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iPhone Analysis and Palm Perspective

Not a door, it is (probably) an antenna cover.

tacojohn said:
This to me looks like a door for a battery and SIM card. Steve didn't mention anything about the battery NOT being removable...

353860554_228b0d4f5a.jpg
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That is probably the non-conducting cover over the antennas. It has approximatly the right size necessary for the complex multiband antenna (4 band-GSM, 2 band Wifi/BT). It is placed at a good location for getting a reliable link with a low SAR. As the SIM-card is inserted elsewhere, it would suprise me if this is a removable door.
 
Really should be an iPod not a phone

I want one of these as a music/video/photo ipod (with considerably more than 8GB too!:rolleyes: ), but it's obviously too clunky to use as a phone. Nobody uses two hands on their phone - you use the thumb of the hand you're holding it with, because the other hand is holding your bag/fighting through the crowds of commuters etc etc. Plus you throw your phone around and generally mistreat it in a way you don't with an ipod.

Also - unless you get a really cheap pay-as-you go phone (mine cost £19.99 and still works fine 2 years later), then people expect a cool phone to be free or pretty much near free if you're signing up to a contract...and they expect to get upgraded regularly too. All of this means that people fundamentally treat phones and ipods differently:
-phones are pretty much disposable (you get the latest model until it breaks/you get an upgrade, which is free because it is heavly subsidised by the phone company)
-ipods are expensive and treated as treasured possessions-you can't walk into an apple store and get an upgrade for free!

Is there really such a difference between the Uk and the US on this? I'm amazed that we in the UK seem to be so far ahead when it comes to mobiles than the Americans :D
 
freeny said:
The battery issue could be a deal breaker for allot of people. Me included. If I cant make it through a whole day without my phone draining, whats the point?
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The playback times are given, but to me, the most critical part is the standby times. I don't turn off my current phone and I'm somewhat used to charging my phone once a week. Two or three times a week isn't out of the question if it's a media player because there are always new podcasts coming anyway.
 
tallyho said:
I want one of these as a music/video/photo ipod (with considerably more than 8GB too!:rolleyes: ), but it's obviously too clunky to use as a phone. Nobody uses two hands on their phone - you use the thumb of the hand you're holding it with, because the other hand is holding your bag/fighting through the crowds of commuters etc etc. Plus you throw your phone around and generally mistreat it in a way you don't with an ipod.
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I usually end up having to use handheld devices with two hands anyway, most of them are too small, too big, buttons are too stiff, buttons too low on the device or have some other ergonomic problem. This includes phones, all of the ones I've tried are at least a little cumbersome to use single-handed.
 
Dun capability?...

everyone is forgetting the one big feature of the new high-speed data capability of the new Treos, etc. The ability to use it as a modem for your laptop. I'll bet you the iPhone won't do it.

that's a deal-breaker for me.
 
bbydon said:
yeah steve never said anything about the battery other than life.....
how do we know its not removable.
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If it was there, I think he'd call it a revolutionary new feature and have some gimmicky means of holding it or ejecting it.
 
wildmac said:
everyone is forgetting the one big feature of the new high-speed data capability of the new Treos, etc. The ability to use it as a modem for your laptop. I'll bet you the iPhone won't do it.

that's a deal-breaker for me.
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It's called "Tethering" and I'm pretty sure it wont have it..... The only thing I see on the phone that is Revolutionary is the GUI and Multi-Touch it still needs Faster speeds and 3rd party software to be great.
 
migue said:
I like your point, but I also have a SLVR and I notice that the battery is only removable after one pries away the outer back shell. Any battery, even the iPod's, is removable if you open the shell. It will all depend on how easy they made it for the ordinary person (after all, selling batteries is a major cashpoint of handset makers), as well as on how they engineered the battery (I recall some rumors of dual battery for phone and ipod function)
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That's not even the same type of phone, and the screen size is a lot smaller too. The SLVR isn't being asked to do nearly as much as the iPhone is.

iPods do have replaceable batteries, but they aren't replaceable on the go. Some people want a second battery on hand in case their primary dies.
 
wildmac said:
everyone is forgetting the one big feature of the new high-speed data capability of the new Treos, etc. The ability to use it as a modem for your laptop. I'll bet you the iPhone won't do it.

that's a deal-breaker for me.
Click to expand...

There's no way Apple won't allow this. It's a feature of every bluetooth phone (again, my ancient se t610 can do it).

Cingular might block it but it would be insane for Apple to hobble the device like that.

However, at EDGE speeds I don't know why you'd bother unless in an emergency.
 
christian_k said:
No !
But on the go, WLAN is nearly useless. In the town where I live I do not know any WLAN I can access and I relally walked around a lot with a MacBook. Some hotels etc. do have public WLANs, but they are often quite expensive (often more expensive than 3G service) and they are very insecure (no encryption), sometimes you even have to enter credit card info via unencrypted WLAN.
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Just pointing out that sending credit card info over an unencrypted WLAN is not as insecure as some might think. Don't forget that your browser is encrypting the credit card details.

Anyway, Jobs said they will add 3G to the iPhone so I fully expect it to be in the European and Asian versions of the phone. We in Europe won't see it until around October and Asia sometime in 2008 (plenty of time to get it sorted).
 
daneoni said:
Somewhat true, the iPhone is still lacking although its a solid competitor i dont see it replacing my treo but rather partnering with it. There is no removable battery, no Office suite editing support, no memory expansion support (which i guess is a marketing ploy to get people to keep upgrading to higher capacity versions). Also what about apps?

The iPhone is an amazing product but i dont see myself getting the first gen unless i have spare cash lying around. The treo is still more productive for me.

Also lets be fair the iPhone copied/borrowed stuff from Palm such as the ringer/silent switch function, threaded SMS, the famous home button/home screen, phone app etc but thats ok they took the good stuff and improved on them so im not complaining.
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I was a huge fan of Palm way back in the day, but ever since my iPod could sync up my contacts and calendar, it has pretty much set on my desk and I use to retreive old stored data.

To many of us, Palm has been dead for years. Basically we all went from clucky laptops, to Palm, to smaller laptops, to a Blackberry/laptop combo. When you mention Palm to people, often you hear, "are they still around".

The iPhone is the type of device that many of us are looking at. Just the other day, one of the many anti-Mac boys claimed that it was just a regular phone, so we ordered him to go onto the site and do a little research and he came back a while later saying that this is exactly what he's been waiting for. Mind you, this guy is anti-Apple.

We're currently timing the battery life on our Blackberries and the four of us (the time keepers) are all dying after 90 minutes.
 
To all the nay-sayers...take a look back

Out of curiosity, I went back to the original thread that was created after Jobs announced the iPod. MANY of the posts back then were very negative. Here's a sampling from just the first page:

Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! Where's the Newton?!

I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
Why oh why would they do this?! It's so wrong! It's so stupid!

gee! an mp3 player with a HD! how original! kinda reminds me of a JUKEBOX i once knew..

OH NO! Just checked Apple Store - they want $399.00 for this thing...Ouch!!!

I pray steve has saved one last new thing to pull out ala steve right at the end...

All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.

Sure the iPod is cool, and hell yeah I'd love to have one, but only for half the asking price of $399. Here's the questions though...
If this is also a 5gb HD, can it be used as a quicktime player for video in any other way?
Is the software that runs it upgradeable to add features later on?
If the ipod is only the world's most baddass MP3 player then I don't know if I'm really going to stand in line to buy it, I have a cd walkman and a burner already, and besides that now that I don't have a dotcom job anymore I need that $400 to pay car payments and rent.
Steve, bring down the price or add video to it and I'll eat TopRamen for a month to afford one.


I think history is about to repeat itself here. Apple may be looking to capture just 1% of the market in 2008, but I have a feeling that's conservative and is just the beginning.... Apple is going to end up dominating this market as well.
 
Not only does this squash rumors and secrecy but this sets up the market. Look at it this way:

You can buy an iPod anytime. Almost anywhere nowadays. No contracts to renegotiate, no company required to provide the iPods basic services, its yours.
Cell phones are completely different because you cannot just go out and buy one unless you renew your current contract (assuming that phone is on there already) or you pay to end your contract early and switch to another.
We all have 6 months to think about it. A huge amount of customers are going to have to resign contracts in the next 6 months, so here is their chance to switch. Apple is letting people decide instead of frustrating them by releasing it immediately and forcing people to stay on their contract and not leave it. We have a choice now.
This is all marketing and attention, and Apple has started the year well.:p
 
GregA said:
Is it possible to have an external battery that connects to the bottom of the iPhone for long days? I know it'd be far lamer than changing the battery, just wondering.

Otherwise the market for car chargers and secondary chargers (home + work) will be huge.

edit: okay, found a few external batteries, all quite large (eg half size of regular iPod). The redeeming feature is that it'll charge your iPod while connected, so you don't have to necessarily USE it with the external battery. Ah well.
Click to expand...
Well, you just hit the nail on the head.

There is already a huge market for iPod products. Most of the people who use their iPod in their car already have the charger and an FM transmitter. The iPhone is not a new LG or Motorola phone which have different jacks and chargers from their older counterparts. The iPhone uses the same devices as your trusty iPod.
 
Removable battery?! Not a prob.

The iPhone does have a docking port, yes? So some third party will sell a thin battery pack that will plug into the port, much like the TunePower Rechargeable Battery Pack for iPod.
 
GodBless said:
Solar isn't the only Apple could do for a non-charge power solution. Apple could include an RF energy conversion feature using a similar solution to Powercast's (a review of their amazing RF receiver is here). If worse comes to worse then they could license Powercast's solution from them (however I think Apple would probably buy Powercast first knowing how much they hate licenses from the iPhone patent incident).
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The description of this technology sounds like you need a power transmitter and a reciever. If the reciever is sitting in the phone, you still need a transmitter sending power to it. This has to either be close to the phone or use a directed transmission towards it. Otherwise, to cover large areas with enough power to operate a cellphone with a fingernail sized reciever would require an enormous ammount of energy.
 
Nym said:
This is very very stange, the buttons on the bottom are very similar, I wonder how there isn't a post about this somewhere here on MacRumors.

I mean, that LG phone photos, were they released before the iPhone?
I hate to think that Apple may have ripped off someone else's idea for the UI :eek:
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Yes, those pics were released long before the iPhone was announced. Those pictures were from December 15th on Engadget.
 
slffl said:
Once again people are comparing apples to oranges. Palm has been going after the business market with the Treo. IMO Apple is set on going after the consumer market and letting Windows Mobile keep the 'business men'.
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I agree. Apple is going after the Consumer market with this device in hopes that people will start bringing it to work. Almost like a hardware version of the Podcast. Podcasts started off as fun things that kids did and parents started watching them and now companies are taking advantage of the technology.

The only device out there that is simalar to the iPhone is really Sony's PSP (except for the phone feature). If you think I'm crazy take a close look at it and some of the hacks available. What's the battery life on that.
 
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