What would you prefer? We all know about the real iPhone, but until Apple releases a phone and names it whatever they name it, it will forever be iPhone on the rumor sites
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What would you prefer? We all know about the real iPhone, but until Apple releases a phone and names it whatever they name it, it will forever be iPhone on the rumor sites
Considering that IF this device comes out, it will probably be GSM which is as simple as popping in the SIM card..even my mother can do that
As for the daunting text/data settings..They can come preloaded with the settings for the various US gsm carriers.. heck they could set up a website a la Nokia and you pick your carrier and it sends you all the settings.. no call to <insert cell co here>
Oh I know... the whole easy peasy GSM SIM card idea works well... if you're fairly tech savvy and have the right info ... otherwise the place you call is generally the carrier, not the phone-retailer. (My own experience of forcing info out of Rogers Canada for my Nokia 6600 setup - because they only officially support (i.e. sell) the Nokia 6620 - which is essentially the same phone)
I've seen plenty of technically 'cool' phones in the past, be passed over (in the UK market at least) by 'market leading' (Nokia) phones with lesser 'technical' abilities.
We'll just have to wait n' see.
these ones are honest.
What can apple offer over other phones? Not participating in the blight on our culture that is the current cellphone market!:
capable of reproducing sound better than a CB radio? this would make iPhones !!not annoying as hell!!
vibrate mode is actually SILENT
not producing disgustingly compressed images
dont even give it the ability to play midi files as ringtones
the ability to be used on a landline
not using the annoying palm software
All of these things can be accomplished with out killing the simplicity we love from apple.
And lastly, hiding the technology from the user. No separate apps for mms, sms, audio, email, phone calls, videochat, videos,memos, todos, ims, ichat video, ichat audio give me two apps: "iNow" and "iLater"
iNow:
user selects recipient,
user chooses text, audio or video.
phone chooses appropriate way to comunnicate
Later:
two fields: Message, recipient
user inputs text, video, and audio into message field
phone chooses appropriate technology to transmit message.
What can apple offer over other phones? Not participating in the blight on our culture that is the current cellphone market!:
capable of reproducing sound better than a CB radio? this would make iPhones !!not annoying as hell!!
vibrate mode is actually SILENT
not producing disgustingly compressed images
dont even give it the ability to play midi files as ringtones
the ability to be used on a landline
not using the annoying palm software
All of these things can be accomplished with out killing the simplicity we love from apple.
And lastly, hiding the technology from the user. No separate apps for mms, sms, audio, email, phone calls, videochat, videos,memos, todos, ims, ichat video, ichat audio give me two apps: "iNow" and "iLater"
iNow:
user selects recipient,
user chooses text, audio or video.
phone chooses appropriate way to comunnicate
Later:
two fields: Message, recipient
user inputs text, video, and audio into message field
phone chooses appropriate technology to transmit message.
iPhone Knockoff
I wonder how long it will be after Apple release their phone and gains a significant marketshare that we'll see the ZunePhone???
I wonder how long it will be after Apple release their phone and gains a significant marketshare that we'll see the ZunePhone???
I think it's quite surprising that Microsoft didn't jump straight to a mobile phone design.I wonder how long it will be after Apple release their phone and gains a significant marketshare that we'll see the ZunePhone???
call it the MacPhone
(you beat me to the punch sorryiwasdreami, its been bugging me all day)
Remember, its no longer an iBook, it is now a MacBook.
therefore it won't be an iPhone, it should be a MacPhone!
But of course, I want a MacPhone Pro !
ok - I'll comment on the features I want too (yes I will buy one)
these aren't what I expect - just what I WANT
I don't really know what to expect.....
- two models: MacPhone = simple, nano+phone+addressbook, small
MacPhone Pro ??= videophone, big iPod+phone+wifi+qwerty smartphone
- Wifi 802.11N
- some sort of Skype/Google tie-in
- games like on the gen5 ipod
- full video iChat
- qwerty on the bigger model
- Micro Mac OS X
- airtunes so I can play from home speakers from the phone
+
- functions as a remote control for my apple living room network??
- actually a Wii controller too ! (hahahaha just kidding)
Underlooked rumor:
I also think that Apple WILL present new monitors BUT
these will actually be also be living room style televisions with
- HDMI inputs
- 802.11 N
- iChat cameras for living room to living room iChat video
- maybe some sort of Tivo/YouTube tie-in
for full integration/compaibility with the "itV" / itunes video networking scheme but could also sit in an office hooked up to a MacPro just as well.
(you beat me to the punch sorryiwasdreami, its been bugging me all day)
Remember, its no longer an iBook, it is now a MacBook.
therefore it won't be an iPhone, it should be a MacPhone!
But of course, I want a MacPhone Pro !
ok - I'll comment on the features I want too (yes I will buy one)
these aren't what I expect - just what I WANT
I don't really know what to expect.....
- two models: MacPhone = simple, nano+phone+addressbook, small
MacPhone Pro ??= videophone, big iPod+phone+wifi+qwerty smartphone
- Wifi 802.11N
- some sort of Skype/Google tie-in
- games like on the gen5 ipod
- full video iChat
- qwerty on the bigger model
- Micro Mac OS X
- airtunes so I can play from home speakers from the phone
+
- functions as a remote control for my apple living room network??
- actually a Wii controller too ! (hahahaha just kidding)
Underlooked rumor:
I also think that Apple WILL present new monitors BUT
these will actually be also be living room style televisions with
- HDMI inputs
- 802.11 N
- iChat cameras for living room to living room iChat video
- maybe some sort of Tivo/YouTube tie-in
for full integration/compaibility with the "itV" / itunes video networking scheme but could also sit in an office hooked up to a MacPro just as well.
Reasons for Apple to release a mobile phone.
1) Halo effect of iPods on Macs = success
2) Halo effect of Applephone on Macs = more success
3) Life cycle of typical mobile phone is about 8 months. This fits Apples product strategy for sustaining and increasing revenues with new products and innovations.
4) iPods are approaching end of life and will need a complete new feature set, not just a refresh on capacity and minor design changes. Example, true Video iPod or/and iPod with mobile phone function formerly known as iPhone.
5) Need to further detach from domestic US market and to further expand into the World market. Mobile phones will do just that. This will lead to #2. Ultimately leading to greater PC and OS market share.
6) According to Gartner, Hype Cycle for Telecommunications Industry is advancing towards mobile and mobile content, communications (voice, email, text and conferencing: audio and video) and productivity. Apples mobile phone with a light OSX and integration with iTunes, iLife, iWork, Mail, Calendar and iChat will do just that.
7) SJ mentioned that Apple products will be everywhere and will influence you in every day life. You can take your entertainment, productivity and communications with you.
8) Foxconn Internation Holdings have already received orders from Apple to manufacture mobile phones.
The phone will be ubiquitous having all the connections possible (all GSM variants, 3G, wi-fi etc.) for seamless integration with mobile carriers around the World. It will be your Mac light in the basic form to take with you when youre not at your Mac. It will communicate/sync with your Mac and vice versa over internet (you pay data charges to your carrier or wifi wherever available). Your Mac will essentially be able to push/sync content (from your iTunes) or mail (aka Blackberry. Remember the rumor about Apple partnering with RIM?) to the Apple mobile phone through the new Leopard OS.
Nothing Ive said is new here folks and the Telecom industry knew about this trend for years now but unable to capitalise, or just dont know how to "converge" the whole thing and to make it successful. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola are just phone companies trying to make feature rich phones with some sort of syncing via data cable to PC with the above intention in mind. Smartphones are great but not perfect. Most fail due to lack of content, compatibility issues (Phone to PC) and ease-of-use (interface) and failing to sustain customers at the next model. In general, people just buy which ever brand that looks the best. They only use about 40% of the phones built-in features and functions. People change phones in EMEA and APAC as frequent as changing underwear. (This relates to my 3rd comment above)
Which mobile carrier will carry this Apple phone? It doesnt matter as it will be sold through the Apple Store and dealers to the World. Carriers will make their money on voice and data charges and will similarly lose money from free wi-fi. Will Apple care? No. Apple will make money off the phones, new Mac sales, music/video content, .Mac integration with the mobile phone (new feature).
The Apple phone will very likely be similar to other phones in the market by features. What stands them apart will be in the design, simplicity, and integration with Mac machines, apps and the OS. The innovation will be the communication between the user and the personal computer through this mobile device and the content distribution between the users iTunes or iTunes Store. At the moment, no mobile carriers/phone companies have successfully accomplished this.
Reason Apple will not release a mobile phone.
1) Theyd be really stupid not to!And I mean REALLY stupid.
The phone is coming!
1) Halo effect of iPods on Macs = success
2) Halo effect of Applephone on Macs = more success
3) Life cycle of typical mobile phone is about 8 months. This fits Apples product strategy for sustaining and increasing revenues with new products and innovations.
4) iPods are approaching end of life and will need a complete new feature set, not just a refresh on capacity and minor design changes. Example, true Video iPod or/and iPod with mobile phone function formerly known as iPhone.
5) Need to further detach from domestic US market and to further expand into the World market. Mobile phones will do just that. This will lead to #2. Ultimately leading to greater PC and OS market share.
6) According to Gartner, Hype Cycle for Telecommunications Industry is advancing towards mobile and mobile content, communications (voice, email, text and conferencing: audio and video) and productivity. Apples mobile phone with a light OSX and integration with iTunes, iLife, iWork, Mail, Calendar and iChat will do just that.
7) SJ mentioned that Apple products will be everywhere and will influence you in every day life. You can take your entertainment, productivity and communications with you.
8) Foxconn Internation Holdings have already received orders from Apple to manufacture mobile phones.
The phone will be ubiquitous having all the connections possible (all GSM variants, 3G, wi-fi etc.) for seamless integration with mobile carriers around the World. It will be your Mac light in the basic form to take with you when youre not at your Mac. It will communicate/sync with your Mac and vice versa over internet (you pay data charges to your carrier or wifi wherever available). Your Mac will essentially be able to push/sync content (from your iTunes) or mail (aka Blackberry. Remember the rumor about Apple partnering with RIM?) to the Apple mobile phone through the new Leopard OS.
Nothing Ive said is new here folks and the Telecom industry knew about this trend for years now but unable to capitalise, or just dont know how to "converge" the whole thing and to make it successful. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola are just phone companies trying to make feature rich phones with some sort of syncing via data cable to PC with the above intention in mind. Smartphones are great but not perfect. Most fail due to lack of content, compatibility issues (Phone to PC) and ease-of-use (interface) and failing to sustain customers at the next model. In general, people just buy which ever brand that looks the best. They only use about 40% of the phones built-in features and functions. People change phones in EMEA and APAC as frequent as changing underwear. (This relates to my 3rd comment above)
Which mobile carrier will carry this Apple phone? It doesnt matter as it will be sold through the Apple Store and dealers to the World. Carriers will make their money on voice and data charges and will similarly lose money from free wi-fi. Will Apple care? No. Apple will make money off the phones, new Mac sales, music/video content, .Mac integration with the mobile phone (new feature).
The Apple phone will very likely be similar to other phones in the market by features. What stands them apart will be in the design, simplicity, and integration with Mac machines, apps and the OS. The innovation will be the communication between the user and the personal computer through this mobile device and the content distribution between the users iTunes or iTunes Store. At the moment, no mobile carriers/phone companies have successfully accomplished this.
Reason Apple will not release a mobile phone.
1) Theyd be really stupid not to!And I mean REALLY stupid.
The phone is coming!
Here in Europea and over in East Asia, video calling on phones is old, old news. It was advertised to spark a switch to 3G, but utterly failed, because noone wants to pay 1 a second for the barely recognisable face of your friend on a 3cm screen.
Downloads and internet browsing were what everyone eventually went 3G for.
Here in Europe we buy absolutely craptons of phones, and public knowlege of their economy and technology is really quite high. If Apple were to release a non-3G phone, and then deny phone manufacturers the ability to subsidise with contracts (the only reason 60% of people go ahead and buy a phone), it doesn't matter how slick it looks, I guarentee you, if it's not under £250-370 it will BOMB.
I couldn't agree with you more on this. Video calling was a flop here in Asia. The video was a size of a postage stamp and the bit rate was like 80Kbps. The phone spec on those video 3G phones are not very powerful to begin with. But with the right processing power and memory, you can get good video calling over 3G/wi-fi if done right by Apple. This is where others have failed and where Apple can shine.
But even if it was bloody HD, I still wouldn't use it I don't think many people would continually use video calling, especially as it costs significantly more than a regular call.
Apple should look at what phone users use most, and just give them that with a decent design and a decent UI, which is all they need to bring to the market.
The most advanced features they can hope consumers to use regularly would be internet browsing, a camera and perhaps basic games/software - the first of which is the only thing that requires networking, and that would rely entirely on how much it would cost to browse.
Until providers stop charging 10000% the real value of internet access via. phones, even that could fail to attract.
But all that said, the biggest thing against Apple would be to prevent phone subsidising. I mean, I have a contract, it expires in March - if I can upgrade with my provider to an iPhone, I'll get one, if I can't, I'll get something else, because there's no way I'm paying £400 for a phone when I can get one with similar features for £40. I don't care how good the UI is, and this is despite me being a big Apple fan.
I don't think many people would continually use video calling, especially as it costs significantly more than a regular call.Apple should look at what phone users use most, and just give them that with a decent design and a decent UI, which is all they need to bring to the market.
The most advanced features they can hope consumers to use regularly would be internet browsing, a camera and perhaps basic games/software - the first of which is the only thing that requires networking, and that would rely entirely on how much it would cost to browse.
Until providers stop charging 10000% the real value of internet access via. phones, even that could fail to attract.
But all that said, the biggest thing against Apple would be to prevent phone subsidising. I mean, I have a contract, it expires in March - if I can upgrade with my provider to an iPhone, I'll get one, if I can't, I'll get something else, because there's no way I'm paying £400 for a phone when I can get one with similar features for £40. I don't care how good the UI is, and this is despite me being a big Apple fan.
Unless I miss something from somewhere...why would Apple prevent phone subsidising? As long as the phone carriers pay Apple for the phone, they can do whatever hell they like to attract more user subscriptions. Meaning subsidising the phone over a contract period of 12 - 18 months and maybe throw in some special rates for data access. This is all I can see happening with mobile carriers to capitalise on their sales by riding on an Apple brand product. I don't think Apple will prevent this from happening.
i've been looking forward to the apple phone for months now. but after all this waiting, i realized it really is just a phone. so unless it has features i cannot live without, i don't think i can justify such a purchase when my slvr works just fine.
I don't believe a word of that. FWIW I've had mine for six years, and wouldn't change it for an iPhone, whatever the spec. I just don't get this obsession with mobile phones. A vPod or a revived Newton, fair enough. And if they happen to have phone capacity, why not. But don't forget, Apple already released that iTunes-compatible phone and how tedious was that?!
Well, it was Motorola that released it - I dare say how that phone turned out is no indication of how a 'proper' iPhone would be - it was a horrible Motorola phone with iTunes tacked on.
-Leemo
From what I've read (somewhere), Apple would want the look and feel of the device to be all Apple... Without Cingular or Sprint or whoever plastered all over it... Cell companies will put their own desktop branding and look to the screen as well as lock out features. I've read discussions where cell companies have taken really nice phones and locked out the best features of them (for some crazy reason).
Apple will want it to look like an Apple device, and nothing but an Apple device. Which, I like the idea of, but being able to get one for bunches cheaper when renewing a plan that I'm already paying for has it's attractions, too.
As I wrote a few days ago
The iPod Phone
As everybody is making things up I'd like to add my ideas as well...
First; It will be named the iPod Phone. In one or two years, there will be no iPod without a phone (except the Shuffle...), and the added name will be dropped, like the iPod Video/Photo before.
Second; It's very unlikely that they would try this without including the PC-platform. All functions will be the same on both the Mac and the PC. The iPod market is so much more than the Mac.
Third; The phone will, like today's iPods, connect to a computer through iTunes. Why iTunes? Because it's the only Apple-software on the PC-platform (I know QT, but get real!). Therefore all syncing will be made through iTunes, if they would not chose to convert iSync for the PC. Which is not very likely.
Forth; Apple and the iPod is about engineering, UI and design, not high tech. The first generation of iPod Phones will probably just be an iPod with a built in phone-function. Well built? Yes. Attractive? Yes. Good for music and phone calls? Yes! Wifi, Blue-tooth or PDA functions? Definitely not. This is a product for anybody, not tech geeks.
And fifth; The gamble, it will not include a camera. Cameras in phones are ****. Apple would not like to be connected to such things. This is not a multi-every-thing. It is an iPod with a built in phone.
The iPod Phone will be great, sexy and expensive. And I'll buy one.
Added today
As we are making up some retail prices as well, I agree with some of the previous posters, take the price of an iPod, add 50 to 100 USD and you are there. Apple are not going to price themself into the market, people who buy iPods are not looking for budget-deals. Look at other MP3player-Phones and add 50 USD. That's what you have to pay going the Apple-way.
Henrik
The iPod Phone
As everybody is making things up I'd like to add my ideas as well...
First; It will be named the iPod Phone. In one or two years, there will be no iPod without a phone (except the Shuffle...), and the added name will be dropped, like the iPod Video/Photo before.
Second; It's very unlikely that they would try this without including the PC-platform. All functions will be the same on both the Mac and the PC. The iPod market is so much more than the Mac.
Third; The phone will, like today's iPods, connect to a computer through iTunes. Why iTunes? Because it's the only Apple-software on the PC-platform (I know QT, but get real!). Therefore all syncing will be made through iTunes, if they would not chose to convert iSync for the PC. Which is not very likely.
Forth; Apple and the iPod is about engineering, UI and design, not high tech. The first generation of iPod Phones will probably just be an iPod with a built in phone-function. Well built? Yes. Attractive? Yes. Good for music and phone calls? Yes! Wifi, Blue-tooth or PDA functions? Definitely not. This is a product for anybody, not tech geeks.
And fifth; The gamble, it will not include a camera. Cameras in phones are ****. Apple would not like to be connected to such things. This is not a multi-every-thing. It is an iPod with a built in phone.
The iPod Phone will be great, sexy and expensive. And I'll buy one.
Added today
As we are making up some retail prices as well, I agree with some of the previous posters, take the price of an iPod, add 50 to 100 USD and you are there. Apple are not going to price themself into the market, people who buy iPods are not looking for budget-deals. Look at other MP3player-Phones and add 50 USD. That's what you have to pay going the Apple-way.
Henrik
Sure, it should work on PCs like the iPods do, but can you honestly see Steve and co. resisting the temptation to offer incentives for Mac users (iLife integration, .Mac syncing, iCal syncing...)?
If it is a multi-platform phone, i'd bet that Mac users get the best end of the deal, as part of the "Go on, get a Mac" campaign started by the iPod.
(A nice big 'Export to iPhone' button in iMovie, for a start... and so on)
MA.
Personally, I could see Apple trying it out on Mac first and perfecting it like they did with the iPod...