New iPhone tidbits surface as launch approaches

[AppleInsider]

With just a matter of weeks to go before Apple's iPhone hits the open market, widespread preparations for the launch have given way to an assortment of new tidbits related to the handset's interface, launch date, and in-store displays.

AT&T mailing shows iPhone tweaks

On Friday, AT&T sent out an e-mail to those who had signed up for news on the iPhone's availability. In doing so, it also confirmed interface changes that had always been hinted at, but rarely mentioned.

One product shot included in the e-mail shows new buttons in the Google Maps tool included with the phone that were briefly shown during Jobs' keynote at Macworld San Francisco. Two new icons, one of a car (Directions, Traffic conditions?) and one of a knife and fork (Restaurants?), can be found in the bottom corners of the image.

This and other images also reinforced the change from Cingular to AT&T branding for the official launch and the title bar on the iPhone's screen.

iPhone's AT&T store demos leaked?

Less controllable on the carrier's part was an alleged leak which claimed that the iPhone displays in AT&T's own stores were in the works and would stand out among the crowd.

Where most cellphone displays are often slim and share resources with competing models on the show floor, the iPhone's space will purportedly stand 7 feet tall by 3 feet wide. It will also demand its own individualized power supply and network cabling -- a strong suggestion that Apple, AT&T, or both are insisting that demo models are live and connected to the Internet.

AT&T iPhone Email to Potential Customers

Unsurprisingly given the rapidly approaching late June release date, stores are said to already be rewiring its shops for the displays, and should have the actual stands in place inside of a few weeks.

iPhone open house at Elk Grove

Meanwhile, Apple via its official jobs website has announced an open house on May 16th at its Elk Grove campus, in which it invites "qualified individuals" to join the iPhone team.

Telesales Representative, Telesales Team Manager, iPhone Personal Trainer and iPhone Personal Trainer Team Manager are among the available positions listed on the Apple website.

AT&T memo on limited vacation time

Finally, AT&T on Friday also issued an internal memo to its employees limiting vacation time from June 15 to July 15th, citing expectations for the iPhone launch to mark its "biggest selling period" in a few years.

"The new AT&T has a multiyear, exclusive agreement to provide U.S. service for the iPhone," read the memo. "To ensure proper staffing during the product launch period, Sales personnel planning to take approved time off are encouraged to schedule their vacations before June 15 or after July 15 to participate in the iPhone launch."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[nagromme]

Those icons were seen back in January. Some think the "arrows" are a knife and fork:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...88#post3385588

[anantksundaram]

What (or who) the heck is an "iPhone Personal Trainer?"

What are the job qualifications?

[Louzer]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

What (or who) the heck is an "iPhone Personal Trainer?"

What are the job qualifications?

Someone who can deal with a new iPhone user one-on-one and show them how to use the iPhone to its most super-wonderfulest fullest! Qualifications include being able to talk down to people face-to-face and be able to carry off the Apple elitist attitude when talking about the iPhone. Being able to say "Using the iPhone will even make using Cingular a joy!" is a plus. Oh, and no fatties.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

What (or who) the heck is an "iPhone Personal Trainer?"

What are the job qualifications?

It probably means training sales people to explain the features of the phone and answer questions about the device.

Qualifications: prior experience in a similar capacity.

[mbaynham]

god dammit why do i have to wait until the tail end of the year to get one of these..

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

What (or who) the heck is an "iPhone Personal Trainer?"

What are the job qualifications?

Anyone willing to work long hours getting flabby, unmotivated iPhones in shape for customers... Work those chips, stretch that bandwidth, flex those ergonomics, touch that, er... multi-touch!

[mmmdoughnuts]

I just visited a Radio Shack this weekend and it was clear of most of the usual clutter. Since they are a cingular dealer, I wonder if they too are preping the store for the release already.

[nevenmrgan]

It has been officially stated that Cingular/AT&T authorized dealers will NOT be selling iPhone, at least not at launch. Only actual Apple Stores and Cingular/AT&T locations will be carrying it.

I don't think Apple wants to have iPhone sold by any more boneheads than necessary. Depending on the sales figures, they'll release it to the RadioShacks of the world at a later date.

[Louzer]

Originally Posted by nevenmrgan

It has been officially stated that Cingular/AT&T authorized dealers will NOT be selling iPhone, at least not at launch. Only actual Apple Stores and Cingular/AT&T locations will be carrying it.

I don't think Apple wants to have iPhone sold by any more boneheads than necessary. Depending on the sales figures, they'll release it to the RadioShacks of the world at a later date.

Does that mean you're including the AppleStore's personnel with the boneheads, or just the Cingular store personnel?

As for the displays

Less controllable on the carrier's part was an alleged leak which claimed that the iPhone displays in AT&T's own stores were in the works and would stand out among the crowd.

Where most cellphone displays are often slim and share resources with competing models on the show floor, the iPhone's space will purportedly stand 7 feet tall by 3 feet wide. It will also demand its own individualized power supply and network cabling -- a strong suggestion that Apple, AT&T, or both are insisting that demo models are live and connected to the Internet.

None of this is surprising, since its logical to assume Cingular pretty much signed away any semblance of pride and pretty much agreed to every one of apple's terms for sales. And Apple likes to have front-row center for their products.

However, this so-called 'space' isn't much space (wow, 7 feet tall how exciting, too bad it wide enough for maybe two people). And why would it "demand" its own power supply and network cabling? Its too good to share a power strip with a RazR? And since its a wireless device, what kind of network cabling could you possibly need (or are they fudging the display by putting all the connections right inside, so everything "seems" real fast until you sign up for two years and realize it only works great when standing in a 3x7 booth in a Cingular store?

[JupiterOne]

Originally Posted by Louzer

Does that mean you're including the AppleStore's personnel with the boneheads, or just the Cingular store personnel?

I think he was referring to mmmdoughnuts's post just above that...meaning the Radio Shack employees.

[nevenmrgan]

Originally Posted by Louzer

Does that mean you're including the AppleStore's personnel with the boneheads, or just the Cingular store personnel?

I said "no more boneheads than necessary." All stores have boneheads. The bonehead-to-normal-person ratio is something like:

RadioShack - 8:1
Cingular/AT&t - 5:1
Apple Store - 1:10

Originally Posted by Louzer

And why would it "demand" its own power supply and network cabling? Its too good to share a power strip with a RazR? And since its a wireless device, what kind of network cabling could you possibly need (or are they fudging the display by putting all the connections right inside, so everything "seems" real fast until you sign up for two years and realize it only works great when standing in a 3x7 booth in a Cingular store?

Take it easy there, tiger. The power strip requirement means that it's a "live", electronic display, not a cardboard cutout. That's interesting. And of course they'll want it hooked up to a network cable - you think they'll trust AT&T's ability to maintain a wireless network?

[sandau]

good to see the iFlop will be out soon. Lets get this thing over with.

[desarc]

i guess it's better than silence, but wow what a breaking news story.

my guess is it's a plasma tv turned on it's side, running the iPhone interface as a loop, mounted inside a giant cardboard iPhone.

edit: sorry, an LED illuminated LCD tv. go Green, right? [mounted inside a giant STYROFOAM iPhone.]

[petermac]

So that will be a TOUCHSCEEN LCD used in the styrofoam display.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

Anyone willing to work long hours getting flabby, unmotivated iPhones in shape for customers... Work those chips, stretch that bandwidth, flex those ergonomics, touch that, er... multi-touch!

OK. Of the three A+ answers to this question -- yours, Johnny M's, and Louzer's -- I pick yours!

[Bageljoey]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

Anyone willing to work long hours getting flabby, unmotivated iPhones in shape for customers... Work those chips, stretch that bandwidth, flex those ergonomics, touch that, er... multi-touch!

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK. Of the three A+ answers to this question -- yours, Johnny M's, and Louzer's -- I pick yours!

Thank God Spammy did it first. It was the first thought I had and I would have spent 3 paragraphs trying to make the same joke...

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Those icons were seen back in January. Some think the "arrows" are a knife and fork

I'm pretty convinced they are arrows.

----------------------

iPhone;
Cool-factor = 10/10
Ease-of-use-factor = 10/10
Hype-factor = 50/10

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK. Of the three A+ answers to this question -- yours, Johnny M's, and Louzer's -- I pick yours!

[rickag]

"Finally, AT&T on Friday also issued an internal memo to its employees limiting vacation time from June 15 to July 15th, citing expectations for the iPhone launch to mark its "biggest selling period" in a few years."

Is it possible the $499 & $599 price tags were too high and maybe subsidized with various different plans? ie. sign up for 5 years get them for 30% off or some such offers.

Seems like at this price, I wouldn't expect sales to be soooo high as to institute a limited vacation policy. Just a random thought.

[meelash]

Wow! It sure seems like they have really high expectations for the iPhone. It must be really incredible to use...

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by meelash

Wow! It sure seems like they have really high expectations for the iPhone. It must be really incredible to use...

I agree with your thinking here. Aside from the fact that this device is waaay over-hyped, there's no way to truly know if it's really incredible or dumb, truly, until you hold one in your own hand yourself, and try and use it. I have no doubt it will sell millions, I think they will get that 1% by end of 2008, maybe even a bit higher, but it's one expensive item, with a storage size that doesn't please me. For both of those reasons I wont be buying one. It's not really a movie player with that storage IMO, they really needed to be 8GB and 16GB models instead for me to feel they are of worth. The real seller will be the iPhone junior, whenever they decide to make that. I'll go get one the minute they are announced. €300, same storage as iPhone, some cool features, UI, clever hardware, music and same camera.

[ai51240]

Originally Posted by Louzer

And why would it "demand" its own power supply and network cabling? Its too good to share a power strip with a RazR? And since its a wireless device, what kind of network cabling could you possibly need (or are they fudging the display by putting all the connections right inside, so everything "seems" real fast until you sign up for two years and realize it only works great when standing in a 3x7 booth in a Cingular store?

Without any inside knowledge of the iPhone whatsoever, I don't think it's exactly earth-shattering to imagine that the iPhone's demo kiosk will probably include an iPhone dock (which would require power) and an AirPort Extreme (which would require a network cable) hidden inside to demo the Internet features at the very least. The kiosk itself may need its own power and internet connectivity. It's amazing what people read into any discussion concerning Apple. A dedicated kiosk for the iPhone ensures that it's presented more like it would be in an Apple store, and less like the way Cingular generally presents phones -- plastic dummy cases with lame stickers over the screen.

[Louzer]

Originally Posted by ai51240

Without any inside knowledge of the iPhone whatsoever, I don't think it's exactly earth-shattering to imagine that the iPhone's demo kiosk will probably include an iPhone dock (which would require power) and an AirPort Extreme (which would require a network cable) hidden inside to demo the Internet features at the very least. The kiosk itself may need its own power and internet connectivity. It's amazing what people read into any discussion concerning Apple. A dedicated kiosk for the iPhone ensures that it's presented more like it would be in an Apple store, and less like the way Cingular generally presents phones -- plastic dummy cases with lame stickers over the screen.

Great, but what about being able to use it in a 'real world' scenario, like testing out the data service, rather then the wifi connectivity?