I think the reason #1 is: Too many competing standards (TDMA, CDMA, different types of GSM etc) that have made it all incompatible/non-interoperable, and not enough scale for anyone to want to invest sufficiently large amounts....
Sure, in a HOME, video phone HANDSETS are pretty rediculous. What am I going to show you? Me sitting down?
Imagine, I have family that lives in Illinois (which I do), and I am living in the Seattle (which I do) and I am going to my son's soccer game (imaginary son, no kids yet). How cool would it be to be able to video chat with my mother and show her grandson playing in his first soccer match ever (Football to you UKers).
Let's say, you are anywhere where you want to show anybody something. You can describe it in words on the phone, and a picture is worth 1000 words or something, but seeing something for yourself is priceless.
I have this to say about the UK and Japan having an "unsuccessful" video chat...
People in Japan and the UK have countries about the size of some of our states in the U.S. (slight exaggeration) so it is easier to visit family and friends if they live in other countries. It's a weekend getaway. In the U.S. a flight from Seattle is about 2200 miles. It takes roughly 8 hours to fly (round trip)... the price ranges anywhere between $300 and $1200 round trip depending on the airline and time of year and how advanced you plan your trip.
Obviously video chat doesn't beat seeing somebody in person, but it feels pretty good when you haven't seen somebody in a while and it's the only option at the time. I think it is going to be huge, particularly for Apple owners that already have iCHAT. PC users may not find this very useful since they have such lame video chat options.
I agree, for people that are very far away from each other, especially college kids, who haven't seen their buddies in a while (me basically, though fortunately thanksgiving is only a few days away), this could really catch on. I think it just depends on how many people buy it, if other manufacturers make compatible video programs, etc.
Looking at all the posts on the iPhone I am asking myself one question, what are the leading developments which cause it to sound plausible. Based on the rumors and facts, this ?second iPhone? would be more of a smartphone then just a basic candy bar design. And the history of smartphones is that are created from PDAs. Recently, you have hear that Steve Jobs said that he is proud of products that Apple decided NOT to release over the last few years. This I think would point to the Apple Newton Replacement which caused much hype some time back. So a product with phone functionality for Apple does not seem to be far fetch in development. Question is do they want to push it out of the door or not, not if they are working on something.
For those who have joined so far, the mobile phone (Yes, I am from Asia/Australia so I use the mobile not cellular word) is a highly complex device and all need a very robust Operating System. There are 2 leading platforms, the Symbian OS which is the base for almost all Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, Benq-Siemens and some Motorola devices. Each of these phone manufacturers would create a new UI for their phones but having the same base. The other platform is the Micro$oft PocketPC/Windozes Mobile/Windozes CE/Windoze Smartphone which is being used by people like HTC (Which makes most of the O2, Qtek, Dopod, T-Mobile & I-Mate), Gigabyte and other Taiwan multi-device phones. Trailing behind this would be the Linux based phones of which they have a following from Motorola, China and some of the Japanese handset manufacturers.
The key of course is this platform, speaking to a Taiwanese cellular manufacturer about producing a custom phone, all you need is this PCB with the platform standard and house it in a casting which can be made into any shape. (And this process is very fast, less then 3 months and I am simplify the process I know) Okay, what do we know so far about Apple?s embedded platform? We are seeing the latest crop of iPods running third party games. Based on these facts, my analysis is that these devices, the iPod and iPhone would have a similar embedded OS. And THIS is the real difference here. This embedded OS must have been developed for the Newton replacement but is slow changing over for the mobile phone system.
It is a matter of when we would see this device not if. Recently I have converted from using a Palm m505 to a Windows Mobile 5.0 Dopod 838Pro (HTC Hermes) phone. It has 3.5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2MP Camera and a somewhat usable OS. It does have video conferencing through the 3G Network and for those which follow VoIP development, Counterpath (Xten) is developing a Video Phone platform for the Windows Mobile market. I really can?t see that Apple would want to lose out in this market.
I have been seeing that the market is currently divide along the lines of those who use mobile phones as music players and people who use iPods. Apple has repeated shown that it would muscle into a developed market for media devices (iPod shuffle) and redefine it. The iPhone would plug the current gap in the range of music players. So we can expect some device during the next time Steve shows his face.
As for Phone Standards, I expect this phone to be GSM Quad Band with UMTS. Apple partnered with Motorola and Southbank to develop this product. I don?t expect anything less as they want to attack the Japan and UK market as well. (These are the markets where Apple own a retail presence)
And just to throw a bone, I believe that T-Mobile has a device called the sidekick 3 which is a IM device developed by Danger which is a JAVA platform on a GSM type network with a keyboard and an IM Client for IM everywhere. Something to think about when looking in the mobile phone market.
Video chatting on a mobile phone on the street, or in a subway/bus makes you look like the biggest idiot alive.
People used to say the same thing about people talking on their cell phones. Don't get too caught up in what other people think about you. Go ahead and be the best "YOU" you can be. We promise not to think you are an idiot.
I will say this... perhaps people are more concerned about video chatting while driving, wouldn't THAT be dangerous? eh... I guess I know people that Text and Drive.... can't be much worse.
If Apple does release a phone of their own, I would hope that it would come unlocked. My brother works for AT&T and I get the lectures from him all the time about how subscription services are such a great thing, even if you're paying for minutes you may not use every month for the privilege of being able to use a cell phone, and I tell him he's wrong for promoting subscriptions every time.
I'm hoping that Apple can provide a phone that gives us all the features we're looking for, while keeping the phones unlocked so we can use whatever carrier we want. If Apple chooses to be their own carrier, they'll have a daunting task ahead of them, but it wouldn't be the first time that they've gone completely against the odds and emerged victorious.
When I was a heavy user, subscriptions worked out well for me. Now, however, Pay As You Go plans are much more economical for me, and I have no longterm commitments. When I travel, I just pop in a local SIMM and I am good to go. I suspect that there are a large number of users who would be best off on a Pay As You Go arrangement.
And if it's easy to sync, there's no reason why you couldn't use the pay as you go system through the iTunes store. I would much rather Apple use a pay-as-you-go system. Being able to use local SIMM's makes it all the more convenient for travel, as netdog mentioned.
//* The number of people in the UK using their mobiles to access the internet is growing, the Mobile data association has reported.
A total of 40.7m users were recorded as having used their phones for downloads and browsing the mobile internet in the UK during the third quarter of 2006.
The total number of users recorded in July was 13m, which had increased to 14m by September.//
considering there are around 60million people in the UK thats a fair old number
Oh boy, where do they come up with all these rumors from?
I am actually glad that Apple does not go with current carriers if that is going to be the case. Until the opensource phone becomes available, one need a good quality phone that could work with any carrier...
All the cell phone carriers are moving towards an INSTANT video chat. It is unfortunate that Apple will not team up with EV-DO revision A carriers such as Verizon and Sprint to make this phone worth while.
T-Mobile and Cingular will not have very much to offer as far as TRUE high speed goes.
We'll see what happens here in the near future.
EV-DO Revision A is in the process of being rolled out, as is UMTS over HSDPA by Cingular, and in all honesty, while EV-DO has a head start over UMTS in the US, I doubt Revision A does. T-Mobile will start a full, and fast, roll-out of UMTS over HSDPA by March of next year, now it has the spectrum.
If Apple were to launch the phone next year, UMTS, supporting the HSDPA air-interface, would be just as in the running as EV-DO from a coverage point of view. Except that unlike EV-DO, UMTS and GSM is pretty much in every country in the world, it's not controlled by one company, and people who independently buy UMTS iPhones aren't going to have to ask their carrier to activate it, and hope they're not refused.
So from the point of view of a company that certainly doesn't want to have to negotiate with each and every mobile phone company right down to the fine details of the UI, and who wants a shot at selling phones outside of the US, and to individual phone buyers, UMTS makes a hell of a lot more sense. No, there wouldn't be a lot of high speed coverage today (though all iPhones could drop down to EDGE in the absense of UMTS, just as EV-DO phone users can drop down to 2.5G 1xRTT, and EDGE is pretty much rolled out throughout the country and probably fast enough for music downloads.)
Until Sprint and Verizon roll out R-UIMs, which thus far they've shown no desire to do so, I doubt it'll be in any independent phone maker's interest to primarily ship CDMA2000 based phones. Even if they're solely interested in US sales and don't care about the rest of the world. And it's probably not in the best interests of buyers to buy such phones either, especially as phones become more specialised.
Europe and some other countries auctioned off spectrum for 3G several years ago, and the networks have had more than enough time to roll out their 3G services.
The US only auctioned them last month, and the operators aren't even allowed to use it yet. What 3G there is has had to be overlayed upon the existing cellular/PCS spectrum.
Some operators, who use the IS-95 standard (often called CDMA, though that's misleading because CDMA is also a type of technology. It'd be like refering to AMPS as "FM"), were able to upgrade their existing systems because the upgrades were essentially bolt-ons to the existing standard. However, because it was essentially a bolt-on, there were no significant improvements in the technology, and IS-95 was already, to be honest, long in the tooth. You could be forgiven, when using one, for thinking you're using an analog phone with a pager. Most 3G users of IS-95 derived networks derive the benefits by hooking up their phones to their computers. They then get fast data rates.
That's not to say the networks haven't built some interesting things onto their phones making use of the advancements, but it's generally not that impressive.
Other operators use GSM (after upgrading from older TDMA networks.) These had more problems. The upgrade path from GSM is UMTS. UMTS runs over (for cellular networks) an air interface called W-CDMA. The "W" stands for "Wideband". Wideband means "5 MHz", as in "This system requires 5MHz of spectrum in each direction to work." The only issue is that in the US, that's very often all a cellular operator has in certain parts of the country. So they have two choices: they can drop GSM support in some areas, or not roll out UMTS until more spectrum becomes available.
Nobody chose to do the former. Cingular is doing a roll out in areas where it has enough spectrum. T-Mobile chose to wait, and will roll out UMTS nationwide at that point.
That's it. That's the reason. All this BS about size and stuff is a nonsense. Look at Finland. Similar demographics. Excellent coverage, and at the forefront of mobile phone technology.
That's it. That's the reason. All this BS about size and stuff is a nonsense. Look at Finland. Similar demographics. Excellent coverage, and at the forefront of mobile phone technology.
I agree. Australia has a land size that is comparable to that of the US. And a population that is 14 times smaller. Our 3G coverage has been growing from just being in major cities over the past three or so years, to nearly covering the entire country (if you are to believe the advertising, and don't live near large bodies of water and large groups of trees)
Video chat was a novelty. People got over it. No one uses it here.
I wonder how well Australia is going to accept mobile TV. It just launched here. About 30 channels of viewing have been allowed (per provider i think), except if you read the small print you only get 3 hours a month and 15 minutes per session. That service (Next G : http://www.nextg.com.au/, I believe we only have one provider at this point) will also allow you to purchase music, and provides the user with two copies of each track. One for their mobile and one for their PC. Im not sure if that is an ease of use thing or something DRM related.
I wonder how well Australia is going to accept mobile TV. It just launched here. About 30 channels of viewing have been allowed (per provider i think), except if you read the small print you only get 3 hours a month and 15 minutes per session. That service (Next G : http://www.nextg.com.au/, I believe we only have one provider at this point) will also allow you to purchase music, and provides the user with two copies of each track. One for their mobile and one for their PC. Im not sure if that is an ease of use thing or something DRM related.
I hope Apple is moving iin this direction with the iPhone. F#$k the other carriers, create your own and then provde an integrated Slingbox-type software utilizing H.264 that will stream your pre-purchased iTunes Store media to your iPhone. I really don't see any other way for Apple to do correctly. And this should force the other American carriers to finally upgrade their service.
People used to say the same thing about people talking on their cell phones. Don't get too caught up in what other people think about you. Go ahead and be the best "YOU" you can be. We promise not to think you are an idiot.
I will say this... perhaps people are more concerned about video chatting while driving, wouldn't THAT be dangerous? eh... I guess I know people that Text and Drive.... can't be much worse.
BE CAREFUL
No wanting to look like a total idiot, is not just caring what people think about you, it's about respecting yourself. If I can avoid wetting myself in public, I will.
because they know full well most people won't do anything once they sign the dotted line and get stuck with a carrier. I mean I have a lot of friends that are always complaining about horrible service, no signal, poor quality phones yada yada and yet can't/won't change carriers because of "x" reason and "y" excuse (insert your own reason here). In short, lazyness
besides, most here in America are kind of slow to adapt to modern technology. (just look at your typical windoze/pc users )
Look how long it took for the simple text messaging to take off here, let alone have the ability to send texts to other subscribers regardless of what carrier.
Video Conference on a cell phone? Pass. I have no use for that kind of technology. High-speed 'net connection? I have a slower connection for my Treo 650 (only about 2x-3x faster then dial-up) and I find it adequate for email and small browsing and unless you are going to sell a faster speed for a low cost, I'll stick with free wi-fi that is popping up faster then starcraps coffee.
Comments
hasn't Japan had it for years too?
Why does cell service suck so bad in America?
I think the reason #1 is: Too many competing standards (TDMA, CDMA, different types of GSM etc) that have made it all incompatible/non-interoperable, and not enough scale for anyone to want to invest sufficiently large amounts....
Sure, in a HOME, video phone HANDSETS are pretty rediculous. What am I going to show you? Me sitting down?
Imagine, I have family that lives in Illinois (which I do), and I am living in the Seattle (which I do) and I am going to my son's soccer game (imaginary son, no kids yet). How cool would it be to be able to video chat with my mother and show her grandson playing in his first soccer match ever (Football to you UKers).
Let's say, you are anywhere where you want to show anybody something. You can describe it in words on the phone, and a picture is worth 1000 words or something, but seeing something for yourself is priceless.
I have this to say about the UK and Japan having an "unsuccessful" video chat...
People in Japan and the UK have countries about the size of some of our states in the U.S. (slight exaggeration) so it is easier to visit family and friends if they live in other countries. It's a weekend getaway. In the U.S. a flight from Seattle is about 2200 miles. It takes roughly 8 hours to fly (round trip)... the price ranges anywhere between $300 and $1200 round trip depending on the airline and time of year and how advanced you plan your trip.
Obviously video chat doesn't beat seeing somebody in person, but it feels pretty good when you haven't seen somebody in a while and it's the only option at the time. I think it is going to be huge, particularly for Apple owners that already have iCHAT. PC users may not find this very useful since they have such lame video chat options.
I agree, for people that are very far away from each other, especially college kids, who haven't seen their buddies in a while (me basically, though fortunately thanksgiving is only a few days away), this could really catch on. I think it just depends on how many people buy it, if other manufacturers make compatible video programs, etc.
..true
?true
For those who have joined so far, the mobile phone (Yes, I am from Asia/Australia so I use the mobile not cellular word) is a highly complex device and all need a very robust Operating System. There are 2 leading platforms, the Symbian OS which is the base for almost all Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, Benq-Siemens and some Motorola devices. Each of these phone manufacturers would create a new UI for their phones but having the same base. The other platform is the Micro$oft PocketPC/Windozes Mobile/Windozes CE/Windoze Smartphone which is being used by people like HTC (Which makes most of the O2, Qtek, Dopod, T-Mobile & I-Mate), Gigabyte and other Taiwan multi-device phones. Trailing behind this would be the Linux based phones of which they have a following from Motorola, China and some of the Japanese handset manufacturers.
The key of course is this platform, speaking to a Taiwanese cellular manufacturer about producing a custom phone, all you need is this PCB with the platform standard and house it in a casting which can be made into any shape. (And this process is very fast, less then 3 months and I am simplify the process I know) Okay, what do we know so far about Apple?s embedded platform? We are seeing the latest crop of iPods running third party games. Based on these facts, my analysis is that these devices, the iPod and iPhone would have a similar embedded OS. And THIS is the real difference here. This embedded OS must have been developed for the Newton replacement but is slow changing over for the mobile phone system.
It is a matter of when we would see this device not if. Recently I have converted from using a Palm m505 to a Windows Mobile 5.0 Dopod 838Pro (HTC Hermes) phone. It has 3.5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2MP Camera and a somewhat usable OS. It does have video conferencing through the 3G Network and for those which follow VoIP development, Counterpath (Xten) is developing a Video Phone platform for the Windows Mobile market. I really can?t see that Apple would want to lose out in this market.
I have been seeing that the market is currently divide along the lines of those who use mobile phones as music players and people who use iPods. Apple has repeated shown that it would muscle into a developed market for media devices (iPod shuffle) and redefine it. The iPhone would plug the current gap in the range of music players. So we can expect some device during the next time Steve shows his face.
As for Phone Standards, I expect this phone to be GSM Quad Band with UMTS. Apple partnered with Motorola and Southbank to develop this product. I don?t expect anything less as they want to attack the Japan and UK market as well. (These are the markets where Apple own a retail presence)
And just to throw a bone, I believe that T-Mobile has a device called the sidekick 3 which is a IM device developed by Danger which is a JAVA platform on a GSM type network with a keyboard and an IM Client for IM everywhere. Something to think about when looking in the mobile phone market.
Video chatting on a mobile phone on the street, or in a subway/bus makes you look like the biggest idiot alive.
People used to say the same thing about people talking on their cell phones. Don't get too caught up in what other people think about you. Go ahead and be the best "YOU" you can be. We promise not to think you are an idiot.
I will say this... perhaps people are more concerned about video chatting while driving, wouldn't THAT be dangerous? eh... I guess I know people that Text and Drive.... can't be much worse.
BE CAREFUL
I'm hoping that Apple can provide a phone that gives us all the features we're looking for, while keeping the phones unlocked so we can use whatever carrier we want. If Apple chooses to be their own carrier, they'll have a daunting task ahead of them, but it wouldn't be the first time that they've gone completely against the odds and emerged victorious.
//* The number of people in the UK using their mobiles to access the internet is growing, the Mobile data association has reported.
A total of 40.7m users were recorded as having used their phones for downloads and browsing the mobile internet in the UK during the third quarter of 2006.
The total number of users recorded in July was 13m, which had increased to 14m by September.//
considering there are around 60million people in the UK thats a fair old number
I am actually glad that Apple does not go with current carriers if that is going to be the case. Until the opensource phone becomes available, one need a good quality phone that could work with any carrier...
------------------------------
Wanna get the most out of your mac?
Visit: www.mostofmymac.com
I dread the day it becomes socially unexpectable to not look someone in the eye over the phone.
"socially unexpectable" - hey that was a good one. Can I use that?
"socially unexpectable" - hey that was a good one. Can I use that?
All the cell phone carriers are moving towards an INSTANT video chat. It is unfortunate that Apple will not team up with EV-DO revision A carriers such as Verizon and Sprint to make this phone worth while.
T-Mobile and Cingular will not have very much to offer as far as TRUE high speed goes.
We'll see what happens here in the near future.
EV-DO Revision A is in the process of being rolled out, as is UMTS over HSDPA by Cingular, and in all honesty, while EV-DO has a head start over UMTS in the US, I doubt Revision A does. T-Mobile will start a full, and fast, roll-out of UMTS over HSDPA by March of next year, now it has the spectrum.
If Apple were to launch the phone next year, UMTS, supporting the HSDPA air-interface, would be just as in the running as EV-DO from a coverage point of view. Except that unlike EV-DO, UMTS and GSM is pretty much in every country in the world, it's not controlled by one company, and people who independently buy UMTS iPhones aren't going to have to ask their carrier to activate it, and hope they're not refused.
So from the point of view of a company that certainly doesn't want to have to negotiate with each and every mobile phone company right down to the fine details of the UI, and who wants a shot at selling phones outside of the US, and to individual phone buyers, UMTS makes a hell of a lot more sense. No, there wouldn't be a lot of high speed coverage today (though all iPhones could drop down to EDGE in the absense of UMTS, just as EV-DO phone users can drop down to 2.5G 1xRTT, and EDGE is pretty much rolled out throughout the country and probably fast enough for music downloads.)
Until Sprint and Verizon roll out R-UIMs, which thus far they've shown no desire to do so, I doubt it'll be in any independent phone maker's interest to primarily ship CDMA2000 based phones. Even if they're solely interested in US sales and don't care about the rest of the world. And it's probably not in the best interests of buyers to buy such phones either, especially as phones become more specialised.
hasn't Japan had it for years too?
Why does cell service suck so bad in America?
Spectrum. And a little politics.
Europe and some other countries auctioned off spectrum for 3G several years ago, and the networks have had more than enough time to roll out their 3G services.
The US only auctioned them last month, and the operators aren't even allowed to use it yet. What 3G there is has had to be overlayed upon the existing cellular/PCS spectrum.
Some operators, who use the IS-95 standard (often called CDMA, though that's misleading because CDMA is also a type of technology. It'd be like refering to AMPS as "FM"), were able to upgrade their existing systems because the upgrades were essentially bolt-ons to the existing standard. However, because it was essentially a bolt-on, there were no significant improvements in the technology, and IS-95 was already, to be honest, long in the tooth. You could be forgiven, when using one, for thinking you're using an analog phone with a pager. Most 3G users of IS-95 derived networks derive the benefits by hooking up their phones to their computers. They then get fast data rates.
That's not to say the networks haven't built some interesting things onto their phones making use of the advancements, but it's generally not that impressive.
Other operators use GSM (after upgrading from older TDMA networks.) These had more problems. The upgrade path from GSM is UMTS. UMTS runs over (for cellular networks) an air interface called W-CDMA. The "W" stands for "Wideband". Wideband means "5 MHz", as in "This system requires 5MHz of spectrum in each direction to work." The only issue is that in the US, that's very often all a cellular operator has in certain parts of the country. So they have two choices: they can drop GSM support in some areas, or not roll out UMTS until more spectrum becomes available.
Nobody chose to do the former. Cingular is doing a roll out in areas where it has enough spectrum. T-Mobile chose to wait, and will roll out UMTS nationwide at that point.
That's it. That's the reason. All this BS about size and stuff is a nonsense. Look at Finland. Similar demographics. Excellent coverage, and at the forefront of mobile phone technology.
That's it. That's the reason. All this BS about size and stuff is a nonsense. Look at Finland. Similar demographics. Excellent coverage, and at the forefront of mobile phone technology.
I agree. Australia has a land size that is comparable to that of the US. And a population that is 14 times smaller. Our 3G coverage has been growing from just being in major cities over the past three or so years, to nearly covering the entire country (if you are to believe the advertising, and don't live near large bodies of water and large groups of trees)
Video chat was a novelty. People got over it. No one uses it here.
I wonder how well Australia is going to accept mobile TV. It just launched here. About 30 channels of viewing have been allowed (per provider i think), except if you read the small print you only get 3 hours a month and 15 minutes per session. That service (Next G : http://www.nextg.com.au/, I believe we only have one provider at this point) will also allow you to purchase music, and provides the user with two copies of each track. One for their mobile and one for their PC. Im not sure if that is an ease of use thing or something DRM related.
I wonder how well Australia is going to accept mobile TV. It just launched here. About 30 channels of viewing have been allowed (per provider i think), except if you read the small print you only get 3 hours a month and 15 minutes per session. That service (Next G : http://www.nextg.com.au/, I believe we only have one provider at this point) will also allow you to purchase music, and provides the user with two copies of each track. One for their mobile and one for their PC. Im not sure if that is an ease of use thing or something DRM related.
I hope Apple is moving iin this direction with the iPhone. F#$k the other carriers, create your own and then provde an integrated Slingbox-type software utilizing H.264 that will stream your pre-purchased iTunes Store media to your iPhone. I really don't see any other way for Apple to do correctly. And this should force the other American carriers to finally upgrade their service.
People used to say the same thing about people talking on their cell phones. Don't get too caught up in what other people think about you. Go ahead and be the best "YOU" you can be. We promise not to think you are an idiot.
I will say this... perhaps people are more concerned about video chatting while driving, wouldn't THAT be dangerous? eh... I guess I know people that Text and Drive.... can't be much worse.
BE CAREFUL
No wanting to look like a total idiot, is not just caring what people think about you, it's about respecting yourself. If I can avoid wetting myself in public, I will.
Why does cell service suck so bad in America?
because they know full well most people won't do anything once they sign the dotted line and get stuck with a carrier. I mean I have a lot of friends that are always complaining about horrible service, no signal, poor quality phones yada yada and yet can't/won't change carriers because of "x" reason and "y" excuse (insert your own reason here). In short, lazyness
besides, most here in America are kind of slow to adapt to modern technology.
Look how long it took for the simple text messaging to take off here, let alone have the ability to send texts to other subscribers regardless of what carrier.
Video Conference on a cell phone? Pass. I have no use for that kind of technology. High-speed 'net connection? I have a slower connection for my Treo 650 (only about 2x-3x faster then dial-up) and I find it adequate for email and small browsing and unless you are going to sell a faster speed for a low cost, I'll stick with free wi-fi that is popping up faster then starcraps coffee.