The reviews have been mixed for the Ipod by both tech sites and consumers. My brother bought 2 of them (one to sell on ebay), he says it's pretty cool but it's not to be confused with a PDA. Here's some howard forum people with hands on reviews, some good and some bad. http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=115
Do you heckle your brother too? Did he say why it should not be confused with a PDA? It will be interesting to see if ebayers make out well.
Man reading some of those threads over there - it just underscored that all these message boards are the same - just slightly different content. Change Iphone for Freddy Adu for example and move it to US N&A, and you wouldn't notice anything - except I think Freddy has MMS.
The keyboard looks pretty darn cool. http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/keyboard_medium.html The bad news is it looks like you can't get your corporate discount with Iphone account? That sucks.
Will do. I received email confirmation of my order this evening. It should ship soon. [crosses fingers]
Most japanese phones are lightyears ahead of anything available in the US. Im sure they already have something over there that is smaller, has tv, faster internet, and is preloaded with all the tentacle porn you could ever want.
Yeah - that's what I would have figured too, which is why I'm curious about whether Ipods are popular there. Sometimes popularity can trump technology.
In Korea, the technology already exists to watch TV on your cell phone as well as use it as a cash swipe card and who knows what else. Google already works on the Korean phones and I just saw an article which said YouTube and LG were working on something together. They are years ahead of us. I'm sure that the phones have MP3 players built in. Why carry an iPod or anything extra when it can all be in one place, in your cell phone? I did see a few iPods there last year, but I'm not sure whether the attraction was the style or the 60 GB of storage...
After spending a several hours with my new 8 gig iPhone, my summary review is: Holy crap, what a gadget! PROS: * Set up and activation were absolutely flawless. Took mere minutes. The process was very well automated. Answered a question here and there, then let iTunes, the iPhone, and the AT&T towers talk for a minute. * Very solid construction, but not heavy. * The touch screen is amazing. Very high resolution. * Through iTunes, your contacts, email accounts, calendars, music, etc. all sync with the iPhone. I didn't have to setup or make many adjustments. CONS: * The EDGE network can remind you of dial-up at times, but it's alright for email, maps, weather, and the basics. If you need to do heavy work, you switch over to wi-fi. * Can't load your own ringtones (at least not until the next software update), but the ones preloaded are good. This beats the heck out of my wife's Blackberry. She'll flip with she sees it.
Another quick update after 24 hours with the iPhone... Before I bought, I was reading all these articles criticizing the iPhone for its keyboard, battery, etc. Well, after experiencing it firsthand, those writers were either full of crap, couldn't afford one, or had unrealistic expectations. The iPhone's keyboard allows you to type very quickly if you trust it to do its job. Just type away without backspacing over errors (unless it's a major goof of course) and afterwards your sentence will come out correctly. The iPhone has a built in dictionary and word learning system that studies your writing style and keystroke habits. If you accidently type the word "sovvrr", it knows that your really meant to type "soccer" considering the proximity of the keystrokes. The battery life is typical of any other smartphone. If you set the phone to constantly search for and connect to open wi-fi spots, you're going to drain it quickly. If you only connect to wi-fi when you need it or you allow the phone to automatically adjust the screen brightness (depending on your surrounding light), you get fine battery performance. I think the major highlight of the iPhone is just how well integrated all the apps are. For example, let's say I'm surfing the website of a business I need to contact. When I see their number at the bottom of their page, I just tap it and the iPhone automatically dials the number for me even though I'm in the browser. Same thing with the mapping app on the iPhone. While searching for a motel while out of town, it brings up all the ones that are near me. I hit their little push pins and get all kinds of info in return: phone numbers, website address, street address, etc. I tap the listed phone number and it dials. And just like regular online maps, it can also give me driving directions from my location to the motel. By the way, while the screen is virtually scratch-proof (seriously), it can gather a good amount of finger prints after a day's use. Apple includes a small cloth in the package.
I have a friend who was able to grab an iPhone when it came out. He let me play with it, and I ended up just looking around on it for about an hour. You can do pretty much everything you would ever need to do with a phone, an iPod, or even a palm pilot. I really enjoyed it's touch controls. Once I find one, I'm getting one.
This is the kind of stuff that - when pressed to explain why I want one when other phones have so many other features, I can only say things like - "but it's so cool!" Basically, the UI is the number one feature. Thanks for the reports.
According to a survey this week, 90% of a sample of new iPhone owners are either "extremely" or "very" satisfied with their new gadget. 51% joined AT&T from other networks most of which are migrating from Verizon. The other 49% were existing AT&T/Cingular customers. 35% of switchers paid an average of $167 to terminate their former contracts. The iPhone was the first iPod for 40% of users and it was the first Apple product for 30% of users. I'm pretty sure Apple and AT&T are breaking out the bubbly. I have a friend of mine who tends to be an early adopter. It's about to kill him that he has another ten months on his Verizon contract. He's trying to find a way to weasel out of it.
Please note that Microwave's link has a number of "cuss" words including in the link. That n okia phone looks hard to type with one hand