[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker 

Huh? UMTS has nothing to do with WiFi. Streaming video is perfectly possible on UMTS. In fact, people do it every day.

It's the same reason the iPhone doesn't have an iSight with iChat mobile: Cuz there is no UMTS support.

P.S. Who says you have to be the driver? You could be a passenger in the car. You could be on a train. You could be on a bus. You could be at a restaurant having your morning coffee. Etc.

I am saying the data you normally want to grab using UMTS can be snagged over Wifi most of the time.

If they are in a car or in a bus I guess the poor UMTS less suckers will have to entertain themselves with 8 gigs of video's, music and photos. If that doesn't cut it they can chat surf or email using poor old GMS and at worst EDGE. Those video conferences and crappy OTA cell TV shows will have to wait.

Oh and UMTS is not cutting edge it is bleeding edge right now. Apple is smart to go with cheaper, more common proven EDGE.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by awaspaas 

I honestly doubt they would keep the widgets closed from developers.

I wouldn't necessarily doubt that.

The iPod is closed to outside developers. The iPhone is an iPod on steroids.

It may come later, but I honestly believe Apple will be annoying enough to lock out 3rd parties.

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

I am saying the data you normally want to grab using UMTS can be snagged over Wifi most of the time.

No it can't.

If they are in a car or in a bus I guess the poor UMTS less suckers will have to entertain themselves with 8 gigs of video's, music and photos. If that doesn't cut it they can chat surf or email using poor old GMS and at worst EDGE.

Or else buy another phone (and use their iPod nano).

Oh and UMTS is not cutting edge it is bleeding edge right now. Apple is smart to go with cheaper, more common proven EDGE.

UMTS is all over the place in Europe, and is now common in large cities in the US. In fact, Cingular is the largest UMTS provider in North America. Furthermore, UMTS is a common feature of phones in this price range. I fully expect a 2008 version of the phone to have UMTS.

It may be partially moot though if the iPhone is really closed to outside developers. A lot of the more interesting apps that require a lot of data support simply won't make it to the iPhone at all.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker 

I fully expect a 2008 version of the phone to have UMTS.

I fully expect computer to get faster and storage to get bigger.

Of course there will be a UMTS version in 2008. Do you suggest that Apple just hold off for a year and a half or give us UMTS that is common in Europe but doesn't ship till Q4 to a smaller market? Brilliant.

[ironknee]

Originally Posted by exca1ibur 

It's not much bigger than the iPod now and a little thinner. June release is because its not FCC approved yet. It looks better in person than on the screen shots.

sweet

steve said fcc would take several months....so, feb march april may?...june...spring mores surprises!!!

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by Super Mario 

1) Video out? No.

You can do video out if the iPhone is connected to a universal dock.

[- - e r i k - -]

I love how you denounce UTMS as bleeding edge yet assume that everyone has free WiFi all around them

[Dark Helmet]

Can the iPhone connect to internet radio streams over Wifi?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

You can do video out if the iPhone is connected to a universal dock.

It obviously has video out capabilities by looking at the keynote

[im_noahselby]

Originally Posted by kmkkid 

I was just aware that they were on the same network, I didn't know Rogers had bought them. Never even considered Fido in my life.

Both Fido & Rogers are GSM. One reason I prefer Fido over Rogers is because they offer superior student plans that cost less. I think if you are a student, it would be wise to consider Fido.

[MindFad]

As much as I absolutely do not want to switch to Cingular and start a new contract, watching the keynote presentation really has impressed me enough to make me fidget over it. That's a really cool phone.

[brokenjago]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

It obviously has video out capabilities by looking at the keynote

Note that Jobs said it was a special iPhone, designed with a custom board to allow real-time video-out.

Just like he did with the 5th generation iPod when he unvieled it to the world.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by brokenjago 

Note that Jobs said it was a special iPhone, designed with a custom board to allow real-time video-out.

Just like he did with the 5th generation iPod when he unvieled it to the world.

So he introduced iPod's video out the same way at the keynote? (I don't recall the specifics of the iPod keynote.) Are you saying the iPhone has iPod style video out support or not? I haven't heard anything explicit about video out support on the iPhone, as opposed to the iPod video which stressed video out. I guess we'll see.

[icruise]

With any new release like this, especially one that no one has actually used and won't use for months, there are always a lot of unanswered questions. My biggest ones are:

Will the iPhone be open to non-Apple programs at all? I think there's a good chance that it won't be. The iPod isn't, except for games which might as well be developed by Apple, since they are sold through the iTS and must be approved by Apple. But if third parties can't at least make Widgets for the iPhone, it loses a lot of its potential, IMO.

Does it have a removable battery? I think the answer is likely "no" but that is considerably more problematic for a cell phone than for a music player. I've never needed an extra battery for my cell phone in the past, but if I start using it for video and music, you can bet that the battery life will be an issue. As I mentioned above, I would expect a third-party device that allows you to power and/or charge the phone to appear very quickly.

Will the Internet be usable at a reasonable speed, especially over EDGE? In the keynote, the sample pages he went to seemed to load rather slowly, and that was over wi-fi. Admittedly, they were somewhat complex pages, but I'm a little worried about the speed. For a while I used Cingular to tether my computer and PDA via Bluetooth on my RAZR (which was only $20 a month for unlimited usage by the way) and it was pretty slow, but of course the RAZR wasn't EDGE compatible.

What will the Cingular plan(s) for the iPhone be like? I kind of doubt that there will be any plans that don't include unlimited data usage, but what with the voice options be? Will tethering be allowed, and if so how much will it cost?

Will the iPhone have support for other languages right away? This is a big deal for me, since I really need Japanese support for email and the web.

Hopefully we'll get more info on these issues before June.

[Star-Fire]

I guess I'm the only one that's thinking that 5 hours is a little on the short side? And usually when they say 5, they mean 4.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Star-Fire 

I guess I'm the only one that's thinking that 5 hours is a little on the short side? And usually when they say 5, they mean 4.

It's about the same as a RAZR, and people don't seem to have a problem with that.

[PowerbookG3]

i think battery life becomes a problem when it's 2-2.5

[PowerbookG3]

I think all you guys (either side) need to realise that this product is still being decided.

So don't get too emotional over this.

[icruise]

David Pogue on his hour with the iPhone prototype:

Some Hands-On Time With the iPhone - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

[OreoCookie]

My first reaction was: I want one!
My second reaction was: I definitely want one!
My third reaction was: What?!? I have to wait until Q4 2007?!

[Troll]

As of May last year, 133 operators around the world offer EDGE and 81 operators offered UMTS. However, very few operators actually make a fuss about EDGE. EDGE was essentially a stop gap when operators that had paid big bucks for 3G licences found that the technology wasn't available. Very few operators made a fuss about EDGE because it already didn't live up to the promises that they'd made. Now that 3G is available, EDGE has been a bit neglected. I would think that there will be more UMTS networks than EDGE by the end of this quarter. I mean, even the Democratic Republic of Congo will have UMTS by the end of this quarter.

In 2004, there were 500 million GSM subscribers in Europe. Another 50 million in Russia, 270 million in China and 40 million in India. 40 million in Central and South America and 40 million in North America of which 37 million were in the USA. Looking at those figures, it's clear that the real market for these phones is not in the USA. The real market is the EU.

I'm worried that the iPhone doesn't have the features to compete with other phones being offered in the EU. The main features being hyped in the EU are video chatting, multimedia sharing and television on your mobile, none of which the iPhone offers. Does the iPhone even do MMS? I'm the first to concede that not everyone wants these features. I went for an EDGE phone rather than a 3G phone. However, the only reason I did that was that I wanted a smaller phone. Now that 3G phones are smaller in size, I'd find it difficult to justify getting a phone with fewer features ... especially if it costs more. The iPhone's only real advantage is that it's easy to use. Most phones offer music playback capability, cameras, conference calling etc.

The other feature people want is Blackberry compatibility. This is most often a business requirement. Business users aren't going to open a new email address just so they can get email on their phones. They've been able to do this for the last 10 years with WAP and no one I know has. They need their work emails to pop up on their phones.

In South Africa last year I connected my PowerBook to the Internet using my EDGE-enabled Nokia phone on an EDGE network (MTN). It was about as fast a 56k modem. I then used a borrowed 3G Nokia phone via the UMTS network and it was a completely different story. 3G is broadband. EDGE isn't. Even if the iPhone can act as a modem for your laptop (which isn't clear), it's not going to be as fast as a 3G phone with the same capability.

Maybe Apple are happy just to capture 10% of the US market. That's still 4 million-odd phones. I don't see this phone conquering the rest of the world. It's cool and I trust Steve to be able to market it well but I just think it's pretty darn far behind the 3G phones that Nokia and Ericsson are offering. When the salesman is going through the features set, he's going to be hard-pressed to justify the iPhone. And if it's more expensive than other phones, that'll be very hard to swallow.

I thought the iPod wasn't a fantastic idea either, mind you.

Check this out and tell me you'd go for the iPhone over that deal. 3 X-Series

[King Bob On The Cob]

How do you pan/scan in music? I couldn't see anything about it in the demo...

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

How do you pan/scan in music? I couldn't see anything about it in the demo...

It's probably like the iPod, where there's something you click and it pops out a slider.

[His Dudeness]

Originally Posted by MindFad 

As much as I absolutely do not want to switch to Cingular and start a new contract, watching the keynote presentation really has impressed me enough to make me fidget over it. That's a really cool phone.

You're telling me! However, Cingular is the WORST provider I've ever had, and I've been using cell phone service since before the Motorola Startac came out. Granted, Cingular has the best phones and the best plans, but it is all for naught if they can't get a damned signal to your phone.

Up here in Yorktown/Williamsburg area of Virginia, I had so many damned dropped calls and calls that just faded into oblivion, that I cancelled my service after just three months. I told Cingular that just because I'm on a contract, doesn't mean **** to me. They have to live up to their end of the contract too, which is to get me a damned signal.

But anyways, yes the iPhone is simply the coolest phone out there right now. Now I just wish it was CDMA too, so I could use it on Alltel.

[philm]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

I can't believe the sudden hang up on the small amount of people who need UTMS and will pay for it.

The coverage isn't around well enough (if at all) and everyones panties are in a bunch over needing it.

Depends on what you are used to. 3G (UTMS) coverage in the UK is 80% of the population (i.e. all towns and cities) and some networks offer unlimited data for about £10/$20 per month, so a lot of people now use their phone in this manner. I do. So this is likely to be a consideration for some parts of the world. Maybe by the time the phone is launched in Europe it will be 3G enabled in any case. So although this is not an issue for some, it is clearly a big deal for others.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally Posted by Troll 

I'm worried that the iPhone doesn't have the features to compete with other phones being offered in the EU. The main features being hyped in the EU are video chatting, multimedia sharing and television on your mobile, none of which the iPhone offers. Does the iPhone even do MMS? I'm the first to concede that not everyone wants these features. I went for an EDGE phone rather than a 3G phone. However, the only reason I did that was that I wanted a smaller phone. Now that 3G phones are smaller in size, I'd find it difficult to justify getting a phone with fewer features ... especially if it costs more. The iPhone's only real advantage is that it's easy to use. Most phones offer music playback capability, cameras, conference calling etc.

This is what I thought when looking at the feature set. It seams to have been put together by someone with a very USA centric look at phone use.
People 'Text' with one hand (holding the phone similar to a iPod, hitting the keys with there thumb) lots of people have said to me that the keys on the Razor are difficult to hit as there is little feedback. The iPhone changes this by using a QWERTY key layout, on a flat plane.
WiFi isn't that widespread, and I have never heard of an EDGE network (maybe it's called something else over here?). It just doesn't seam to have the features of other phones in that high end price bracket, and with all the networks talking up 'full broadband internet' a top end phone without 3G or equivalent, is going to be a difficult sell.

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by Mediaman_12 

This is what I thought when looking at the feature set. It seams to have been put together by someone with a very USA centric look at phone use.
People 'Text' with one hand (holding the phone similar to a iPod, hitting the keys with there thumb) lots of people have said to me that the keys on the Razor are difficult to hit as there is little feedback. The iPhone changes this by using a QWERTY key layout, on a flat plane.
WiFi isn't that widespread, and I have never heard of an EDGE network (maybe it's called something else over here?). It just doesn't seam to have the features of other phones in that high end price bracket, and with all the networks talking up 'full broadband internet' a top end phone without 3G or equivalent, is going to be a difficult sell.

I absolutely agree. It's a US-centric product.

No MMS (so it seems)
Does it supper EMS ? Long SMS ?
No UMTS is a serious dealbreaker in this price range. WiFi isn't availble everywhere you go, not even close.
The battery life will be horrible for a cellphone...
If there is no MMS people would have to resort to email. Pull email is expensive, push email even more so. So that's not a good replacement for MMS. + 90% of the phones don't have email or email with rich content support.

BTW: EDGE does exist in the UK Mediaman, it's the predecessor to UMTS. Your network is probably 100% EDGE.

The market for this iPhone is VERY small. They should've released a less advanced sibling along with it...
The nice interface doesn't make up for the lacking features and the price for most people..

[Troll]

Originally Posted by Mediaman_12 

I have never heard of an EDGE network (maybe it's called something else over here?).

That's because most networks didn't make a fuss about EDGE. They'd just forked out millions of Euros for 3G licences and justified that by telling customers about the cool services they were going to get. Then discovered that the technology wasn't there and that the tech bubble had burst. EDGE was the stop gap technology between 2G and 3G that got them a little more bandwidth before UMTS caught up. AFAIK, no one is expanding their EDGE networks. It's considered legacy technology in most of the world.

I've been using EDGE for the last 2 years on a Nokia phone and it is very slow. WAP pages that are specially formatted for mobile take ages to download so surfing the NYT with Safari via EDGE will be unusable. I know because I've done it with my PowerBook connected to the EDGE phone. That feature is going to be usable with wifi only and you tell me where you can find open wifi networks these days. I have 14 networks visible right now and not one is open. Same story when I was in NYC last week.

Apparently Jobs has said that they are on the GSM roadmap and that they will have a 3G phone down the road. If they want to compete then I think that phone better not be too far down the road. Not only are they largely forfeiting the biggest GSM market in the world but their US market won't be safe either. I mean for one, you can bet that T-Mobile and Verizon are going to be talking to Ericsson and Nokia about speeding up the expansion of 3G technology in the US now. And that's a turnkey solution. T Mobile could have a 3G network up and running within a couple of months.

[ajprice]

The phone isn't finished yet, in David Pogue's hands on article, he says that some functions of the phone are only placeholder images for now. So if texting is one of those parts, who's to say they won't have something like adding an attachment to a text (making it an MMS). Saying that it doesn't do this, that or the other is a bit premature right now, it won't be released until June in America and the end of the year in Europe.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally Posted by Troll 

That's because most networks didn't make a fuss about EDGE. They'd just forked out millions of Euros for 3G licences and justified that by telling customers about the cool services they were going to get. Then discovered that the technology wasn't there and that the tech bubble had burst. EDGE was the stop gap technology between 2G and 3G that got them a little more bandwidth before UMTS caught up. AFAIK, no one is expanding their EDGE networks. It's considered legacy technology in most of the world.

Ah! there was some talk about "2.5G" Just after they blew all there cash, so this would have been the EDGE thing, got'yah.

[Goldfinger]

I think that Apple would've rather waited to show the iPhone. But, they had to because of all the mediahype around it.

[kamina]

The first package based (you don't need a constant open connection) mobile internet technology was GSM, and as mentioned EDGE was just a small boost given while waiting for UMTS. I have no idea why Apple calls the phone 3G, my guess is that 3G is not a real standard so even though people (in Europe atleast) understand 3G as UMTS (or other really fast connection) Apple can get away with bending the term.

I've used both GSM and EDGE alot with my notebook. It's really painfull if you need to do anything "heavy" like surf large webpages, read email with attachments, download ANYTHING. UMTS is like another planet, it's 2-4 times faster minimum (crippled first versions), but usually alot more.

In Finland most people have summer residences without fixed internet lines. 3G has been touted here as a way to do work from anywhere, and it really does work as such. But I'm guessing Apple will try to add it before coming to Europe (or they might really be in trouble).

I love the way the user interface looks, and it might be enough to get pretty far. Still, what worries me the most is how sms-messages work (fast typing without looking at the screen).

[icruise]

Originally Posted by kamina 

I have no idea why Apple calls the phone 3G, my guess is that 3G is not a real standard so even though people (in Europe atleast) understand 3G as UMTS (or other really fast connection) Apple can get away with bending the term.

They don't call it 3G.

[f1000]

What really bugs me is that Cingular doesn't charge more for UMTS/HSDPA versus EDGE, so those of us paying for unlimited data for the iPhone will have to settle for EDGE speeds while subsidizing UMTS/HSDPA for others. Cingular HSDPA in 2007 will be over an order of magnitude faster than EDGE, which in turn was about 5 times faster than GPRS (~the speed of a 56K POT modem). It's hard not to whine when Cingular is supposed to up the speeds for HSDPA this year to 3.6 MBps. Who in their right mind would still want to browse the Internet at ~250 kbps EDGE speeds at $20/month?

Moreover, Wi-Fi is NOT a suitable replacement for cellular. I don't trust public Wi-Fi access points nor do I find them to be as reliable or available as GSM. I also don't want to sign up for multiple Wi-Fi access plans or duck into a Starbucks everytime I need data.

Sigh...as I said before, I'm sure EDGE is just a stop-gap measure to keep iPhone prices low. Once Apple hooks users in with the iPod/video integration, it'll up the sperm count by implementing UMTS/HSDPA. Surely, it's for price and not technical reasons why Apple has omitted 3.5G from the first iteration of iPhones.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Will the iPhone be open to non-Apple programs at all? I think there's a good chance that it won't be. The iPod isn't, except for games which might as well be developed by Apple, since they are sold through the iTS and must be approved by Apple. But if third parties can't at least make Widgets for the iPhone, it loses a lot of its potential, IMO.

It doesn't just lose a lot of its potential; it loses its so-called smartphone-ness. There are thousands of freeware and commercial applications available for both Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Anything you could possibly want it out there - when I was in college, I was able to keep close track of my GPA with a made-for-students gradebook application on my Palm M125. Now I can keep track of my finances, play games, and do other things with my Dell Axim x51. A PocketPC-type device must have the ability for its users to load their own programs onto it; otherwise it really is just a glorified iPod. However, knowing Apple, they will likely make this an iTunes-only phone, with downloads available exclusively from iTunes.

Which brings me to the question of iTunes - will they be renaming it? It now sells iPod games, movies, and TV shows along with music...

Does it have a removable battery? I think the answer is likely "no" but that is considerably more problematic for a cell phone than for a music player. I've never needed an extra battery for my cell phone in the past, but if I start using it for video and music, you can bet that the battery life will be an issue. As I mentioned above, I would expect a third-party device that allows you to power and/or charge the phone to appear very quickly.

Judging from the pictures on Engadget, I'm going to say no removable battery. This sucks. Phone battery life is considerably less than any music player, especially when you're making many calls a day. If I use my phone for more than a few hours a day, the battery is dead in less than three days or so. A cell phone with a non-user-serviceable battery is like making a digital camera with a permanent/nonremovable battery.

Overall a disappointment IMO. It's lacking in a lot of things I would have liked to see in something like this. I still can't believe that Apple has axed the click wheel in its iPod interface. That seems like a dumb move to me. And, from hearing about the quality control problems early adopters had with their MBP and MB laptops, I have serious doubts about even remotely considering buying one of these until the second or third iteration is released.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

Jeezus, I'd hope it wouldn't be $80/month. $20/month I'd be willing to pay.

You do have to pay for a voice plan first, BRussell, so the total price will be over $60/month. I don't pay any extra to send/receive emails, though, and I get a certain number of free text messages/alerts per month.

In four months time, Cingular/AT&T is bound to change plans again, so everything I say will probably be antiquated. Prices probably won't be much cheaper, but HSDPA will be faster and more widespread.

[voodoo]

There are four things that are crucial for the sucess of the iPhone in Europe that are a bit unclear as of yet whether will be implemented when it will be released in Europe. At the moment it looks like the iPhone won't include these:

1. Removable battery
2. 3G
3. MMS
4. 3rd party apps

There is no coincidence that the most popular cellular phones are European. Nokia and Sony-Ericsson. They've made the best phones so far and 'get' what it is people want in a phone.

The iPhone is too expensive not to have a replacable battery and too feature rich. It relies on power and if it is 'your life to go' or whatever Apple called it, then it *has* to have the possibility of changing the battery. I find it very doubtful that this will be a feature of the iPhone at its release. Unfortunately.

For a 'smart phone' of that caliber (using true www, relying on fast connections etc) it really has to be 3G. It needs fast internet. Also very unlikely, but with a revision very likely. The next model of the iPhone will surely be 3G if the European version won't be already.

MMS is the SMS for all 2.5G phones today. 3G phones are not that prevalent yet and email in phones is not really that common. MMS is perhaps a stopgap, but it is convenient and ubiquitous. It can send 1000 symbol text messages, photos and sound. An iPhone without MMS is not going to work very well. All phones have MMS, cheap or expensive. If not now then in the next revision for sure. This is really just a software issue, not hardware.

3rd party apps make or break this. This is essentially a mini-computer. More so than an iPod. Computers need apps. The 'killer app' for this device is of course that it makes phone calls, but it can do way more. As Steve indicated, that was the point of the 'all screen' design. For the convenience of different apps. I find it very likely that the iPhone will be open for 3rd party apps at its release or *very* soon in its future.

V

[mdc]

Did anyone notice the new folder icons when Steve showed off the iPhone?
The folders are grey now, not the regular blue.



I wonder if that's a sign of new icons in 10.5.

[Dakar²]

Aqua is dead, so I'd say yeah.

[Eug Wanker]

The phone runs an Intel CPU.

Intel is undoubtedly very happy with all this hooplah around the iPhone.

So, anyone know which CPU, or care to guess? Intel no longer runs Xscale.

Originally Posted by voodoo 

MMS is the SMS for all 2.5G phones today. 3G phones are not that prevalent yet and email in phones is not really that common. MMS is perhaps a stopgap, but it is convenient and ubiquitous. It can send 1000 symbol text messages, photos and sound. An iPhone without MMS is not going to work very well. All phones have MMS, cheap or expensive. If not now then in the next revision for sure. This is really just a software issue, not hardware.V

Yeah, I wasn't too clear on the MMS. They show the phone sending picture messages, but I wasn't sure if it was MMS or email. I wouldn't rule MMS out just yet, since it wouldn't be a big deal support it.

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

I fully expect computer to get faster and storage to get bigger.

Of course there will be a UMTS version in 2008. Do you suggest that Apple just hold off for a year and a half or give us UMTS that is common in Europe but doesn't ship till Q4 to a smaller market? Brilliant.

Of course, they could have released first in Europe, which is a much bigger GSM market, and a much bigger UMTS market as well.

The choice of Cingular in the US with quad-band GSM probably has a lot to do with the fact that Apple is a US company, as is Cingular, and quad-band GSM might be easier to get out quickly than UMTS with tri-band GSM too.

Anyways, I'm not saying that Apple should hold off at all. What I am saying is that many people won't buy this phone for this reason. Suggesting that quad-band GSM plus EDGE and WiFi is fine for these people simply makes no sense.

Originally Posted by icruise 

With any new release like this, especially one that no one has actually used and won't use for months, there are always a lot of unanswered questions. My biggest ones are:

Will the iPhone be open to non-Apple programs at all? I think there's a good chance that it won't be. The iPod isn't, except for games which might as well be developed by Apple, since they are sold through the iTS and must be approved by Apple. But if third parties can't at least make Widgets for the iPhone, it loses a lot of its potential, IMO.

Yeah, if true, that's lame. However, I'm less concerned about widgets than I am for full Cocoa (or Java) applications.

Does it have a removable battery? I think the answer is likely "no" but that is considerably more problematic for a cell phone than for a music player. I've never needed an extra battery for my cell phone in the past, but if I start using it for video and music, you can bet that the battery life will be an issue. As I mentioned above, I would expect a third-party device that allows you to power and/or charge the phone to appear very quickly.

Heh. As I was reading this post this morning, I was swapping out the battery in my K790a cuz it was running low.

Will the iPhone have support for other languages right away? This is a big deal for me, since I really need Japanese support for email and the web.

I wonder if it can easily make use of the Japanese localization built into OS X. Just what does "the iPhone runs OS X" mean anyway?

[Troll]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

1. Removable battery

Why are people saying that it doesn't have a removable battery? From this photo, it looks like the back slides open like on Sony Ericssons. Although that wouldn't explain why they chose to have a slot for the simcard...

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.en...-iphone-52.jpg

[Goldfinger]

The phone has to go open in some way or another to put the SIM in anyway...

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

14 booms in 1h10m!

I want an iPod without the phone!!

Please report back to my Boom thread.

-t

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by His Dudeness 

You're telling me! However, Cingular is the WORST provider I've ever had, and I've been using cell phone service since before the Motorola Startac came out. Granted, Cingular has the best phones and the best plans, but it is all for naught if they can't get a damned signal to your phone.

Up here in Yorktown/Williamsburg area of Virginia, I had so many damned dropped calls and calls that just faded into oblivion, that I cancelled my service after just three months. I told Cingular that just because I'm on a contract, doesn't mean **** to me. They have to live up to their end of the contract too, which is to get me a damned signal.

But anyways, yes the iPhone is simply the coolest phone out there right now. Now I just wish it was CDMA too, so I could use it on Alltel.

It sucks that you have crappy GSM coverage in your area. (Did you try T-Mobile?) However, 2G CMDA is always going to be behind the times. The bottom line is that if you want to be the first on the block with fancy new phones, you have to have be on a GSM/EDGE or 3G carrier.

Originally Posted by Goldfinger 

The phone has to go open in some way or another to put the SIM in anyway...

Engadget:

* No 3G. We know you know, but still, it hurts man.
* No over the air iTunes Store downloads or WiFi syncing to your host machine.
* No expandable memory.
* No removable battery.
* No Exchange or Office support.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Troll 

Why are people saying that it doesn't have a removable battery? From this photo, it looks like the back slides open like on Sony Ericssons. Although that wouldn't explain why they chose to have a slot for the simcard...

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.en...-iphone-52.jpg

Three reasons:

1. It isn't apparent in any photo of the iPhone that the back can be removed along with the battery.

2. A soldered battery takes less space. Which is why the battery cannot be removed from the iPod nano.

3. It would be very Apple like to misunderstand the GSM market completely and have a non-removable battery like in the iPods.

I hope the battery is removable. It is rather important for a phone to have power. More so than an iPod or a PDA. I certainly couldn't imagine the annoyance of a powerless phone. The usage of the iPhone as many different things puts an increased stress on the battery and one will cycle through it more rapidly than an iPod battery or a GSM battery.

Because the iPhone will be used a lot for different things, the battery cycles will be used up faster and one would like to have an extra battery when travelling, the iPhone needs an easily replaceable battery. I suspect this isn't the case, but I hope I'm wrong.

Until I see with my own eyes what the case may be, I'm not giving Apple the benefit of the doubt. Looking at the iPod, Apple has always put looks over convenience. Perhaps a removable battery would have meant a 15 mm thick iPhone instead of 11 mm thick iPhone.

V

[Eug Wanker]

Does the iPhone have vibrate mode when calls come in?

[philm]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger 

The phone has to go open in some way or another to put the SIM in anyway...

Not necessarily. On a Treo, the SIM card is just pushed into a slot on the top.

[kamina]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Three reasons:

1. It isn't apparent in any photo of the iPhone that the back can be removed along with the battery.

2. A soldered battery takes less space. Which is why the battery cannot be removed from the iPod nano.

3. It would be very Apple like to misunderstand the GSM market completely and have a non-removable battery like in the iPods.

I hope the battery is removable. It is rather important for a phone to have power. More so than an iPod or a PDA. I certainly couldn't imagine the annoyance of a powerless phone. The usage of the iPhone as many different things puts an increased stress on the battery and one will cycle through it more rapidly than an iPod battery or a GSM battery.

Because the iPhone will be used a lot for different things, the battery cycles will be used up faster and one would like to have an extra battery when travelling, the iPhone needs an easily replaceable battery. I suspect this isn't the case, but I hope I'm wrong.

Until I see with my own eyes what the case may be, I'm not giving Apple the benefit of the doubt. Looking at the iPod, Apple has always put looks over convenience. Perhaps a removable battery would have meant a 15 mm thick iPhone instead of 11 mm thick iPhone.

V

I agree. In Europe (especially Finland) Nokia has a huge marketshare. They also have the same charger in all but a few models. This makes it extremly easy to travel as ANY shop, restaurant, hotel ect will have a charger if you get "caught suprised" with a battery that's ending. I still have a spare one just in case.

Apple won't have this benefit so it would make it even more important to be able to carry a spare.

[zerostar]

Is there a photo of the back of this thing?

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by zerostar 

Is there a photo of the back of this thing?

Been linked to a few times already:
http://www.engadget.com/photos/first-iphone-pics/

Anywho, I got another question. can you send an SMS to multiple people at once as what they showed looked more like one on one chat than SMSing.

[TETENAL]

Zulieferbetrieb: Touchscreens für iPhone kommen aus Deutschland - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten

There is a report now that the touchscreen of the iPhone is made by a German company. An Apple Germany spokesperson also allegedly said that the iPhone uses an Intel CPU.