Some things the iPhone NEEDS, imo - Page 3

Not having vibrate is a BIG DEAL. Also can it do video? I'd assume it can but if not that would be awful too.

And no I didn't finish watching the video on it, it was too painful. But I'm sure they'll get it right. Or give up. One or the other. Hopefully they'll keep going. They should have never stopped the Newton and QuickTake. They invented entire industries and then left them.

They didn't explicitly say it will have iChat, they didn't explicitly say it won't. We'll know in June.


Perhaps vibrate and the motion sensors don't get along too well.
But again they did not specifically say it had vibrate nor did they specifically say it won't.

Roughly Drafted has an article dealing with iPhone myths, which incidentally, directly addresses a lot of the pro-con points being made in this thread. For those of you that don't bother to read these links, here are some of the topics.

Myth 1: the iPhone is missing EVDO (or some other high end feature) which will stifle adoption.
Myth Two: The iPhone is priced too high. It needs a 2 GB version for $299 lacking phone features.
Myth Three: The iPhone should be sold unlocked, not tied to Cingular service.

Myth Four: The iPhone software is a closed model, therefore the sky is falling.

This is what Steve-o had to say about this:
These are devices that need to work, and you cant do that if you load any software on them, he said. That doesnt mean theres not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesnt mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/te...in&oref=slogin


Myth Five: The iPhone is just a phone with features lots of other phones already have.
This seems to be the most prevalent one with the Windows fanboys at work.

Myth Eight: An integrated battery is a significant problem for users.

Myth Nine: OMG Scratches

Aquatic: if you think this phone sucks so much, then there is a simple solution: don't buy it.

Personally, I would not buy this phone, but the prospects of the implementation of some of this technology in an iPod is very exciting, and I will be buying one of those if the features/price is right.

A couple things iPhone needs:

1) no lockdown to cell carrier and no contract
2) Microvision Projector
3) GPS
4) Skype/Voip over WiFi
5) Voice recording
6) Ability to record conversations to memory and upload to computer/iTunes, etc.
7) Video-out for connecting to TV / video goggles

Or, maybe all this needs to be the new iPod, and the iPhone can stay the way it is and fester in the hellish exclusiveness of Planet Cingular.

Sooo close, yet sooo far.

What the HELL?

Why does the iPhone NEED a projector?

Don't get me wrong - the lack of the Microvision Projector does not detract from how awsome the iPhone is (the Cingular+contract deal does), but it would be cool if you could project video, photos, etc onto a big screen/wall from such a small device.

1) No lockdown to cell phone carier is ultimately good, but bad for now. Apple would have to coordinate ALL of their new technologies based on ALL of their providers. Cingular seems to be the most open to making network changes, so this gives Apple a lot of freedom. ALL PHONES COME WITH A CONTRACT IN THE SENSE THAT ALL PLANS COME WITH A CONTACT EXCEPT PAY-AS-YOU GO, AND PAY-AS-YOU-GO PHONES SUCK!
2) This technology is EXPENSIVE and currently sucks quite a bit.
3) Cell phones can be located by the carrier and this information sent back to the phone, so with Google Maps, thats good enough. GPS is just ANOTHER expense.
5) No. Too complicated and Skype/VOip quality over wireless is not the best.
6) You don't know it doesn't have this, and this would be nice.
7) This can be done through the dock.

3) Can the carrier pinpoint your exact location within a couple feet and give fly-through map directions - anywhere on the planet? Only GPS will do this.
5) WTF?! Skype quality has always been AWSOME for me - whether wireless or wired. Better than my landline phone!

ok first i think the end product will have iChat built in, it must...

second i think that the 3G hardware will be in the phone, most definitly must have it, but i think they are going to keep it closed because there is no use for it thus drains battery, once it opens up i think they will speak to cingular and find some solutions

third, a projector? wtf is wrong with people seriously this isnt a housemade or your bitch, thats just rediculous

fourth, im pretty sure this phone will have GPS with all the buddy buddying apple has with google now, im sure it will at least have GPS triangulation

fifth, skype was also in that NYTIMES link ^ there, job's said he is trying to deal with cingular on this but they dont know if they will shoot for it because it makes cingular lose minutes, its all money u know

sixth, we dont know about voice recording, but i dont see a use for it personally neither do a lot of people, probably xnay on that

and last, about the damn software, its closed ended, but who cares, honestly id rather pay apple for their products no joke, i have my tmobile dash, only had it for 2 motnhs and its a peice of crap, why because of all these dumb 3rd party apps on there, they suck and they ruin the phones..im glad apple is creating everything, i just hope they make the things everyone needs, which they will..look at how cool and useful some of the widgets are for macs

so people stop bitching either buy it or dont, i went to t-mobile today and my buddy that works there already has the phone on pre-order..i asked HOW...he just simply said "its nice working for phone companies"....and then he showed me a reciept from cingular...dont ask me how but it came out to like $640 something...lol and i asked, but u work for tmobile how will u work this, its not unlockable...and he said..oh but i already sent the specs to our unlocking department and theyre already working on it, theyll have a key out by June....i was pretty impressed especially with that receipt...lol i want him to order me one but he said next month, he can only do 1 a month so i will update u all in february haha

Cell phone location by carrier is much more accurate than most would think. This is how E911 knows exactly where you are. At any rate, even if GPS is good in the long term, it is not right now. It would just be another added expense.

I've used skype a few times and the quality was about the same as my cell phone. At anyrate, its really just not needed for most. Afterall, your paying for your cell phone bill wether you use the minutes or not.

Some use Skype for it's Free Skype to Skype calls, then again, almost every IM (except most Jabber Based IMs) have this feature, and then for people without Skype, they just use their Minutes.

I'm in agreement with you though, you're paying the bill anyways so why not use it?

Sebastian

Agreed some people are making too big a deal over VOIP. But Apple should allow it to be used.
One good reason is people would feel like they have some choice. It would defeat the point of a mobile phone to depend on WiFI. So they would still end up using Cingular anyway.

Here in San Francisco, Mobile Phone providers will learn to... how to put it... UTTERLY UTTERLY HATE ANY MOBILE DEVICE THAT CAN INSTALL SKYPE!!

I'm sure Apple may have considered it, but I doubt Cingular liked the idea very much with efforts like Google and Earthlink turning San Francisco into a gigantic Wifi Network, and a few other Efforts around the country, I think one in Portland, and I think Paris has something similar (not sure)

Sebastian

Yes I agree AIM and iChat are needed and thus by extension being able to place calls for free in WiFi zones via Voice chat in iChat would be sweet. Not to mention videochat. But Apple follows The Man these days (like DRM for iTMS) and carriers like Slewis said absolutely HATE that idea. Sigh.

Come on Aquatic you have to be reasonable.

Apple is not in total control of these situations. Everyone is in this for their own best interests and Apple has to negotiate everything. DRM on iTMS is not Apple bending to the will of the man. iTMS would not exist at all without DRM, period. Its a compromise.

The same between Apple and Cingular. Apple is not able to walk into the situation and fully control what Cingular will do. Apple has to compromise and Cingular has to compromise. Of course Cingular would not want the iPhone to use VOIP. In negotiating Apple may have had to give up that option in order to get something more valuable. If Apple does not compromise with Cingular the iPhone does not exist, period.

Once Apple has grown the iPhone market and the two year contract with Cingular expires they are in a better position to do what they want.

honestly...im sure apple would like to do everything but they are in a tie down with cingular..and they have to give them something, doing VOIP and all that just simply excludes cingular's money at all, then whats the point

Haha, how? Phone companies will hate any WiFi phone with Skype or similar. But the iPhone requires a contract to buy it, you're still going to end up paying the phone bill. At any rate, if you're paying the bill anyways, why not just use the phone plan you have?

Sebastian

Not a bad thing. This thing is a brand new platform and will require quite a bit of software refinement. I think the icons could stand a bit more refinement in their looks myself.


1. Yeah. Jobs is in love with thinness, or perhaps that's a requirement of the smartphone market. If this thing is an iPod, a phone and internet communicator, it should have memory to handle the potential uses.

They could have very easily gone with 8 GB flash at the $499 price point and an 80 GB 1.8" drive at the $599 price point. An 80 GB version would be 0.6" thick and that messes with the aesthetics. A 30 GB hard drive could probably be under 0.5" thick though, and they'd be able to keep one thickness. I guess the big tradeoff was flash probably uses less power, and these machines need to save as much power as possible.

2. That's just a software update.

3. I don't think there will be a situation where using the wireless carrier's network for internet usage will be anything more than horrible. 3G will come by Q4 07 for Europe, and hopefully Apple refreshes for the USA at the same time.

4. They just need to write software.

5. The hardware is there, they just need to write the software.

One of the big complaints everyone has is that Apple decided to work with the USA wireless carriers instead of competing against them or doing something better than them since they are universally hated in the USA.

The thing that most everyone recognizes is that the iPhone as a platform has nearly unlimited potential with the multi-touch interface and how a lot of things could be added by bit of software.

Compromise is UNACCEPTABLE! That's why I canceled my own wedding a year ago! Steve/Apple should NOT give into the demands of the music lables, cellphone companies, etc! Apple once upon a time was different from Microsoft in that they offered their users CHOICE, FREEDOM, etc! Now, Steve is working for Cingular and for Disney! It's just plain UNACCEPTABLE!

well creating a whole new infrastructure, i doubt they would do their own cell phone network, imagine all the towers and satellites they have to send up to be their own, and with the music...wtf is wrong with you, what do you want apple to write its own tunes as well, if apple didnt compromise with record companies etc...they wouldnt have shit and you know it, that was a stupid comment grow up and realize REAL LIFE situations that are actually acceptable

I have some good questions.

1. will iphone support custom ringtones. ( create your own ringtones ala sony ercisson phones )
2. will you be able to use mp3s as ringtones. ( the obvious answer is yes, but they never said anything about it during the podcast.
3. will you be able to assign a picture( can you even assign one? ) and ringtone to each contact you have?
4.voice recorder?
5. voice-dialing?
etc.

Hmmmph, see in black and white only the Sith do...

Life is compromise, from the moment you began exercising free will.

I won't judge your reasons for cnx'ing your wedding, they may be very good. But it probably wasn't about compromise, that's just the easy way to explain it. Getting engaged in the first place was a compromise, you gave up the right to drop trou with any other women, for what your fiance brought to the table. You have a job? Thats a compromise, time vs money. Need I go on?

no one knows about 1 and 2, at least not yet it has been confirmed as "No Comment" for now..

and for three, again not known for the ringtone, but im going to say yes to 1-2 and the ringtone part of 3, the picture is a for sure yes it even had their picture on the contact when steve was using the phone for keynote
voice-dialing, with the bluetooth headset they dropped im gonna assume it has voice recognition, it must

oooo owned...you sound like a person with tunnel vision whoever said no compromise...thats just stupid you cant just have everything in life your way it doesnt work out, if it was true why are there starving people in africa..have to compromise with their resources, or homeless people on the street, a bad choice due to compromising

I never was "engaged". Why would you AssUme so?? And, no, I don't have a job Need I go on?

off topic... but how did you have a marriage to call off if you never got engaged?

Intriguing...

Perhaps there are some convergent ideas nobody has mentioned yet: (or if you have, I might not have read)

1) Phone has same dock connector. I forsee car kits which let you dial your phone from the dashboard or via voice. (utilizing the cell feature in the glovebox)

2) Phone has wifi. See a future iChat enabling VOIP calls when in WiFi coverage for free. (or Skype)

3) Phone has wifi / bluetooth. See sharing your iPhone library with other iPhone users when within range.

4) Phone has accelerometers and bluetooth. See two iphone users meet and want to exchange contact cards. See each of them take out there iPhone and 'shake' it at each other (like the jesture of greeting). Then see their contact cards swap via bluetooth with ZERO touch.

5) Phone has wifi. See phone able to talk wirelessly with Apple TV for some unknown reason.

6) Phone has touch screen. Bring on the games. Every time Apple does a new launch they pilot stuff. (like the video clips from pixar before TV shows etc). Well I see the iPod games available in the iTunes music store as a pilot for a HUGE opportunity to download games/content from iTunes to your iPhone.

I am just as curious as Hassan! I'm also a little perplexed by your ass fixation. Could that have been the hang-up that would have required a compromise?

Good luck with the no job thing! You must be far more cuddly than I. But do people just feel naturally compelled to feed/house you, or do you compromise and do something in exchange for food/shelter? We can go down that road all day, but if you have ever shat in a toilet you have made a compromise of holding your bowels rather than letting fly whenever the mood hits you, all to garner social acceptance and a less smelly environment.

Too much information. MacVault probably said that due to issues with admitting fault. Most people are stubborn like that. I know I am.

That said, I think the iPhone is targeted at people who HAVE jobs. Good paying ones.

to all those who mention Zune:

I'm not a mac user. Certainly a mac fan - but as a lowly student I can't even afford an iPod. Hopefully come next semester I'll be on work placement earning enough to buy a macbook, an iPod (or even an iPhone / Mac Book Pro mixup)...

I can't see why Apple should take on Microsoft taking on Apple. Why should Apple include the features Zune has (wifi). Thats why Apple has managed to be such a success story. The iPod came as a result of innovation within the company, looking at things other than software. It was a break through in how the music industry operated. Microsoft were worried and decided to take Apple on at its game.

Apple now have released an iPhone (not iPod[with a phone attached]). My own view is that iPhone is just that. A phone that like 99% of new mobiles bought in the UK can play music. The fact that it has 8Gb of memory is amazing. It's a phone, with 8Gb of memory. Its not an 8Gb iPod Nano that can make phone calls and send text messages.

Its like the Apple site says. "Apple reinvents the phone". Not "Apple rereleases Nano to make phone calls"...though that might be a handy firmware upgrade.... [and i do hasten to add that i'm joking nanos don't have the attena required...or do they?!?!]

rant end!

p.s. anybody know who the UK carrier will be??

Zune wasn't Mentioned
WiFi makes sense in a Phone, except to the Carriers
It's a 3in1 Phone/iPod/Internet Communicator

Sebastian

omg... gizmodo just confirmed that you can't use your mp3s as ringtones. what a bunch of garbage! I hope Apple convinces Cingular that nobody is going to buy their crappy ringtones for double the price of an mp3.


"Also, more importantly, users won't be able to use iTunes songs as ringtones. At least, not at launch. We're sure Apple's gotta work out stuff with Cingular and the music industry, since using songs you already bought as ringtones makes it pretty hard to justify buying the same song again just to use as a ringtonesomething that's turning out to be a pretty big money source for both providers and the music industry."

Why would Apple be telling Gizmodo things they're not telling anyone else?

The David Pogue article specifically said that the iTunes as ringtones thing "hadn't been decided yet."

You do know that there are more countries than just the US right?

And that is most of those 'other countries', 3G infrastructure is already well in place?

I think the bigger question should be "Why has apple deliberately crippled the phone to appeal to the smaller, US-based GSM market when the rest of the world stands ready for the taking."

US phone networks be damned. Release overseas first and let the domestic crowd cry to the networks to drag their sorry asses into the 21st century.

Has Apple released or even said it is going to release a crippled international version? No.

You are making assumptions that are unreasonable at the moment. You may have a valid concern that Apple has not announced anything specific about it's international versions, but that doesn't mean they won't provide the right phone for that market. Steve said outright that there are going to be multiple versions in the iPhone family. That should make you take a wait and see on whether iPhone is crippled from an international standpoint.

My guess is it won't be, especially since it won't be tied to Cingular's US contract terms.

Yeah ok adda. It is an iPod with a phone as an afterthought. I WANT to buy this thing! If it doesn't suck. I seem to be the only person here or even the mass media that sees the massive deficiencies that may ultimately lead to the complete cancellation of this product line. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But they need to see that it won't sell if it can't be used in a car (sorry, I don't care if it's not safe, everyone does it, sort of like smoking, driving faster than 65mph, eating butter, etc.) Also I wouldn't be surprised if it lacks things like vibrate. No VOIP of course because they have succumbed to The Man. No iLife/MS Office compatibility is another strike. Outlook is a big deal...don't know how they'd tackle that though, that's probably just hopeless but it nonetheless hurts. Voice dialing is needed. 3rd party apps (even if they need to be "approved" are need. We should be able to write out own widgets though. I'll probably write a letter but I assumed someone smarter than me would, and add things on I didn't think of. Basically, I could probably do phone things faster with my phone than the iPhone. That's the whole point. Without LOOKING too. Come on most of you place calls in your car. I guess Apple will just have to have great voice navigation.

But I digress. I bet they will add more/have stuff up their sleeve. And we really don't know anything about it yet. After all that time I still feel there is stuff we don't know about it.
Time will tell. And as for GPS that should come in a very high end edition but obviously not the standard one until maybe 5 years from now when it's affordable. That'd be SICK though. Team up with Trimble or Magellan like I've said.

Yes, I know that. Do you know that Apple is releasing the iPhone in the US first, so anything we have to say about its roll out is necessarily specifically about that?

Apple has been quite clear why it chose the set-up it did for the American roll out, and it is because of the relatively poor coverage of 3G service. They have also said they will go 3G in America as soon as the coverage makes that sensible.

To claim that means Apple has simply forsworn 3G worldwide, or Apple's choices in America reveal some kind of US provincialism, is pointlessly contentious.

It has bluetooth, why wouldn't you be able to use it in a car?


Possibly, possibly not. Nobody outside the product team really knows for sure.


Getting awfully sure here in the negative column. These are pretty big, but you are forgetting that Leopard & iWork07(probably) are due out before the phone is. I would stake my left nut that a version of iWork or at least it's Office document readers will be available for iPhone. Maybe for sale, not free, but definitely available.


Outlook email isn't such a big deal, any decent mail client can do what Outlook phone clients do. Syncing Outlook address books and schedules would be huge for businesses though, gotta agree with that. Joe Schmuckatelli not using it for work couldn't care though.


Nice, not needed. Think future upgrade.


They will come, just not out of every morons dev house.


That's all muscle memory for the specific phone you have. Get a new phone, relearn it until you are fast. No different here, voice nav doesn't change this. Again, get a new phone and you need to look at it until you know it cold, that takes quite a bit of use. So, same problems in a car no matter what new phone you buy.


Especially if you could plug in a SICK laser too! (Yes SICK is a brand/type of laser!) Let your robotics mind go wild!

Well, some of that is not clear (vibrate, voice navigation), some of it is not Apple's fault (VOIP), some of it seems inevitable (iLife, Office and Outlook compatibility), and I honestly believe that none of it is a fatal blow compared to what it does do and how it does it.

EDIT: what Hiro said.