Apple iPhone - To Be, or Not to Be? 230
An anonymous reader writes "With the Apple WWDC looming on Monday, the internet once again beats itself silly over what Steve Jobs has in store. At the most fanciful end of the scale, there's talk of the Apple iPhone, to which CNET says, 'keep on dreaming', and Gizmodo says, 'no visible evidence'. The only solid evidence of an iPhone, beyond the endless mocked-up images, is the discovery of hidden phone-related code in a recent iPod updater. Macrumors has some info on what the keynote may contain -- and there's no mention of an iPhone. So, as the rumor mill continues to grind over the weekend, let the predictions begin. Is there an Apple iPhone, or is there not?"
Former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble says (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes- but... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a market they will address. During their last earnings telephone conference they basically let everyone know that they are aware that the phone and iPod markets are converging and that they are not sitting still. So its a matter of when, not whether.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
iphone h4cks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Music Conversation (at least on a cellphone) (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it'll work. I do think tho, that the references to a phone in the iPod updates may refer to a bluetooth connectivity with the iPod. Didn't see what the references were, tho, so I could be off base.
I think this is just pure speculation. Fun speculation, to be sure, but speculation nevertheless.
Bring on the Reality Distortion Field! Its affect on me must be fading...
No, but fun to imagine (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it would be a huge success should Apple decide to build an iTalk that is a high quality phone, maintains everything we expect in an iPod, has decent battery life, and has the popular Apple style. I haven't had a decent cell phone in years. I find most of today's phones too small, lots of plastic and very lightweight. Count me in the camp that hopes they build one at some point.
Re:Is it a good unit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The only.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rumors (Score:4, Interesting)
Saturated market? Please. There's lots of cell phones out there, sure. And they all pretty much suck ass. Choose one, several, or all of: Poor build quality. Poor integration with the other information sources/sinks in your life. Poor user interface. Poor performance (battery life, RF reception, sound reproduction). Apple can't do much about RF reception and has limited freedom with respect to battery life, but every other thing is either a software issue or an industrial design issue. Guess what two things Apple kicks ass at?
Cell phones are a saturated market much like digital audio players were a saturated market.
All they'd have to do is roll out a GSM-based phone and they'd have access to most of the world's market. Combine that with something like iCal and Addressbook for windows much like they've already ported iTunes to support iPod use on non-Apple platforms and they'd be printing money.
Re:Rumors (Score:2, Interesting)
IT Focus at WWDC (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, it may be that Apple always does this sort of thing to convince people like me to buy Macs. And we surely know that the Mac Pro will debut (as well as 10.5). But the full court press that I am getting suggests that this year's WWDC is as much about people like me as it is developers. Does this indicate anything about the content of Jobs' keynote? Probably not. But the treatment that I am receiving when I have almost nothing to do with development suggests that they are trying to garner as much interest as possible, and as much buy-in as possible.
Saturated with Crap (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine an iPhone, available in white and black, which is fully a touch screen device capable of multiple points of input at a time. No buttons except perhaps a scroll wheel on the side, and a switch for silent mode. Hold it in portrait and it's a phone, or an ipod, or a pda. Hold it in landscape and it's a widescreen video player or ebook reader (with a special grey contrast ratio to reduce eye strain). It has 40GB of storage with 8GB of ROM to preserve the battery. Heavy enough to feel sturdy in your hand, small enough to put in your pocket. Bluetooth, maybe WiFi....
I'd sure as hell buy one.
There are phones that do that (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a review [my-symbian.com] for it. You can run whatever you want on it. You can write your own programs in C++, Java or probably other languages too. At least my unit has no stupid lockings. I can install whatever mp3 songs I want as ringtones or for listening. And there's even a third-party internet radio player that you can install.
Re:Rumors (Score:4, Interesting)
s/Apple/Steve Jobs/ and you're right on the money. The original Mac was going to be a failure because nobody wanted locked-up proprietary boxes with no CLI or expansion capabilities (and besides that, the Lisa was an abysmal failure), Mac OS X was going to be a failure because who would want to run NeXT Step on a Mac? The iTunes was expected to be failure because 'everyone' downloads illegal music, why would they pay even 99 cents/song?
Everywhere along the way, Jobs saw ways of adding twists to make it work.
What I envision: an iPhone that not only has a built-in PDA based on either Palm OS or some slimmed-down Mac OS X, and not only has an iPod built into it, but one with a video iPod integrated as well. Oh, and you can add this optional GPS package for $X. Throw in built-in wifi and bluetooth connectivity, and you've got one hot device that people won't be able to keep their hands off of.
If Apple introduces it Monday, remember, you heard it here first!
The iPhone is already here. (Score:2, Interesting)
The iTunes phones will never gain critical mass acceptance as is because of the 100 song limit. That was Apple imposed as to not to interfere with iPod sales. One would have to believe that any iPhone that Apple (may) implement would have that in mind, that it would be not to interfere with its current Cash Cow, the iPod (and the Nano). So, if there would be an iPhone, I wouldn't see any Memory Card Interface and be limited to perhaps 512MB or 1GB of on-board memory, as a Shuffle replacement, with UI to match perhaps.
The Walkman Phone that I have (w800i) is surprisingly iPod like in its interface and its choice of Codecs (MP3, WAV, and AAC/MP4). When you press the Walkman Button, the playback screen, the UI, the entire experience is surprisingly iPod like, though changed in certain aspects. That with decent (just decent) information management, fast JAVA engine for Opera Mini action, and very clean interface makes the Walkman line of phones very credible competition for the iPhone.
Unfortunately, it has received zero marketing here in the US, and only one model's subsidized by any carrier (w600i by Cingular). So, it's very much an unknown quantity here in the US.
Which brings me to my final point. Unless Apple starts their own MVNO (and integrates with iTMS), or is willing to let Verizon with its VCAST and what not play nicely with their phones, it would likely be not picked up by any carriers for subsidy. And without that "Free" or "$99" price tag, I'm not sure if it'll be picked up by the public. After all, what's better than a Free RAZR?
My old and broken Nokia N-Gage for one. But then again...
Re:I really doubt it (Score:3, Interesting)
and more and more people are getting their media via their phones. every time I go to asia, I'm shocked by how pervasive cell phones are and how much more of a viable replacement for a desktop they're becoming.
wedge a decent phone into a video ipod, get the interface right and support EVDO (and whatever the asia-market equivalent is) transfer rates and you've got a product that pretty much jumps into the consumers wallet and takes however much it wants.
Cell phones need Apple's touch (Score:5, Interesting)
ichat phone (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v520U3vS2iI [youtube.com]
I contacted gizmodo, hopefully they will post it
Re:I really doubt it (Score:3, Interesting)
I picked up a T-Mobile SDA, their WiFi smartphone, and I have dropped all plans for buying either an iPod or another PDA. Granted, WMP mobile is the most rudimentary player on the planet, but it plays music. And with all the other features of the SDA (Internet access wherever there's public WiFi, the regular PDA functions, and last but not least a cell phone) there's no justification in buying anything else.
Apple would've easily sold an iPod equivalent of the SDA to me. Being a Mac user, I'm not having fun rebooting just to get to ActiveSync (and that's just for installing apps - my contacts and calendar are on the Mac side). My current method of "synchronizing" songs and documents is moving the mini-SD card to a card reader and copying it by hand. In fact, they'd probably have made an iTMS user out of me (I just got started with iTunes on the Mac). As it is, half my music is pirated and the other half is Creative Commons.
So how about it? the iDA? GSM, AirPort Extreme, a lightweight WebKit-based browser, all the iPod features (music as well as PDA capabilities), and synchronization features built in to iTunes (for both Windows and Mac). Please?
Re:Rumors (Score:3, Interesting)