longofest said:
cant you just buy the phone and connect it to whatever network you want? or dosent it work like that in the states?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Smart Phone Speculation
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
cant you just buy the phone and connect it to whatever network you want? or dosent it work like that in the states?
I worked for Nokia and I know that Apple and Nokia have worked with some prototypes. I've also seen a prototype Nokia N91 with iTunes software. However, it remains to be seen if they release it with iTunes or not.
longofest said:
They don't have a Sony Ericsson phone, do they? I switched to Cingular and got the SE T637 and was getting dropped calls all over the place. Switched to a Motorola phone and no more dropped calls. SE phones suck.
Thanatoast
macrumors 65816
My only request (for a so-far fictional product) is that they make it a flip phone. Treos are like frikkin' paperback books in your pocket. I'm pleased with my Samsung i500 right now, it's old but functional. An Apple smartphone would kick ass. Especially with 4 gigs of memory and fully syncable with itunes, iphoto, ical, .mac, etc.
hulugu
macrumors 68000
All I want for Christmas...
...is an Apple smartphone and a Media Center.
Seriously, the phone can be a soap-bar or flip-phone, but just give me something as good as one of SonyEricsson's, but with a much better antennathe T610 I had got lousy reception.
And, really Apple if you're listening, I need a Media Center. My VCR crapped outfinally!and I want a PVR and maybe something that can stream music and files like a Sonos. Come'on Apple, give me a box that can connect to the rest of my network and record shows and display stuff on my TV.
Please?
Pretty please with sugar on top?
...is an Apple smartphone and a Media Center.
Seriously, the phone can be a soap-bar or flip-phone, but just give me something as good as one of SonyEricsson's, but with a much better antennathe T610 I had got lousy reception.
And, really Apple if you're listening, I need a Media Center. My VCR crapped outfinally!and I want a PVR and maybe something that can stream music and files like a Sonos. Come'on Apple, give me a box that can connect to the rest of my network and record shows and display stuff on my TV.
Please?
Pretty please with sugar on top?
solvs
macrumors 603
They could very well continue with what they are doing now. Providing the software while the other guys manage the hardware. I know they like to control the whole widget, and the ROKR is not so great I guess, so it's probably only a matter of time before they do their own. But if they don't, I'm sure Nokia and Verizon are interested in having options.
Misplaced Mage
macrumors regular
Not entirely. First, there are two different digital modulation architectures in use in North America: GSM (same as in Europe and the rest of the world) and CDMA. They are inherently incompatible: GSM is time domain-based, while CDMA is code domain-based. It's the same underlying principle as why an AM radio won't pick up FM stations, even if it were tuned to the right frequencies. So if you have a phone from Cingular, for example, it will be a GSM phone, and won't work on Verizon, U.S. Cellular, Sprint, or AllTel because their networks are CDMA-based, and vice versa.NicP said:
Then stir in the following:
- The 1800MHz cellular band in Europe is a military band in the U.S., and thus isn't available for civilian use here. So tri-band GSM phones built for Europe won't work properly in the U.S. because they're built to use that off-limits band. Similar situation for tri-band US GSM phones in Europe. Quad-band phones work everywhere there's GSM, however.
- Most of the CDMA carriers have Qualcomm's BREW environment installed on the phones they purchase instead of Java. BREW applications are cryptographically signed to the phone that downloaded them so while they could be transferred to another phone, they wouldn't run without being downloaded again from the carrier. And there's a hefty fee to become a developer, so your only choice is to buy the apps made available by the carrier for downloading. This results in a remarkably profitable situation for the carriers, so don't look for this to change anytime soon (and let's not even start on the music download situation).
- No RUIM cards in use (SIM cards for CDMA phones), so you have to transfer phonebooks using either a cable and a PC, or via Bluetooth (if the carrier didn't disable that profile, that is) to another phone when you change phones.
Misplaced Mage
macrumors regular
I'm not holding my breath on a Verizon-branded iTunes phone. Verizon and Apple do not see eye-to-eye on music royalties, and Verizon already has Windows Media running in the BREW environment of their VCAST phones to handle video clip downloads. 😡solvs said:
Sabenth
macrumors 6502a
Originally Posted by ScubaDuc
I am all for Apple design but the PC market share is about 4% which makes it rather unactractive for phone operators. Let's be real, the phone would have to synch with Outlook to have a real chance of becoming a market breaker.
Hit the nail on the head with that one i thinks thats why apple hasnt done a phone yet but let moto do the work a test to see how people react to such a concept .. It costs a lot of money to make a phone network let alone get people to use it apple have gone about it the right idea with what they have allowed moto to do but dam shame moto cocked up the phone and apple only allowing 100 songs on it but can see why they did that too ... iPod nanon and shuffle would be wiped out
I am all for Apple design but the PC market share is about 4% which makes it rather unactractive for phone operators. Let's be real, the phone would have to synch with Outlook to have a real chance of becoming a market breaker.
Hit the nail on the head with that one i thinks thats why apple hasnt done a phone yet but let moto do the work a test to see how people react to such a concept .. It costs a lot of money to make a phone network let alone get people to use it apple have gone about it the right idea with what they have allowed moto to do but dam shame moto cocked up the phone and apple only allowing 100 songs on it but can see why they did that too ... iPod nanon and shuffle would be wiped out
oh no moto...
well, if they DO decide to have an apple phone, i hope the OS is not that of the moto phones, I find their software to be...suck. clumsy and poorly organized. I am a fan of the sony ericsson phones. since this is all fantasy anyway, I'll fantasize about the SE OS in the apple phone. 🙂
well, if they DO decide to have an apple phone, i hope the OS is not that of the moto phones, I find their software to be...suck. clumsy and poorly organized. I am a fan of the sony ericsson phones. since this is all fantasy anyway, I'll fantasize about the SE OS in the apple phone. 🙂
I have already posted similar information in german at:Macrumors said:
CNet quotes Motorola's Ed Zander with teasing comments about Apple's plans for a "smart phone".
His comments appear to be primarily speculative. Rumor and speculation about an Apple-branded phone has been ongoing.
Meanwhile, in the article, Zander was defending comments he had made against the iPod nano. Those comments were "taken completely out of context" and Zander reports that they still had a great relationship with Apple.
http://www.macsibbern.de/content/view/339/1/
Folks - Apple could always pull a 'Virgin Mobile' and purchase cellular space off of Sprint or Verizon - thus, working on a CMDA network, but setting their own rules
In that way - they wouldn't run into any of those stupid music violation problems
if they do this though, then I don't see any non-Apple users using their network or phone
on the other hand ---- would non-Apple users purchase an Apple Smartphone anyways???
thus - for CDMA users, hopefully Apple creates its own network off of Sprint or Verizon ----- from there, they may make a GSM one for Cingular, but Cingular already seems to be scoffing at the idea of continually being the b*tch of the iTMS
but yes ---- for this to succeed, Apple needs to DIVORCE itself from the CINGULAR-ONLY partnership
the EDGE network is already outdated, now that Sprint and Verizon have rolled out faster EVDO's ---- with WiMax on the horizon, and Sprint and Verizon with early leads, Cingular is finished
In that way - they wouldn't run into any of those stupid music violation problems
if they do this though, then I don't see any non-Apple users using their network or phone
on the other hand ---- would non-Apple users purchase an Apple Smartphone anyways???
thus - for CDMA users, hopefully Apple creates its own network off of Sprint or Verizon ----- from there, they may make a GSM one for Cingular, but Cingular already seems to be scoffing at the idea of continually being the b*tch of the iTMS
but yes ---- for this to succeed, Apple needs to DIVORCE itself from the CINGULAR-ONLY partnership
the EDGE network is already outdated, now that Sprint and Verizon have rolled out faster EVDO's ---- with WiMax on the horizon, and Sprint and Verizon with early leads, Cingular is finished
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
Apple's phone should run Windows Mobile 5.0
It would take Apple a long time to create a robust, power-conserving mobile subset of OSX.
Windows Mobile 5.0 is here today, with a rich feature set that is based on a consistent subset of the Win32 API set.
Quicktime and iTunes already run on the Win32 APIs, so adapting them to Windows Mobile would be a lot faster than building an OSX Mobile subset and then adapting them to the OSX mobile APIs.
The other things that phone users want (Outlook integration, web browsers, etc) are already in Windows Mobile.
A huge set of 3rd party applications are available on Windows Mobile, and the .NET Compact Framework is making it very easy for 3rd parties to increase the number of applications every day.
If Apple wants to do anything more than provide a primitive (but probably pretty) phone with "mApps only" to the die-hards, they'll look at Windows Mobile as the base for their phone.
This may sound like a troll - but why do you think that Palm has produced a Windows Mobile 5.0 version of the Treo? It's simple, they don't want to be stuck with a dwindling, proprietary niche mobile OS offering.
Using Windows Mobile for the Apple Smartphone really is the only sensible option. (Distasteful to the zealots perhaps, but sensible.)HasanDaddy said:
It would take Apple a long time to create a robust, power-conserving mobile subset of OSX.
Windows Mobile 5.0 is here today, with a rich feature set that is based on a consistent subset of the Win32 API set.
Quicktime and iTunes already run on the Win32 APIs, so adapting them to Windows Mobile would be a lot faster than building an OSX Mobile subset and then adapting them to the OSX mobile APIs.
The other things that phone users want (Outlook integration, web browsers, etc) are already in Windows Mobile.
A huge set of 3rd party applications are available on Windows Mobile, and the .NET Compact Framework is making it very easy for 3rd parties to increase the number of applications every day.
If Apple wants to do anything more than provide a primitive (but probably pretty) phone with "mApps only" to the die-hards, they'll look at Windows Mobile as the base for their phone.
This may sound like a troll - but why do you think that Palm has produced a Windows Mobile 5.0 version of the Treo? It's simple, they don't want to be stuck with a dwindling, proprietary niche mobile OS offering.
Hum...
Well, I'll give you my five cents. What astonishes me is that everybody thinks Apple will make a phone that will also play music when the logical thing is that they'll make an iPod that can also be used as a phone 😎
Because Apple doesn't just do what others already do. Yep, just imagine it. An iPod, just like any other iPod, with a nice little click wheel, a color screen and nothing else... Just a bit thicker than your average iPod, maybe not as wide, maybe more form fitting to the hand... and suddenly it starts to ring (or vibrate, whatever you prefer). You pick it up, you flip it open like any other flip phone and voilà, there they are, all those little numbers.
And of course, Apple would create it's own mobile phone provider (already to be able to sell their music without any hassle). It's not that difficult, at least for a big company like apple, to create a phone provider. Apple would sell their sleek and simple phone for as much a big iPod, plus a subscription of two years (to make up for the extra costs of the mobile components). Within one year, they'd probably have at least 20-30 million customers. Yep, because they would be the only ones with that sleek and simple interface everybody just knows is too cool and that the other phone companies wouldn't be able to provide... Just like that, apple would be one of the big mobile phone companies in America... And there is just as much money in that than in the iPods... 😱
Sounds crazy?
Well, I'll give you my five cents. What astonishes me is that everybody thinks Apple will make a phone that will also play music when the logical thing is that they'll make an iPod that can also be used as a phone 😎
Because Apple doesn't just do what others already do. Yep, just imagine it. An iPod, just like any other iPod, with a nice little click wheel, a color screen and nothing else... Just a bit thicker than your average iPod, maybe not as wide, maybe more form fitting to the hand... and suddenly it starts to ring (or vibrate, whatever you prefer). You pick it up, you flip it open like any other flip phone and voilà, there they are, all those little numbers.
And of course, Apple would create it's own mobile phone provider (already to be able to sell their music without any hassle). It's not that difficult, at least for a big company like apple, to create a phone provider. Apple would sell their sleek and simple phone for as much a big iPod, plus a subscription of two years (to make up for the extra costs of the mobile components). Within one year, they'd probably have at least 20-30 million customers. Yep, because they would be the only ones with that sleek and simple interface everybody just knows is too cool and that the other phone companies wouldn't be able to provide... Just like that, apple would be one of the big mobile phone companies in America... And there is just as much money in that than in the iPods... 😱
Sounds crazy?
broken_keyboard
macrumors 65816
I don't know about this. Apple seems to like to do two types of things: revolutionize and simplify. In the case of the Mac they revolutionized computers by creating a mass market GUI, in the case of iTunes they revolutionized music by offering mass market downloads.
How can they do a similar thing with phones? Where is the scope to simplify the phone, which has a brilliant user interface already, the numeric pad everyone knows? Also, where is the scope to revolutionize it? Maybe the idea that calls use the Internet - but they already have iChat for that. Maybe they are thinking of an iChat phone?
How can they do a similar thing with phones? Where is the scope to simplify the phone, which has a brilliant user interface already, the numeric pad everyone knows? Also, where is the scope to revolutionize it? Maybe the idea that calls use the Internet - but they already have iChat for that. Maybe they are thinking of an iChat phone?
JoeG4
macrumors 68040
I think whoever said Apple must use windows on whatever it is is losing their mind.
Howabout we just take the current ipod and add GSM or CDMA capability to it? Change the headphone jack to a kind like the W800 uses. You'd still be able to dial out, but in order to do that you'd need to use the on screen keypad (scroll through it with clickwheel if anything).
Otherwise, have a Phone> menu:
Address Book> [list of people/places to call]
Manual> [loads keypad you scroll through with wheel]
Recent Outgoing> [last 20 numbers dialed]
Recent Incoming> [last 20 numbers of callers]
Choose the entry, it shows when the person last called you and when you last called them, and a nice [dial] button.
Simple, slightly innovative, and not dorky and all geeky like your standard phone with 30 million clunky menus.
And please, tell Sony to take their 'fantastic designers' and shove them. Those people aren't capable of releasing anything outside their little home island without raising HUGE amounts of hype and then delivering an overpriced product that breaks too easily.
Howabout we just take the current ipod and add GSM or CDMA capability to it? Change the headphone jack to a kind like the W800 uses. You'd still be able to dial out, but in order to do that you'd need to use the on screen keypad (scroll through it with clickwheel if anything).
Otherwise, have a Phone> menu:
Address Book> [list of people/places to call]
Manual> [loads keypad you scroll through with wheel]
Recent Outgoing> [last 20 numbers dialed]
Recent Incoming> [last 20 numbers of callers]
Choose the entry, it shows when the person last called you and when you last called them, and a nice [dial] button.
Simple, slightly innovative, and not dorky and all geeky like your standard phone with 30 million clunky menus.
And please, tell Sony to take their 'fantastic designers' and shove them. Those people aren't capable of releasing anything outside their little home island without raising HUGE amounts of hype and then delivering an overpriced product that breaks too easily.
treblah
macrumors 65816
Has this ever been discussed/reported:
What cell/provider does Steve/Apple Corporate use?
It seems to me, from what little I actually know about Steve, he would throw his phone against a wall every time he used it.
And if he actually uses a ROKR, then I think we might have some real trouble on our hands for the future of Apple. 😉
Anyone have evidence?
What cell/provider does Steve/Apple Corporate use?
It seems to me, from what little I actually know about Steve, he would throw his phone against a wall every time he used it.
And if he actually uses a ROKR, then I think we might have some real trouble on our hands for the future of Apple. 😉
Anyone have evidence?
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
nobody wants that
Do you want a product that's an iPod that rings (a "pretty ROKR"), or something that will hit the mass market.
Soon, any phone that's not capable of true 2-way email usage will be marginalized.
By the time Apple can come with some proprietary solution for that, the market will be owned by Windows and Symbian solutions. (Palm wrote it's own obituary on Monday, in case you weren't watching.)
Don't let your hate for Windows blind you to the obvious - if Apple wants to get into the phone market they need to do it fast and big. Since Quicktime and iTunes already runs on Windows, two of the most important mApps are already on the path.
In case you haven't noticed, hell has been freezing over a lot lately ("Apple iTunes for Windows", "Sun sells x86", "Sun sells x86 for Windows", "Palm adopts Windows for new Treo", "Apple dumps PowerPC for Intel CPUs"...).
Microsoft and Symbian have a 5 year advantage in operating systems and applications for the mobile phone market. "MAC OSX Mobile" is 5 years away from the market - by then there won't be a market for Apple. They have to use one of the current top mobile OS vendors, and Windows Mobile is the best fit.
*I* said that Windows Mobile is the sensible platform, and I'm not losing my mind.JoeG4 said:
Do you want a product that's an iPod that rings (a "pretty ROKR"), or something that will hit the mass market.
Soon, any phone that's not capable of true 2-way email usage will be marginalized.
By the time Apple can come with some proprietary solution for that, the market will be owned by Windows and Symbian solutions. (Palm wrote it's own obituary on Monday, in case you weren't watching.)
Don't let your hate for Windows blind you to the obvious - if Apple wants to get into the phone market they need to do it fast and big. Since Quicktime and iTunes already runs on Windows, two of the most important mApps are already on the path.
In case you haven't noticed, hell has been freezing over a lot lately ("Apple iTunes for Windows", "Sun sells x86", "Sun sells x86 for Windows", "Palm adopts Windows for new Treo", "Apple dumps PowerPC for Intel CPUs"...).
Microsoft and Symbian have a 5 year advantage in operating systems and applications for the mobile phone market. "MAC OSX Mobile" is 5 years away from the market - by then there won't be a market for Apple. They have to use one of the current top mobile OS vendors, and Windows Mobile is the best fit.
BornAgainMac said:
I couldn't agree more... I would like a thin format phone with address book and calendar - AND NO half baked camera.
Thank you Apple