Wow. A well-balanced review of the iPhone without all the hype and F.U.D. A very good read for both fans and cynics alike. A couple of short snips from the InformationWeek article:
So he touts himself as a smart phone expert and then admits he owns the Moto Q and an Audiovox smartphone? When you strip away the hype the Iphone is hardly "the best phone on the market". Not even close. It's not even 3g and can't shoot video. Those are pretty basic features in 2007.
This is an iPhone thread. I posted a link to an article that might be informative to those considering a new phone. You didn't bother reading the entire review since you already have your mind made up. I'm not trying to convince you to buy iPhone. That's your business. Again, 90% of iPhone buyers are "very" or "extremely" pleased with their purchase. And 40% haven't never been Apple users before. Between 10 and 14 million iPhones will be sold by the end of this year. You can continue your hatin' while the smartphone market scrambles to react to a truly innovative product. Ignorance is bliss.
i have one and i absolutely love it. i read all the negative reviews, listened to everyone tell me not to get a gen1 product, but i decided to give it a try and its been outstanding. i went from the ********** 6233 (not avail in the US market) to this. yeah, its pricey, but there isnt anything out there that compares. a lot of the features might not be truly groundbreaking, but the entire package is unbelievable. lack of 3g is not an issue, as the phone is great at picking up wifi networks (a fun thing to do is drive around and watch how frigging fast the network list is updated). the typing was a bit interesting at first, going from actual keys to a touch screen, and going to apples version of predictive text (which ive found to be excellent). the internet capabilities are phenomenal. its also great to have the maps feature so easily accessible. and i love how it handles voicemail. perfect, IMO. im really not sure what else i could ask for in a phone. its a terrific device. and let me clarify, too, im no apple fan boy. in fact, i typically find apple to be smug and off-putting. also, this is the first time where i have ever bought anything "cool" right when it came out - its fun! everyone wants to see it and see how it works.
Bloated Apple stock dropped $8 yesterday on news that AT&T registrations weren't what they were expecting. News that folks are successfully hacking iPhones to put 3rd party apps is also coming out. One guy set up his iPhone to provide internet access to his laptop, albeit with Edge speed.
Sorry for axing the obvious. But this you mean that the number of new clients to AT&T was low. If this is the case, aside from folks waiting for 2 gen Iphone, AT&T's reputation vis a vis Cingular is still hurting 'em.
Well, in typical silly Wall Street fashion, it's based on the day and a half after the iphone went on sale - when folks were having trouble registering. Better numbers I think are coming out today with Apples sales report. My guess based on nothing is that AT&T turnoff is less of a factor than other reasons for waiting - such as 2nd gen as you mention, or waiting for contracts to expire, price to come down, etc. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/25/technology/iphone.php
[sigh] You gotta love news without context. As Dark Knight alluded to, the quarter closed thirty hours -- yes, exactly thirty -- after the iPhone went on sale. That's 146,000 iPhone registrations in thirty hours or nearly 5,000 per hour given the registrations site's sluggishness. Over half (51%) of new iPhone sign-ups were from other carriers. Most of these were from Verizon. From the WSJ: Despite the vaguely worded "iPhones and Related Products and Services" in the financial report, Peter Oppenheimer with Apple stated that they sold 270,000 iPhones in the first thirty hours of sales. Of those, 146,000 were registered by quarter close. I've never seen more Schadenfreude in one thread in all my life. Wait for the current quarter's results before you start writing the iPhone's obituary.
Quick example of how the iPhone came in handy this past weekend... We met the in-laws in the mountains this past weekend about four hours west of where we live. While traveling on the interstate on the way back home, we noticed that traffic was backed up ahead of us. I took the exit and parked in a Wendy's. Pulled out my iPhone, checked the DOT's traffic info site on the web, and read that the interstate was closed ten miles ahead due to a semi overturning. By going directly to the website, I was able to find out which exit number the accident occurred. The interstate was going to be blocked for the next six to eight hours, so I opened the mapping widget on the iPhone and found a route that would take us one exit past the accident. I saved myself countless hours of sitting in a car in the broiling heat with two whining kids in the back. Since 3G coverage is very limited nationwide, I can now see why Apple and AT&T went with Edge until 3G is further developed. Considering how far out in the sticks we were, 3G wouldn't have done me any good. With Edge, I was able to get online to check traffic and then find an alternate route with the mapping widget. The web page loads only took about ten seconds and the mapping was almost instant.
I guess I'm a sucker. Friend of mine pulled out his iPhone this weekend and, man oh man, is it cool and handy. I think my TMobile contract ends in March, which happily coincides with my birthday.
A friend of mine showed me his iPhone this past weekend... and wow. Wowwowwow. I've generally thought of Mac as "style over substance" in the past. Yeah, they come up with slick UIs, but that's not everything. I love this phone. I want this phone. And I don't even like owning a cell phone, and I've never before even really wanted a camera in my phone. This is the digital convergence device we've been waiting for, all wrapped up in a slick, intuitive interface. The iBill is a little concerning. [youtube]UdULhkh6yeA[/youtube]
Awesome. US consumers can now use T-Mobile's remarkably crappy network. Of course, there's no amount of hacking that will allow the iPhone to work with Verizon and Sprint since it's not a CDMA phone. If we took all of this collective hacking wisdom and actually did something useful with it, we'd have a prosperous colony on Mars by now.
Can the thread title be changed to iPhone instead of Iphone? The incorrect capitalization just sticks out like an ugly wart on a beautiful girl's nose.
Teen trades hacked iPhone for new car SAN FRANCISCO - The teenage hacker who managed to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car. George Hotz, of Glen Rock, N.J., said he had reached the deal with CertiCell, a Louisville, Ky.-based mobile phone repair company. Hotz posted on his blog that he traded his modified iPhone for "a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_us/odd_iphone_unlocked
That was one of the worst articles I've ever read. Almost all the phones he listed weren't available in the US, and he didn't do any actual technical comparison. He just said "these phones are better than the iphone because I don't like Apple." The few technical specs he did mention were worse than what the iphone has (like praising a phone for 2 GB of memory).
Steve Jobs is speaking at SF's Moscone West center right now. 1st announcement: ringtones for iPhone. You can make them yourself for $0.99. Ringtone maker will be built into new release of iTunes, coming tonight. http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/04/livecoverage/index.php