iPhone Rumour Round-up

Coffin Black writes "Apple only has to look askance at a piece of hardware and people are falling over themselves to slap an 'i' all over it and slavering about how cool the theoretical gadgetry is gonna be. So the iPhone may not even exist — beyond a 'just once more thing' gleam in Jobs' eye — but already the column inches are stacking up. Think the iPod is dying? Never fear, says this columnist, it's merely evolving from one form into another (clue: from portable to mobile). This writer, meanwhile, is sticking the boot in early — she says she won't be buying an iPhone, when it of course finally makes it onto the shelves... Though she does add: "If Microsoft created a Phune (a phone and a Zune in one, geddit?), I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole either but that's a different story."" We also covered this story a couple months back.

I've changed my tune on this topic

[Biotech9]

I used to think having a mobile phone that played MP3s would be a dumb move. The iPod has a neat interface, easy to update from itunes, a mobile that plys MP3s would be a pain in the ass to use (my old phone did have the capability, but it was rubbish at it, in order to play a song or album you had to spend 5 minutes burrowing around in a dozen menus trying to find the buggy copy of realplayer to play stuff).

Cut a long story short, I bought a Nokia N80 (bought it because it was a wifi capable smart phone with a great screen, not because of the MP3 playing aspect) and my girlfriend bought a nokia 5300 (because she liked the look of it and it was free).

Neither of us use our ipods anymore. The N80 plays MP3s fine, when you start playing them the player pops up on the active standby so you are always one click away from having control over the player, and the 5300 has dedicated buttons on the case to play music. It's as handy to use as your average MP3 player. There are plenty of hacks to get them recognised by iTunes and auto-synced, and it's one less device in the pocket.

just look at the photos of the 5300, they [mobileguerilla.com] show off the little rubberised buttons for playing music. The price-tag on it was so low that buying it from a carrier means it's free. It made me totally rethink my position on the uselessness of convergent devices.

Re:Battery life is the problem

[bunions]

it's not the mp3 player that sucks up the juice, it's the phone. If I turn the phone part of my treo off, the battery is good for ... I don't even know, I've never had the phone part off for that long. Longer than a 6-hour flight, anyway.