been leaps and bounds above my Treo 650 and I needed a new iPod anyway.
I knew from day 1 that that price would come down on future versions. The Apple Lisa was $9,995 in 1983 which is around $21,000 today in 2008. That was the baseline model. As technology grows, things get cheaper. If you haven't picked up this, then perhaps you shouldn't buy technology products. You didn't "have" to buy an iPhone, and you should have seen this coming. You shouldn't also buy such a phone if you can't afford it.
At the same time, they are upgrading the firmware on the older phones still. My current one still gives me all the battery life I need for reasonable use. I am in a major city (Boston) with wifi almost everywhere. I don't drive, and thus the GPS is a non-feature.
Anyone that acts "upset" over the new features, and price drop, needs to grow up.
They didn't add any killer features for me. If they had added even something like the (much rumored, but obviously a lie) video chat functionality or something insane then maybe I'd have thought otherwise. Funny how those rumors/lies got around.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
The OS has had a full point release and there doesn't seem to be much for it.
Where's iChat or am I supposed to keep spending like $0.15 a text for SMS. Speaking of SMS, where's the damn MMS?
How about spam filtering on the mail client. This is supposed to be "just like the desktop OS X" so how hard can it be to upgrade the mail client to more completely resemble the functionality of mail.app on the desktop?
No discussion of how the 1st gen phones will handle location.
Nice one month slip on the OS and app store.
So as a 1st generation owner, the only major upgrade in my day to day is the ability to get 3rd party apps. Hopefully 3rd party apps will fill in the gaping holes.
A little adblock would be super helpful too...
Sheldon
Why? Because a consumer electronics company refreshed a product? Should I be pissed at Sony every few months when they upgrade their camcorders? Should I be mad that the camcorder I bought from them five years ago cost more and is less capable than one I could buy today? Ditto with HP - the LaserJet model I bought in 2001 cost about $900. I can get one today that does the same job (and has more RAM) for $300 (or less). HP owes me $600!
$199 for 8 GB, though, intrestingly enough, puts it more in direct competition with much, much lower end phones. Like, say, the Motorola Razor or the LG Envy, which are at a similar price point with probably a tenth of the functionality.
Maybe Apple has something here that will turn the smartphone market on its ear.
My blog
From the apple site: "# Requires new 2-year AT&T rate plan, sold separately." In other words, there's no such thing as a $199 iPhone. Plans start at $59.99, so you're looking at a minimum outlay of $1638.76 plus tax over two years.
Not if you don't ignore the several thousand dollar 2-year contract.
Several? Lets say you get a normalish plan and with taxes ends up costing you $100/month. So over the course of 2 years you spend $2400. This plan would include something like 900 minutes, unlimited nights/weekends, unlimited data, and 1500 texts. The Sprint everything plan is $99/month and that's before taxes (although it does include unlimited minutes). Can you show me any other cell phone with unlimited data that's cheaper than I've listed here?
Our British friends still spell "for" the same.
I have an iPhone 1.0 and bought it knowing that I don't live in a 3G area (that and GPS are the only new things I won't be able to get). That's like saying anyone who owned anything prior to a new version coming out is going to feel stupid. If anything I would think that geeks understand that technology usually a) moves at a quick pace and b) gets more features and usually goes down in price over time.
"Unwilling" is always your problem and nobody else's.
Will over seas iphone be unlocked by law and will it work in the us.
Wow, you must have posted that on a v1 iPhone.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
I bought an iPhone at the $400 price, and I don't feel like a sucker. I bought it because I wanted the features that the iPhone had. I wanted a portable media player with a large screen for video that integrated with the software I was already using for my music (iTunes). I wanted to be able to use my gmail account with it. I wanted to do IM (Meebo.com). I wanted a good UI (I hate the Windows Mobile UI). $400 was pretty steep, but in the end I felt it was worth it.
I don't feel bitter at all about this. I knew when I bought the first iPhone that there would be another version a year or so down the line. It was just common sense. But I didn't want to wait, so I paid a premium. Thats not a big deal for me.
If I can get one for $200 with my current plan, though, I'd be really tempted to get the 3G.
I bought my iPhone on day three (hey, I'm not stupid enough to buy launch day only to find out there's a massive bug) for $600. I'm quite happy still. See, unlike the rest of the world, I haven't had to put up with a shitty cell phone for the past year.
:)
Tech gets cheaper over time. I'm more pissed that I once spent $50 for a 30-pack of CD-R blanks and only had eight or so work after waiting half an hour to find out the burn failed, only to now be able to buy discs that burn in a minute for fifteen cents apiece with 99% reliability. At least my 1.0 iPhone worked properly at launch and continues to do so
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Yes, there is no front facing video-camera. One of the key points of 3G is that there is native video conferencing support in the networks.
Further, can you ge an unlocked version (even if subsidised with a contract would be great), I refuse to pay anything for a phone if I cannot switch SIM card in it. I live in the UK, have my parents in Sweden and my girlfriends family is in Belgium and I am going to the Netherlands a lot for work.
So, tell me, even though the EU have done a lot of work in capping the roaming fees, they are still way to high, and especially for data transfers, why would I get an iPhone. I would really want one, but without front facing camera and reasonable options to ge an unlocked phone (I dont mind signing a contract in my country of residence), why the heck would I get one.
Frankly, I will not get the iPhone until those items are fixed on the todo list.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Then I remembered my trusty Garmin:
$5/month for the painfully inaccurate ClearChannel traffic info.
$215 for the traffic receiver (granted, you can find a C550 with it included for less if you shop around).
$160 for the travel guides.
$100-$150 every time you want to go to a new country.
$70/year for the map updates.
Granted, you don't need to buy all of those. But every one of them involves Garmin prying your wallet open for something that's free on the net/Google Maps and thus free once you have paid your $70 monthly net access on your iPhone.
Before everyone goes on a diatribe about what the new iPhone doesn't have or what it doesn't do, remember the long history of the iPod. The first iPod isn't anything special compared to the last several generations. If there are features that you would like to have or features you don't like, just wait and a newer version might address it. It's funny watching the intensity of fanboys and naysayers. If you don't like it, don't buy it. In summary here's the history and the naysayers.
2001:
.
Apple: Introducting the iPod: 1000 songs in your pocket.
Naysayers:"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." Seriously who's going to buy this? It is Mac only, uses Firewire, and costs $400!!
2002;
Apple: iPod 2.0: Touch sensitive scroll wheel. Now compatible with Windows. Up to 20GB
Naysayers: Okay, more space than a Nomad, but no wireless. Firewire only. Still expensive. Easily scratched
2003:
Apple: iPod 3.0: UI Redesign. Now USB compatible. Up to 40GB
Naysayers:Still waiting for wireless. Still expensive. No video or photo capability. Really I need something smaller, maybe flash based. Easily scratched. Still expensive
2004:
Apple: iPod mini: Smaller version of iPod. 4 or 6 GB disk based. iPod 4.0. UI Redesign. Clickwheel. Up to 40GB. iPod 4.1: now with color and photo capability. Up to 60GB
Naysayers:Still no wireless. Still expensive. No video. Maybe a phone/iPod combination would work. Easily scratched. Still expensive
2005:
Apple:iPod Shuffle: Ultra-portable iPod. Up to 1GB. iPod mini v2: New colors. iPod nano: Flash based. Color. Replacing mini. Up to 4GB. iPod 5.0: Now with video. Up to 80GB
Naysayers:No screen on the shuffle. Small video screen on the iPod. And it's not a touch screen. Replace the profitable mini, are they insane? The nano scraches too easily! Still no wireless. When is Apple going to make an iPhone? Still expensive
2006:
Apple:iPod Shuffe: Even smaller. Metallic shell. Up to 2GB. iPod nano: New scratch-resistant metallic shell. More battery life. Up to 8GB.
Naysayers:I can't use the new shuffle as a USB stick! Still no wireless or widescreen or touchscreen. No iPhone. Easily scratched. Still expensive
January 2007:
Apple:iPhone: multi-touch, widescreen iPod + mobile phone + internet browser + wireless
Naysayers:I wanted the phone part to be separate. It's only on AT&T. It's not 3G. I can't buy music wirelessly. It's frickin' expensive.
September 2007:
Apple:iPod Touch: iPhone without the phone. iTunes Music Store built in. iPod nano: New form factor. Video. Up to 8GB. iPod Classic: Metallic shell. Up to 160GB
Naysayers:iPhone is still only AT&T and not 3G. iPod touch is only 8GB and 16GB. And it's frickin' expensive.
February 2008:
Apple:iPod nano: new colors: iPod shuffle: new colors. iPouch Touch: 32GB available
Naysayers:iPhone is still only AT&T and not 3G. iPod Touch and iPhone are still expensive
June 2008:
Apple:iPhone 2.0: 3G, GPS, Slimmer, faster, more apps. 8GB $199. 16GB $299
Naysayers:iPhone is still only AT&T. Still expensive!!
Fast forward to the future . .
2020:
Apple:iPod femto: Size of a business card, but thinner. Direct neural interface. No charging, uranium battery last 5,000 years. Up to 500TB. iPhone X: Instantaneous, realtime language translation. Up to 20PB
Naysayers:Should be 1PB. Neural interface is only in HD and not Extreme-HD. Should have used plutonium batteries that last 10,000 years. iPhone isn't 6G. Language translation only covers "major" languages and not Swahili. Still expensive.
2021:
Apple:iPod femto: Plutonium batteries. 1PB. iPhone XI: 6G. Language translation now includes Swahili.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The iPhone 3G is NOT slimmer - not if you look at the depth. In fact it is a couple of mm's thicker than the predecessor The 3G tech spec page says Height: 4.5 inches (115.5 mm) Width: 2.4 inches (62.1 mm) Depth: 0.48 inch (12.3 mm) Weight: 4.7 ounces (133 grams Old tech spec: Height: 4.5 inches (115 mm) Width: 2.4 inches (61 mm) Depth: 0.46 inch (11.6 mm) Weight: 4.8 ounces (135 grams)
Given the fact that this one is called "Snow Leopard" and not Lynx or Meercat or tabby or any other type of cat more distant from Leopard, I would guess that Snow Leopard is not intended to be a major upgrade from Leopard, and I think it's actually somewhat of a confession that they want to make Leopard much better before they move on from it.
Hopefully they'll have a separate "upgrade from Leopard" SKU that they either won't charge for, or that will be a much smaller price than the usual price.
I think you really should wait. There will be a better iPhone coming out it 2009--unless you want to wait for the really great 2010 model with 50 hours of talk time and 3.5G. Technology moves on.
Seriously, I bought an iPhone last September for 299 and it is my favorite tech purchase in the last 5 years or so. So ~$2 (one for the hardware, one for the $20 my contract is over my old one) a day for something I use and enjoy every day is fine with me. Actually, it paid for itself the first day I didn't feel the mobile phone interface rage my previous LG, Motorolas and Blackberries gave me.
I certainly hope not. I for one do NOT like being charged for stuff that should have been there from the start. Come on, Apple(i hope) isn't Microsoft, they shouldn't be pulling this bullshit unless they want their base to turn on them. I feel like I'm using a Microsoft product when I use Leopard, I don't do anything special with my SR macbook, but have had plenty of kernel panics and odd crashes, esp. of iTunes. Really does make me feel like I'm using a Microsoft product. I don't even want to see what their server version is like. I was forced into using a Tiger Open Directory server at work, and its a buggy pile, I shudder to think what Leopard must be like.
Apple support doesn't help any either. At one point they actually told me that a problem I was experiencing was a bug and that I should have to come up with a workaround, and still charged us an incident for such a lovely revelation. I am having issues getting our new Leopard workstations to connect to the Tiger open directory(another Apple product!) and the support guy hasn't done anything in the past 3 weeks to really help, despite the massive amount of money we are paying Apple.
Leopard wouldn't bother me so much if we weren't FORCED to use it if we want new hardware. We are starting to replace our aging powermac G5s(which still work for the most part, but as the hardware ages we are running out of spares) and settled on the shiniest Mac Pros that came out in January. However, as part of the deal we were forced to use Leopard, you cannot install Tiger on these machines. So instead of focusing on what our customer needs, we have to deal with an endless Apple bug parade or just stick to aging hardware. There is no middle ground. Apple makes fun of Vista customers going back to XP, but at least they have the option! If I could run Tiger on my macbook or the new mac pros at work, I would in a second but Apple is so arrogant that they refuse to let me do so and instead have to put up with their bullshit.
Furthermore, Apple seems to not realize that the rest of the world doesn't always work like they do. For example, look at Java. Apple was over a year late on getting Java 6 on the mac, and now it only exists for Leopard 64-bit intel users. WTF? It can run on Windows 2k for crying out loud! There are many more examples of Apple's hubris, but that is one of the best imo. It prevents us from going to Java 6 because we haven't replaced everything here with 64 bit intel Leopard machines....
The situation with Apple of late kind of reminds me of the ending of Animal Farm, when the rest of the animals couldn't tell the difference between pigs and humans. I am starting to not see the difference between Apple and Microsoft....
Monstar L
No it isn't.
It is a symptom of a larger problem.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Why would I feel stupid? I've had a great phone/iPod/EDGE web-surfing gadget for a year, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Once the new one is available for sale, I'll have a great phone/iPod/3G web-surfing gadget which I'm sure I'll enjoy just as thoroughly, and my wife will inherit the EDGE version (her old Motorola U6 is long overdue for a replacement anyway).
What makes you think I would expect innovation to come to a grinding halt just because I've spent a bit of cash on a gadget? I bought the iPhone with the understanding that it would be replaced with a newer, more-feature-packed model sooner rather than later (taking into account the almost-annual new-iPod release cycle).
What would you recommend to folks considering the iPhone 3G? That they hold off on buying it, because it's eventually going to be replaced by a cooler model anyway?
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
No, EV-DO is a flavor of Qualcomm's CDMA2000, not GSM. That article is simple talking about Verizon upgrading their EV-DO network to the newer and faster Rev A version.
What is happening though is Verizon will be switching to a GSM technology called LTE for their 4G network. So maybe with the next iteration of the iPhone will be available on Verizon. But until then, I'll stick with my HTC 6800 and a network that actually has 3G coverage.Apple listened to developers and enterprise customers in nailing the iPhone feature list. No objections or gripes here.
The 3G iPhone pricing is very un-Apple in being very attractive and without an obvious price premium. In fact, it is priced for mass-market consumption right now. That means there will be millions out there a year from now. And the ecosystem/market will flock to this high-profile platform, in turn creating even more pull.
The stock is down today about 4%. Why Jim Cramer is saying "sell on the news" is beyond me. AAPL is going to be a lot bigger and more profitable a year from now.
There is no technology risk here, so sit back and watch one of the great technology markets of a lifetime unfold.
quick summary of the posts in this thread, by first sentence:
"Unwilling"
No it isn't.
Rubbish.
Nonsense.
You don't need Geeksintraining if you're on Slashdot.
I should clarify that I'm not rich, but I just knew what I was getting into when I bought it. Never have I purchased a piece of consumer technology to have it go up in price and decrease in features as time went on. I expected the price to drop and the features increase. Again, compare the Apple Lisa at $21K vs a Mac Pro at $2500.
I count the money as "spent". It's not an investment piece and I feel that I've gotten my money worth just in its use. Again I needed a new phone and a new iPod anyway. The iPod was going to be $300 or so and a new phone around a hundred. Well worth it. However I should disclose that I wrote it off as a business expense on my taxes.
No one should have bought a $400 phone in this economy without being able to count it as "gone" without massive financial impact. I did see a lot of people buying this phone that shouldn't have and couldn't afford it- stupid idea.
This is about having proper expectations when you purchase technology. Also a device (should) do the same features that it does on day one and provide similar value. My Commodore 64 still does what it did in 1983, and still provides that value regardless of what else is out there or on the current pricing of them.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
You're mixing up technologies. CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA are all ways of getting the data in and out of the air. CDMA the cellular technology isn't just the air interface. GSM 3G uses W-CDMA as an air interface. That says nothing about which frequency bands, authentication or other interoperability barriers you'll encounter. It's just the way they utilize the bandwidth. LTE is based on OFDMA, which is kind of like CDMA crossed with TDMA and FDMA (your data is not only XORed with a chipping code like CDMA, but you also have timeslots to transmit them in and a number of subcarriers you're allowed to use.) I don't think you'll see a grand unified mobile network anytime soon. :-)
Well, it's true that AT&T will have nationwide 3G coverage, for certain definitions of "nationwide" which exclude several entire states, and major portions of the country. Although their map shows presence in every state, this is a mirage. There are quite a few states where AT&T doesn't offer service at all. If you happen to be an AT&T customer from somewhere else, you get 3G coverage from a parter, but you can't get a local phone number on an iPhone (or any other AT&T phone) in those locations.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Video teleconferencing is your stumbling block? I can agree with not being able to swap SIM cards, but Video Teleconferencing is one of those features that people talk about a lot but almost never use in my experience.
I read the internet for the articles.
The iPhone has an awesome screen and a great UI, but even this fixed version will probably fall again short of the N9x series outside of the US, where ppl don't usually have wide-spread WiFi, or unlimited 3G access, or care about PC syncing. Pity, here's waiting for WWDC 2009 again...
W-CDMA, despite name similarities, has nothing to do with CDMA-2000 which is a standard developed by Qualcomm mainly used in the US market.
According to the Apple iPhone 3G Tech Specs Page, the box includes a "SIM Ejector Tool" and the diagram at the top of the page shows a SIM Card Tray at the top of the unit.
There is hope yet.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
It certainly is just preference.
I've used a Windows Mobile phone for the past 2.5 years. I started tracking my usage of the features. e-mail and web browsing are the two features I use the most. Both are horribly flawed on Windows Mobile.
Pocket Outlook is great, as long as you're only connecting to Exchange servers. Switch to IMAP, and the server configuration determines the usability, because Pocket Outlook does not support IMAP namespaces properly. The mail server from which I get my mail uses namespaces, and Pocket Outlook locks up when I try to get mail there. I had to do stupid hacks (forwarding mail off, at first, and later using a proxy to re-write requests.)
Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) is a different beast. It's crap, even for a mobile browser. Simple pages will render fine, but anything even moderately complex will not work. When I first started using my phone, I just did everything through Google's gateway. That's really not how I want to use the web. Later on, I started using my phone to copy down interesting URLs for perusal at home. The browser on my phone became little more than a portal to IMDB and Wikipedia.
Opera Mobile is a bit better, but you pay for it, and it's still got rendering issues with some sites.
What's great about the iPhone, in my opinion, is the support. Even though it has a real web browser, popular websites fall all over themselves trying to put together a version of the site optimized for iPhone's screen. When there isn't an optimized version, you can view the full version (albeit slowly--hopefully 3G will help address that) and zoom specific portions of the page that you want to look at. For me, since what I really want is a data device (I could do without the phone part, honestly), the better the browser and mail client, the better the device. I've tried all the major phone operating systems, and by far, Apple blows them away. RIM does come closest, no doubt, but the web browsing experience just can't compete.
Here's a hint. If you keep holding out for the next-great thing, you'll never have anything to show for your efforts.
You sound like an adult. Does it sometimes feel lonely being the only adult?
I realize that you're probably being facetious, but take a look at Sprint's SERO plan.
In a nutshell, if you sign up for a two-year contract through the right avenues, for $30/month you can get 500 minutes, free nights and weekends that start at 7 pm, unlimited in-network calling, unlimited roaming, unlimited text messaging and 3G data, and a few other perks that I don't really use. You can probably also get a pretty hefty chunk off of whatever phone you're planning to buy; I got $350 off of a Mogul.
For what it's worth, you may not be able to replace your home internet. Tethering is officially not allowed, although I've been connecting my Mogul to my laptop via Bluetooth for mobile 'net access for several months now and nobody seems to have noticed.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
EV-DO is a 3G flavor of CDMA, so no luck there.
As for Verizon "opening up" their network, that's a funny variety of newspeak. It is still more closed than any GSM carrier. Verizon's variety of "open" means that they are publishing specs and setting up a certification lab so that 3rd party manufacturers can make devices compatible with their network. You can't use any old CDMA phone and use it on Verizon, it has to be Verizon certified.
Compare to GSM, where you can take any unlocked phone, put in a sim-card from any GSM carrier you like and off you go. There is no need for the phone to be $cell_carrier_x certified, it is sufficient that the phone complies with the GSM spec.
The CDMA family is:
CDMA (2G) - CDMA2000 (2.5G) - EV-DO (3G) - UMB (4G)
The GSM family is:
GSM (2G) - EDGE/GPRS (2.5G) - UMTS (3G) - HSDPA/HSUPA (3.5G) - LTE (4G)
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
I, for one, am tremendously unhappy with this kind of temporal data plan recursion. Even if it is innovative, infinite pricing schemes relying on iterations of the present I find to be unacceptable!
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
I'm pretty indifferent to most of the things that seem to bother you, but one of your complaints stands out as especially backward: the display is "still" glass because it's a vastly better choice. Glass is harder to break, far harder to scratch, and easier to clean than plastic. The only downside is that it's a little heavier, but I find that to be quite worthwhile for never needing to worry about it getting scratched.
If you're finding yourself breaking a lot of glass iphone displays... well, I can't imagine how you treat your phone, but I'm sure that you'd be breaking plastic ones twice as often.
The WWDC 2008 Keynote Video is up now. Enjoy.