Why Ill wait for the next iPhone

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#57517 10-Jan-2007 18:00

That was a quality rant! Nicely written.

The fixed battery is a good point actually. All the phones I have come with a removable battery so that you can swap for a spare charged one. Maybe the iPhone one lasts forever and ever and ever...

And Sbiddle can say what he likes, GPRS only for a multimedia phone in 2007 is sucky.

Juha

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#57518 10-Jan-2007 18:14

patdude123:No one in their right mind want to resort to pulling it apart to replace a battery and so they shouldn't. No other phone I've ever seen suffers from this "design glitch"

have you met any real geeks? :P
first thing I usually do after buying new electronics is disassemble, catalog ICs and reverse engineer anything thats easy or obvious. But I guess most people don't have such a thirst for understanding.

the HTC apache has a USB bus entirely on the PCB for the wlan adaptor and I look forward to seeing other innovations in the iPhone such as the patent they filed for a new type of internal aerial.

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#57529 10-Jan-2007 19:35

juha:
And Sbiddle can say what he likes, GPRS only for a multimedia phone in 2007 is sucky.

The more you read into the current iPhone announcement the more you realise it's a product heavily tied up with Cingular/AT&T. Since the iPhone is an EDGE device 3G is a moot point at this stage for a product for the USA market. EDGE doesn't suck battery juice like WCDMA does and delivers the same 384kbps.

That's not to say I don't think the iPhone should be a 3G device, I think it should be. I'm sure before it's released anywhere outside the USA it will be a 2nd generation HSDPA capable device.

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#57532 10-Jan-2007 19:53

EDGE is much less than 384 Kbps... Actually, real life performance is more like CDMA 1xRTT.

timmyh

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#57533 10-Jan-2007 20:12

EDGE should give you 100-130kbps as I understand, so pretty usable. Also any CDMA related technology (including WCDMA) will drain battery much more than GPRS/EDGE as they send more signalling information.

As other posters have commented, from Apple's perspective 3G/HSDPA/Rev A. etc are probably evolving too much at the moment to bother with. Apple is about a locked down and fully functional device, not one that will require firmware upgrades in the 'near future' to unlock some functionality or other.

TinyTim

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#57553 11-Jan-2007 09:22

juha: And Sbiddle can say what he likes, GPRS only for a multimedia phone in 2007 is sucky.

2008 by the sound of it - even worse.
Can anyone confirm (as discussed on the public address forum) the price is for a 2 year Cingular contract - i.e. subsidised?

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#57554 11-Jan-2007 09:46

Only scant pricing deets available so far, but early indications are that there will be a discount based on contract term committment which indicates that Cingular is subsidising the device and are most probably hoping to recoupo their subsidy back via network tarrifs which will probably command a premium given the proprietary back-end infrastructure investment Cingular would have had to make.

Another interesting angle to consider isa the fact that the iphone demonstrated at MacWorld is not MMS compatible. Having invested snotloads on MMS and 3G and then having to implement a proprietary voicve mail solution on their networks is not going to make the iPhone popular with most GSM telco's. Oh and then there's the small matter of iTunes canibalising the already wafer thin mobile music download service revenues of most telco's... could it be the iPhone will struggle out in the real world because most telco's shun it? Apple are banking on explosive consumer demand, but what customers actually want has never been a key consideration for most telco's...

I use an HTC Apache and use it a lot for voice, email SMS and browsing (buying bits of dead tree is fo pre-milenuim). Thankfully it came with two batteries as one battery is usually dead by the early afternoon. Going by Apples design philosophy I'd have to buy two iPhones as one would probably be in the charger before the day is out. Not good.

I think once the media/PR hype has died down and the iPhone hits retailers in July, reality will set in and the iPhone will probably become a niche smart phone device. On the positive side, it will finally spur some real innovation from the likes of Microsoft and Nokia, who's phones are pretty darned boring.

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#57557 11-Jan-2007 10:03

Typical bollocks from Mr Jobs. With comments like 'Make History' the iPhone already sounds old. Why do you want to 'Make History' when surely Apple wants to define the future? Already history before a single unit ships. Agree with Pat - no removable battery, lack of memory, a scratch magnet and only 2G. Listening to Mr Jobs rant you would assume that Apple have just invented the Smart Phone. Hmmm... I was getting email and surfing the web on my PalmPilot Professional via CDPD in 1997.

Anyone remember the Newton? The Newton was supposed to 'Make History'.

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#57558 11-Jan-2007 10:11

Interesting - Wired is running a poll (http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/01/poll_apple_ipho.html) on whether Apples going with Cingular is a deal breaker - so far 55% of all respondents say yes.

Could the iPhone become landfill just like the newton? Remember, no tech journo's have spent more than 5 minutes with this device yet. I suspect that with testing in real world conditions a lot of ugly design clangers will surface (I for one hate on screen keys and their lack of tactile feedback)

Can this site run a poll to see if it'll fly or die? I forr one be keen to see what punters think!

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#57559 11-Jan-2007 10:16

patdude123: Another interesting angle to consider isa the fact that the iphone demonstrated at MacWorld is not MMS compatible. Having invested snotloads on MMS and 3G and then having to implement a proprietary voicve mail solution on their networks is not going to make the iPhone popular with most GSM telco's.

What does MMS have to do with voice mail?

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#57565 11-Jan-2007 11:04

Simple really: Not much at all, but what I was alluding to was the fact that the iPhone is proprietary and requires quite a bit of non-standard kit at the network provider end of things.

For any Telco, network investments are carefully considered things and are not taken lightly. Most telco's are likely to be very gun shy of shelling out large sums of money and installing an unproven and proprietary architecture on their network when they can support other devices that comply with proven standards such as MMS.

I am of course assuming the the June release version of the iPhone still has its proprieart messaging and voice mail architecture embedded.

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#57573 11-Jan-2007 12:34

Agree again with Pat, proprietary is out. How many carriers around the world sell the Danger Sidekick?

patdude123

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#57574 11-Jan-2007 12:42

In a nutshell, the iPhone is a nice concept, but not terribly practical and not one that is going to appeal to many telco's unless end user demand becomes so intense that they have (the telcos) have no choice... Personally I can't see it happening. Now for something a little more challenging like solving world hunger or figuring out why chewing gum looses its flavour...

juha

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#57575 11-Jan-2007 12:45

Well, it'll sell no matter what the telcos think.

Are you still with Telecom Pat or have moved on? Haven't heard from you for ages.

Juha

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#57577 11-Jan-2007 12:54

If the current media hype is anything to go by (not to mention the legion of Apple fan boys/girls who'll become organ donors if need be to get one) then it'll certainly be a popular bit of kit

Trouble is, a mobile phone needs a network and getting enough telco's worldwide to support this device will be a curly one... I wonder if Voda will run with it locally?? Either way it'll need to be picked up and supported by a telco if it is to sell

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