Slashdot Mirror
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.
My question is how does that affect the price of the other iPods, especially the Nano and the Touch... I guess that will probably be answered in the next couple of minutes... Hopefully, anyway. Maybe it just means larger Nanos at the same price point, and reduced prices on the Touches.
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!
The question is, can you walk into the store and get an iPhone for this price, without having to sign a 2 year contract.
The reason the iPhone originally cost so much more than we're used to seeing phones cost, is because it was not subsidized by a 2 year service contract.
Now that they've lowered the price, can I still walk into the Apple store and buy a new iPhone and walk out without signing a contract.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Available at the 7/11? They're really breaking new ground with distribution of this one!
Our British friends still spell "for" the same.
Well, it looks like he didn't have any announcements about prices on iPods, and according to the Apple Store, they're still all the same. But the iPhone was always described as "The best iPod [Apple] has ever made," among other things...
And now, for $199, you can buy an 8GB 3G iPhone, which is a pretty sweet iPod plus a phone, internet connectivity, 3rd party apps, or you can buy an 8GB nano, which is just an iPod with a tiny screen and a wheel. I understand that this new iPhone price may be subsidized by the carriers, and that it probably locks a customer into the 2 year contract even more than they were with the old iPhone, but still, there's something about seeing these prices on the website that just doesn't sit right. Not to mention that the 8GB iPhone is now $100 less expensive than the 8GB iPod Touch, which has less hardware built into it... (by the way, does the Touch get GPS, too?).
I'm still expecting either price cuts or big storage increases on the Flash-based iPods. In any case, if I were in the market for a new iPod, I'd wait a little longer before I buy.
8GB Touch $299.
:P
8GB iPhone $199 + $59.99 * 24 = $1638.76
I think the touch is the better deal.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
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.
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)
Jeeze, which side of the bed did you get up on today?
The keynote did have a discussion of a standalone IM client, not based on SMS. It won't run as a background process, but rather rely on a new push service that Apple (and carriers I guess) are adding with the 2.0 firmware rollout. The push service is intended to be used for lots of things, not just IM-ing, and will be available through an API to all 3rd-party devs.
First-gen iPhones can already do some locating-aware stuff off of the location of cell towers. It ain't great - accuracy is to within a hundred feet at best in my experience, but it is good enough for some location-aware applications. It can already be used to tell you the nearest restaurants, etc., just not give you realtime directions, geotagging, etc. Why do you suddenly expect that the rollout of a next-gen iPhone would suddenly mean an upgrade in the hardware of your current iPhone? New hardware with new capabilities is the march of technology.
Improvements to the software will come out on a continuing basis. In addition to getting 3rd party apps (which as you say can fill in a lot of missing capabilities), firmware 2.0 on first-gen iPhones will give support for a lot of enterprise stuff (I don't know if that applies to you), support for iWork and MS Office file formats, push-everything, and access to MobileMe (all your stuff is in the cloud, and accessible from anywhere, and pushed to all your devices).
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.
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. :-)
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...
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.
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)
And if the network is subsidising the phone, there's no way you're walking out the store without the contract set up and the phone registered to it.
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'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.