[griffjnr]

Originally Posted by SanFrancisco

You may be right. I know the Apple crowd is a dedicated lot and will buy anything Apple.

I was commenting on how the iPhone would do in the rest of the market. For all I know, Apple's intent is to sell to the Apple crowd, not all other users.

Interesting prediction, 10 million will sell out in one day. We shall see.

I am a major apple geek, Intel iMac, Powerbook, every generation of iPod and I just bought the Apple TV. This phone will be awesome. I wonder which network will get it in the UK? This is going to do graet things for Apple. Anybody else notice how they just rebranded to Apple Inc?

[Mark Rejhon]

Originally Posted by SanFrancisco

I am actually quite surprised Apple would go with this given the list of failures where this technology has been employed.

What about iPod's? They have long used touchwheels, and very good ones at that. People love them. We all thought iPod's would not survive, but we were wrong.

The Apple multitap touchscreen technology solves a lot of problems
- It turns off when brought up to face
- It automatically filters out touches that don't feel like a finger (people hate those). The multitap technology reads a 2D grid snapshot of what's touching the screen, and only registers on finger-shaped touches.
- You can actually rest your hand on it and still tap a part of the screen; it will ignore the rest of your hand. You can write using a stylus with your hand resting on screen. (People hate touchscreens that only require one point of contact)
- You can do things like pinch-slide your fingers on the screen, in order to zoom in-and-out of a webpage. (That's how it works for zooming web browser graphics and Google Maps)
- Multitap technology supports onscreen touchwheels, so it can behave like an iPod with an iPod Classic skin...

Apple has done some really amazing stuff with this touchscreen. I don't even own any Apple product but this may be the first Apple product I buy.

I will, however, be keeping my BlackBerry, and be using the iPhone as a PDA -- I might even be able to use the Bluetooth connection of my BlackBerry for the data usage on the iPhone. (I'm betting the OS X on this device is flexible enough for this).

It also plays DVD quality video so should be a great personal video player too (The iPhone plays 640x480 video compressed at megabit-league H.264 perfectly smoothly! That's HDTV-like for a handheld device.)

Yes, I prefer a phone with real keyboard/keypads, but I have got to say, Apple appears to have massively improved the touchscreen so that it's finally no longer inconvenient... From what it appears, it shockingly a jack-of-all-trades master-of-all (appears it does great video, great photos, great PDA, great electronic notepad, in a tiny device) No doubt some glitches, but blows away an iPaq and Palm LifeDrive when I need something more media friendly than a BlackBerry...

I'm not even interested in this gadget for its phone capabilities... (I'm deaf anyway.)

May not be for another 6 months till I get my hands on one of these Apple PDA's.... I think it is probably going to sell out like Wii's.

[brandbb]

Did someone say June?

Why isnt it 3g?

Will my Slingbox work with it?

What video does it support?

i have greasy fingers....

Which artist wins with the best rendering?

Yes I have too many questions. But I have also $600 and Cingular contract expiring in June

[BBAdmin]

It does look amazing. Apple and RIM are similar beasts in that the fact they control both the hardware and software on their systems means that everything flows and integrates smoothly. Very slick but you have to wonder how buggy!!

Take a look at the Apple site if you haven't already - the UI looks great but I bet the windows don't slide, twist and turn as quickly onthe device as they do in the flash demos!!!!

[paulbblc]

My main concerns are how it will work with Outlook if at all? Does it have 3g technology built in (perhaps an OS upgrade feature that could possibly enable it down the road)?

My greasy fingers doesn't worry me as a clear shielding of sorts on the screen will fix that right up.

Overall I'm very impressed.

[SanFrancisco]

Duly noted that the iPOD is an example of a successful touchscreen device, but that is a recreational device that does not require typing.

From what I have seen in the past, any touchscreen typing device has failed, starting way back with the Timex Sinclair, which was not a touchscreen PC, but the keyboard did not have traditional keys, instead it had a flat plastic film with graphic letters that one pushed.

And all I am saying about dialing the phone is from personal preference. I did not like dialing the Samsung PDA/Phone via the touchscreen. I may be way in the minority. But given past failures coupled with my own experiences, I don't think it will be that popular.

But sure, people may flock to it if they look at it NOT as a business device [e.g., for typing e-mails] but instead as a multi-media smartphone. At those prices, however, not too many people are going to be able to snap it up and I have no knowledge of how many high end users there are out there, willing to plunk down $500 to $600 for it.

And one little footnote, I still think my Pearl looks great and competes well with the iPhone. And of course, it was only $200.

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by brandbb

Did someone say June?

Why isnt it 3g?

I thought Steve corrected himself while on stage. He said it would have EDGE technology, then said something like "I mean 3g."

Not sure, but thought that is what he said.

[lmlloyd]

I am really surprised by the responses here. How is this thing any different from any Windows Mobile device? I would think that all the criticisms of a Windows Mobile device that regularly come from BlackBerry users would be equally relevant to this device. It is another desktop OS squeezed into a handheld, with a million features that will all hurt battery life, and get in the way of a decent phone. And touchscreen? Haven't we all used touchscreen enough to know exactly why it was replaced throughout the entire market in favor of actual keyboards? Multitouch does nothing to fix the problems with a lack of tactile feedback that is the main problem with touchscreens.

What you have here is a Windows Mobile device for Mac users. Sure, they are going to have a built-in market of about 8 million people who would rant and rave about Apple breakfast cereal if they made it, but beyond that, it is going to face the exact same problems Windows Mobile does. I know a bunch of people think that it is made by Apple, so it will be flawless and incredibly well designed, but in reality, Apple products aren't that well designed, their customers just put up with their flaws because they love the brand. iPods have really bad failure rates, their notebooks have all sorts of hardware problems, and their OS has a really inconsistent UI. They are every bit as flawed a company as Microsoft, and shoehorning their OS onto a phone isn't any better an idea than it was when MS did it.

Besides, can anyone name a single company that has ever had a reliable phone right out of the gate? This thing is going to get poor reception and poor battery life just like everyone's first foray into the phone market does. Maybe two or three versions down the road they will have a usable product, but I doubt it will be much more than a brand status symbol for a couple of years.

[lucyl]

Originally Posted by SanFrancisco

He said on stage that Yahoo was partnering with Apple to use push technology with Yahoo Mail. But that was the only one. [May have been Google, but I think it was Yahoo].

It was Yahoo. However it still fetches from most POP3 or IMAP mail services as stated on apple.com.

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by lmlloyd

I am really surprised by the responses here. How is this thing any different from any Windows Mobile device? ...

[SanFrancisco]

I have to get back to work, so I'll shut up.

But in line with the other concerns just posted: I wonder if the iPhone will have a removable battery. Hope so or there will be lots of angered iPhone users.

And if the battery cannot be removed by the user, such would indicate that Apple has not learned from its mistake with the iPod.

[Sirius_GTO]

- "We want to reinvent the phone. What's the killer app? The killer app is making calls! It's amazing how hard it is to make calls on most phones. We want to let you use contacts like never before -- sync your iPhone with your PC or mac. Visual voicemail -- wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to listen to five of them to list to the sixth? Just like email you can go directly to the voicemails that interest you. iPhone is a quad-band GSM + EDGE phone." No 3G! "We have WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Runs OS X
- Touch screen (no stylus)
- Home button
- 2MPx camera
- Sync with iTunes
- 8GB capacity
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- 11.6mm thin
- iPod connector
- Sensors to detect orientation, brightness and when it's near your ear

-web browser
-Free Yahoo Mail
- Google Maps GPS

- CINGULAR service

[Willie115]

Wow, just wow. Here I thought that the iphone would be something more resembling the ipod. I really do hate ipod but I can't reallly deny that this is really something great. I have a pearl and this makes me feel like old technology. I'm a highschool student and I can bet that everyone would be begging their parents to get them this. Touchscreen devices have proven not to be great like what SF said but most of my peers haven't even touched a device with a fully functionable touch screen so either way they will be tempted and this will sell a lot. Makes me even wanting to get one but I love my pearl and I can't betray it! Someone said this isn't direct competition for RIM but direct or not it will be competition.

[mckinneycm]

iPhone Thread number 84,732,659!!!

[kasperapd]

Originally Posted by mckinneycm

iPhone Thread number 84,732,659!!!

No kidding!

[krad]

like the song said..... enough is enough is enough!!!

[CustomerService]

But will it work with BES? NO, of course.

[krad]

btw there is a demo on apple.com now under iphone...

[MrKyoo]

Merged.

~MrKyoo

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by Willie115

Wow, just wow. Here I thought that the iphone would be something more resembling the ipod. I really do hate ipod but I can't really deny that this is really something great. I have a pearl and this makes me feel like old technology. I'm a high school student and I can bet that everyone would be begging their parents to get them this. Touchscreen devices have proven not to be great like what SF said but most of my peers haven't even touched a device with a fully functional touch screen so either way they will be tempted and this will sell a lot. Makes me even wanting to get one but I love my pearl and I can't betray it! Someone said this isn't direct competition for RIM but direct or not it will be competition.

You write very well for a high school student. Hats off to you.

And you are right, the Pearl is competition for the iPhone and vice versa. Both are Smartphones with multi-media capabilities. Both perform those functions well.

In the end, I think form factor and multi-media functionality will influence the decision making process.

The Pearl is small, looks cool and performs all functions reasonably well. The iPhone has a slick look, a "new" super cool interface and performs multi-media functions better than the Pearl.

But the iPhone, as mentioned in here, is a "PocketPC" type device. Will the everyday average user buy it? I don't think so.