iPhone - anyone interested?

[Deanster]

It's so funny for me to hear people bashing AT&T's coverage like this - I'm in Seattle, which is AT&T home territory, and I'm CONSTANTLY having people with other carriers ask to use my phone because they have no coverage.

In buildings, a little ways out of town, on hiking trips, on boats, etc...

Same story when traveling with t-mobile, sprint, verizon users - NYC, SF bay area (did notice it's a little more up and down on the old bars there), Boston, Washington DC (did notice that others had service in the Metro and i didn't), Chicago, etc. My Cingular phone gets a LOT of use from other carrier's customers in real life.

That's not to say y'all are wrong for your areas - it's a darn big country, and I'm sure that there's 10,000 places where another carrier has better coverage. However, in my real-life experience in Puget Sound and a wide variety of other urban areas, I'm usually the one in the group with a working phone.

 

[ACMarina]

I'd say to count yourself lucky if you have any type of cell coverage where you are - nobody here gets signal, and you can spot the folks at the IGA on the edge of town talking on their phones because that's as close to home as they can get and still have coverage..

 

[carrot]

I've had nothing short of great service with Verizon here in NYC. Whereas before the AT&T/Cingular merger, my AT&T phone constantly dropped calls right in my neighborhood. They've probably gotten better since. I hope.

 

[Vincent]

I've had nothing short of great service with Verizon here in NYC. Whereas before the AT&T/Cingular merger, my AT&T phone constantly dropped calls right in my neighborhood. They've probably gotten better since. I hope.

CDMA hs really bad voice quality thogh. I tried verizon, It was awful. Just the voice quality, not how many dropped call or anything.

 

[GregY]

If it is a GSM phone it will work with any GSM carrier, you may loose some functionality, but the majority of the stuff will still work. This is the same with any phone. As long as its on the same type of network.

Not if it's locked. Which is why there is such a thriving market in unlocking operator-locked phones.

 

[carrot]

CDMA hs really bad voice quality thogh. I tried verizon, It was awful. Just the voice quality, not how many dropped call or anything.

I wouldn't dare make generalizations about something as location-specific and even handset-specific as phone service. However, again, I am quite happy with my service, and I was previously unhappy with AT&T before the merger. I am not all too willing to switch away from something that works well for me to something that hasn't worked well in the past. If CDMA carriers such as Sprint, Verizon and Nextel provide poor service around you, then I wouldn't want you to use CDMA either. Please don't insist that what I have sucks when it works for me.

 

[GJW]

I personally don't understand why they didn't design the iPhone to run on the 3G network. Acting as a multimedia phone (the way the commercials are showing it, at least in my market) it's already obsolete as far as the cellular technology is concerned...

The chips that support the 3G weren't around at the time the iPhone was designed. That's how old the design is.
A re-design is already in the pipeline though so look for it next year after the first batch gets sold out.

 

[GJW]

I'm not sure I understand your kids comment, maybe the non was meant to be not. I have never lost a call on cingular. That includes locations in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties where verizon, sprint, nextel wouldn't work at all.

+1
Large areas of LA County and the SF Bay Area have no Verizon or Sprint coverage.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I'll probably get one of these later, because the 1st Generation has some serious & known limitations due to the chip they are using being outdated. Gen2/3 and when there has been time for programmers to hack it will be well worth it. There's nothing on the horizon that can do all these features, with more coming.

 

[schiesz]

No 3G is a killer on this one. So it has the internet at the same speed as my old PC 10 years ago with a 28.8 modem, great! Or the same as my cel phone 5 years ago, still just as great!

How they could have missed this is anybody's guess. There are two other deal killers, IMO. The bluetooth it has does not support A2DP. Most people don't know what this is, and probably don't care...yet. Its the stereo bluetooth profile. It lets you do things like listen to your music with stereo headphones, or send the music through bluetooth to your car stereo. Once people realize this, I think it is going to catch on big. And there is no better device for this that the iPhone. Too bad they don't support it.

The phone doesn't even support voice dial. Thats been standard on phones for years, and is essential to me now with the bluetooth headset. I guess they don't get the whole bluetooth thing at apple.

I think the phone and UI are great, but with it missing these features I am 10 times better off with my Razr V3xx that I paid $40 for. Its pretty sad when the $40 phone has much more functionality than the $600 one.

Oh, and has anyone seen how the headphone jack is recessed in, so no headphones except theirs with the skinny little jack will fit? Why they did this is completely beyond me.

So, knowing all this, I was totally shocked when I was driving out to eat tonight, drove my a shopping center, and my wife says "whats up over at the AT&T store"

I look over there and there must be 100 people in line and all over the parking lot. This is in a small-medium sized city, suberb of Kansas City, MO. I would have never guessed people would come out in these numbres, here, for the iPhone.

When does it release? Is it tonight at midnight or something? I thought it was tomorrow, but there is no way all these people were going to be camping out for it...

Hope they enjoy the flashy phone with internals that my phone 5 years ago could match.

schiesz

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

No.

Because a $150 phone is expensive enough. Because Cingular/ATT works just peachy in my part of the world, and anywhere I have had no signal the Verizon user next to me had none as well. Because my phone is primarily a PHONE not a computer.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Somebody already disassembled one and took lots of photos.

 

[Trashman]

I'm really undecided. I was actually not interested at all, until I saw one tonight at the Apple store and took one for a test drive. Holy gadgets, Batman! That phone is awesome! The ones in the store were fully functional, so I could really see what it could do. It's got Google maps, for one, Two, it's got Google Earth! My wife actually wants one, now, after seeing how easy it is to get directions. We typed in the starting point, the ending point, and voila!--instant directions and map! The zooming function works very well- just put your fingers together and spread them apart and it zooms, all the way to street level and do the opposite to unzoom. Same thing with the Satellite cam. It's, basically, a mini version of that awesome touch monitor we saw links to a short while back. Scrolling through the pictures is easy and awesome, and they zoom the same way. They're pretty darned sharp, too (the pictures), although there is no flash on the camera. Cool, cool, cool. You're all going to flip once you play with one. I think, I'll wait, though, to see how easy (if at all) my MP3s can be converted, although, I think the phone is worth it just for the internet and Google Maps functions alone.

I've not got an Ipod, only MP3s, and I've never really wanted an Ipod, because of the DRM, although, I've been told that anything can be converted, but after seeing the iPhone, I might end up being an "i-man" after all.

 

[greg_in_canada]

iPods (and the iPhone) can play mp3 files as long as they aren't protected ones. If you created them from your own CDs then no problem. If you bought them from an on-line store then they may be protected mp3 files and may take some work to convert.

The iPhone looks like a great device. That said, my current cell phone plan (pay as you go with SaskTel) lets me spend as little as 25 cents a month (and usually I only spend a dollar or 3 a month) so I'm not likely to jump up to $30 or $60 a month cell phone plan even if I did live in the USA.

Greg

 

[Trashman]

iPods (and the iPhone) can play mp3 files as long as they aren't protected ones. If you created them from your own CDs then no problem. If you bought them from an on-line store then they may be protected mp3 files and may take some work to convert.

The iPhone looks like a great device. That said, my current cell phone plan (pay as you go with SaskTel) lets me spend as little as 25 cents a month (and usually I only spend a dollar or 3 a month) so I'm not likely to jump up to $30 or $60 a month cell phone plan even if I did live in the USA.

Greg

None of my MP3 files are protected. So, can I just load them up onto the player, or do they need to be converted with iTunes? From what I've come to understand, I can't just drag and drop. Is that true?

 

[AndyTiedye]

Just got one. Very nice display. Very nice form factor.
Very nice integration with all the stuff on my Mac.
Very nice browser and other apps.

I think we have a winner.

 

[eyeeatingfish]

Apple stuff overpriced? Yes it tends to be more expensive than its PC equivalent but what it lacks in cost it makes up for in quality and capability.

Lets take a look at the iphone.
$600 right? and OMG its big.
Its the same size as an ipod (which so many people ahve already!)
It replaces an ipod $300
It replaces an internet phone $200
It replaces a camera $150 (ok 2.0 megapixel isnt the best but its decent)
It has so many useful applications
Apple has great attachments to their ipods that would likely be made for the phone incuding ways to transmit music to radio, becoming a recording device, being able to read and store data from camera cards, etc.

It seems like a lot initially, but when you really think about it, you would spend the same amount on it as if you bought all the products, that the iphone can do, seperately. Not to mention it is smaller than carrying all said products seperately.

 

[Phredd]

I Love It!

The big draw for me was email and web. It's awesome! First, there are a number of sites that just don't work on my Treo 700p. Even basic sites like hotmail - no way to empty the junk mail, for example. Other sites, like Fidelity, can't enter into numerical text fields on the Treo. On the iPhone, it's so easy and it allows you to move directly to the next field. Menus automatically display all the choices. The zooming and flipping work great, too. And I can finally see html emails the way they were intended to be seen.

Automatically switching to Wifi is sweeeet! The iPod is much nicer than other iPods and video is especially nice. The downsides: no sync for todos and notes.

Phredd

 

[greg_in_canada]

You need to use iTunes to get them onto the iPod/iPhone but no conversion is required (since they are unprotected). In iTunes just use Add File or Add Folder to Library options and then you can load them into the iPod. You can have one playlist that contains all your music and have the iPod load all your songs (assuming they fit) or make make various playlists and control what gets load. The smart playlists are great and allow you to control what gets loaded without manually selecting songs.

Greg

None of my MP3 files are protected. So, can I just load them up onto the player, or do they need to be converted with iTunes? From what I've come to understand, I can't just drag and drop. Is that true?

 

[greenlight]

The inside of the iPhone is amazing. What a fantastic device. I'm glad they made it with no hard drive. Looks like fun.