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Apple, Motorola, Cingular, and iTunes Phone... Ready?

bretm said:
I'm gonna guess that a continent that small has a lot of competition. We've got states much larger than many of your countires combined. So in this arena it's easy for them to provide broad multi country coverage, forcing competition to sweep in. Plus, for all I know the phone companies over there are subsidized by tax payer dollars or something creepy like that.

We'll get there. So are they still charging licensing fees to own a television? Talk about weird! That's freakin' nuts.
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For all you know phone companies are not subsidised by the state, so before you start making proclamations like that like check your facts.

A license fee is not to own a television but is to pay for the BBC which provides a balanced programming schedule free from commercials and the relentless pursuit of ratings. Oh and by the way in anticipation of your reply, the BBC isn't state controlled...
 
Macrumors said:


Businessweek provides an excellent roundup of the players involved in Apple and Motorola's move to provide iTunes enabled cell phones.

The much publicized announcement has seen multiple delays over the past year. Some have speculated that wireless providers have been a major hurdle in the adoption of an iTunes-enabled phone. Recent rumors have pinpointed Cingular as the likely carrier of the new phones.

The deal with Cingular appears not to be in stone as of yet, but may represent Apple's only US carrier option:



Analysts expect that a family of iTunes phones will be available by Christmas ranging from low to high end phones.
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Good news :)
 
IHF1000 support....

Maybe a bit off topic: Anybody think I can expect that the iPhone or whatever Motorola comes up with, will support their bluetooth car kit IHF1000?? As much as I'd love to have another iGadget, the support of a high quality car kit to me is a must...
 
mkrishnan said:
Ummmm....the menu items in *what*? :confused:
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he probably means in iTunes 4.9

I personally hope that it works with Sprint. oh man how I would love to replace my busted ass Sanyo 8100. and my contract is up in September, so I may lose all motivation to stay with them if they can't offer me a cheap compelling phone with bluetooth. although their data pricing is second to none. 15 bucks a month for Vision is sweet sweet. if only I had a Treo 650 so that I could actually use it better. and they need it to be EV-DO.
 
NNO-Stephen said:
right click > show package contents.

probably buried somewhere in that mess.
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Well, yes, I know how to look at package contents. ;) But if you didn't actually find it in there, or don't have a reason to believe it is in there, why do you keep posting about it? And what do you think it means anyway? :rolleyes:
 
mkrishnan said:
Well, yes, I know how to look at package contents. ;) But if you didn't actually find it in there, or don't have a reason to believe it is in there, why do you keep posting about it? And what do you think it means anyway? :rolleyes:
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wtf? how do I keep posting about it? I made two posts and that's because you inquired about it.

do I believe it's there? not till I see it I don't. I didn't even check for it so it may or may not be there. I don't know nor do I give a damn.
 
jblodgett said:
I, too, am somewhat baffled by all the craze of the "iTunes phone."

What's the big deal??? Someone please enlighten me!
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Never underestimate the power of the fanboy.

Saying that, I'll be first in the queue for one of these :D Basically, I need a phone, and in a market where most products suck to the high heavens, it seems like a good idea to go with the iPod Phone to me.
 
Machead III said:
Never underestimate the power of the fanboy.

Saying that, I'll be first in the queue for one of these :D Basically, I need a phone, and in a market where most products suck to the high heavens, it seems like a good idea to go with the iPod Phone to me.
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definitely. people (us) just hope that Apple can help do for phones what the iPod did to mp3 players. fix them.
 
NNO-Stephen said:
definitely. people (us) just hope that Apple can help do for phones what the iPod did to mp3 players. fix them.
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That would be nice. My concerns lie with the nature of the cell phone market right now though. The phones themselves are essentially commodities. On the one end of things, you can basically get a phone for free when you sign up with a carrier, and on the other end you have to pay top dollar for a feature-rich phone, which will ultimately be outdated in 6-8 months anyway. Although an iTunes phone will be cool, will users have to pay an "iTunes premium" as well as a standard "Apple premium" for this type of a device? And if so, how will Apple work with the providers to ensure the phones' longevity so that it won't become outdated in a few months?
 
cingular and t-mobile rule

Whotheheck said:
mmmm, nope. T-Mobile and Cingular use the same type of GSM network. In fact, they shared some towers up into the early part of this year. Hell, go into a T-Mobile store and then a Cingular store and you'll notice that a lot of phones are the same. Any GSM phone will work with either provider, as long as it is not locked. If it is locked, there are ways around that also...

I work for Cingular ad I haven't heard anything about this itunes phone... yet. Although, I did see a nice thin black phone (not the black razor... it wasn't flip) at a meeting thing we had at work. It had expandable memory and everything. I wonder if that'll end up being the iTunes phone? I hope so. It was sexy as hell!
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This is quite accurate. I have a Motorola v551 through Cingular. I have never been anywhere in the United States where i have not gotten service. I have always either been on Cingular's Network or T-Mobile's Network. Whenever i am roaming (which cingular does not charge for under a nation plan) i am on T-Mobile's Network. I know this becuase when i dial 611 (customer service) it comes up with T-Mobile's Customer Serivce Line as opposed to Cingular's. Cingular and T-Mobile share towers and coverage areas, my phone simply takes the strongest signal. Most of the T-Mobile and Cingular phones are identidcal, as far as the technology goes. Verizon is way behind as far as data transfer speeds go (Verizon - about 51 kbps/Cingular- about 142 kbps using EDGE) Therefore, Cingular was the obvious choice, if they are going to offer downloadable songs. Verizon is dead ..... can you hear me now? ...... can you? ..... :mad:
 
I can tell you for a fact Verizon is in trouble... I sell Verizon phones for a living, but my personal phone is a Cingular phone. Verizon phones seem to be crap, and we have people bringing them back all the time. Even my own family (who has Verizon for some strange reason) has had phone problems.

Cingular phones seem to be of a higher quality (although I'm sure they have hardware problems too) and the network seems superior. At work we have to tell people who ask about rollover minutes that they are useless and you never get to use them - but boy have they saved me a few times when I talked a little more than I should have :)

Verizon seems to be resting on their laurels a little too much. I don't want them to die as competition is good for all, but Cingular seems to be wiping the floor w/Verizon as of late.
 
verizon probably still has the best nationwide coverage of any company, but the network itself is not nearly as advanced at cingular. i have a cingular phone, and voice quality, transfer speeds, and the fact that bluetooth isn't crippled, makes cingular about the best (definately most advanced) network in the US. Verizon's time is about done once phones begin to gain more functions that their network is unable to capitolize on, and people begin to look to get phones with more function .. CDMA is on its way out, while GSM and EDGE is rising fast..
 
me_flay said:
Maybe a bit off topic: Anybody think I can expect that the iPhone or whatever Motorola comes up with, will support their bluetooth car kit IHF1000?? As much as I'd love to have another iGadget, the support of a high quality car kit to me is a must...
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With all the other nonsense in this thread, finally a worthwhile question! Give us playability through Bluetooth and get BMW to fully support it with an update to my car's iDrive. I want to control that blasted contraption with my iDrive controller. Do this and I shall be grateful (cause, well, I can't be anything else).
 
CDMA out

In order to use services such as the new "iPone" will be capable of, there is a need for higher bandwidth. Analog networks using CDMA and TDMA are not capable of the transfer speeds necessary to transfer mp3 or AAC files. When CDMA and TDMA phones connect to the "wireless web" on the phone, they are really dialing into a server, much like dial-up internet access. EDGE Technology is comparable to wireless internet (802.11 b/g) It does not dial up, instead, there is an almost constant connection between the phone and the tower. On EDGE capable phones, an icon will light up next to the service status, this lets the user know that they are connected to an EDGE network. The technology has not been 100% perfected, but once it is, download speeds will reach 142 kb/s. This speed is comparable to basic DSL. These are the speeds necessary to downoad from the iTunes server. Therefore, Cingular is the only provider that will be able to receive the iTunes service.
 
csjk789 said:
In order to use services such as the new "iPone" will be capable of, there is a need for higher bandwidth. Analog networks using CDMA and TDMA are not capable of the transfer speeds necessary to transfer mp3 or AAC files. When CDMA and TDMA phones connect to the "wireless web" on the phone, they are really dialing into a server, much like dial-up internet access. EDGE Technology is comparable to wireless internet (802.11 b/g) It does not dial up, instead, there is an almost constant connection between the phone and the tower. On EDGE capable phones, an icon will light up next to the service status, this lets the user know that they are connected to an EDGE network. The technology has not been 100% perfected, but once it is, download speeds will reach 142 kb/s. This speed is comparable to basic DSL. These are the speeds necessary to downoad from the iTunes server. Therefore, Cingular is the only provider that will be able to receive the iTunes service.
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you are mistaken. CDMA is on it's way out too, they're moving to EV-DO. Verizon has a very small rollout and are building, while Sprint has several markets covered already but aren't launching officially till they get to like 39 markets. EV-DO will be just as large as EDGE.
 
NNO-Stephen said:
you are mistaken. CDMA is on it's way out too, they're moving to EV-DO. Verizon has a very small rollout and are building, while Sprint has several markets covered already but aren't launching officially till they get to like 39 markets. EV-DO will be just as large as EDGE.
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Isn't Sprint's PCS Vision also some sort of 3G, fast data service that goes along with CDMA?
 
I think one thing has been missing from this thread. Bill Gates said a while back that ipod was a fad and would not last. He went on to say that eventually moble phones would do it all and ipods would be obsolete. Why did he say this? Bill never says or does anything without a reason.

He is setting up to eventually do just that, I phone/mp3 player. Steve Jobs knows he can not let Gates get the upper hand again. If Microcrap came out with a new device that this and it became huge, it would almost be a repeat of history.

Now I have a 30 gig ipod and a cell phone so I don't think I would replace them but I could see that if they could put the 2 together, it would free up a lot of pocket space.

But now, for some of the crazyness I've read here.

There was some crying about a small HD moble phone's have and that is a reason to not buy a ipod/phone. Trust me, if this happens it will include a nice size HD.

Cost of downloading songs to your ipod. What? Download them on your Mac and hook up the USB cable just like you do with your ipod. Duh . . .

I could go on but there was way too much sillyness on this thread to continue.

Personally Apple has been taking a lot to the next level and I would really like to see what they could do to a phone to make it better.
 
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