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So after two years updates stop being free?

Theoretically, yes. My guess, is after 2 years, they'll stop introducing features to the device. Given the average lifespan of a device, that seems reasonable. The "free party" isn't going to go on forever -- at the end of the day, Apple makes money by selling phones.

My guess? The whole subscription revenue plan was executed because they had a roadmap of where they wanted to get the phone to be (enterprise e-mail, SDK and App Store, etc.) and they didn't want to leave the original 2G iPhone early adopters out in the rain.

I bet once the dust has settled from 2.x, beyond this, everything we see new to the iPhone will be associated with a hardware update. They have got to push phones, physical phones.
 
If I install 2.1 on my iPhone 3G will everything still work, phone, sms, mail, safari, etc? I don't want to install it and then brick my iPhone. I got accepted into the Dev program and paid the $99. Will I be able to install 2.1 on my iPhone 3G and my 1st gen iPhone, or is it limited to one iPhone? Will it mess up my iPhone 3G? Thanks n advance.

Also do I need to download the iPhone SDK (build 9M2199a) to use 2.1?

Considering how buggy the 2.0 *release* is any hope that 2.1 *beta* won't have some major issues is a bit optimistic. If you install betas then you take the risks associated with them.. ie. it's entirely possible something major like mail or safari won't work at all for a version or two. If you rely on your phone having everything working then wait for releases (and possibly even then wait a bit).

Also 9M2199a is the 2.0 release SDK you'd need to download the equivalent beta SDK to develop apps for 2.1
 
Theoretically, yes. My guess, is after 2 years, they'll stop introducing features to the device. Given the average lifespan of a device, that seems reasonable. The "free party" isn't going to go on forever -- at the end of the day, Apple makes money by selling phones.

My guess? The whole subscription revenue plan was executed because they had a roadmap of where they wanted to get the phone to be (enterprise e-mail, SDK and App Store, etc.) and they didn't want to leave the original 2G iPhone early adopters out in the rain.

I bet once the dust has settled from 2.x, beyond this, everything we see new to the iPhone will be associated with a hardware update. They have got to push phones, physical phones.

The sad thing is that would make the iPhone no different than any other cell phone, something people (at least here) like to make a distinction about. The iPhone can be software upgraded to do pretty much anything. Although I could see 3.x dropping iPhone 1,1 users. and 4.x dropping iPhone 1,2 users. That would be clean.
 
The sad thing is that would make the iPhone no different than any other cell phone, something people (at least here) like to make a distinction about. The iPhone can be software upgraded to do pretty much anything. Although I could see 3.x dropping iPhone 1,1 users. and 4.x dropping iPhone 1,2 users. That would be clean.

Well any phone can be software upgraded to do pretty much anything (though the iPhone has the distinction of no physical keyboard, so obviously the input methods can be changed a lot more fluidly).

But still -- at the end of the day, Apple has to move *physical devices*. Part of the value proposition may be "for two years, you'll get magical new stuff," but look at the Mac -- new features don't come for free there, and we also see hardware fall-off.

With carrier subsidy, having to buy a new physical device every 2 years to get new features isn't that horrible of a thing, especially if the price continues to fall on volume.
 
Can we finally get cut and paste in OS X? Not going to happen. How about a 2nd button on laptops? Not going to happen. Apple is stubborn. And that's not good.

Um, no. If Apple introduce a two-button trackpad as standard on their laptops then I will be forced to stick with my PowerBook G4 for the considerable future. I'm an ambidextrous trackpad user, I switch hands regularly and I absolutely hate using two button trackpads in PCs. Do you seriously lack the small motor function to put two fingers on the trackpad and click at the same time? How hard is that?

As for cut and paste in OS X, what's wrong with copy and paste? I don't know about you, but I'm never entirely keen about entrusting an entire file exclusively to the clipboard.
 
Well any phone can be software upgraded to do pretty much anything (though the iPhone has the distinction of no physical keyboard, so obviously the input methods can be changed a lot more fluidly).

But still -- at the end of the day, Apple has to move *physical devices*. Part of the value proposition may be "for two years, you'll get magical new stuff," but look at the Mac -- new features don't come for free there, and we also see hardware fall-off.

With carrier subsidy, having to buy a new physical device every 2 years to get new features isn't that horrible of a thing, especially if the price continues to fall on volume.

They're doing 'free stuff' entirely to shift more hardware. Once that doesn't work any more it's time for a hardware refresh and new version.. to shift even more hardware in upgrade sales.

Apple did this with the ipods.. my old ipod photo is fine but hasn't had a firmware update in years - the moment they released the video they dropped it like a hot potato.

They'll add copy/paste, mms, proper bluetooth etc. if they think there are a significant number of people holding off buying the iphone because of the lack of them (rather than existing owners complaining - apple already have their money). 3G was an obvious candidate for this, and I expect exchange compatibility was added for this too.

Of course if they can contrive to charge for upgrades (the same way they do for OS upgrades on their mainstream hardware) then there's another incentive to add features.. to get people to buy their annual OS upgrade. I can actually imagine them moving to this model - they're already talking the iphone up as a computer running 'Mobile OSX' rather than treating it as an embedded OS on a device.
 
I wish there was some way we could dedicate more ram to our iphone from our 4,8, or 16gb models. It would be so sweet it, in my case I have an original black 8gb, to give it 512mb or so to make it run faster. Im sure that is not possibly because that is the storage but that would be cool. Does anyone know how much it has? I can type out full sentences and then watch it play catch-up at times and I bet it would also help in keeping windows open in safari. I dont know about yall but Im lucky to keep 2 windows going at a time. as soon as go to the other window, it shows it then dissapears.
 
I wish there was some way we could dedicate more ram to our iphone from our 4,8, or 16gb models. It would be so sweet it, in my case I have an original black 8gb, to give it 512mb or so to make it run faster. Im sure that is not possibly because that is the storage but that would be cool. Does anyone know how much it has? I can type out full sentences and then watch it play catch-up at times and I bet it would also help in keeping windows open in safari. I dont know about yall but Im lucky to keep 2 windows going at a time. as soon as go to the other window, it shows it then dissapears.

The active memory is terrible. Figures doesn't it? What better way to get everyone who just bought an iPhone 3G already wanting a model with a faster processor/more available memory.

As it is I'm trying to demand a refund for Aqua Forest as it is impossible to use to any level of enjoyment due to the severe lack of memory.
 
Ok here's the list:

1. Background notifications (coming)

2. Copy/Paste

3. MMS

4. Better stability (better be coming)

5. Better GPS (coming)

6. Ability to switch to a horizontal keyboard with wider-spaced keys

7. Ability to set custom notification sounds for texts, emails, etc.

8. Video
 
I wish there was some way we could dedicate more ram to our iphone from our 4,8, or 16gb models. It would be so sweet it, in my case I have an original black 8gb, to give it 512mb or so to make it run faster. Im sure that is not possibly because that is the storage but that would be cool. Does anyone know how much it has? I can type out full sentences and then watch it play catch-up at times and I bet it would also help in keeping windows open in safari. I dont know about yall but Im lucky to keep 2 windows going at a time. as soon as go to the other window, it shows it then dissapears.

This is a great idea and it's totally feasible. Who knows, that may already happen on some level and we may not even know it.
 
Yes, yes you are. For instance, say someone sends you an eBay auction number via AIM or TXT or something and you just want to copy the long number into the search box on ebay.com. Oh..... too bad.. no copy and paste you're screwed. Now you have to either find a piece of paper and write it down or ask the person "nicely" if they could please send you a link to the auction via email so you can hopefully click on it. :rolleyes:

Or you can just, god forbid, search for the item yourself. My god people are so lazy sometimes. They want everything handed to them. Get over copy and paste. As far as I'm concerned, copy & paste, mms and all that is missing from iPhone because it's garbage anyway.

I can only think of civilization as Wall•e portrayed. Instant gratification is indeed disgusting. Everyone WILL NOT get what they want when they want it. Move on, really...
 
The iPhone is handled differently in Apple's accounting, over a rolling period, so updates are free. The Touch isn't. That is the key difference. Also, all updates until 2.0 have been free for the Touch. The only paid updates were for the addition of the iPhone suite of applications--such as maps, mail, weather, etc.


not entirely true. The 1.1.4 ipod free update didn't include things like main screen icon rearrangement, or music lyric display. These aren't part of the "iphone suite of apps".
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

Hopefully we will get turn-by-turn but the notification stuff will be nice as well. I wonder what all is gained with the new SDK as well. I can't wait to see. Anyone have an idea of when we ca expect an official update? If I had to venture a guess, I would say mid September. Anyone else?
 
I'm an ambidextrous trackpad user, I switch hands regularly and I absolutely hate using two button trackpads in PCs. Do you seriously lack the small motor function to put two fingers on the trackpad and click at the same time? How hard is that?

LOL... so you chastise people for lacking the the motor function to put two fingers on the trackpad but yet you are allowed to complain that you hate using two button trackpads on won't buy a new mac if they adopt it?

Thanks - I needed a good laugh to start out the day...
 
I have been an iPhone user since the week after the launch of 1.0 and for the life of me can not figure out what the obsession is with the iPhone and copy/paste. Is there something I'm missing?

Yes. :)

Oh look, a section of a webpage I want to copy and paste in an email to someone. Oh crap, I can't. I don't know how to spell this guys name, let me copy from my address book and paste into a text message. Oh crap, I can't. I want to quote someone on my LiveJournal in Safari so let me copy part of the post... Oh crap, I can't.

There's tons of reasons why someone would need copy and paste. :)
 
I'd like to see the next release to focus more on fixing the bugs and less on the new features. They need to get right what they have today. Let the next release be for all of those features that we all want.


I have been an iPhone user since the week after the launch of 1.0 and for the life of me can not figure out what the obsession is with the iPhone and copy/paste. Is there something I'm missing?

In a word, yes.
 
Stability and Speed

Every once in a while my iPhone slows to crawl while I'm typing or doing something. I have a suspicion this is PUSH-related, but of course that's just a guess.

In any case, the only thing I want for 2.01 or 2.1 or whatever is for it to be as fast and stable as 1.1.4. Apple is generally pretty good about this sort of thing, but this instability combined with the MobileMe fiasco has definitely taken a little shine off my image of them.
 
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that Stereo Bluetooth is hiding somewhere in the update. It's the main thing holding me back from getting an iPhone right now- I've just gotten too used to it on my BJII to shell out for a new phone that doesn't have the capability.
 
So is there anybody who has the 2.1 beta and could show us new features, improvements ?

Thanks, looking forward for the 2.0.1 SU.
 
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