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Why do so many people find it so hard to understand that MMS and email are NOT the same damn thing and has a completely different usage. It's like saying "why send a text message when you can send an email?".

In the UK at least, MMS (known as 'picture messaging' to a lot of people here) is a huge thing in the same way that standard SMS text messaging is. So, I have to agree that omitting such a basic feature would be a mistake.

As I said above, the systems are somewhat redundant.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario where everybody has an iPhone. At that point both SMS and MMS are somewhat useless. If sending and receiving an email is just as easy, why have some separate system just for your phone to accomplish the same thing? (Assuming there is no significant lag in sending email compared to SMS/MMS).

The problem isn't the concept, it's that Apple is up against tradition and compatibility. It's a fight they sometimes win and sometimes lose, so we'll see. Perhaps they are betting the cell phone industry is moving more towards email based messaging.

Still, in the short term, they will get a lot of flak for no MMS. It can always be added if the backlash is too great. I'm also hoping they add instant messaging in the not-too-distant future.

The iChat-like SMS system loooks awesome, however. At least when they DO a feature, they do it right.
 
GPS ... are u kidding ???

Wow! Lot's of people want GPS in their phones. WHY? GPS is a satelite-based positioning system. It's a whole other circuit requiring additional power drain on your phone.

Cell phones already incorporate LBS (Location Based Services). The cell phone by definition requires you to be withing an active cell to obtain coverage. As such, your location is determined by signal triangulation between active cell towers. LBS is accurate to withing at least 300 feet. Seems to me that is close enough if I want to find the closest whatever via my iPhone. The iPhone will know my location within 300 feet and can direct me to what I'm looking for ... all without the cost, complexity and power draining of GPS.

Look at all the handheld GPS units (average price $200 +), and it needs its own separate antenna.

GPS is NOT a requirment for a successful phone. Period.

:cool:
 
"Optical quality glass," as anyone who owns glasses knows, is hardly invulnerable to scratches.

This will be a fussy phone for fussy, fussy folks, who'll pet it and keep it in sleeves and worry when it receives the least brush.

Your first scratch--the first of many--will feel like a mark on your very soul.

Heh.

Optical quality glass does not necessarily mean glass as used in eyeglasses. I was under the impression that Apple meant glass as used in cameras, or such. What is "optical quality?" As they are using that supposedly to prevent scratching, I am pretty sure it is not the same kind of glass as used in eyeglasses.

apple said:
has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.
 
"Optical quality glass," as anyone who owns glasses knows, is hardly invulnerable to scratches.

This will be a fussy phone for fussy, fussy folks, who'll pet it and keep it in sleeves and worry when it receives the least brush.

Your first scratch--the first of many--will feel like a mark on your very soul.

Heh.

Yeah. Since nobody at Apple wears glasses, they all thought "Hey, lets put glass on the iPhone that is the same as people's reading glasses" And it turns out that it isn't scratch-resistant at all. Good thinking. I'm sure you're right about that one.
 
What will the suprise feature be?

Any ideas on what the unannouced feature on the iPhone will be?

Funny thing is that an AT&T rep told me that the "next" release of the iPhone will have longer battery life and a GPS. Of course he is just a rep but one of his statements already came true - longer battery. I wonder if GPS is the unannounced feature since it would enable other features on the phone.

Perhaps they will up the flash to 8 and 16gbs. Any other predictions. If your prediction is a Winner then you can have a free trip to hawaii - provided you are already there and bragging rights on the forum. :D
 
Again, for the 100th time, you can access any IMAP or POP3 email including MS Exchange; "E-mail hosted on an Exchange Server can be accessed using POP3 and IMAP4". Watch the Keynote, it is mentioned. Check out Apple's site, it is mentioned. I don't see why people aren't getting this (maybe because they spend too much time on Rumor sites and not enough time doing actual research!)

You can use Exchange using IMAP/POP only if your IT folks have configured it to allow it from non-VPN'd services (assuming you have a private network.

My choice for our Exchange services outside the VLAN is either a Crackberry or OWA. IMAP/POP outside of a VPN connection for me is a non-starter - Mail.app does me no good. Outlook, Entourage, OWA, Blackberry. That's it for me.
 
Wow! Lot's of people want GPS in their phones. WHY? GPS is a satelite-based positioning system. It's a whole other circuit requiring additional power drain on your phone.

Cell phones already incorporate LBS (Location Based Services). The cell phone by definition requires you to be withing an active cell to obtain coverage. As such, your location is determined by signal triangulation between active cell towers. LBS is accurate to withing at least 300 feet. Seems to me that is close enough if I want to find the closest whatever via my iPhone. The iPhone will know my location within 300 feet and can direct me to what I'm looking for ... all without the cost, complexity and power draining of GPS.

Look at all the handheld GPS units (average price $200 +), and it needs its own separate antenna.

GPS is NOT a requirment for a successful phone. Period.

:cool:

Does the iphone use LBS with google maps or to track its location??? I can't find anything saying it does. I don't think people care how the iphone gets its location (GPS or LBS) but it does not appear to me that it will use either. GPS is a very important feature to me and everyone I work with and my FREE nextel phone has it. I think your underestimating the importance of the feature.
 
every iphone thread i ever read there is always an australian complaining about how they won't get it for a year, and not actually commenting on the topic at hand.

For us australians that IS the topic at hand ;)
 
Wow! Lot's of people want GPS in their phones. WHY? GPS is a satelite-based positioning system. It's a whole other circuit requiring additional power drain on your phone.

GPS is NOT a requirment for a successful phone. Period.

:cool:

All I want GPS for is Geocaching (www.geocaching.com). I would settle for just a really cool paperless geocaching iPhone app / search tool.

- James
 
MMS Messaging is worthless on iphone.

MMS messaging is worthless on an iphone when you have full fledged email. Some people are just too short sighted to see why apple ommited this feature.

Most cell phone companies allow you to send MMS messaging through their website, since the iphone has a file browser and a web browser if you really want MMS messaging make yourself a web2.0 app or MMS through the web browser. Note that MMS allows you to send pictures to someone's email so the iphone would be able to receive MMS through the mail program.

A MMS app would be totally worthless and redundant IMO. nuff b*t**i*g

EDIT: MMS and email are essencially the same thing.
 
MMS messaging is worthless on an iphone when you have full fledged email. Some people are just too short sighted to see why apple ommited this feature.

Most cell phone companies allow you to send MMS messaging through their website, since the iphone has a file browser and a web browser if you really want MMS messaging make yourself a web2.0 app or MMS through the web browser. Note that MMS allows you to send pictures to someone's email so the iphone would be able to receive MMS through the mail program.

A MMS app would be totally worthless and redundant IMO. nuff b*t**i*g

EDIT: MMS and email are essencially the same thing.

Built in bookmark for iPhone web-app for sending MMS coming? I bet someone could hack it quite easily anyway. I could probably write a UI, but the back-end (connecting with AT&T's servers to actually send the message) would be trickier.
 
Gps = Overrated

Wow! Lot's of people want GPS in their phones. WHY? GPS is a satelite-based positioning system. It's a whole other circuit requiring additional power drain on your phone.

Cell phones already incorporate LBS (Location Based Services). The cell phone by definition requires you to be withing an active cell to obtain coverage. As such, your location is determined by signal triangulation between active cell towers. LBS is accurate to withing at least 300 feet. Seems to me that is close enough if I want to find the closest whatever via my iPhone. The iPhone will know my location within 300 feet and can direct me to what I'm looking for ... all without the cost, complexity and power draining of GPS.

Look at all the handheld GPS units (average price $200 +), and it needs its own separate antenna.

GPS is NOT a requirment for a successful phone. Period.

:cool:

I couldn't agree more! Most users that can afford and appreciate an iPhone don't need GPS. They either know where they are and where they are going or they have it in their vehicles - or both. Almost every car available today has an optional GPS navigation system. Why add to the cost/battery drain/weight, etc of the iPhone for those of us that don't need it?
 
That battery life rocks!

But didn't somebody with an exclusive interview report that apple said they worked forever on different surfaces to find the perfect one in terms of smudges/scratches and clarity. And now they went with glass? I've got polycarbonate lenses in my glasses now, and they're great for scratch resistance, although I don't know for sure how they would compare to glass itself, as I've never had that. Of course, I've never had glass because it's signficantly heavier. Did the weight stay the same?

Also, this is funny. From the press release, "Music capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; actual capacity varies by content". Only thing is, they never said how many songs there were on it, just said gigabytes and battery. Oops.
 
All I want GPS for is Geocaching (www.geocaching.com). I would settle for just a really cool paperless geocaching iPhone app / search tool.

- James
i'm currently working on a geocaching app for the iphone. tying in with the geocaching website. also an app for uploading images taken on your iphone to flickr and tagging them with a gmap loc. and various other keywords input by you.

what do you guys think?
 
I couldn't agree more! Most users that can afford and appreciate an iPhone don't need GPS. They either know where they are and where they are going or they have it in their vehicles - or both. Almost every car available today has an optional GPS navigation system. Why add to the cost/battery drain/weight, etc of the iPhone for those of us that don't need it?

Seriosly, do I want my GPS tied down to my car? I sure hope most of my life outside of my home and work isn't spent there. Also, not everybody buys a new car every few years. And the precision of GPS is unbeatable.

Not that I necessarily think it belongs in the iphone, because of space and battery constraint reasons -- I would love to see it, but I realize others would rather keep the device a little thinnner, etc. But I don't think a GPS in a car suffices, being somebody who loves walking and biking around unfamiliar places.
 
Built in bookmark for iPhone web-app for sending MMS coming? I bet someone could hack it quite easily anyway. I could probably write a UI, but the back-end (connecting with AT&T's servers to actually send the message) would be trickier.

you dont need to be on the ATT network to send an MMS...just a server...and a partnership with a company...
http://live.proximus.be/en/Applis/Mms/MMS_Compose.html
http://www.chikka.com/txtmessenger/download.html
http://www.texthq.com/
http://www.csoft.co.uk/nox8/messenger_index.pl

All it takes is one developer who wants to take the time to make the app and partner up with a company. Could even try ATT itself they might go for it and charge for the MMSs. Too bad i have no clue how to implement this, i'm a biologist. Not to mention that one could partner with skype to make a small SMS web app that would bypass the need of having sms messaging all-together on the phone... Just a few thoughts for developers with too much time on their hand. Having a full fledged web browser really is a powerful feature
 
I'll leave gross automated invasions of privacy to you young kids. I'm apparently too old to see the joy in any random stranger being able to look up my precise location at any time ...



This is an argument for GPS on cameras more than on phones, IMHO. Inasmuch as a phone contains a camera, it applies, but if I'm willing to live with a crap-quality photo I'm also pretty much willing to live with not having precise latitude and longitude. IMHO, I'm much more interested in GPS (and compass heading and pitch) auto-embedding in my SLR's output so that three years from now I can go directly to that spot where we happened upon an Osprey's nest and see what's there then.

But my cell phone? I guess I'm too old, again, to see the draw in taking any kind of long-term pictures with that crappy lens and sensor. And, short term, the GPS headings are rarely useful attached to pictures. If I'm traveling somewhere where I'm unable to navigate back (ie, where the streets are all unmarked or there are no streets), I take my pocket GPS for just such occasions. I can take a picture if needed, and I can record the GPS coords if needed. It'd be nice to have the two attached to each other, but hardly important.



Does GPS work when airborne? I thought GPS devices tended to lose accuracy dramatically with altitude.


This seems to belong to thw uber-Twitter comment above. Perhaps not being single is the thing keeping me from getting over the loss of privacy here.



Two tasks which are just as easily accomplished with an existing GPS device for the three people who would want to do that.


It all comes to this: GPS does precisely one thing: it tells you where you are. Automated GPS (ie, having GPS constantly recourding your travels) adds the ability to track where you've been.

Most of the time, adults know where they are with enough accuracy to get by, and the level of tracking GPS is able to provide isn't enough to tell me where I've been in my house in the last five minutes where I might have set down my keys. There are lots of "reasons" for wanting GPS and automated tracking, but none of them get anywhere near the threshold of "iller feature" to me. I'd rather see GPS in my camera than my phone, for instance.

That having been said, it's a lot cheaper and easier to add GPS to a phone than to a camera, primarily because, well, it's already there if you're selling your phone in the US. But, I wouldn't base a buying decision on it not being exposed.


You sir, are smarter than the average bear...
 
Shame the camera still stinks. 2M pixels is pretty poor for phones these days.

anything above 3M for a phone is just marketing hype. 2M is perfectly fine for a phone, as long as the lens quality is good. Comments like the one above demonstrate IMO how very little the general public knows about digital photography.

2M is a very good resolution for snapshots. Anyone serious about taking pictures wouldn't use a camera phone anyway.:rolleyes:
 
you know how noisy a 5MP phone picture quality would be? Anything above 2... MAYBE 3 MP's would provide horrid images. The Nikon D2 is only 4.1 MPs... and it's image quality is second to only a few of the world's most exclusive cameras.
 
anything above 3M for a phone is just marketing hype. 2M is perfectly fine for a phone, as long as the lens quality is good. Comments like the one above demonstrate IMO how very little the general public knows about digital photography.

2M is a very good resolution for snapshots. Anyone serious about taking pictures wouldn't use a camera phone anyway.:rolleyes:

5 megapixel N95. Hype?

06172007289.jpg


06132007012ky2.jpg


http://flickr.com/photos/cole_singapore/521148066/

http://flickr.com/photos/_belial/514646045/

iPhone needs autofocus for starters.
 
Wow! Lot's of people want GPS in their phones. WHY? GPS is a satelite-based positioning system. It's a whole other circuit requiring additional power drain on your phone.

Cell phones already incorporate LBS (Location Based Services). The cell phone by definition requires you to be withing an active cell to obtain coverage. As such, your location is determined by signal triangulation between active cell towers. LBS is accurate to withing at least 300 feet. Seems to me that is close enough if I want to find the closest whatever via my iPhone. The iPhone will know my location within 300 feet and can direct me to what I'm looking for ... all without the cost, complexity and power draining of GPS.

Look at all the handheld GPS units (average price $200 +), and it needs its own separate antenna.

GPS is NOT a requirment for a successful phone. Period.

:cool:
But no law requires that the iPhone provide its location for anything other than E911, and there is nothing suggesting that Google Maps incorporates LBS. In fact, Apple has been very careful not to suggest that the iPhone can locate itself on Google Maps and at this point, it does not appear that LBS is being utilized.

Personally, I never expected a full featured GPS, and I would be plenty happy if Google Maps simply knew its location using LBS, but there is no evidence to support this.
 
GPS really is amazing...

Does GPS work when airborne? I thought GPS devices tended to lose accuracy dramatically with altitude.

I know this is off the main topic, I just wanted to clear this up.

GPS is indeed very accurate at altitude, vertical accuracy is about 1.5x the horizontal. In fact, GPS is a primary (and favored) navigational instrument in commercial aircraft.

It's accuracy mostly depends on how many satellites the unit is receiving. If you have too few satellites (less than 4) you lose the altitude information all together.

HTH
 
Can I just say how happy I am that Safari 3 lets me resize this text box!

how long till an 80gb iPhone?
Approximately 2*log2(10)=6.6 years if Flash manages to follow Moore's law... ;)
I'm sure though that the web browsing time was done using the Edge connection, Wi-Fi use will probably have a seriously detrimental impact on the battery life.
No, quite the opposite... Cell transmitters can draw watts depending on distance to the tower, WiFi is on the order of 100mW transmit power.
I'm hoping that Apple does something with .Mac, Back-to-my-Mac and iPhones.

If I could stream all my content from my home computer to my iPhone, 8 gigs is not an issue.

All the pieces are there....
droool... I've been waiting for something like this. If they pull this off, I'd be most psyched-- let me change what's on my phone from the road. It would take a while, granted, but nice in a pinch. And you're right-- the pieces are all there...
Using radio receivers on planes is prohibited, especially GPS systems (after 11 September, they really don't want you to know exactly where you are...).

http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do...vent=false#How the Satellite Network Operates

"During flight, never use cellphones (to make or receive calls), two-way pagers, radios, TV sets, remote controls (example: DVD, CD, game, or toy remote controls), a cordless computer mouse, commercial TV cameras, or Global Positioning Systems."​
Actually, I think the ban on GPS in the air is so that it doesn't interfere with the aircraft navigation. Same reason "passive" radios and TVs are banned. Like radios and TVs, most GPS systems heterodyne which risks emitting sensitive frequencies. Worst case would be so called "zero base band" systems where you're mixing internally with the GPS carrier frequency. Any of these, given the right conditions, or a damaged receiver, could jam the aircraft navigation.
 
What jet-setting life do you have? I have a job, I go there and back every day. Maybe at night I'll go to a restaurant or bar or something. On the weekend I'll go to the beach, maybe see a movie, maybe go see a band play (again: Los Angeles). This is all within 20 miles of my home. Every now and then I'll go visit my folks who live 60 miles away. Sounds pretty typical to me, and easily covered by 2-3 default locations as a point of reference. Where exactly do I need to be going to not be labeled as boring?

Well, the thing is that the "default locations" are places where you spend lots of time, right? Well, do you need any navigation-help when you are in those places? If you look at the two most common "default locations" in my case (my home and my workplace) I do not need instructions to tell me where the restaurants are, I already know where they are. When do I need such help? When I'm somewhere else. In other words: when I'm not in those default locations. And I do spend quite a bit of time in other places.

I'll leave gross automated invasions of privacy to you young kids. I'm apparently too old to see the joy in any random stranger being able to look up my precise location at any time ...

Since when is your friend a "random stranger"? The point is that your _friends_ can find out where you are. There has already been services like this with GPS-phones here in Finland. And IIRC nothing was done without the consent of the participants. Don't want others to find out where you are? Well, simply disable the service and you are done.

Does GPS work when airborne? I thought GPS devices tended to lose accuracy dramatically with altitude.

Wasn't GPS originally designed for aircraft-use? In other words: It works beautifully when airborne.
 
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