AT&T chief confirms 3G iPhone on the way

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Comments

  • Reply 81 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xtrmtrk View Post


    I've been an Apple owner/fan since 1981 and have owned dozens if not hundreds of Apple products.



    Buddy, there's a big, big difference between "dozens" and "hundreds".
  • Reply 82 of 117
    pt123pt123 Posts: 696member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Then write it! Adobe apparently doesn't care enough about Flash to create a viable version for cell phones or OS X, much less the iPhone.



    I personally have no love for Java or Flash. I'm glad Apple isn't muddling the iPhone with such crappy software.



    Unfortunately, many sites use flash and java. My favorite is nfl.com and sportsillustrated.com
  • Reply 83 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gizmo-xl View Post


    You can do all of this by email without the SMS cost.



    See http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97158



    Send a message to your friend's mobile-phone-number-based email address and it'll get delivered as an SMS text message. Attach a picture to that email and it'll get delivered to your friend's mobile phone as an MMS message. Voila! You now have an MMS messaging equivalent. If only there was a nice and convenient compilation of wireless carriers' mobile phone email addresses. Hmmm. You mean like this?



    Alltel = [email protected]

    AT&T = [email protected]

    Boost Mobile = [email protected]

    Cingular (AT&T) = [email protected]

    Einstein PCS = [email protected]

    Sprint = [email protected]

    T-Mobile = [email protected]

    US Cellular = [email protected]

    Verizon Wireless = [email protected]

    Virgin Mobile = [email protected]



    Or you can send to any/all of these by simply emailing [email protected]! (Try it out).
  • Reply 84 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by S10 View Post


    3G is highly overrated. People buy 3G phones because they think it is so much better and then complain about the ridiculous costs and the terrible battery life of their phones...



    I would love to see some figures on how many people who have a 3G phone actually use anything on the phone that require 3G.. from what I hear from my Euro friends, once they had their 3G phones for 2 or 3 weeks, or whenever they received their first bill, their opinion on 3G changed drastically.



    Ok.



    I'm in the UK. I have a 3G phone: a Nokia N73 on a T-Mobile Flext 18 month contract which I recently upgraded to. For £32 per month I get £34 'Flext allowance' which I can use on texts, MMS or voice/video calls and unlimited Internet access on either on the phone itself or on my Macbook, using the phone as a modem via Bluetooth. A reasonable deal I think.



    3G coverage is generally good and I've found I can use my laptop on the move pretty much as I do at home: Web browsing, e-mail, downloading, video streaming, whatever. Indeed, I was sat on the train to Leeds the other week, flying through the countryside at 125mph, with a perfectly stable connection - happily browsing a friends photo album of their recent holiday pictures while downloading a new Paralells beta.



    I wish I'd upgraded sooner. And until I can do the above with an iPhone, forking out the extortionate price Apple/O2 are asking for it won't even be considered.
  • Reply 85 of 117
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gizmo-xl View Post


    You can do all of this by email without the SMS cost.



    See http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97158



    Send a message to your friend's mobile-phone-number-based email address and it'll get delivered as an SMS text message. Attach a picture to that email and it'll get delivered to your friend's mobile phone as an MMS message. Voila! You now have an MMS messaging equivalent. If only there was a nice and convenient compilation of wireless carriers' mobile phone email addresses. Hmmm. You mean like this?



    Alltel = [email protected]

    AT&T = [email protected]

    Boost Mobile = [email protected]

    Cingular (AT&T) = [email protected]

    Einstein PCS = [email protected]

    Sprint = [email protected]

    T-Mobile = [email protected]

    US Cellular = [email protected]

    Verizon Wireless = [email protected]

    Virgin Mobile = [email protected]



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Or you can send to any/all of these by simply emailing [email protected]! (Try it out).



    I have just submitted a hint to MacOSXHints.com with both Teleflip and the various carrier email-to-sms addresses.

    I've also included this AppleScript code I found on the web for parsing mobile numbers in Address Book for use on Macs and iPhones.



    Code:


    tell application "Address Book"

    repeat with this_person in every person

    set the_number to ""

    repeat with i from 1 to the count of phone in this_person

    if label of phone [i] of this_person as string is "Mobile" then

    set the_number to value of phone [i] of this_person as string

    end if

    end repeat

    if the_number is not "" then

    set isAlreadySet to "0"

    repeat with i from 1 to the count of email in this_person

    if (value of email [i] of this_person as string) ends with "@teleflip.com" then

    set isAlreadySet to "1"

    end if

    end repeat

    if isAlreadySet is "0" then

    make new email at end of emails of this_person with properties {label:"other", value:my stripSymbolsAddEmail(the_number)}

    end if

    end if

    end repeat

    end tell



    on stripSymbolsAddEmail(inputText)

    set theSymbols to "().- "



    set prevTids to AppleScript's text item delimiters

    repeat with i in theSymbols

    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to i

    set inputText to inputText's text items

    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTids

    set inputText to inputText as text

    end repeat

    if character 1 of inputText is not "1" then

    set inputText to ("1" & inputText)

    end if

    set inputText to (inputText & "@teleflip.com")

    inputText

    end stripSymbolsAddEmail

    --> thanks to http://applescriptsourcebook.com/viewtopic.php?pid=47366 for this part!



    Source: http://whenderson.blogspot.com/2007/...addresses.html
  • Reply 86 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by S10 View Post


    3G is highly overrated. People buy 3G phones because they think it is so much better and then complain about the ridiculous costs and the terrible battery life of their phones...



    I would love to see some figures on how many people who have a 3G phone actually use anything on the phone that require 3G.. from what I hear from my Euro friends, once they had their 3G phones for 2 or 3 weeks, or whenever they received their first bill, their opinion on 3G changed drastically.



    Similar story to Phlip - I've a Nokia N80, had it for coming on 18 months, my region is almost totally 3G covered (as opposed to about 5% EDGE coverage ). I'm paying 25/month for 120MB web access + 250txt + 250min. So I use 3G all the time for web browsing, stock trades and instant messaging.



    My opinion certainly hasn't changed on it, I haven't paid any extra for 3G, I don't get any separate 3G bill and I've never heard of this practice, it's always charged here at either a flat rate or a per-Mb rate regardless of current network signal type.



    Battery life is "OK". My N80 will go 2.5 days without a charge BUT if I'm online (e.g. running an IM application, so low data usage but constantly connected to the 3G network) it'll only last a few hours. Annoyed me at first but soon got used to throwing the phone onto the charger at every opportunity.



    One observation I do have about 3G and my N80 is that the N80 doesn't appear to be fast enough to handle / render the web pages... It still takes maybe 30 seconds to display the BBC News home page on my N80, both over 3G and I get similar speeds over my own Wi-Fi to my 8Mb broadband. So having a faster connection won't necessarily mean you can browse faster.\
  • Reply 87 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gizmo-xl View Post


    You can do all of this by email without the SMS cost.



    See http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97158



    Send a message to your friend's mobile-phone-number-based email address and it'll get delivered as an SMS text message. Attach a picture to that email and it'll get delivered to your friend's mobile phone as an MMS message. Voila! You now have an MMS messaging equivalent. If only there was a nice and convenient compilation of wireless carriers' mobile phone email addresses. Hmmm. You mean like this?



    Alltel = [email protected]

    AT&T = [email protected]

    Boost Mobile = [email protected]

    Cingular (AT&T) = [email protected]

    Einstein PCS = [email protected]

    Sprint = [email protected]

    T-Mobile = [email protected]

    US Cellular = [email protected]

    Verizon Wireless = [email protected]

    Virgin Mobile = [email protected]



    Thanks! The effort is appreciated!... although its not as elegant as Apple simply adding (and it should be simple) the feature to text multiple parties at once, and add a forward text capability to SMS. SMS is quicker.. sending and receiving, but you have presented an alternative for users of the iPhone.
  • Reply 88 of 117
    Quick question.. a mate has indicated that he couldn't browse on EDGE and still receive a call while in the act of browsing? Is this just an issue for UK users i.e. the O2 network?
  • Reply 89 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BlackSummerNight View Post


    Saying 3G (875K) isn't much faster than Edge (~100K) is not true. You must not have 3G.



    In Europe the problem is generally that if you get 3G you can get HSDPA speeds. 3G coverage is excellent. If you can't get 3G then it usually drops back to normal GPRS speeds, not EDGE since we skipped EDGE mostly. Only for the iPhone have O2 started retro fitting EDGE to their old 2G services. So you have a choice of 3.84Mbps or 9.6Kbps. Hmmm.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    How do you really describe incomplete? No one phone has everything. The iPhone has some features that most other phones don't. Other phones have some features that the iPhone doesn't. Some phones have a lot of features that are difficult to use. Which one can you really describe as complete?



    No, no one phone has everything but the iPhone is missing some very basic features that phones have had for 3-4 years at least and that people expect, regardless of the hardware. You could argue that those features should be consigned to the scrap bin of history but in the real world 99% of the population are still using phones that use those features so actually letting iPhone users communicate with them might be good idea still.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    What evidence do you have of this? I bought the iPhone in its second week of sales and everything worked fine. Over these months the only app that needed a lot of stability improvement was Safari. It used to crash frequently. Now after firmware updates I rarely notice it crashing.



    To me it seems like Apple have concentrated on shipping a subset of features in a highly polished form and bug free rather than all the features on the checklist but with bugs. That's sensible software development if you want to ship on time. Subsequently though they've not been too forthcoming with the extra features if they were indeed struck off the list for release day.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Which model phone has a disk mode and the equivalent of a finder?



    All the Symbian based phones I've had or used in the last 4 years! IIRC WinMo does disk mode too.



    And then you've had 3rd party replacements too like the excellent SMan.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gizmo-xl View Post


    You can do all of this by email without the SMS cost.



    See http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97158



    Send a message to your friend's mobile-phone-number-based email address and it'll get delivered as an SMS text message. Attach a picture to that email and it'll get delivered to your friend's mobile phone as an MMS message. Voila!



    Nice of you to use french at the end there. This of course doesn't work in Europe, including France, where the sender has to pay the charge for SMS/MMS, not the recipient so those services would be committing commercial suicide here allowing email to SMS gateways for free.
  • Reply 90 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hogan View Post


    Quick question.. a mate has indicated that he couldn't browse on EDGE and still receive a call while in the act of browsing? Is this just an issue for UK users i.e. the O2 network?



    No, it's a 'feature' of the iPhone and particular tower configurations. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Happens in the USA with AT&T too.
  • Reply 91 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mxsweb View Post


    This might be another reason why the iPhone is delayed in Canada. Rogers started to roll out new 3G services across the country this fall.



    CBC French interviewed back in August 07 Sylvie Charette, Rogers,



    "This technology (3G) that faster will grant us access to different services and faster data rates for Internet and of course, it will carry a new tarification to bring the accessibility even bigger."





    Link:

    http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-vid...ROGERS07_m.asx





    The other report said that Canada is expected to get the iPhone on Jan 18, '08 with Rogers Wireless. I seriously doubt a 3G iPhone will be out by then, and I seriously doubt it would be introduced in Canada first, or even simultaneously, as one in the U.S.



    IMHO, that is.
  • Reply 92 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm going with September of 2008.



    I agree. June at the earliest... and probably September/October.



    Hmmm... is that "agreeing" or partially agreeing? he said to himself.



    Anyway, no sooner than June is my guess.
  • Reply 93 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by CREB View Post


    I agree as I have 3G, and it is not all that much better, or faster.



    The thing is that it totally depends on what phone you are using, what network you are on, where you are, etc.



    Some people see a huge increase going from 2G to 3G and some people see a slight difference.



    It has to do with the hardware, software, network, location, etc. etc. etc.



    3G IS faster, in concept, but like anything else, it boils down to execution, which is a huge variable.
  • Reply 94 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    It's not just the phone that needs to have 3G, it also has to be within range of a cell tower that can utilize the hardware. If you don't think 3G is much faster than 2.5G then you aren't near a proper tower.



    What he said.
  • Reply 95 of 117
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Robert X. Cringely chimes in...
    AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson this week said what I have been saying since last July -- that Apple and AT&T would soon introduce an iPhone that works with AT&T's faster 3G wireless data network. I said it because I had heard last summer that AT&T was already testing 3G iPhones in Florida, but the better question is why Stephenson said it and why now? For AT&T, his announcement looks, frankly, stupid.



    Here's a guy who is head of the largest telephone company in America and its largest mobile phone company. He has a five-year iPhone exclusive giving AT&T the number one selling U.S. smart phone and a huge generator of primo subscribers mainly poached from other carriers. Christmas is a month away and 1-2 million Americans have been planning to give -- or hoping to get -- an iPhone. So what does the guy do? He lets it slip that next year Apple will release a faster iPhone that will make the existing model obsolete. The only impact this can have on current iPhone sales is to stop them in their tracks, unless Apple offers a free 3G upgrade, which believe me they never intended to offer and may not.



    So what's up? Was it a simple slip? Or is the guy so out of touch with reality that he doesn't realize that with a few words he has probably deferred -- maybe forever -- at least a million new customers worth to Wall Street at least $1 billion in market cap for his company?



    I don't think Stephenson's statement was by accident and I don't think he is out of touch with reality. I think, instead, he was sending a $1 billion message to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.



    It is no coincidence that Stephenson made his remarks in Silicon Valley, rather than in San Antonio or New York. He came to the turf of his "partner" and delivered a message that will hurt Apple as much as AT&T, a message that says AT&T doesn't really need Apple despite the iPhone's success.



    It's one thing to have a private disagreement between companies but quite another to take it public in a way that costs real money.



    What I believe is troubling the relationship between AT&T and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T's discovery that -- as I have predicted for weeks -- Apple will be joining Google in bidding. AT&T thought its five-year "exclusive" iPhone agreement with Apple would have precluded such a bid, but that just shows how poorly Randall Stephenson understood Steve Jobs. Steve always hurts his friends to see how much they really love him, so AT&T probably should have expected this kind of corporate body blow.



    To his credit, Stephenson took the dispute to the streets this way, showing he isn't intimidated by Jobs. It was a bold and rare response for big business and was definitely unexpected by Cupertino, which won't underestimate AT&T again.



    I'm not privy to any inside details here, but there are two ways I can see Jobs rationalizing his auction position and they aren't necessarily exclusive. He could claim to intend the 700-MHz auction participation as a pure investment, just a good use for the $30+ billion Apple has squirreled away.



    Nah.



    Or Jobs could tell AT&T that Apple is investing solely in a DATA network for which it has no voice ambitions. Maybe all MacBooks will soon get 700-MHz access cards.



    This excuse rings truer, but of course it would still be a scam on Steve's part.



    It would not surprise me at all if this were the case and when the 700-MHz network is finally up and running Jobs claims astonishment that the most popular data application is Voice over IP, a direct competitor to AT&T Wireless. This may be part of the reason why Apple has been so slow approving third-party iPhone applications. Wouldn't your first application be a VoIP client?



    Of course to this point Apple hasn't even said it will participate in the 700-MHz auction. Apple has said nothing at all on the subject. I said it and still believe it to be true. And I'd say Randall Stephenson's remarks this week pretty much confirm I was correct.



    Now AT&T is going to have to decide whether it is worth $10+ billion to fight Apple, Google, and probable third and fourth partners by bidding, itself, for the spectrum, which it wouldn't otherwise have done.



    A similar decision will have to be made by Verizon Wireless, which this week applied ITS reality distortion field to trying to make us believe the second-largest U.S. mobile operator actually intends to open its wireless network to non-Verizon devices and services.



    Yeah, right.



    Verizon's move is straight from the playbook of the old AT&T back in the 1970s, when that company was trying to keep third-party telephone handsets from being connected to its network. If you are old enough you may remember AT&T expressed great fear back then that telephones not from its Western Electric subsidiary (now Alcatel-Lucent) would somehow "damage" the telephone network. It was the same excuse used to keep old guys like me from wearing jeans in high school.



    We will, no doubt, see similar behavior from Verizon as it slowly releases network interface specifications then embarks on a certification program that will surprisingly reject as incompatible a lot of perfectly fine mobile phones. But this is months or even years away. The company's intent right now is to show the appearance of motion.



    The appearance of motion: it's sad, wouldn't you say, when this is what American business has come to.




    (SOURCE)
  • Reply 96 of 117
    Mr. Cringeley's thoughts are no better or worse than the collection of thoughts on this web site or many others. Some facts. Some conjecture. Some personal hopes. Some generalizations.



    He is right in some of his thoughts. He MAY be right in some other of his thoughts. And he MAY be wrong in some of his thoughts.



    Just like... well... a lot of the facts, thoughts, conjecture, generalizations, etc. that we see in your normal everyday public forum!



    IMHO...



    (I always like to add that in case I'm wrong about something, so I can say it was only my "opinion", humble as it may be... )
  • Reply 97 of 117
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregoriusM View Post


    Mr. Cringeley's thoughts are no better or worse than the collection of thoughts on this web site or many others. Some facts. Some conjecture. Some personal hopes. Some generalizations.



    I agree. This is one of my favorite sites because the posters here tend to cover all aspects of facual knowledge, speculative creativity and general wisdom.



    Cringely has been off the past tear or two. This is the frist article in a long time seems like the old Cringely and not some rambling thoughts of a senile old man.
  • Reply 98 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    I don't regret ordering the present 8GB model (?270). I'm going to let that tied me over until there's a 32GB HSDPA version in 2009.



    sorry now, where did u get an iphone in ireland for 270 euro?? and was it sim free?? please reply asap!!
  • Reply 99 of 117
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Apple Inc. will introduce a version of the iPhone next year that can download from the Internet at a rate much faster than the existing version, AT&T Inc. chief executive Randall Stephenson confirmed Wednesday.



    "You'll have it next year," he said, explaining that he was unaware of how much more the new version will cost than the existing $399 model because Apple chief executive Steve Jobs "will dictate what the price of the phone is.''



    Ouch!! What a nice business partner to have, "Hey, hold off on your purchase people, you don't want to buy an iPhone at this time".



    Meanwhile Apple losses millions in sales. Nice! Really nice.
  • Reply 100 of 117
    Apple may have a case against at&t to end the business relation. at&t has caused irreparable harm to Apple's business!
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