Apple stuns Macworld crowd with multi-function iPhone device - Page 9

Originally Posted by solipsism

This guy think that the iPhone wil fail miserably due to it's high cost and contract with Cingular. He does some sense, but I have a feeling that Apple is much smarter than s/he is.

http://eminent-truth.blogspot.com/20...s-by-2009.html

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

Wow.

This is what Apple initially wanted to Newton to be.

Remember, this was just a demo of a prototype. Not all features were shown.

I expect that Apple and 3rd party developers will create a LOT of widgets for the iPhone.

GPS
Handwriting / notetaking
Voice recording
Games
iChat functionality (AIM, Yahoo IM, etc)
Video conferencing (although, repositioning of the camera would be required)
Ability to connect to your computer for internet access through the phone
Office, or an Office clone (similar to Documents 2 Go on Palm)
Video recording

Can you get it inscribed when you order from the Apple Store?

I'm suprised they did not show the Calendar and To Do functions. This is the Killer-app on my Treo. I'd be lost without it.

Someone brought up lack of IR, so it cannot be used as a remote. At first I thought that was a pretty gay suggestion, but now I think if anyone could solve the problem of TOO MANY REMOTES, it's Apple.

Not sure why everyone is whining about screen smudges. I NEVER clean the screen of my Treo, and when it's ON it looks perfect. You only see the smudges when the screen is off. I'm also rought on it, and carry it in the same pocket with keys, etc, and the screen holds up remarkably well against scratches. I'm sure the iPhone will, too.

I doubt we'll see a hard-drive version. But the memory will eventually increase.

Why do so many people want 2 batteries?

I think the price is right. Costs less than my Treo 650 did when new.

The iPhone will change the world.

BTW: new iPods sporting the same design as the iPhone will appear soon.

Originally Posted by shanmugam

but do not announce it on WWDC! we like to some new Macs atleast @ WWDC 07 (too early for discussion hehehe)

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

I expect that Apple and 3rd party developers will create a LOT of widgets for the iPhone.

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

Office, or an Office clone (similar to Documents 2 Go on Palm)
Video recording.

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

Can you get it inscribed when you order from the Apple Store?

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

Someone brought up lack of IR, so it cannot be used as a remote.

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

Why do so many people want 2 batteries?

Originally Posted by IHateRegistering

The iPhone will change the world.

Originally Posted by solipsism

The current 4GB ($199) and 8GB ($249) NAND based, iPod Nanos have only a $50 difference, while the 4GB ($499) and 8GB ($599) iPhone a $100 apart.

- Are there $50 worth of extra features for the 8GB model?
- Is this the result of less subsidization percentage by Cingular?
- Something else?

Originally Posted by Kesh

GPS is built-in, as Steve demoed.

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

I think you're wrong on this one. Steve demoed maps, but I didn't see anything that suggested GPS.

Originally Posted by franksargent



My thoughts, exactly.

Originally Posted by shanmugam

how much is the price difference (for the handset) on the market and from service providers like Cingular and t-mobile? $50 to $150???

I will get one without contract and used in my t-mobile, 2 contracts are useless and tied with one service provider ...

i think only in US wireless providers are so difficult, in other countries you can get service (phone line) without contract and of course no phone...

i took a one year (minimum) for no reason with t-mobile (i did not wanted the cheapo phone they are giving for 2 year contract) ... and used my previous Moto Slvr GSM phone

cingular "MAY" invested in the project "iPhone" so may be preferred partner

wireless providers they have any connection with senators???

i hope i will get the iPhone from apple store and service from apple store sooner or later

time to give up that CDMA, CDMA is it not old technology?

Originally Posted by solipsism

So far, the official word is that NO 3rd-party apps allowed. I think this will change as soon as they have a version of Xcode that is optimized for creating and compiling (non-PPC or Intel CPU) programs for the iPhone's advanced interface.

Originally Posted by jp_flashman

thats not exactly how retail works. you don't just tack on the extra $50 cos the part cost $50 more, there is a % mark up for everything at retail, like 30% so something. its how they make money.

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

I think you're wrong on this one. Steve demoed maps, but I didn't see anything that suggested GPS.

Originally Posted by Cato988

still no comments on appleworks or text edit? Does no one else want this

Originally Posted by melgross

He SAID it had GPS. All cellphones have AGPS in the US, at least.

Originally Posted by Dazabrit

He did say it knows where you are. Maybe it's some kind of triangulation

Originally Posted by melgross

Official word? From whom?

Originally Posted by solipsism

Maybe it's another pairing that they are doing with Cingular, like with RAV.
Fact: Each cell tower is in a fixed location (obviously).
Fact: Each call transmits the tower ID that is picking up your signal.
Fact: This is already available to 911 Emergency


I imagine this is how it could be done:

1. Access Google Maps
2. Choose the "Find Current Location" option
3. iPhone sends request to Cingular's servers (like checking your VM)
4. Cingular grabs the originating Tower ID from the metadata
5. Server looks up address of Tower ID in database
6. Server respond with coordinates
7. iPhone auto-inputs data into Google Maps
8. Google Maps loads location

I came across this interesting read on the developement of the iPhone.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/10/comm...ion=2007011009

Secrecy with this project was paramount and cingular played ball so to speak. Perhaps T Mobile was unwilling to do so. Cingular bought into the iPhone without ever seeing a demo of it till the very end. I think it was a couple of weeks before the keynote.

Originally Posted by Mr. H

You know Mel, saying those two things over and over aren't going to make them true. So far you have provided no evidence that either of these things are true.

For the first point, if Jobs said it, please provide the time stamp for the time at which he said it during the keynote.

For the second, you seem to assume that because of the E-911 regs, all phones have AGPS. But as others have pointed out several times, a mobile can triangulate its position using network basestations to an accuracy that meets the E-911 regs. Triangulation using basestations is not AGPS. If you've got some concrete evidence that all US phones have AGPS, please provide it.

Originally Posted by melgross

Not if they have to make changes.

And Both jobs and Pogue said that it wasn't finished, with placeholders for icons (For what? They didn't say.).

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

They didn't demo Calculator, Clock, Notes or Calendar. When Steve & Phil organised to see a movie at 7 they missed out the final step that I'd have done on my p910 at least - hop into calendar and check I was free and then set an appointment and alarm.

I'd probably also cut the text out of the web browser and paste it in the note section of my alarm too since it was there.

They also didn't demo taking a photo with the camera or shooting video but Pogue said it worked ok yet Steve said it needed improving.

There was a few other things missing but no buttons shown on the screen. No RSS reader. I'd guess that's going in safari though. No MMS support though they could probably include that in the SMS bubble iChat clone.

Then there was things just plain not there like games, Office apps and the like. Still space left to fill up the black spaces on that home screen before they have to add a category menu like Palm/Symbian.

Originally Posted by melgross

We did have discussions about this. It has been resolved.

Just how difficult is it for you to type AGPS in Google? Not very hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Wow, finally there's a technology in the USA that's even more invasive than the one we have in the UK.

GSM Location based services, which we've had since the late 90s, just run off your nearest base station location so they aren't that accurate. A while back they started triangulating on some networks for more accuracy but it's still not brilliant.

I guess we're all going to get GPS in out phones now though, to go with all our CCTV cameras too.

Originally Posted by solipsism

This guy think that the iPhone wil fail miserably due to it's high cost and contract with Cingular. He does some sense, but I have a feeling that Apple is much smarter than s/he is.

Originally Posted by melgross

Not if they have to make changes.

And Both jobs and Pogue said that it wasn't finished, with placeholders for icons (For what? They didn't say.).

Originally Posted by franksargent



That too, but I think the OS will be miniLeopard, so perhaps by June we'll see fullLeopard, just guessing. I mean the UI looks sorta "Leopardish."

Originally Posted by franksargent



Two links (fairly recent) on E911 and/or GPS cell phones;

GPS Is Smartening Up Your Cell Phone (NPR webpage)

An Island of Chaos Surrounded by a Sea of Confusion: The E911 Wireless Device Location Initiative (Law Journal PDF file)

The FCC requirement is that E911 must provide a caller's location within an accuracy of 100m 67% of the time, the service providers were to meet this mandate as of December 31, 2005. However, many service providers had not met the FCC mandate by the deadline, extensions had been granted and fines have been imposed.

The FCC has also approved two cell phone location methods; 1) GPS, and 2) cell tower triangulation. Service providers are at liberty to choose either so long as the meet the accuracy requirement. But since GPS has proved to be the most cost effective (see links), most service providers have opted for the GPS method.

This would lead me to believe that most (if not all) new cell phones have GPS receivers, but that there is no strict requirement that GPS receivers must be included within the handset. I don't know what the cost delta is for inclusion of GPS receivers within handsets, but if it isn't trivial, I'd expect some of the cheapest handsets wouldn't have GPS receivers. Remember the accuracy requirement, within 100m 67% of the time, not for each handset, but for the service provider's entire customer base on average.

Originally Posted by Aries 1B

I showed the contents of Apple's iPhone Tab (all the videos on how the iphone works) to my 11 and 9 year old daughters. They both started shrieking like they were at the Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles first played.

I'm dead if they don't each get one.

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Anyway, I do expect that Apple does do price reductions and adds models. I remember that the iPod Photos were initially very steeply priced, but those went down a couple times several months apart that I remember.

Originally Posted by melgross

That's why I had said, in our earlier discussion, that most cellphones had them.

But, it really is cheap. The cheapest GPS units on the market are now going for $79, at least the ones I've seen. That's for the entire device. The actual GPS functionality is just a fraction of that.

So far, that's two sites that support this phone with GPS. Ars, and AI, though we don't have a printout of the chat, as far as I know.

Originally Posted by melgross

That's why I had said, in our earlier discussion, that most cellphones had them.

But, it really is cheap. The cheapest GPS units on the market are now going for $79, at least the ones I've seen. That's for the entire device. The actual GPS functionality is just a fraction of that.

So far, that's two sites that support this phone with GPS. Ars, and AI, though we don't have a printout of the chat, as far as I know.

Originally Posted by lukasodhner

back when E911 was imposed on the carriers they each had to choose how they would get location data, Verizon went with AGPS (Triangulation) while Nextel & Cingular went with GPS receivers in the phone. I'm not sure about Sprint.
Each method has advantages, I had a nextel phone that took forever to pull in a GPS signal and would not work in a car. VZ Navigator phones can pull in the location data quickly and accurately almost any time there is a cell signal available, inside a car or building, whatever. Cingular went down the GPS route, so for them to upgrade thousands of cell sites for AGPS is impratical. If the iPhone is going to have location data accurate enough for driving directions it will have to have a GPS receiver built into it, that's all there is to it.

One more thing to keep in mind: Obviously the iPhone is not in production and may change, Let's say Steve wanted to use the SiFR Star 3 GPS chipset, (actually does work inside, the best available today, as far as I know) He would have been negotiating the cost for the past few months, The best way for him to get a good price would be to pretend he didn't need it at all. He went through with the introduction pretending like he intended to release the iPhone without GPS, that could scare the guys over at SiRF into giving Apple a better deal on the 15,000,000 units. As far as I know most cell phone GPS units use lower quality GPS receivers to this would be a big sale for them any way you add it up.

And what does Steve loose by holding off that announcement, nothing, it's just another chance to hype the phone and excite the potential buyers.

IMHO the iPhone has about a 50% chance of shipping with a built in GPS receiver.

However if it doesn't what I really hope Apple will do is release a Bluetooth GPS receiver that you can plug into your car (or at least support a 3rd party one) and so you can at least get driving directions when in your car.