Apple iPhone Glass Surface and Battery Life Improved

[bdj21ya]

Simply put... when you order from the Apple website and you recieve your phone you don't even need to use it as a phone!!! You can use wifi and pretty much everything else even call people if you have skype. So, first buy it from apple.com then use it for a few days if you like it then take it to the ATT store and have them set it up with a SIM for you unless you already have a SIM.

I disagree with this. So much has been made of the 2-year contract, I'm pretty sure you will have to sign up in order to buy one, on the web or otherwise. Of course, since the cancellation fee is only $175 to $200, anyone can get an iPhone with no service plan for $700 at the most.

 

[RnSK]

Yeah but...

I thought there was a BT headset

Who wants a mere *headset*.

Check out the Moto S9s...quite nice.

 

[Oogami]

Children of a lesser god...WiFi will not be disabled if you don't get the data plan. Where do you get these ideas? If you didn't see yourself in a puddle you would probably believe you didn't exist.

There was a story on slashdot.org last week about the possible restrictions on the iPhone.

However, the source was a "An anonymous AT&T store manager" so I would take the news as more rumor then anything else.

As people have already said, AT&T employees are usually the LAST to know anything.

 

[Thanatoast]

i wonder if the mystery surrounding the plan has to do with the .mac improvements jobs hinted at D5? think of a few other things - leopard has two very iphone-esque features:

1) .mac's back-to-my-mac -- yeah that's great for those of us who have a desktop and a laptop and travel, but how many of the general public have both? i bet within a year there will be more consumers with an imac/iphone combo than an imac/macbook combo

2) coverflow is sort of useless on the current range of macs, but coverflow with the back-to-my-mac feature and quick-look makes a lot of sense. i can't count the number of times i've been out and about and needed to look at something on my home computer -- i can't be alone. also i think it would in many ways alleviate the "it's only 8gb argument". obviously on EDGE it wouldn't be so hot downloading a 2GB final cut movie, but for many consumer level docs it'd be great.

throw in some additional refinements:

1) .mac works as a push imap server and will aggregate all your email accounts.

2) .mac widget library, click on .mac and you're presented with a widget library like dashboard, but they're hosted at .mac not locally.

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....

 

[ajhill]

<rant>Unless you are Batman, you have no business wearing any electronic device(s) on your belt. Period.

My secret's out!

 

[nicdel]

iPhone suks!

Where is my 160GB drive!?!?!?!

Why doesn't it have 200 hours video playback! I NEED THAT!

I'm thirsty, "iPhone, go get me a coke",
iPhone doesn't respond.
"YOU SUK"

WHY OH WHY didn't Apple include a remote function for my electrical window blinds!?!?! IDIOTS! just lost a customer IDIOTS!

-------------------------------
iPhone.

It is what it is, don't like? then continue as you are.

S Jobs doesn't have a gun to your head.​

 

[Padriac]

Can somebody explain to me the day to day use of GPS in a phone?

Okay, if I'm lost somewhere new and trying to get somewhere, I can use GPS to get me there. Got that, however, 99% of the time I know exactly where I'm at.

How does GPS really improve anything if I already know where I am at? Am I missing something? This missing feature sounds like one of those bullet-point things you use once or twice, ever.

 

[xmit]

hmmm..... glass, as in easily broken

Someone is going to make a bundle doing screen replacements on these phones. I don't know about everyone else but I tend to drop my phone once in a while. A large screen made of glass sounds like a difficult item to keep from breaking.

 

[unclewinkie]

the thing i want to know if you can turn the accelerometer off so u can lay down on you bed or something with out having to hold it in a awkward position .

 

[D 5]

Nice

3D view http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/

 

[Evangelion]

Can somebody explain to me the day to day use of GPS in a phone?

Okay, if I'm lost somewhere new and trying to get somewhere, I can use GPS to get me there. Got that, however, 99% of the time I know exactly where I'm at.

How does GPS really improve anything if I already know where I am at? Am I missing something? This missing feature sounds like one of those bullet-point things you use once or twice, ever.

Well, you need to look at all the things GPS enables. Instead of simply thinking "it can tell me where I am and how to get to some other place", it enables a whole lot of other things as well. Like the "where is the closest restaurant"-thingy we saw in the iPhone commercial (I'm still not sure how iPhone does it, it might be somewhat deceptive ad). Or how about your friend sending you an address, and the phone automatically displays it on it's screen? How about positional advertising? "Special deal on iPods just across the street!".

The possibilities are pretty darn endless. Instead of thinking "I don't need it because I know where I am" (well, you don't know always), remember that now your phone would know where you are as well.

 

[Padriac]

Well, you need to look at all the things GPS enables. Instead of simply thinking "it can tell me where I am and how to get to some other place", it enables a whole lot of other things as well. Like the "where is the closest restaurant"-thingy we saw in the iPhone commercial (I'm still not sure how iPhone does it, it might be somewhat deceptive ad). Or how about your friend sending you an address, and the phone automatically displays it on it's screen? How about positional advertising? "Special deal on iPods just across the street!".

The possibilities are pretty darn endless. Instead of thinking "I don't need it because I know where I am" (well, you don't know always), remember that now your phone would know where you are as well.

That's my point: 2 of the things you list the iPhone can already do. "Closest restaurant" isn't that hard if you are in a "default area" (guessing this is how iPhone does it). Your friend sending you an address would easily be mapable with or without GPS (where YOU are doesn't really matter for that). That leaves "positional advertising", which I'm not so sure is a feature.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm struggling to see how GPS does anything other than save you from having to type in your rough location every now and then.

 

[Evangelion]

Exactly. I'm not way off base. This has been finalized a while ago, before production for the magical "3 million." I am just addressing those who are making this out to be a fix to what was a deal breaker to a other people. When in fact nothing has changed. I'm sure apple is quite aware of the losing interest and the increasing criticism of the phone so they are strategically putting this out.

Of course things have changed. That is, the final specs of the phone are better than what we were told earlier. We assumed that the specs we were told would be the ones we would get, since no other data was provided. And now we are told that the specs are in fact significantly better than the ones we were told in january. Should we just shrug this thing off because they propably did this few weeks ago as opposed a day or two ago? Or because it's due to better software?

And yes, you ARE way off base. You claimed that "nothing has change, they merely changed their testing". That implies that the device is not in fact better than what was announced in january, it implies that they are cheating (more or less) when testing the device. And you did also mention updated software. But why does that reduce the signifigance of any of this? What matters is the end-result, and end-result is that we are getting better usage-time out of the device. Does the fact that they do that through better software somehow diminish that? No it does not.

Yeah, excuse us for thinking that it's actually a good thing that shipping product is actually better than the product they pre-released. After all "nothing has changed", right? This improved usage-time must be a figment of my imagination, since "nothing has changed". I mean, if nothing has changed, then we will NOT see these better usage-times, right?

 

[Compile 'em all]

<rant>Unless you are Batman, you have no business wearing any electronic device(s) on your belt. Period.
</rant>

Easily the best post to come out of this thread.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

Can somebody explain to me the day to day use of GPS in a phone?

Okay, if I'm lost somewhere new and trying to get somewhere, I can use GPS to get me there. Got that, however, 99% of the time I know exactly where I'm at.

How does GPS really improve anything if I already know where I am at? Am I missing something? This missing feature sounds like one of those bullet-point things you use once or twice, ever.

I spend a lot of my time outside my home town/country/continent.
Well there I often rent a car to get me from point A to point B. A GPS is an absolute must if you are going to drive in a major city anywhere in the world. I don't know how much money I have paid at toll boots getting off at the wrong ramp. Not to mention all the time I have wasted getting lost. When I am in new town and I need to be at a place a certain time I don't have another choice than to make sure I at least have 30 mins to spare.

Imagine you are in a european city and you you have an hour or two to spare. A GPS with a points of interest software will help to find places within walking distance.

Imagine a friend calls you and ask you to meet him/her at this restaurant for lunch. You are new in town and a) you have no idea where you are b) you have no idea where this restaurant is.

Imagine you are out watching birds/plants/diving and you want to explain to your friends where you were or be able to find your way back to the same spot.

Basically, a GPS saves both time and money IF you travel outside your own backyard. But ok, if you are an extreme homebody I guess you wont have much use for it. But then again, why do you need a cellphone in the first place?

 

[Evangelion]

That's my point: 2 of the things you list the iPhone can already do.

Can it? Yes, we saw the Calamari-ad. But how does the iPhone know where you are? All signs point to that it doesn't know. You have to tell it where you are before it can do anything for you. Now, I'm sure that you know that that is not how GPS works?

"Closest restaurant" isn't that hard if you are in a "default area" (guessing this is how iPhone does it).

I don't know about you, but I usually move around with my phone. In my case, I move between two points that are 40 kilometers apart from each other just about every day. If I set my "default area" to be my home, how does it help me find the closest restaurant when I'm in downtown Helsinki, 40 kilometers from my home?

Your friend sending you an address would easily be mapable with or without GPS (where YOU are doesn't really matter for that).

And could the iPhone direct me to that place? Nope.

That leaves "positional advertising", which I'm not so sure is a feature.

That's where the world is moving towards.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm struggling to see how GPS does anything other than save you from having to type in your rough location every now and then.

You are not seeing the big picture here. You are looking, but you are not seeing. GPS right now is like the very first websites were in mid-nineties. Joe Sixpack would have looked at them and thought "What's the point?".

 

[Manic Mouse]

Joe Sixpack

Man I hate that guy..

 

[jettredmont]

What about using recycled, and recycling? (For both plastic and glass.) Do you happen to have any info on which is easier to recycle? (i.e. even if glass takes more energy to produce the first time, maybe it can be recycled more easily so it makes up for it?)

Sand->Glass is very similar to the process for glass->glass. Essentially, to recycle glass you have to crush the old glass into small chunks (if you didn't you'd waste much more energy melting the larger pieces), melt them down, remove the impurities, and mold. To transform sand into glass you have to melt it down (I believe slightly higher temps are required due to the crystalline structure of SiO2, but I don't believe the difference is huge), remove the impurities, and mold.

On the other hand, it'd be interesting to see how plastic processing really uses less oil than glass processing. Such a claim might include assuming that the other cuts off the refinery are all needed, so the source oil is a "free byproduct"; alternatively, it might not include any portion of the energy used to run the refinery or to run the plastic. On the other hand, the plastic production processes are all to the best of my knowledge more reliable than the glass production process (it is relatively common for imperfections to occur in the glass, requiring that a particular piece be re-melted and re-molded, and it is also relatively common for damage to occur in transit with glass further increasing the ecological costs).

In any case, wildly off-topic. Suffice to say: I'm pretty sure that any claims that using glass or plastic for a phone screen are ecologically founded would be dubious at best, either way. From a rough back-of-hand glance at it, they both seem close enough to each other that it all comes out inside the margin of error anyway.

 

[Khisanthus]

That's my point: 2 of the things you list the iPhone can already do. "Closest restaurant" isn't that hard if you are in a "default area" (guessing this is how iPhone does it). Your friend sending you an address would easily be mapable with or without GPS (where YOU are doesn't really matter for that). That leaves "positional advertising", which I'm not so sure is a feature.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm struggling to see how GPS does anything other than save you from having to type in your rough location every now and then.

The problem is one of assumptions. First, you may be right. You might never venture into areas that you don't know or places without location signs. The people with an interest in GPS generally do. Whether its a business trip to a new town with hard to find street labels (that would be MOST places in the world, the US is weird that way), or hiking in back country, or voice turn by turn directions (precision for this exceeds most cell tower triangulation). Those are the killer apps for GPS. More can be done, but nothing does the above better.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

That's my point: 2 of the things you list the iPhone can already do. "Closest restaurant" isn't that hard if you are in a "default area" (guessing this is how iPhone does it). Your friend sending you an address would easily be mapable with or without GPS (where YOU are doesn't really matter for that). That leaves "positional advertising", which I'm not so sure is a feature.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm struggling to see how GPS does anything other than save you from having to type in your rough location every now and then.

It is much more than that. Imagine you are in a country where you don't speak the language. You have an address or the name of an hotel or whatever. Now try to get from A to B without knowing where A is. Then add cultural oddities such that the people in this country refuse to admit they don't know what you are talking about since your pronunciation is terrible. You get different directions from each person you ask.
(side note: happened to me a couple of months ago around and about a small germany village even though I speak the language... and yes I was late to the meeting)

 

[Padriac]

I spend a lot of my time outside my home town/country/continent.
Well there I often rent a car to get me from point A to point B. A GPS is an absolute must if you are going to drive in a major city anywhere in the world. I don't know how much money I have paid at toll boots getting off at the wrong ramp. Not to mention all the time I have wasted getting lost. When I am in new town and I need to be at a place a certain time I don't have another choice than to make sure I at least have 30 mins to spare.

Imagine you are in a european city and you you have an hour or two to spare. A GPS with a points of interest software will help to find places within walking distance.

Imagine a friend calls you and ask you to meet him/her at this restaurant for lunch. You are new in town and a) you have no idea where you are b) you have no idea where this restaurant is.

Imagine you are out watching birds/plants/diving and you want to explain to your friends where you were or be able to find your way back to the same spot.

Basically, a GPS saves both time and money IF you travel outside your own backyard. But ok, if you are an extreme homebody I guess you wont have much use for it. But then again, why do you need a cellphone in the first place?

I don't discount the value of GPS when travelling. That's the 1% of your life where you are "lost" compared to the 99% part where you are not. However, your example doesn't really work because the iPhone's EDGE data won't really work in Europe (I believe that's correct: the phone will work fine, but not the data). I'm not really a homebody, but I don't know what crazy awesome job you have that lets you travel to Europe for more than 2 weeks out of the year.

I live in Los Angeles. It's a big city, but it would be pretty hard for me to be completely and utterly lost in it. I could map any location relative to some LA landmark by default (LAX, UCLA, etc.) and be able to get there just fine. Or I could take the two seconds to input my exact cross streets and get perfectly accurate directions. I see the convenience in avoiding that last step, but my point is that if you're near where you live or work (which is 99% of the time) you don't really need that level of precision. It's hardly a deal breaker. Without GPS, perhaps once a month when I'm venturing somewhere I need to type a new location. With GPS, I can avoid that step. Cool, but not nearly enough to matter all that much.

 

[jettredmont]

[Replying to the claim that GPS would cost a few dollars] No it's not. It's more like $30 and $5 for a big antenna. And they suck batteries very fast!

Ummm ... don't all cell phones have to have a GPS device in them already? I'm pretty sure that's law in the US. The difference being that only some of the GPS devices get exposed to the customer.

How much would it cost to expose the GPS hardware that is mandated to be present? Battery life: maybe, because I don't believe the GPS devices are supposed to be on all the time. However, a customer wouldn't have the GPS on all the time either!

IMHO, Apple's main cost here would be developing software to make the GPS usable (claiming GPS without street navigation software and a downloadable database is, IMHO, pretty clsoe to false advertising ...)

 

[Padriac]

It is much more than that. Imagine you are in a country where you don't speak the language. You have an address or the name of an hotel or whatever. Now try to get from A to B without knowing where A is. Then add cultural oddities such that the people in this country refuse to admit they don't know what you are talking about since your pronunciation is terrible. You get different directions from each person you ask.
(side note: happened to me a couple of months ago around and about a small germany village even though I speak the language... and yes I was late to the meeting)

No, I get this. MY point is that this situation likely represents a small fraction of your time and thus its a bit silly to get all worked up over. That my phone will be slightly less convenient to find directions with when I'm on vacation is not exactly a deal-breaker. No matter what crazy scenario you think up, the statistical reality is you spend the vast majority of your life knowing exactly where you are. In those cases GPS adds basically nothing compared to a list of "Default locations" in google maps.

 

[jettredmont]

Ten bucks someone breaks the glass on the first day.

... while taking it out of the packaging

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

I'm forever amazed at the people that gripe about storage capacity. lol, someone fetch me a 16GB phone and I'll eat my hat (no joke pictures of blackberries with hard drives strapped ot the back please)
Considering the fact that phones of similar or greater price than the iPhone have storage that ranges in the megabytes on-board, 4-8GB as standard, despite the lack of SD slot expansion, that's not a bad deal at all.

I don't suppose the iPhone will be that much more fragile than any other smart phone. How fragile are PDA's?