When Pogue states that audio takes a giant leap forward this time and that "few cell phones sound this good"- does that mean that last year's iPhone was flawed in it's audio department? It seems to read that way.
I remember at the time Apple was squarely blaming AT&T and they in turn were blaming the iPhone itself. If it's an original iPhone flaw then history books will need to be rewritten.
Is there an iNterpreter in the house please to decipher?
And for what it is worth, Mobile Magazine postulated that, "part of the reason why Apple may opt for a plastic back is that a metal back may interfere with all the wireless radios getting shoved into the new iPhone, like quad-band GSM, tri-band WCDMA, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and so on."
According to Apple's Web site the iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), not (802.11 a/b/g/n).
With the iPod, Apple helped commoditize that market. If they made some mistakes along the way it really didn't hurt them because they were the market leader, they were good at sticking to the core of what the product was supposed to do, and lastly were likely to magically "discover" the importance of that feature the next round.
iPod battery life might be the best it has ever been, but it does not change the fact that Apple has taken bad press over it and somewhere along the line it still might help with that tipping point that seems to occur when a market leader suddenly becomes a market follower.
You plug your phone in every night and good for you. Do you ever go somewhere on the weekend, visit some friends and family or even enjoy a nice holiday weekend somewhere without desiring to cart along a phone charger? Many people expect to be able to do this and it is a reasonable market expectation that is being met by companies other than Apple.
You note the great battery life of the iPod and I will toss in another similar example from an "Apple-ish" company, Nintendo. I have always been amazed at how long the batteries go in the Nintendo DS/GBA. People do not mind trading slightly lower performance for phenomenal battery life, but Apple isn't providing that here. Your expectation is to plug in daily. If I take my phone off the charger Friday morning, I don't want to have to think about it until Sunday night when I'll be pondering the weekly grind. That is a very reasonable expectation for a cellphone.
You note that Apple is not a cell provider. They are also not a content provider of movies or music, nor are they an ISP. The point was that with the iPod, they helped tie together a process that was too cumbersome for most. With the iPhone they have less power due to the network and also appear to be offering fewer services due to not being able to tie it together with iTunes.
My phone has turn by turn GPS offered by Verizon. They make it as easy to use as my attempting to add something to my iPod via iTunes. Other phones on the AT&T network offer GPS built in or through AT&T. The app is either on the phone or downloaded directly to the phone via the cell network. Apple does not offer this yet even though their network provider does. Perhaps it will be offered once the application store is up but the point is that before Apple was a solution competing against a bunch of overly open, confusing, and conflicting solutions. If you bought your tune from Walmart online you still had to move it from a desktop to whatever application you used to manage your music or perhaps load it directly onto your MP3 player. It was more flexible but more confusing to the average consumer and Apple exploited that very well.
However it is not this way in the cell market. AT&T will offer to make AT&T Navigator run on any phone on their network that a company offering equipment will allow. It will be downloadable, installable and usable in a manner that is closed, but not confusing, much in the manner Apple had previously exploited with the iPod. This is true with games, music content, etc.
So to summarize, Apple is not leading a market while commoditizing it. It is already commoditized. Apple is not competing against a bunch of overly open solution providers utilizing the same network who end up crafting an overly convoluted and complicated solution which the consumer rejects while Apple offers an easy to use all in one solution. Instead Apple is competing against phone companies and network providers who insure the solutions are more limited, but also easily accessible and understandable the same ground Apple previously exploited. AT&T, Verizon, all of them insure that you can easily with the press of a button or two, get what you want on your phone. It may be for a small fee, but that is exactly what Apple was exploiting so well. You'll pay a little more for convenience is pretty much the Apple motto.
As far as weekends go, it's really not too much to ask for you to take your recharger with you. If you don't want to be bothered, that's your decision, but it's also your own problem that you've made for yourself. Yes, it's true that Apple does its own thing, and a replaceable battery would have its advantages, but it's really not a major problem until three, or so, years down the road when it may need replacement. By then, most people have moved on anyway.
I don't know what you mean by not tying it to iTunes. That is something they very definitely are doing. This is unique amongst phone makers, and gives Apple mucho power in that area. They are the only phone maker that also has a major music video store that the cell companies are allowing to be used over their networks, so you are wrong there. This will also prove to be a big revenue source, along with the new app store, which is inside iTunes:
None of those companies offer what iTunes, and the app store will offer, not even close.
As far as the supposed lack of turn by turn GPS, well, we'll see. Apple says it isn't accurate enough, but Apple is often conservative about things like this. I'd rather wait until the phone is actually out, and we know for sure. It's certainly not a deal breaker for most people.
When Pogue states that audio takes a giant leap forward this time and that "few cell phones sound this good"- does that mean that last year's iPhone was flawed in it's audio department? It seems to read that way.
I remember at the time Apple was squarely blaming AT&T and they in turn were blaming the iPhone itself. If it's an original iPhone flaw then history books will need to be rewritten.
Is there an iNterpreter in the house please to decipher?
The original iPhone was not known for sterling call quality.
yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! methinks this is a not too subtle marketing push for MobileMe by Apple. but hey if it's your Exchange business phone, isn't your business already paying for everything anyway? what's another $99 per year on top of $1000 annual AT&T business service? plus tax.
yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! methinks this is a not too subtle marketing push for MobileMe by Apple. but hey if it's your Exchange business phone, isn't your business already paying for everything anyway? what's another $99 per year on top of $1000 annual AT&T business service? plus tax.
"yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! "
yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! methinks this is a not too subtle marketing push for MobileMe by Apple. but hey if it's your Exchange business phone, isn't your business already paying for everything anyway? what's another $99 per year on top of $1000 annual AT&T business service? plus tax.
It is incorrect to assume that most employers are paying for iPhones simply because iPhones can be used for business. The vast majority of work email accounts are not critical enough to make company provided smart phones a good investment.
What's another $99 a year you ask? Answer: Not chump change to everyone.
The one thing that bugs me most about these reviews, is these guys (and they're always usually men) get to write up these exhaustive reviews as if it were from a real consumers vantage. Meanwhile they get to skip all the usual costs and waiting in line and service interruptions that the rest of us "real consumers" have to endure on launch day
The one thing that bugs me most about these reviews, is these guys (and they're always usually men) get to write up these exhaustive reviews as if it were from a real consumers vantage. Meanwhile they get to skip all the usual costs and waiting in line and service interruptions that the rest of us "real consumers" have to endure on launch day
Must be nice.
I don't see how what you're saying is relevant to the reviews.
And if you want female reviews, there is Jacqui Cheng at ARs, for example. There are others.
But, let's face it, this geekiness is a mostly men only thing.
Women are too smart to get caught up in it. They just want something that works for them, and they don't care about the whys and hows.
I think he was just qualifying his use of the term 'guys.'
Let's face it: Jacqui Cheng is an exception in an otherwise male-dominated business.
I don't know how he could qualify it. He mean "guys", as in male.
Besides, it's also irrelevant. mostly guys are interested in this anyway.
How many female members do we have on this site? We have almost 50,000 members. I'd like to know. I'll bet it's very little.
So the fact that most reviewers are male doesn't matter.
We can see that by the comments all too often made here about how wives and girlfriends screw up, or are offered the members cast-offs, etc.
It would be good to hear from the "other side" once an a while.
It is very interesting that my Mac user group here in NYC (MetroMac), which has about 900 registered members, and a fair number who aren't registered, has about 40% female membership.
As far as weekends go, it's really not too much to ask for you to take your recharger with you. If you don't want to be bothered, that's your decision, but it's also your own problem that you've made for yourself. Yes, it's true that Apple does its own thing, and a replaceable battery would have its advantages, but it's really not a major problem until three, or so, years down the road when it may need replacement. By then, most people have moved on anyway.
I don't know what you mean by not tying it to iTunes. That is something they very definitely are doing. This is unique amongst phone makers, and gives Apple mucho power in that area. They are the only phone maker that also has a major music video store that the cell companies are allowing to be used over their networks, so you are wrong there. This will also prove to be a big revenue source, along with the new app store, which is inside iTunes:
None of those companies offer what iTunes, and the app store will offer, not even close.
As far as the supposed lack of turn by turn GPS, well, we'll see. Apple says it isn't accurate enough, but Apple is often conservative about things like this. I'd rather wait until the phone is actually out, and we know for sure. It's certainly not a deal breaker for most people.
We will have to agree to disagree on the charger matter. I suspect over the long run since there are complaints about the iPhone 3G's battery life being worse than the first one that battery issues will move up on the priority scale.
With the "tying it to iTunes" the point is that all cell platforms allow programs to be purchased for the phones through their respective provider. You may think the Apple version best in class but the advantage if any is small. I'm sure Verizon, AT&T and others already derive plenty of revenue from their own selling of apps as well. One issue here though is Apple is not allowing any mixing of apps between the cell providers and Apple. This in my view will actually lead the iPhone to be at a disadvantage. Apple can hype the iPhone as a new computing platform but the reality is all the other cell phone "computing platforms" often already come with much of the software anyone would need.
We will have to agree to disagree on the charger matter. I suspect over the long run since there are complaints about the iPhone 3G's battery life being worse than the first one that battery issues will move up on the priority scale.
With the "tying it to iTunes" the point is that all cell platforms allow programs to be purchased for the phones through their respective provider. You may think the Apple version best in class but the advantage if any is small. I'm sure Verizon, AT&T and others already derive plenty of revenue from their own selling of apps as well. One issue here though is Apple is not allowing any mixing of apps between the cell providers and Apple. This in my view will actually lead the iPhone to be at a disadvantage. Apple can hype the iPhone as a new computing platform but the reality is all the other cell phone "computing platforms" often already come with much of the software anyone would need.
Then instead of the charger, one could buy one of the portable charging batteries that are sold. It's not much more than having another battery, and while it's a bit less convenient, they carry more charge than a phone battery does. Your phone can be attached to it while you're not using it to recharge it during the day or night.
As for the stores, while I haven't seen all of them from the carriers, compared to what I have seen, iTunes is far better. I see no advantage to the "mixing" of the apps as you call it.
As for your statement that the other stores from the carriers " often already come with much of the software anyone would need.", that is a very narrow viewpoint. How do you know what software others want, or need?
It's been said that there isn't nearly as much software for the Mac as for the PC, so the Mac isn't viable. But, it's as much WHAT is available as how much is availablethat matters.
I can get tons of software for my Treo, but much of it isn't very good, though some of it is very good indeed. We'll have to see how software for the iPhone/itouch works out, which will take a good year.
Comments
I'm still paying $15, AT&T is charging $30, we know that, so those rates aren't totally correct.
Ok- Back from the Verizon store - Verizon charges $30 for an unlimited data plan.
Saw the new LG Dare, an obvious iPhone ripoff. However you don't have to get a data plan with it and it has a 3.2 mp camera.
I remember at the time Apple was squarely blaming AT&T and they in turn were blaming the iPhone itself. If it's an original iPhone flaw then history books will need to be rewritten.
Is there an iNterpreter in the house please to decipher?
I will wait for the iTouch upgrade and pounce. I wish they would add a camera to it but doubt it.
And for what it is worth, Mobile Magazine postulated that, "part of the reason why Apple may opt for a plastic back is that a metal back may interfere with all the wireless radios getting shoved into the new iPhone, like quad-band GSM, tri-band WCDMA, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and so on."
According to Apple's Web site the iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), not (802.11 a/b/g/n).
With the iPod, Apple helped commoditize that market. If they made some mistakes along the way it really didn't hurt them because they were the market leader, they were good at sticking to the core of what the product was supposed to do, and lastly were likely to magically "discover" the importance of that feature the next round.
iPod battery life might be the best it has ever been, but it does not change the fact that Apple has taken bad press over it and somewhere along the line it still might help with that tipping point that seems to occur when a market leader suddenly becomes a market follower.
You plug your phone in every night and good for you. Do you ever go somewhere on the weekend, visit some friends and family or even enjoy a nice holiday weekend somewhere without desiring to cart along a phone charger? Many people expect to be able to do this and it is a reasonable market expectation that is being met by companies other than Apple.
You note the great battery life of the iPod and I will toss in another similar example from an "Apple-ish" company, Nintendo. I have always been amazed at how long the batteries go in the Nintendo DS/GBA. People do not mind trading slightly lower performance for phenomenal battery life, but Apple isn't providing that here. Your expectation is to plug in daily. If I take my phone off the charger Friday morning, I don't want to have to think about it until Sunday night when I'll be pondering the weekly grind. That is a very reasonable expectation for a cellphone.
You note that Apple is not a cell provider. They are also not a content provider of movies or music, nor are they an ISP. The point was that with the iPod, they helped tie together a process that was too cumbersome for most. With the iPhone they have less power due to the network and also appear to be offering fewer services due to not being able to tie it together with iTunes.
My phone has turn by turn GPS offered by Verizon. They make it as easy to use as my attempting to add something to my iPod via iTunes. Other phones on the AT&T network offer GPS built in or through AT&T. The app is either on the phone or downloaded directly to the phone via the cell network. Apple does not offer this yet even though their network provider does. Perhaps it will be offered once the application store is up but the point is that before Apple was a solution competing against a bunch of overly open, confusing, and conflicting solutions. If you bought your tune from Walmart online you still had to move it from a desktop to whatever application you used to manage your music or perhaps load it directly onto your MP3 player. It was more flexible but more confusing to the average consumer and Apple exploited that very well.
However it is not this way in the cell market. AT&T will offer to make AT&T Navigator run on any phone on their network that a company offering equipment will allow. It will be downloadable, installable and usable in a manner that is closed, but not confusing, much in the manner Apple had previously exploited with the iPod. This is true with games, music content, etc.
So to summarize, Apple is not leading a market while commoditizing it. It is already commoditized. Apple is not competing against a bunch of overly open solution providers utilizing the same network who end up crafting an overly convoluted and complicated solution which the consumer rejects while Apple offers an easy to use all in one solution. Instead Apple is competing against phone companies and network providers who insure the solutions are more limited, but also easily accessible and understandable the same ground Apple previously exploited. AT&T, Verizon, all of them insure that you can easily with the press of a button or two, get what you want on your phone. It may be for a small fee, but that is exactly what Apple was exploiting so well. You'll pay a little more for convenience is pretty much the Apple motto.
As far as weekends go, it's really not too much to ask for you to take your recharger with you. If you don't want to be bothered, that's your decision, but it's also your own problem that you've made for yourself. Yes, it's true that Apple does its own thing, and a replaceable battery would have its advantages, but it's really not a major problem until three, or so, years down the road when it may need replacement. By then, most people have moved on anyway.
I don't know what you mean by not tying it to iTunes. That is something they very definitely are doing. This is unique amongst phone makers, and gives Apple mucho power in that area. They are the only phone maker that also has a major music video store that the cell companies are allowing to be used over their networks, so you are wrong there. This will also prove to be a big revenue source, along with the new app store, which is inside iTunes:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25603716/site/14081545
None of those companies offer what iTunes, and the app store will offer, not even close.
As far as the supposed lack of turn by turn GPS, well, we'll see. Apple says it isn't accurate enough, but Apple is often conservative about things like this. I'd rather wait until the phone is actually out, and we know for sure. It's certainly not a deal breaker for most people.
The 3G phone comes with 2.0 firmware, correct?
If so, doesn't that mean that 2.0 should be released for current iPhone owners tomorrow?
Presumably so, though you may have to wait a few days.
Ok- Back from the Verizon store - Verizon charges $30 for an unlimited data plan.
Saw the new LG Dare, an obvious iPhone ripoff. However you don't have to get a data plan with it and it has a 3.2 mp camera.
That's good, competition rears its ugly head.
When Pogue states that audio takes a giant leap forward this time and that "few cell phones sound this good"- does that mean that last year's iPhone was flawed in it's audio department? It seems to read that way.
I remember at the time Apple was squarely blaming AT&T and they in turn were blaming the iPhone itself. If it's an original iPhone flaw then history books will need to be rewritten.
Is there an iNterpreter in the house please to decipher?
The original iPhone was not known for sterling call quality.
yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! methinks this is a not too subtle marketing push for MobileMe by Apple. but hey if it's your Exchange business phone, isn't your business already paying for everything anyway? what's another $99 per year on top of $1000 annual AT&T business service? plus tax.
"yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! "
Source please?
yes Exchange will wipe out your personal iCal calendar - unless you subscribe to MobileMe and host it in the Apple Cloud! methinks this is a not too subtle marketing push for MobileMe by Apple. but hey if it's your Exchange business phone, isn't your business already paying for everything anyway? what's another $99 per year on top of $1000 annual AT&T business service? plus tax.
It is incorrect to assume that most employers are paying for iPhones simply because iPhones can be used for business. The vast majority of work email accounts are not critical enough to make company provided smart phones a good investment.
What's another $99 a year you ask? Answer: Not chump change to everyone.
What's the news/update on being able to buy it thru the Apple Online Store. How come there's no info on this yet!? And, how will activation work?
they won't be selling it on apple's online store. activation is required before you leave the store.
Must be nice.
The one thing that bugs me most about these reviews, is these guys (and they're always usually men) get to write up these exhaustive reviews as if it were from a real consumers vantage. Meanwhile they get to skip all the usual costs and waiting in line and service interruptions that the rest of us "real consumers" have to endure on launch day
Must be nice.
I don't see how what you're saying is relevant to the reviews.
And if you want female reviews, there is Jacqui Cheng at ARs, for example. There are others.
But, let's face it, this geekiness is a mostly men only thing.
Women are too smart to get caught up in it. They just want something that works for them, and they don't care about the whys and hows.
I don't see how what you're saying is relevant to the reviews.
And if you want female reviews, there is Jacqui Cheng at ARs, for example. There are others.
But, let's face it, this geekiness is a mostly men only thing.
Women are too smart to get caught up in it. They just want something that works for them, and they don't care about the whys and hows.
I think he was just qualifying his use of the term 'guys.'
Let's face it: Jacqui Cheng is an exception in an otherwise male-dominated business.
I think he was just qualifying his use of the term 'guys.'
Let's face it: Jacqui Cheng is an exception in an otherwise male-dominated business.
I don't know how he could qualify it. He mean "guys", as in male.
Besides, it's also irrelevant. mostly guys are interested in this anyway.
How many female members do we have on this site? We have almost 50,000 members. I'd like to know. I'll bet it's very little.
So the fact that most reviewers are male doesn't matter.
We can see that by the comments all too often made here about how wives and girlfriends screw up, or are offered the members cast-offs, etc.
It would be good to hear from the "other side" once an a while.
It is very interesting that my Mac user group here in NYC (MetroMac), which has about 900 registered members, and a fair number who aren't registered, has about 40% female membership.
But, on the forums, most posters are again, male.
It would be interesting to find out why.
As far as weekends go, it's really not too much to ask for you to take your recharger with you. If you don't want to be bothered, that's your decision, but it's also your own problem that you've made for yourself. Yes, it's true that Apple does its own thing, and a replaceable battery would have its advantages, but it's really not a major problem until three, or so, years down the road when it may need replacement. By then, most people have moved on anyway.
I don't know what you mean by not tying it to iTunes. That is something they very definitely are doing. This is unique amongst phone makers, and gives Apple mucho power in that area. They are the only phone maker that also has a major music video store that the cell companies are allowing to be used over their networks, so you are wrong there. This will also prove to be a big revenue source, along with the new app store, which is inside iTunes:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25603716/site/14081545
None of those companies offer what iTunes, and the app store will offer, not even close.
As far as the supposed lack of turn by turn GPS, well, we'll see. Apple says it isn't accurate enough, but Apple is often conservative about things like this. I'd rather wait until the phone is actually out, and we know for sure. It's certainly not a deal breaker for most people.
We will have to agree to disagree on the charger matter. I suspect over the long run since there are complaints about the iPhone 3G's battery life being worse than the first one that battery issues will move up on the priority scale.
With the "tying it to iTunes" the point is that all cell platforms allow programs to be purchased for the phones through their respective provider. You may think the Apple version best in class but the advantage if any is small. I'm sure Verizon, AT&T and others already derive plenty of revenue from their own selling of apps as well. One issue here though is Apple is not allowing any mixing of apps between the cell providers and Apple. This in my view will actually lead the iPhone to be at a disadvantage. Apple can hype the iPhone as a new computing platform but the reality is all the other cell phone "computing platforms" often already come with much of the software anyone would need.
We will have to agree to disagree on the charger matter. I suspect over the long run since there are complaints about the iPhone 3G's battery life being worse than the first one that battery issues will move up on the priority scale.
With the "tying it to iTunes" the point is that all cell platforms allow programs to be purchased for the phones through their respective provider. You may think the Apple version best in class but the advantage if any is small. I'm sure Verizon, AT&T and others already derive plenty of revenue from their own selling of apps as well. One issue here though is Apple is not allowing any mixing of apps between the cell providers and Apple. This in my view will actually lead the iPhone to be at a disadvantage. Apple can hype the iPhone as a new computing platform but the reality is all the other cell phone "computing platforms" often already come with much of the software anyone would need.
Then instead of the charger, one could buy one of the portable charging batteries that are sold. It's not much more than having another battery, and while it's a bit less convenient, they carry more charge than a phone battery does. Your phone can be attached to it while you're not using it to recharge it during the day or night.
As for the stores, while I haven't seen all of them from the carriers, compared to what I have seen, iTunes is far better. I see no advantage to the "mixing" of the apps as you call it.
As for your statement that the other stores from the carriers " often already come with much of the software anyone would need.", that is a very narrow viewpoint. How do you know what software others want, or need?
It's been said that there isn't nearly as much software for the Mac as for the PC, so the Mac isn't viable. But, it's as much WHAT is available as how much is availablethat matters.
I can get tons of software for my Treo, but much of it isn't very good, though some of it is very good indeed. We'll have to see how software for the iPhone/itouch works out, which will take a good year.