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Cingular-only iPhone At Launch?

Warbrain said:
There are vast areas that Verizon and Sprint don't cover in the US, too. It's that way with every single cell phone company in the US.

Apple would have to make at least 2 different phones for that to work. There are two primary cellular networks in the US: GSM and CDMA. If Apple makes just a GSM phone, they're also making a phone that can be used in almost every other country in the world. Europe and Asia are the real cell phone markets, not the US.
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Yeah, but not if it's locked. I had to call up my provider and beg for my unlock code so that I could use *my* phone in Asia, and then they said yes, and never sent it to me. Call them back, and...well..rinse, repeat.

What about people like me who travel a lot and want to pop in SIM cards in other places? I'm sick and tired of the U.S. market and all of its stupid contract / vendor lock-in ********.

Pity to see Apple on that bandwagon; I hope they just sell the phone in the Apple Store unlocked, and let us choose the carrier we want.
 
if the iphone gets wifi, FAT chance of verizon carrying it, the last thing they want is to lose on their $40 month data plan.

once this comes out it should be a good time to re-evalutate my need for my treo 650 and verizon...
 
ftaok said:
Did you even read the link?

Speculation is that O2 will have the exclusive rights to the iPhone in Europe. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think O2 is somehow connected to Orange. So it looks like the iPhone will have a carrier in Europe and the UK.
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Corrected because your wrong, no connection between Orange and O2.
 
It could be a cash cow for Apple, if it does sell 25-million phones. People want stylish phones - look how the ROKR took off (sadly, now everyone has one, it's considered naff...) - so that figure seems realistic if the product is right.

I hope the Apple phone will be 3G. Is there any indication of this? Surely Apple wouldn't go with the old 2G technology.
 
Mock up drawing of this iPhone

The picture they are using as a mock up already is being sold, by LG. It is on the cover of October edition of "PC Magazine". Looks identical and has the slider hidden number pad.
 
Works for me

I'm currently on Cingular and I'm not in love with my SE T637 all that much. I wonder what the price on this shiny new iPhone is going to be... If the syncing does not create duplicates in my Address book from the phone, I'll be very very happy.:)
 
suzerain said:
Yeah, but not if it's locked. I had to call up my provider and beg for my unlock code so that I could use *my* phone in Asia, and then they said yes, and never sent it to me. Call them back, and...well..rinse, repeat.

What about people like me who travel a lot and want to pop in SIM cards in other places? I'm sick and tired of the U.S. market and all of its stupid contract / vendor lock-in ********.

Pity to see Apple on that bandwagon; I hope they just sell the phone in the Apple Store unlocked, and let us choose the carrier we want.
Click to expand...

But then they need to build two different phones based on two different sets of components and it would end up being too expensive in the end. Yes, the provider of the service will give you the unlock code for when you want to travel, but Apple and any other company that makes a cell phone will never be able to sell unlocked phones in this country and allow you to choose which provider you want. Nokia is trying it now at their two stores in Chicago and New York, but I can tell you that it's not going to work.
 
Philsy said:
I hope the Apple phone will be 3G. Is there any indication of this? Surely Apple wouldn't go with the old 2G technology.
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Very hard to say, but 3G is not taking to the rest of the world very well, especially the US as they can't get 2/2.5G to work properly yet. This is about the only occasion when the UK really is doing well.
 
Here's a crazy feature idea for the iPhone

Include all the functionality of the Apple remote to allow the iPhone to drive your iTV and Front Row.

"Mom, hold on a second, I need to change the channel..." :D
 
Squonk said:
Include all the functionality of the Apple remote to allow the iPhone to drive your iTV and Front Row.

"Mom, hold on a second, I need to change the channel..." :D
Click to expand...

*runs to local patent office*
 
.Mac mobile

Thataboy said:
Lame.

The only way the iPhone market even makes sense is via an Apple MVNO.

Since when does Apple NOT want to "control the whole widget"? I don't want Apple controlled by the nutjob mobile providers.

As much of an Apple fanboy as I am, I would never use Cingular. But beyond that, it signals that the Apple iPhone will be incredibly lame -- just another music phone (basically an Apple ROKR/SLVR), because that is pretty much all that Cingular trades in.
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I'm with you. As a MVNO, Apple could kick Helio's ass. Maybe they are becoming an MVNO and they're leasing their network time from Cingular? That makes sense, don't it?

Think about it...

.Mac mobile

The cellphone connects to your .Mac mail, your iCal calendar, and your Address Book.

iChat and text messaging would become one and the same. I could use iChat to talk with a friend on his iPhone, and vice versa. The iPhone has a camera, right? Video conference from the train, anyone?

Buy ringtones at the iTunes store, or just use any song in your library as your ringtone, or write your own ringtone in Garageband.

Download your podcasts from anywhere.

The photos you shoot automatically go into your iPhoto photocast. Your videos sync up with an iTunes playlist. Everything automatically appears on your dynamically-powered iWeb. It's moblogging for the masses.

And since they'll need to sell them to Windows users, lots of folks will have .Mac mobile accounts, but they can't really use them to their full advantage unless they use iLife on a Mac, which they'll just have to buy.

Yes, this is all conjecture, but it's the only thing that really makes a full-fledged Apple iPhone make sense to me in their overall plan for world domination.

Your thoughts?
 
Warbrain said:
You got customer service from Verizon? Is this before or after they tacked on the taxes that aren't being collected anymore? Or crippled the Bluetooth on their phones? Or put a terrible GUI on their phones? Or any other number of things that they've done that are anti-consumer?
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I admit they do indeed do these things... or have done these things in the past. But the situation that I spoke of was last week, also every time I have called them they have worked with everything and entered things just right so that if I wanted to change my plan it would not be prorated at all.

Christopher
 
Abstract said:
That artists rendition posted on the front page is pointless. It's not as though that is the actual design. It looks too Nano-ish, and even the Nano look has changed.

Anyway, I'm not excited about an iPhone. It would need to give me at least one neat feature for this to be worth drooling over.

It has a camera? So what.
Mp3 player? Don't they all?
Games? What....like the iPod ones? Meh.

Something new would be nice.
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Great Mac syncing....

And this is Apple, they will have to do something in the style of "one more thing) ;)
 
Porchland said:
Yeah, this is pretty exciting news. I had already planned to call Verizon this morning to see when my contract is up.

EDIT: $175 termination fee per phone and a good while to go on the contract. Yeouch! I may just have to keep my fingers crossed that Verizon Wireless gets the iPhone late next year.
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Yeah, the termination fee is harsh, but I'm honestly not sure I could last another year and a half without throwing my Razr into a trash compactor. I like the phone, but the god-awful interface that Verizon loads onto it is another story.

A cell phone should NOT require hard reboots.
 
cmcconkey said:
I admit they do indeed do these things... or have done these things in the past. But the situation that I spoke of was last week, also every time I have called them they have worked with everything and entered things just right so that if I wanted to change my plan it would not be prorated at all.

Christopher
Click to expand...

I suppose everyone's experience is different. I've never had problems with Cingular and have never been with any other company because of that. They've always cooperated with me and have handled the problems accordingly.
 
Well, here in western NY,(USA) this would be bad news.
You could drop a bomb on the cingular stores here and not hurt anyone. Here, Verizon is king. Everyone has Verizon, and they have Verizon here because of two things....they are the only one who has coverage, and because everyone is "in network", you call everyone else for free without using minutes.
In my job, if I miss one phone call, it costs me $500 bucks. I cannot afford to lose a phone call, and a few years ago when I had Cingular, I lost a lot of calls.

Don't get me wrong....I have no great love for Verizon, but the sad fact is that at least here, they are the only viable option. My friend was visiting the other day, and had "no service" at my house, less then one mile from our "city". He has T-mobile. (Only one I know who does) At work, the city manager made a great decision to get nextel for all of our rigs because he thought the walkie-talkie feature would be "cool".......they die going 15 miles from our "city". no one even uses them. They are dusty.

It is too early to get worked up over this.....too little real info. If it works with verizon....great, i'll be the first to get one around here. If not, I love my nano, and have more then one pocket. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Frank D.
 
the_ki said:
I'm with you. As a MVNO, Apple could kick Helio's ass. Maybe they are becoming an MVNO and they're leasing their network time from Cingular? That makes sense, don't it?

Think about it...

.Mac mobile

The cellphone connects to your .Mac mail, your iCal calendar, and your Address Book.

iChat and text messaging would become one and the same. I could use iChat to talk with a friend on his iPhone, and vice versa. The iPhone has a camera, right? Video conference from the train, anyone?

Buy ringtones at the iTunes store, or just use any song in your library as your ringtone, or write your own ringtone in Garageband.

Download your podcasts from anywhere.

(snip)

Yes, this is all conjecture, but it's the only thing that really makes a full-fledged Apple iPhone make sense to me in their overall plan for world domination.
Click to expand...

I love the concept! The phone syncing to your .mac account (if you have one) instead of syncing the phone to your Mac directly.

AND... This would then handle the PC users. They could get a .mac account and have access to all these goodness as well.

Sadly, knowing Cingular, and the rest of the network providers, they would charge out the *ss for this capability. I like having the ability with my SE T637 that I surf for free midi files, download them to my mac, connect to the phone via bluetooth and upload the midi's - voila, free ringtones. Sure, some of them are cheesy, but I'm not paying $1 per ringtone.

I'm already (over)paying for a .mac account. I really don't want to pay more money again for a portal between my cellular account and the .mac account. Sadly, that is probably what the reality would be and probably rightfully so - technology isn't free.
 
No problem with waiting 6 months

Cingular service in my area sucks. I've been a happy t-mobile customer for almost 5 years. I am already happy with my Samsung t-809, and still don't know how I feel about device convergence.
 
I've been a happy Cingular customer for a few years now. Even though I just bought a new Nokia phone I'll gladly snap up an iPhone if it has all the features I need.
 
You're not going anywhere with your market share if you don't launch your phone simultaneously in India and China.

Nokia learnt it, SE learnt it, Motorola learnt it.

Looks like Apple will learn it the hard way as well.

I mean on an average, in India, about 5 million connections are added per month. That's India alone. Add China's figure to this and you'll understand what I'm trying to say.
 
You know, I'm thinking people really want an iPhone. And I'm also thinking that they want it so bad they won't even consider the source of this information.

Usually, a rumor like this wouldn't get three pages of comments without somebody mentioning that this story comes from ThinkSecret. In case you're new here, MR readers have a habbit of panning ThinkSecret. It's worse than panning really, it's more like slaughtering any news that comes from ThinkSecret.

It's fun to watch members battle out mobile providers.

Ford! No, Chevy!
I mean...
Sony! No, Sony sucks, buy Panasonic.
I mean...
Verizon! Nooooooo, Verizon drips off donkey b*lls, go with Cingular!

You folk crack me up. Thank you.
 
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