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Admiral Valdemar wrote:Does the US have to always be different?

The FCC isn't being intentionally difficult - it's just that frequency allocation in the US is subject to past decisions and current use. UMTS also uses significantly more bandwidth (5MHz is required, IIRC) than GSM or CDMA, compounding the issue.

phongn wrote:

Dahak wrote:Yes, I know. But for me, to be a "revolutionary mobile" and to force about 500 Euros (guestimated by the time it reaches Europe) it better have it.

Maybe the European phone will have it? There's also the issue that UMTS frequency allocation for the United States is different than the rest of the world.

Really?
my E61 had nice UMTS working in Europe and in the state (and Hong-Kong too)

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I just can't bring myself to adore Apple still after the big chic fashion accessory that was iPod.

I have to ask what this means. iPod was popular, therefore Apple is bad?

Mobius wrote:Really?
my E61 had nice UMTS working in Europe and in the state (and Hong-Kong too)

You might've had a quad-band phone.

Stark wrote:Yeah, 'lock' you into iTunes. No way around that AT ALL. Doesn't matter how awesome it is, if it nudges you at iTunes IT IS THE DEVIL.

Well, when it comes to forcing costumers to use nothing but company products Apple has always been more evil than MS even pretends to be.

Eh? Sure, the Fairplay thing is bullshit and they're being wankers. But there are viable alternatives and simple workarounds even my parents can use: not like MS 'use it or never play a game' or 'use it or have problems transferring documents between businesses' or 'use it or retrain' like MS. Portable audio consumers can simply buy something else: the fact that they don't very often just shows that it's not such a big deal for them.

But I guess that's why Apple computers don't have USB ports, forcing me to buy new hardware.

Xisiqomelir wrote:
I have to ask what this means. iPod was popular, therefore Apple is bad?

No, Apple is a status symbol. I have used many players that excel past the iPods, yet they are what you tend to think of when it comes to personal digital music players. The whole style over substance issue rubs me the wrong way, as with iBooks and the people I know who drool over them. Great, but I can get a more powerful unit, for half the price and not running Windows, but without the glowy Apple badge. I don't see the brand worship being any different to Sony fanboys, for instance.

So I'm expecting the great many potential iPhone buyers to be Apple product owners already, rather than weigh it against the competition. It comes off as another gimmicky fad to me from first impression. And as someone else stated, mobiles are chock full of good competitors already out there, unlike with MP3 players where the iPod was the first to break the ice.

As others have said, it's not like the phone market isn't already saturated with models from piles of different manufacturers. It'll be interesting to see how it does, but let's face it: style over substance sells phones as well as anything else. RAZR, anyone?

Arrow wrote:From what I've seen so far, I have only one knock on it: it's exclusive to Cingular, and it's a mutli-year deal, too. Everything around here is Verizon, and Cingular has a habit of dropping callings in this area.

Which is the only reason I'm not getting one. The instant I can buy one that works with T-Mobile, I'll grab it.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:No, Apple is a status symbol. I have used many players that excel past the iPods, yet they are what you tend to think of when it comes to personal digital music players. The whole style over substance issue rubs me the wrong way, as with iBooks and the people I know who drool over them. Great, but I can get a more powerful unit, for half the price and not running Windows, but without the glowy Apple badge. I don't see the brand worship being any different to Sony fanboys, for instance.

They only "excel" past the iPod is you think user interface isn't important. You can't beat the click wheel. Aside from that, the iPod plays all the formats people care about (Ogg Vorbis does not fall in that list), has a nice screen, stores photos, etc ...

So I'm expecting the great many potential iPhone buyers to be Apple product owners already, rather than weigh it against the competition. It comes off as another gimmicky fad to me from first impression.

You've got to be joking. The iPhone is so ridiculously far ahead of every other phone on the market that it boggles the mind as to why anyone would want anything else. (Save for reasons like Exchange server compatibility.) The web browsing and Google Maps integration alone are almost worth the price tag.

And as someone else stated, mobiles are chock full of good competitors already out there, unlike with MP3 players where the iPod was the first to break the ice.

In relative terms, there's no difference. The iPhone is to other smart phones what the iPod was to the POS MP3 players of the time. The big question will be how much being locked into contracts will affect sales. People obviously won't buy one if they're not at the end of their previous contracts.

There's actually nothing new in this phone's list of capabilities. There's existing phones that can surf wireless Internet etc, play MP3s, etc.

Arrow wrote:From what I've seen so far, I have only one knock on it: it's exclusive to Cingular, and it's a mutli-year deal, too. Everything around here is Verizon, and Cingular has a habit of dropping callings in this area.

Where are you? After Cingular bought AT&T and, now, BellSouth, their coverage has increased by 20-60%, depending on area.

GuppyShark wrote:There's actually nothing new in this phone's list of capabilities. There's existing phones that can surf wireless Internet etc, play MP3s, etc.

But they all suck at it.

It was the same way with the original iPod. There were other MP3 players out there. They just sucked.

Watch the keynote, the difference is explained and shown pretty well.

I've used several different smartphones, and they range from 'rubbish' to 'usable'. I haven't used any of the latest batch, but they always left me with a clunky, cobbled-together impression without focus. People use them anyway, but the bar for smartphones isn't very high. Read reviews: a full-featured smartphone that doesn't totally fuck something up is considered 'good'.

Again, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field took full effect on me when I watched streamed video of the thing. I almost creamed my pants. I never felt the slightest desire to have a smart phone, but I NEED an iPhone.

You know, Sony used to have the some power. What happened?

Howedar wrote:Again, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field took full effect on me when I watched streamed video of the thing. I almost creamed my pants. I never felt the slightest desire to have a smart phone, but I NEED an iPhone.

Same, and I barely use phones.

Durandal wrote:

So I'm expecting the great many potential iPhone buyers to be Apple product owners already, rather than weigh it against the competition. It comes off as another gimmicky fad to me from first impression.

You've got to be joking. The iPhone is so ridiculously far ahead of every other phone on the market that it boggles the mind as to why anyone would want anything else. (Save for reasons like Exchange server compatibility.) The web browsing and Google Maps integration alone are almost worth the price tag.

Where is the iPhone "ridiculously far ahead", really?
Web browsing on a smart phone (even a "mere" business mobile) is old news and using Google Maps on a phone doesn't strike me as a killer application (especially when the data has to crawl through a GSM connection...).

Did you watch the keynote?

Praxis wrote:Did you watch the keynote?

I saw it, saw the slide pictures and read the technical details on the apple homepage. But I didn't see anything I would consider "ridiculously far ahead" and a killer reason to get it. A gimmicky fad, as Valdemar said. But feel free to enlighten me...

At worst, it's 'just another smartphone'. How is that a 'gimmicky fad'?

Dahak wrote:Where is the iPhone "ridiculously far ahead", really?
Web browsing on a smart phone (even a "mere" business mobile) is old news and using Google Maps on a phone doesn't strike me as a killer application (especially when the data has to crawl through a GSM connection...).

Besides, Google Maps has been available as a java-based program for any phone using the Symbian OS since February 2006: Google Local. My mom has been checking her email with her mobile since 2003. My friend bought movie tickets with WAP in 2002. I've never had a cutting edge phone, quite the opposite, but I've been able to browse the net for quite a while. In Korea, they're supposedly far ahead of what Europe has. I know it's marketing talk, but calling the iPhone "revolutionary" in regards to some of its abilities is just a blunt lie.

Stark wrote:At worst, it's 'just another smartphone'. How is that a 'gimmicky fad'?

IMHO all that "OMG it's an Apple <xxx>. It MUST be cool and stuff" thing apple has going ever since they crawled out from under the rock thanks to the iPod/iMac.

Stark wrote:It MUST be cool and stuff" thing apple has going ever since they crawled out from under the rock thanks to the GUI/Mac.

Saw this comparison in a blog commentary and I'm not sure about its validity, but here goes

iPhone vs. Nokia N95

camera: 2 megapixels vs. 5 megapixels
connection: 2.5 G (100kbs) vs. 3.5 G (HSDPA, 1-2 Mbps))
GPS: - vs. fully integrated
operating system: Mac OS X mobile (no Java MIDP) vs. Java MIDP+Symbian


I looked at Wikipedia, and it says that N95 only has 160 MB of internal memory. This is very little compared to iPhone's internal flash memory, but N95's disk space can be extended with a microSD card and we all know how rapidly removable flash memory cards are developing.

N95's market launch is only two months away.