Apple iPhone released

[mail2and]

Well, I was talking about the legal channel and Steve has announced that it will reach Asia by 2008. And anyway, I don't we will get gray market versions of it before it is released. Of course, I may be entirely wrong.
But it will be released even in USA in June. So we do have a long time to wait anyway.

Oops, I meant a month after it's released in the US.

 

[tarey_g]

Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype . Few points have already been mentioned in this thread. Some points are apple obvious negative points.

8. Will Apple give the user any freedom? Want to know why there's no memory card slots on the iPhone, nor will there likely be a user-replaceable battery?

Because Apple doesn't want you to lay a finger on its phone without paying the piper.

Anyone who owns an iPod knows how hard it is to replace the battery, replace a dead hard drive, or fix the thing without going through Apple. Anyone who owns a Mac computer also knows how hard it is to upgrade any internal components without going through Apple. If you can figure out how to do these things yourself, you'll break the warranty. If you go through Apple, you'll probably have to give them more money in the process.

The iPhone is likely to be no different. To fix it, you'll probably have to bring it to an Apple Store. To expand it, you'll probably have to buy a new iPhone.

Note: iPhones are still expensive.


11. Just how useful is the touch screen? The iPhone user interface looks elegant, innovative, and easy-to-use, but is it the best interface for a device like this?

Whenever you do anything, the iPhone will command your full visual attention. "No buttons" may be sexy, but it also means you can't do anything without looking at the phone.

The iPhone's iPod usability may suffer even worse from the touch screen. Have you ever tried to operate an iPod while it's in your pocket? You can do it, but it's hard. The iPhone will make blind iPod-surfing downright impossible.

That said, it looks like the iPhone will eliminate accidental pocket-dialing once and for all.

12. Will early adopters be the only adopters? If the iPhone takes the world by storm, other manufacturers and carriers will borrow the iPhone's most popular features. And they'll probably offer them at a lower price.

7. Who's this phone for, anyway? Who can afford this thing?
This answer is simple: Paris Hilton.

The iPhone looks to be the next glamour phone, albeit one with serious potential. It's billed as a "smart phone," which brings to mind business users. At $599 for the 8GB model and $499 for the 4GB model, it's definitely priced for business users.

And this,

How many Treos, Windows smartphones, Palms, and other PDA-esque devices exist happily on modern cellular networks these days? About how many of those users do you think have installed third-party applications on those devices? Probably a number in the thousands, if not millions. How many times have we heard about those devices completely obliterating a cell tower? A network's regional network? How about going so far as to completely disable cell phone service for an entire coast? If you've heard of an instance of any of those, I'd like to know about it. Jobs' is convinced that an ill-designed iPhone app could wreak havoc on Cingular's network:

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

I worked for T-Mobile as an RF and GSM engineer for several years. I took classes and I know the standards and signaling of GSM, GPRS, and EDGE down to the 1s and 0s. I know how the timers, protocols, and messages get passed through the various layers. I dealt with thousands of situations dealing with mobiles, towers, and a menagerie of arcane cellular hardware you'll never see in your life. There is absolutely no way that a single app on a single phone (or installed on thousands of phones) could accidentally destroy a network.

 

[gxsaurav]

I read somewhere that it does have PDF viewing capability

Source Plz

phone, 3G or not, will work in Europe provided it works on the 900 mhz/1800 mhz band. iPhone is quad-band, so it will work on any GSM network, 3G or not.

Not so sure, for Europe's telecom regulation it does needs 3G.

PDF support if built into the core of Mac OS X and the iPhone not only supports viewing PDF files, you can also covert other formats to PDF on the phone itself. If

Again, like i said before, it doesn't runs the same MacOS X as your Macbook. Not so sure about this feature, so plz provide your source, if u know that it supports PDF reading capability.

From what i have known, iPhone uses a Samsung CPU & GPU, or maybe the CPU has GPU inbuilt. Quite good i would say, cos in this case it can be made " 100% OpenGL only", resulting in small chip

But having a full-fledged widescreen video iPod onboard is not a joke. And it is costly too.

U R right, this feature makes it a PMP

but the Safari on the iPhone beats the crap out of any mobile browser out there. I would highly recommend you to watch the keynote

I have seen the keynote, I would recomend that u try Opera on a PDA phone first & then make your verdict. Safari brings nothing new, Opera is infact more capable then Safari in mobile phone, as judged by the features

BTW, the iPhone is a smartphone in its own right

Plz stop refering to it as a Samrtphone, it is not. About the phone features, keep your judgement till u use it

Taken from the Page given by Tarey

The Apple VP also quashed any speculation that the iPhone itself may house a self-contained version of iTunes. "iTunes was designed to exist on the Mac and PCs. That's where the music should live."

So, no one the air iTunes downloading capability. So much for the Internet Capabilities.

But as Tom Krazit and Declan McCullagh kindly point out:


Yahoo e-mail isn't going to cut it in the business world.
It's unknown which business applications will be available for the iPhone.
Will there be file-compatibility issues between the iPhone and Windows-centric businesses? Remember, the Vista age is almost upon

& yes, apple won't give any freedom, Servicing is a big monet bag, why would apple loose that.

Imagine this: You buy an iPhone, you manage all your iPhone's data on your computer--contacts, music, files--and your iPhone kicks the bucket...dead battery, iPhone icon with x-ed-out eyes, whatever.

What now? Unless there are third-party programs to send your data to another phone, the easiest way--and possibly the only way--to get all that data onto another phone will be to buy another iPhone.

This alone kills it's Phone capabilities a lot

 

[mail2and]

Not so sure, for Europe's telecom regulation it does needs 3G.

This is the most hilarious comment on Digit so far.

 

[gxsaurav]

u said u read somewhere that it supports PDF reading. I just asked the source. Whats amusing in that?

 

[mail2and]

u said u read somewhere that it supports PDF reading. I just asked the source. Whats amusing in that?

I guess I termed your comment on 3g services in Europe as hilarious. But, again, it's a matter of conscience.

 

[tarey_g]

Another interesting discussion regarding iPhone (I hope someone hasnt posted it in this thread before) :

Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype​

1. Why no 3G compatibility?
2. Does the lack of 3G matter if the iPhone has Wi-Fi?
3. What's under the hood?
4. Can you download directly from iTunes?
5. Just what does Apple mean by "it runs OS X"? And what do they mean by "multitasking"?
6. Will it actually be called the iPhone?
7. Who's this phone for, anyway? Who can afford this thing?
8. Will Apple give the user any freedom?
9. How much more than the unit price will the iPhone cost?
10. Is this another iLock-in strategy?
11. Just how useful is the touch screen?
12. Will early adopters be the only adopters?
13. What goes into a cell-phone purchase?

Each of these points have been discussed on the website.

Jobs: An iPhone app could take down Cingular's entire network​

Lol , these links have been posted just 4 post above yours in this thread

 

[mail2and]

Deleted my post

Good boy.

 

[aryayush]

I know it is not the perfect solution but you can use Google Docs and Spreadsheet to open your Office files.

BTW, the phone does not have GPS at all. That is, it can show you the maps, driving directions and locations in any city but it cannot locate where you are on the map at present.

gxsaurav, the phone supports PDF files. Here's the link to the source:
*pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/the-ultimate-iphone-frequently-asked-questions/The Ultimate iPhone Frequently Asked Questions
Ultimate iPhone FAQs List, Part 2

Pay heed to the last comment in the second link. It applies to all of us:

“Why is everyone missing the fact that this phone/device will seamlessly switch between Edge and Wi-Fi saving big $$$ on data rates?” –Because nobody bothers to post about what they LIKE. If Internetters can’t say something disparaging, they say nothing at all.

Not so sure, for Europe's telecom regulation it does needs 3G.

Yeah, and for the Indian telecom regulation a phone needs a colour screen and a picture of Ganesh ji! ROFLMAO!

Safari brings nothing new, Opera is infact more capable then Safari in mobile phone, as judged by the features

Being a better browser does not necessarily mean that there has to be something new. How much can you put into a web browser anyway? But even then, I can identify at least six features that Safari has and Opera lacks:
1. Pinch and zoom.
2. Double tap to zoom in and out.
3. One-touch scrolling.
4. Auto landscape orientation on rotating the phone.
5. Efficient simultaneous browsing.
6. Better rendering (screenshots accompanied).

Here is the iPhone:

*img157.imageshack.us/img157/5382/picture4ea6.th.png *img135.imageshack.us/img135/8964/picture8zu6.th.png *img183.imageshack.us/img183/7899/picture6ii8.th.png


And here's the rendering on the 'smartphones' (Moto Q, Blackberry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62):

*img153.imageshack.us/img153/4626/picture2rc3.th.png

Need I say any more?

Plz stop refering to it as a Samrtphone, it is not.

The iPhone is not a smartphone if you go by the conventional definition of a smartphone...

... but it...

... is a smartphone in its own right

It is a phone that is smart, smarter than every other phone out there. Some (neautral) analysts out there have suggested that it forms a category of its own and should be called a 'brilliant' phone.

So, no one the air iTunes downloading capability. So much for the Internet Capabilities.

Yes, that was an agreement between Cingular and Apple because if Apple had given iPhone users direct access to the iTunes music store, it would have hampered Cingular's own revenue stream of selling music and videos from their WAP portal. However, I do not see how it affects the phone's 'Internet Capabilities'.

Imagine this: You buy an iPhone, you manage all your iPhone's data on your computer--contacts, music, files--and your iPhone kicks the bucket...dead battery, iPhone icon with x-ed-out eyes, whatever.

What now? Unless there are third-party programs to send your data to another phone, the easiest way--and possibly the only way--to get all that data onto another phone will be to buy another iPhone.

This alone kills it's Phone capabilities a lot

I did not understand this. If the phone's battery is dead anyway, how would any third party applications help you?

And though I do agree that not providing support for third party applications is a major drawback (and the Apple community is protesting against it, though it does seem futile), Apple will be applications for the phone, both developed by themselves and even by other developers. So until the phone has been released and has been in the market for a substantial amount o time, you cannot really measure how great a drawback it is going to be. It might even be a better option (though I have my doubts).

 

[gxsaurav]

Just saw the keynote on Qucktime. Steve jobs really knows how to distort the reality & hiding the real facts.

I know it is not the perfect solution but you can use Google Docs and Spreadsheet to open your Office files.

This does not equals to a Application or a viewer installed. Google Docs is a webpage based service which means slow. It doesn't know how to render a Page in a phone. It is made for rendering a page in a big monitor. Safari might be able to shrink it, but it won't be same as an installed application

BTW, the phone does not have GPS at all. That is, it can show you the maps, driving directions and locations in any city but it cannot locate where you are on the map at present.

A few pages ago, u were bashing me saying this is a breakthrough innovation & technology which gives Google maps & GPS. This is the reason i say not to act like a 12 years old kid & get your facts right before u say anything.

Good for the PDF support. This is a must have in all phones today. Atleast the text viewing part

Yeah, and for the Indian telecom regulation a phone needs a colour screen and a picture of Ganesh ji! ROFLMAO!

abe.....keep it low, else the Vishv Hindu parishad will listen it, & tell Congress to make it a law

Being a better browser does not necessarily mean that there has to be something new. How much can you put into a web browser anyway? But even then, I can identify at least six features that Safari has and Opera lacks:

1. Pinch and zoom. - Specific feature to iPhone's touch UI, nothing which makes opera lack. In Opera u zoom by pushing the zoom button.

2. Double tap to zoom in and out. ^^^^^^

3. One-touch scrolling. ^^^^^^, just put the stylus at the scrollbar & page down

4. Auto landscape orientation on rotating the phone. - Depends on what application u r using the phone for. like in P990i u can play videos fullscreen too, however i don't know so won't say anything about weather it can show the webpage in lanscape mode

5. Efficient simultaneous browsing. - Already possible in Opera

6. Better rendering (screenshots accompanied). - Opera does SSR, though yes, they do need to update there mobile browser renderer. It is not the time of GPRS anymore

Again, no valid feature which makes iPhone's Safari better then PDA's Opera, other then page rendering

... but it... It is a phone that is smart, smarter than every other phone out there.

Yes, smarter as a PMP, & yet, there are no valid reason which makes it more smarter then any other PDA

Yes, that was an agreement between Cingular and Apple because if Apple had given iPhone users direct access to the iTunes music store, it would have hampered Cingular's own revenue stream of selling music and videos from their WAP portal.

Another agreement somewhere made, with no source of news or mention in keynote or anywhere i can find. Insted of just saying something, plz provide source.

However, I do not see how it affects the phone's 'Internet Capabilities'.

Read again, i mentioned, "So much for the internet capabilities". U can't even buy songs using internet on iPhone, despite of the fact it has iTunes in it or iPod Software

I did not understand this. If the phone's battery is dead anyway, how would any third party applications help you?

In the keynote, steve jobs mentioned that U will need iTunes to sync contacts etc. Suppose the battery is dead, now u can sync the contacts etc saved in iTunes to another iPhone only. With third party apps such as MyPhoneexplorer or outlook, u can sync it to any other phone. This, don't know about u, but since i use it, I would praise it a lot.....a remarkable feature over iPhone. U R not restricted to iTunes or iPhone only, in case like mine, u can use any phone to sync, even a 2nd temporary phone while the battery is given for replacement.

Believe it or not, apple knows how to make money through service.

And though I do agree that not providing support for third party applications is a major drawback (and the Apple community is protesting against it, though it does seem futile), Apple will be applications for the phone, both developed by themselves and even by other developers. So until the phone has been released and has been in the market for a substantial amount o time, you cannot really measure how great a drawback it is going to be. It might even be a better option (though I have my doubts).

Apple will be relesing applications for the iPhone in the future = Yes, even i agree to that. Why won't they.

Apple will let 3rd party developers develop apps for iPhone = Nope. U just said above 3rd party apps are not allowed, didn't u.

 

[iMav]

i think even MS used a similar policy of not allowing the zune to be used as a portable HDD coz it was afraid tht like the ipod, linux wud infect (pun intended ... linux increases the ipods potential cant say abt the zune) the zune too .... so they aint allowing ne1 access to the zune core .... and apple has always kept its product their own .... they make develop sell and do everything not allowing others to come in .... i think thts the other end of the open source community

 

[gxsaurav]

yup mav3, u r right. Service is also a big bussiness now. I have heard Apple & MS charges as high as $35 per call, after the warrenty of your device or product is over

By the way, in devices like this, mostly an OS is not installed. It's a firmware, which directly connects to the hardware without any middle layer (kernel)

 

[nikhilrao]

Wow looks good. Searched and came axrs this

Microsoft Warns Apple On iPhone
*www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006106203

 

[aryayush]

Just saw the keynote on Qucktime. Steve jobs really knows how to distort the reality & hiding the real facts.

Obviously, he will not stand there on stage and say "... and we have this AMAZING drawback, the iPhone does not support Microsoft Office documents or allows third party applications. Yes, this is not the perfect phone for business users, so please refrain from buying it!" He is there to sell his product, not to follow Gandhiji's principles.
And the RDF (Reality Distortion Field) is something that is respected all over the world. It is one of the major reasons for Apple's widespread success and major fan following. He is a master showman. And you are mentioning it like it is something bad.

This does not equals to a Application or a viewer installed. Google Docs is a webpage based service which means slow. It doesn't know how to render a Page in a phone. It is made for rendering a page in a big monitor. Safari might be able to shrink it, but it won't be same as an installed application

I mentioned that I knew it was not the perfect solution. But if someone is impressed with all the other features of the phone and wants to buy it, a pessimistic attitude won't help him. But letting him know a possible solution, however inconvenient it might be, is going to come in handy.

A few pages ago, u were bashing me saying this is a breakthrough innovation & technology which gives Google maps & GPS. This is the reason i say not to act like a 12 years old kid & get your facts right before u say anything.

Disagreeing with someone and bashing someone are two different things altogether. Yes, I bashed you for saying two things: that it is incapable as a phone and that it does not bring anything new. But it was my, and a lot of other people's, opinion that Google Maps will tell you your location due to the way Steve demonstrated it. Yes, we were wrong. It still can give you driving directions from one location to another and it can show you stuff even a GPS device cannot (such as satellite images). So it is very useful anyway.
If you want to know where you are, just pop your head out of the window and ask someone.

1. Pinch and zoom. - Specific feature to iPhone's touch UI, nothing which makes opera lack. In Opera u zoom by pushing the zoom button.

2. Double tap to zoom in and out. ^^^^^^

3. One-touch scrolling. ^^^^^^, just put the stylus at the scrollbar & page down

Yes, I know they are features specific to the phone. But so what! They make the experience of browsing a whole lot better and that's what matters. I couldn't have cared less if they had even used Opera. I just want and expect it to work, and work well.

4. Auto landscape orientation on rotating the phone. - Depends on what application u r using the phone for. like in P990i u can play videos fullscreen too, however i don't know so won't say anything about weather it can show the webpage in lanscape mode

No, you cannot.

Again, no valid feature which makes iPhone's Safari better then PDA's Opera, other then page rendering

Which, of course, is the least important feature to look for in a web browser!

Yes, smarter as a PMP, & yet, there are no valid reason which makes it more smarter then any other PDA

First of all, saying 'more smarter' is grammatically incorrect.
It lets me listen to my music and video, make calls, view my email and browse the internet in the best way possible and that's all I care for. As for business users, I did say that it is not the perfect phone for them if they do not add an Office application and Outlook synching to it.
A PDA's main job is to schedule your time and the calendar application on the iPhone is very capable going by iCal on Mac OS X.

Another agreement somewhere made, with no source of news or mention in keynote or anywhere i can find. Insted of just saying something, plz provide source.

I read it somewhere in the post-Macworld frenzy and I do not remember where. Nor am I liable to.

Read again, i mentioned, "So much for the internet capabilities". U can't even buy songs using internet on iPhone, despite of the fact it has iTunes in it or iPod Software

It does not have iTunes, and for the reason I mentioned above. BTW, which phone can buy directly from an online store? Can the Zune do so? Can the iPod do so? Can any other MP3 player do it? Why do you expect the iPhone to do it?
And how does it limit the iPhone's internet capability. Even on a regular PC or Mac, the iTunes Store is not something you can access with a web browser anyway.
And, of course, since it is not available for India in any case, I don't know why you are picking on it. Just for the sake of pointing out flaws, either real or made up.

In the keynote, steve jobs mentioned that U will need iTunes to sync contacts etc. Suppose the battery is dead, now u can sync the contacts etc saved in iTunes to another iPhone only. With third party apps such as MyPhoneexplorer or outlook, u can sync it to any other phone. This, don't know about u, but since i use it, I would praise it a lot.....a remarkable feature over iPhone. U R not restricted to iTunes or iPhone only, in case like mine, u can use any phone to sync, even a 2nd temporary phone while the battery is given for replacement.

Sorry! I'm not rich enough to own two smartphones. But for those who are, this is a definite drawback.

Believe it or not, apple knows how to make money through service.

Yes, of course, they do. And it's not like that's a bad thing. They provide awesome service, BTW.

Apple will let 3rd party developers develop apps for iPhone = Nope. U just said above 3rd party apps are not allowed, didn't u.

Steve has mentioned that they don't need to make all the applications for it. Third party developers will be allowed but it will be more of a controlled environment, i.e. these applications will have to be verified by Apple first.

 

[brutality9k]

ah! shucks

Arya is not banned or blocked, even though he said this, but I m, when i even wrote that i m editing the posts but it was locked before i could

 

[lywyre]

I would rather buy this: *www.gsmarena.com/motorola_a1200-1429.php (Motorola A1200)

*i.gsmarena.com/ii/bigpic/motorola-a1200.gif

1. Touchscreen 240x320
2. Handwriting and speech too
3. Can play Mp3/Mp4/AAC and FM
and has 2.0 MP cam
4. Has only 8MB memory, but also a SD card slot
5. OS is Linux, but you still can access doc, xls, ppt
6. Java support and WAP Browser

and it costs < 17K.

 

[aryayush]

It is upto you but the iPhone has a more vibrant and higher resolution widescreen display, a video iPod, multi-touch, advanced sensors, 3.5mm headphone jack, bluetooth headset, Wi-Fi, EDGE, OS X, Google Maps, Widgets, the best user-interface - and it packs all of this into a slick 11.6mm thin device that is arguably the best looking phone in the world.

But I would still advise you to stick with the phone you'd 'rather buy' because I do not want the iPhone to turn into another iPod 'disaster' and everyone to have one.
__________
You could call iPhone perfect

January 18, 2007
BY ANDY IHNATKO

I have used the Apple iPhone. I had a private briefing the day after Steve Jobs' keynote and spent about 45 minutes noodling around with the device.

You may touch the hem of my robe if you wish.

In response to a Beatlemania-scale pile of e-mails, here's what I can tell you so far, based on my hands-on impressions, my talks with Apple and general first-hand sniffing around:

1. The touch-interface works flawlessly, in terms of both technical function and user interface design. Whatever you want to do -- select an album to play, make or take a call, compose and send an e-mail -- your first impulse is almost always the correct one.

This is the simplest phone ever.

And there are no lags, no pauses, no waiting for the slickly animated UI to catch up with you, even when you're scrolling through a stack of album art that's flopping past your finger in 3D: It's liquid.

The bad news: It works only with direct, skin contact. You can't wear gloves, and I don't know if you can even put a screen protector on it. On the plus side, the screen is supposed to be more scratch-resistant than an iPod.

"So long as you don't have a pocket full of broken glass, it'll be OK in there," I was told.

2. I think the iPhone's virtual keyboard is a huge improvement over the mechanical thumbpads found on the Treo and any other smart phones of its size.

The buttons are significantly larger, you don't have to hit them dead-center, you lightly tap them instead of punching them down, and the software is smart enough to know that you meant to type "Tuesday" instead of "Tudsday."

After 30 seconds, I was already typing faster with the iPhone than I ever have with any other phone. I suspect that true e-mail demons will need to adapt to the lack of tactile feedback, though.

3. It's the most beautiful freakin' display I've ever seen on a phone or PDA, both in range of color and level of detail. Even microscopic browser text is credibly readable.

4. The apps that were functional at the time of the demo give the satisfying, protein-rich experience of "real" software. The mail client and browser make you feel like you're using a powerful desktop app, not a cell phone that can kind of send e-mail and browse the Web (depending on how you define "e-mail" and "the Web").

5. Apple will keep a very tight rein on software development.

I asked point-blank if third parties would be able to write and distribute iPhone apps and was told, point-blank, no.

However, it appears that there'll be some third-party opportunities. I'm going to take a guess that iPhone software will be distributed the same way as iPod games: no "unsigned" apps will install, but apps will start appearing on the iTunes Store after successfully passing through a mysterious process of Apple certification -- one that ensures that they meet a certain standard of quality and won't, you know, secretly send your credit-card info to Nigeria.

The lockdown on software is an area of ongoing suspicious interest. I noticed that the iPhone's pre-release browser was missing some plug-ins. I asked if Real and Macromedia et al. would be writing media plug-ins for the iPhone's Web browser, and was told that no, the browser would ship with plug-ins, but Apple would be writing them all in-house. Odd, that.

6. The iPhone runs the same OS as the Macintosh. And not in the way that Windows Mobile is, I suppose, technically, if you want to split hairs about it, classified somewhere in the Microsoft Windows phylum.

Nope, everything I've learned (both in official briefings and "you and I never spoke, all right?" sort of discussions) says that it truly does run Leopard, the upcoming 10.5 OS that will be released for the Macintosh late in the spring.

Those spiffy UI animations, for instance, come courtesy of Leopard's Core Animation suite.

So will it run Mac software? Nope. The iPhone runs OS X, but it's an iPhone, not a Macintosh. And it stands to reason that the OS on the iPhone doesn't include any bits that it doesn't need.

And no, the iPhone's Widgets aren't the same as the Mac's Dashboard widgets. But they do use DashCode and other desktop widget tech, so who knows? I'm really hoping that widgets will be more open to third-party developers than apps.

7. The iPhone is still under development and isn't feature-complete. I opened the "Notes" application and found myself tapping impotently at a JPEG of what the app is supposed to look like. And the camera app only had one button.

Any complaints about what the iPhone can't do are premature. Remember, it won't ship for six months.

I really, really like what I've seen so far. But true judgment won't come until June.

Andy Ihnatko writes on technical and computer issues for the Sun-Times.