I didn't post that link. It was another user. I recommend you Google for the phrase "tri-band GSM" or "quad band GSM" to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Also, I didn't mention Microsoft. I'm not sure why you did. I don't know if any of the Windows Mobile smartphones offer tri- or quad-band GSM, but I would be surprised if at least one didn't.
I have used my current phone, a tri-band GSM/UMTS SonyEricsson M600i in the United States, Canada, England, France, Belgium, Japan (UMTS mode only), China, and Singapore. Before this, I used my GSM Ericsson T68mc in the United States, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, and Germany.
You really are more clueless than you know. Try to read and research before you call someone else a troll. Both T-Mobile and Cingular/AT&T support GSM phones in the United States with worldwide roaming. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of companies that sell phones in the United States that work around the world.
You sound like someone who bought his phone on a ten-year contract at the Sprint store at some suburban mall and believes everything the salesman told him.
Actually, what exactly is the business use of being able to edit spreadsheets on your mobile phone?
As far as I can tell, it's all just marketing hype.
On a long flight not too long ago I decided to get a head-start on some work and opened my phone's mobile version of Word. By the time I got to the fifth page, the thing was crawling. It was so slow and I was typing so far ahead of it that it was actually unusable.
I suspect my experience is not unique. I don't think anyone can do any serious work on these things. It's just another checkmark and logo to add to the outside of the box.
OK, you're a hater. Or more accurately, as someone entrenched in a dying platform ("Palm software engineer") you don't understand that the world is moving on without you.
you'd be crazy to buy a phone now that doesn't have 3G.
Why? Most phones in people's hands right now aren't 3G. Most of the United States, where the iPhone will be released later this month doesn't have 3G service. Jobs has already said in front of hundreds of people that the 3G version will be next. It makes sense that it will coincide with the release of the European iPhone which (IIRC) is set for this fall. If 3G is such a necessity for you, wait six months and import one. Problem solved.
if I want to make an mp3 into my ringtones, the 8525 says "go right ahead!" On the Iphone, you have to buy ringtones from ITMS.
You must have gone from Palm engineer to Microsoft engineer, because this is pure FUD. Please provide documentation that shows that iPhone ringtones must be purchased from iTunes. The phone's not out, so you have no idea what it requires. Since the iPhone syncs with iTunes and iTunes handles non-ITMS music just fine, it's only logical to assume that I can use my already-ripped-from-CD-into-iTunes music as a ringtone. You have provided no convincing evidence to the contrary. You're just so used to a culture of vendor lock-in that you don't understand the Mac biosphere. Yes, there is a certain amount of lock-in with the hardware, but Apple is all about pioneering and implementation of standards. It's Verizon and the other legacy telcos that lock people out of the features of their phones (like Bluetooth) in order to extract money from them, not Apple.
Find someone who has a 3G phone, and try using google maps for mobile with a super highspeed connection.
Like the built-in WiFi that the iPhone has? We've all seen Jobs and others demoing Google Maps on the iPhone and it's slick. And the Google integration is specialized for the iPhone. Remember the location thingy? If you haven't watched the demo video, you should.
SSH over 3G is pretty damn good.
I SSH over GPRS every day. It's pretty damn good, too. You don't need broadband for text applications.
I wanted to sync my address book and calendar from my device with my gmail account. Both WM5 and Google are open APIs! So I'm writing it (which means it will suck, but still). Apple does not to seem to want you to be able to do that.
Again, the phone's not out. How do you know it can't? More accurately, how do you know that a month from now someone won't write an iSync plug-in that enables what you want? There are entire companies that specialize in this (The Missing Sync comes to mind). I'm not sure how you "seem" to know what Apple wants. Referencing my above point, Google appears to be interested in the iPhone. Maybe that interest expands beyond maps. I don't know. And neither do you.
Windows Mobile Platform is MUCH more open than the IPhone.
According to the New York Times, Apple is working on a way to allow developers to port their applications to the iPhone. I don't see how Windows is MUCH more open, other than the fact that it's had a five year head start.
When I worked at Palm we worked HARD to court independent developers, who cranked out great apps for the Palm platform.
Good for you. Do you want a cookie? Palm is worse than dead. It's a zombie that doesn't even know it's dead. I loved my original US Robotics Palm 1000. I loved my IIIe. I bought my wife an M100. But Palm stagnated. It's over. Get over it.
when I think of the IPhone I think NO CARRIER.
90% of the world doesn't know what "NO CARRIER" means anymore. We've all gone broadband. Most were born after the modem market shriveled up. You're just demonstrating that you're another Microsoft dinosaur that doesn't get it.
I would love a switch, or even a subscription, that would allow me to filter these usually useless types of pages and instead show me pages with real content.
Ditto for Google News. I'd love to click something and have all the worthless blogs trying to pass for journalism disappear from the results.
Even worse is that Google News gives high rankings to some "news" web sites that merely steal the content of other sites and then re-publish it as their own. I'm not talking about link aggregators like Fark or Digg, but web sites that steal other people's content, then present it as their own work(*cough*eCanadaNow.com*cough*).
Wait.. I thought we were supposed to hate globalization. Remember? No big, evil, multi-nationals for us! Yessiree! No ExxonMobil, Haliburton, Microsoft, Red Cross, Greenpeace, Teamsters, or any other global masters.
Maybe it will end up like the old days when radio stations had their own bands and hired orchestras to play live.
I imagine a company as large as CBS or Clear Channel could have a number of different bands on staff making their own music in order to help cut down on these payments.
Bigger than an iPhone. From a brand I've never heard of and don't trust. Doesn't sync with my iTunes songs. Doesn't sync with my iTunes videos. Doesn't sync with my Address Book. Doesn't sync with my iCal. Only has 64megs of RAM compared to the iPhone's 8GB. Is ugly. Runs a crappy Windows Mobile browser instead of the zoom-and-scroll version of Safari on the iPhone. Can't sync wirelessly.
Just about the only thing it has going for it is GPS, and it doesn't have the ability to load maps of Asia so I'm not interested.
Nokia sold more phone in October, November and December last year (84 million) than Apple has sold Macs in the last 20 years!
Apple sold more music players in October, November and December last year than Nokia has sold ever!
I'm sorry... what was your point? Oh yeah -- that Apple's new to the market and so it can't compete. Someone should have told that to the Japanese automakers 20 years ago.
Take your Cingular phone up to a roaming partner and use a few thousand minutes of N&W calls. Costs you nothing and they kick you off. Then port your number to a more friendly provider.
+9 Informative
I wonder if that's a way to get out of the Cingular iPhone contract.
If you severed the ties between cell phone retailers and service providers the prices of both would go down. Other countries work this way.
You are not required to purchase a phone from a cell phone company in the United States. You can buy it wherever you want, just like other countries. I've bought my family's last four phones that way. You just have to get out of the habit of shopping at suburban malls.
Having switched to EVDO, there is not a chance in the world I would ever use EDGE again for anything.
Having traveled outside of the country, there is not a chance in the world I would ever use a U.S.-only phone again for anything.
EVDO is like being on a cable modem or DSL.
Until you try to use it overseas. Then it's more like being in a network outage.
Tell me, what are your EDGE latencies? I'll guarantee they aren't anywhere near the sub-100ms latencies you get on the newer rev A EVDO networks
I can't compare the two. Everytime I take an EVDO phone out of the country the pings time out.
EVDO works brilliantly while you are moving
Until you move past boring suburban America.
I was a big T-mobile affecienado, and I love Apple, and I'm willing to pay $500+ for a phone, but not for an EDGE phone.
I am a T-mobile user, and I love Apple, and I'm willing to pay $500+ for a phone, but not for an EVDO phone that only works in one country with one carrier and has built-in features crippled in order to enhance that carrier's revenue stream.
Until you've traveled the world with an unlocked GSM phone, you don't know what telecom freedom is.
I've used HSDPA in Southeast Asia (Singapore and Japan, specifically) and it rocks. Smooth, streaming full-screen (320x240 on my phone) video, and flawless voice calls.
If the U.S. implementation is the same, people will love it. Unfortunately, as I understand it the U.S. version is on different frequencies, so it doesn't work my my M600i.
EVDO type networks (Verizon, sprint, etc.) are far better then what AT&T are using.
And when you leave the United States and Canada, you'll have a nice shiny paperweight in your pocket. But at least you can listen to music on it.
GSM is required for international travel. The people who can afford to shell out for these phones are business people who very likely travel. They're going to use their phone for business, not for downloading R. Kelly ringtones on Sprint or watching crappy TV clips on Verizon. Apple knows its market.
(That said, I'll stick with my SE M600i which works in virtually every country on Earth -- even Japan!)
What about pot smokers ? I do not hear about pot smokers... killing people while driving under influence
Just because you don't "hear about it" doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
As part of my job I see a go through a lot of police accident and crime reports. Based on your statement, I'd say that you would be VERY surprised how many times the drivers involved in crashes are under the influence of pot.
One example (of many): There was a case about four months ago outside of Chicago where a driver smoking pot killed three people in his vehicle, and a couple more in the vehicle he hit head-on. Five people dead. Yeah, a little pot never hurt anybody.
Again, just because don't "hear" it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The reason the media now says "driving under the influence" instead of "driving drunk" is because so often the drivers aren't drunk -- they're on drugs, pot included.
I just got to Italy, and it's much simpler. Everything is pre-paid. Buy the phone, buy minutes, and you pay only for the calls you make.
You can do that in the U.S., too. For probably close to five years. Phones and top-up cards are available in just about every convenience store, Target, or Wal-Mart. What rock have you been living under?
I hate that in the USA you get charged for calls someone makes to you. Docomo in Japan also charges only for calls you make.
Just like U.S. Cellular and dozens of other American carriers. You really have no idea what you're talking about. I recommend you stop posting until you actually know something. Are you even American?
In the US for voice calls it is billed per time on the air. So both receiver and sender pay, if they are both on mobiles.
It depends on your carrier. There are plenty of cell phone companies that don't charge for incoming calls. U.S. Cellular is one. I believe Nextel, too. There are probably others.
To further muddy things, there are plans where neither caller nor receiver pay if they're on the same network, or call at the right time of day or the right day of week.
In spite of many Slashdotter's attempts at summarizing the American cell phone market in a few sentences, none have ever done it accurately. Mostly because the majority don't live in the country and are posting old information they heard once years ago. (Not saying this is you, just making an observation about the condition of/.)
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't post that link. It was another user. I recommend you Google for the phrase "tri-band GSM" or "quad band GSM" to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Also, I didn't mention Microsoft. I'm not sure why you did. I don't know if any of the Windows Mobile smartphones offer tri- or quad-band GSM, but I would be surprised if at least one didn't.
I have used my current phone, a tri-band GSM/UMTS SonyEricsson M600i in the United States, Canada, England, France, Belgium, Japan (UMTS mode only), China, and Singapore. Before this, I used my GSM Ericsson T68mc in the United States, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, and Germany.
You really are more clueless than you know. Try to read and research before you call someone else a troll. Both T-Mobile and Cingular/AT&T support GSM phones in the United States with worldwide roaming. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of companies that sell phones in the United States that work around the world.
You sound like someone who bought his phone on a ten-year contract at the Sprint store at some suburban mall and believes everything the salesman told him.
On a long flight not too long ago I decided to get a head-start on some work and opened my phone's mobile version of Word. By the time I got to the fifth page, the thing was crawling. It was so slow and I was typing so far ahead of it that it was actually unusable.
I suspect my experience is not unique. I don't think anyone can do any serious work on these things. It's just another checkmark and logo to add to the outside of the box.
Apple should listen to people like you before something bad happens
Even worse is that Google News gives high rankings to some "news" web sites that merely steal the content of other sites and then re-publish it as their own. I'm not talking about link aggregators like Fark or Digg, but web sites that steal other people's content, then present it as their own work(*cough*eCanadaNow.com*cough*).
Gotta update my
Since you're trying to future-proof the place, I have one word for you:
Crawlspaces.
If that's not practical, try to have a few key walls with hidden corridors in them so you can run conduit or whatever you might need in the future.
OT, but Q104 in New York was better in the 80's when it was "Hot rockin', Flame throwin' classical music."
Maybe it will end up like the old days when radio stations had their own bands and hired orchestras to play live.
I imagine a company as large as CBS or Clear Channel could have a number of different bands on staff making their own music in order to help cut down on these payments.
Who knew Imus was working at NASA?
Bigger than an iPhone.
From a brand I've never heard of and don't trust.
Doesn't sync with my iTunes songs.
Doesn't sync with my iTunes videos.
Doesn't sync with my Address Book.
Doesn't sync with my iCal.
Only has 64megs of RAM compared to the iPhone's 8GB.
Is ugly.
Runs a crappy Windows Mobile browser instead of the zoom-and-scroll version of Safari on the iPhone.
Can't sync wirelessly.
Just about the only thing it has going for it is GPS, and it doesn't have the ability to load maps of Asia so I'm not interested.
I'm sorry... what was your point? Oh yeah -- that Apple's new to the market and so it can't compete. Someone should have told that to the Japanese automakers 20 years ago.
I wonder if that's a way to get out of the Cingular iPhone contract.
Until you've traveled the world with an unlocked GSM phone, you don't know what telecom freedom is.
I've used HSDPA in Southeast Asia (Singapore and Japan, specifically) and it rocks. Smooth, streaming full-screen (320x240 on my phone) video, and flawless voice calls.
If the U.S. implementation is the same, people will love it. Unfortunately, as I understand it the U.S. version is on different frequencies, so it doesn't work my my M600i.
GSM is required for international travel. The people who can afford to shell out for these phones are business people who very likely travel. They're going to use their phone for business, not for downloading R. Kelly ringtones on Sprint or watching crappy TV clips on Verizon. Apple knows its market.
(That said, I'll stick with my SE M600i which works in virtually every country on Earth -- even Japan!)
As part of my job I see a go through a lot of police accident and crime reports. Based on your statement, I'd say that you would be VERY surprised how many times the drivers involved in crashes are under the influence of pot.
One example (of many): There was a case about four months ago outside of Chicago where a driver smoking pot killed three people in his vehicle, and a couple more in the vehicle he hit head-on. Five people dead. Yeah, a little pot never hurt anybody.
Again, just because don't "hear" it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The reason the media now says "driving under the influence" instead of "driving drunk" is because so often the drivers aren't drunk -- they're on drugs, pot included.
Or you could be deeply in love; end of story.
To further muddy things, there are plans where neither caller nor receiver pay if they're on the same network, or call at the right time of day or the right day of week.
In spite of many Slashdotter's attempts at summarizing the American cell phone market in a few sentences, none have ever done it accurately. Mostly because the majority don't live in the country and are posting old information they heard once years ago. (Not saying this is you, just making an observation about the condition of