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Mossberg: 3G iPhone In 60 Days

sk3pt1c said:
ha, i didn't know broadband in the US was so sucky! :)

i'm in athens, greece and i've got an 18Mb line plus unlimited local, long distance and international to 24 countries calls and i'm paying like
40-50 euro a month for that, around 60-80 us dollars.

i'm guessing in scandinavia it's a lot cheaper and faster! :)

i can't wait for the iphone to go 3g, that would be the point for me to get one, EDGE doesn't even exist here! i hope though that some companies will add unlimited data to their plans cause 3g costs ****loads!

ps. good point about ubiquitous internet access being very important!
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Not all of the US has horrible internet. I am lucky to be in an area serviced by Verion's Fios, so I get ~15mbit connection for around $45 a month, but many areas of the US aren't serviced by Fios yet.

tobin said:
Has anyone noticed that Apple's website is now stating 5-7 days for shipping an iPhone from the online Apple Store?

I know there's been a shortage lately, but I understood that you could still easily get one from apple.com.
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No, the website has said 5-7 days for quite sometime now, and you haven't been able to get one from there.
 
Telp said:
I believe the phrase is case andpoint. And you made neither case or point.
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No, it's "case in point," and it should be "neither case nor point." :)

If your saying it will never look as good as an SLR or even a point and shoot camera, that's true. But there will still be more definition in the picture.
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Yeah, but rendering an image made with a tiny, low performance lens with more pixels doesn't buy you much. Compare the image from a cheap 10MP point-and-shoot camera to a 6MP image from a DSLR with a good lens.
 
Does anyone know if there is a list somewhere which shows what cities will get 3g this year as a part of AT&T's expansion? I am from Kansas City, MO but go to college in Springfield, MO. KC has had 3g for awhile but Springfield doesn't have it at all. Only 150,000 people live here. Anyone think that is too small to get 3g soon?

Speaking of the internet speeds, in KC my parents have Comcast, which is advertised at 8mbps. In Springfield in my apartment I have Mediacom, which is also advertised at 8mbps, but usually is about 3-4 times faster then the Comcast in KC. It is also cheaper. I get basic cable with a box and 8mbit internet for $45. Regarding Comcast, I recently read something on Engadget about them flipping the switch on a new DOCSIS 3.0 spec internet in St Paul, MN that will have 50mbps up and mbps down, which will allegedly allow download of a 4gb hd movie in 10 minutes. First of all, any full length movie that is 4gb isn't HD, its DVD quality. Also, according to the DOCSIS wikipedia article, the speeds should really be in the 150mbps down, 100mbps up range for the slowest DOCSIS 3.0 spec. Perhaps by the time the DOCSIS 3.0 8 channel gets going with 300mbps downloads, we can see real 1080p video downloads. Thats probably, at the very least, 3 years away. Sad. Also sad is that the 50mbps Comcast will cost $150 a month.

I also love how lots of people are starting to complain how 3g isn't all that fast and are talking about the 4g iPhone. I thought 3g was the cure for everything this time last year? People will always want what they can't have. Plus 4g won't be out for a few more years, so your 3g iPhone will be the top dog for longer then the 2.5g EDGE.

So what will it take for me to upgrade? Personally, I would upgrade if they would just put more ram in the darn thing. And I mean ram, not flash memory. I think it comes with about 128mb. Thats the main reason everything crashes. Quadruple that to 512mb, and there would be far less problems. I know the memory would have to be much smaller and power efficient, but geeze, I bought 4gb of memory for my new MBP on NewEgg for eighty something dollars. Surely 512mb of miniram, or whatever it uses, wouldn't be all that expensive. Then you could have lots of background apps running like AIM, etc, which are limited now with the SDK. Safari would also be snappier...and if thats not reason enough, then I don't know what is!

What would be really killer: the new 3g back is black because its really a photovoltaic cell in disguise. Imagine charging your iPhone by placing it on your windowsill, or while sitting on a parkbench. Green tech FTW! I can dream...and sorry for so many random comments in this post. I tend to let them well up and then release a tidal wave all at once.a
 
The problem with increasing HSDPA speeds beyond 1Mb/s down and 500k/s up is the backhaul to the towers. Sprint is having the same problem with their WiMax implementation. They cant get a big enough pipe to each tower. A couple of T1s might be fine for EDGE and voice data, but not for HSDPA speeds above 1Mb/s.
 
CWallace said:
I expect the 3G iPhone to be announced and possibly demoed at WWDC in June, but I am not sure it will actually be in the US stores (online and retail) when announced. We may need to wait until later in the year to get it.

Question - Many folks point to the fact that nobody can find an FCC filing for a 3G iPhone as proof it is not yet ready. If Apple releases it first in a foreign country, do they need FCC approval? It may already be undergoing (or have already received) certification in a foreign country where it will be offered for sale in conjunction with the WWDC announcement with US availability "pending FCC approval".
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You can apply to have the FCC approval "secret" for a few months. Aka the FCC will withhold that they have approved something for a few months before releasing the details to the public.
 
Love it! Walt couldn't have said it better. When compared technologically to other developed countries, we are one of the worst with phone, internet, and television capabilities. Dramatic change needs to happen within the next three to five years.
 
old dude gets it

It's interesting (to me at least) that the old dude that is Walt Mossberg actually "gets it", and is somehow relevant.
 
firebox said:
Just because "everyone" does something does not make it right.. The english language would not be the english language without "rules" to define it and i just feel that this in particular breaks those fundamentals.
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What an interesting thing to say. Most experts in the English language would probably say that it wouldn't be what it is without all the people who have disregarded the rules over the ages.

English, more so than most languages (but by no means is English unique in this respect) has grown and changed over the years in a very free manor by users making mistakes, and those mistakes being picked up by the broader populus. Language changes, it's a fact.
 
Tethering?

So the 3g should be out shortly, I'll be buying one I'm sure as soon as it hits. One thing I'm curious about if it will have a built in tethering capability. That's a big selling point for me. :)

I have an 8gig model right now with AT&T here in the states. Does anyone know how AT&T handles tethering on their other 3g phones?
 
Project said:
Yeah, i'm looking at any two of the following and I will upgrade:

32GB
HSDPA
5 megapixel+
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I'd love to see a side by side comparison of two cell phone cameras, 2 MP vs 5 MP. Because either way, the optics are so tiny, and the receptor is so tiny, that I don't see how you're going to see any difference in quality. I gave up on the Canon SD line after several iterations because my pictures, every year, got worse and worse the smaller the cameras got, despite the additional MPs. I don't see the point of a 5 MP cell phone camera.
 
MacFly123 said:
I noticed that too! I think it is very sad and it really annoys me. Now I AM NOT PERFECT, but I try and it scares me that people are not intelligent enough to simply comprehend the meaning of what they are saying. I think some people just give in because they are lazy or because everyone just says it wrong anyway, but that is sad as well.

The real point is that it is no secret that Americans are becoming illiterate and have absolutely slaughtered the English language. Read some classical eloquent old English and then listen to how teens talk today. Their vocabulary is pathetically limited and morphed into an internet slang crude language because they lack the ability to properly express themselves. I don't mean to get off topic either, but it makes me fear for our future generations in such a high tech and intelligent world with vast competition.

Other annoying things people butcher all the time:
FERmiliar, anywayS...

The US really does need to catch up. We are losing all jobs but high tech ones pretty much, and yet we are so far behind in the world in our own tech. Time to get on the bag America!
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Didn't you mean "wrongly" or "incorrectly?"

It's a shame when even those throwing the stones can't get it right (er, um, correct).
 
madbad01 said:
Australia's customer service is appalling compared to other civilized and westernized countries. It is a known fact that Australia has the customer service equivalent of customer service in the 1950s. We're almost 60 years behind.
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A known fact! How did they calculate that? Pretty amazing ;)
 
9secondadidas said:
I have an 8gig model right now with AT&T here in the states. Does anyone know how AT&T handles tethering on their other 3g phones?
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Yes, the Blackjack had tethering. I tethered it to my MacBook and got 750k/s down a 100k/s up or something like that. The battery life was abysmal though, I could drain it in 4 hours if I had IM on and surfed the web.
 
uNext said:
I cant wait to see all the threads about how ATT just ****ed them over by hiking up the price for internet access on the iphone.
If people expect 3g and no difference in price then wake up from the reality distortion field.

3g will be awesome on the iphone. For many reasons unkown.
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Not that unknown ...

"The most significant feature of 3G mobile technology is that it supports greater numbers of voice and data customers — especially in urban areas — and higher data rates at lower incremental cost than 2G.
By using the radio spectrum in bands identified, which is provided by the UTI for Third Generation IMT-2000 mobile services, it subsequently licensed to operators.

It also allows the transmission of 384 kbit/s for mobile systems and 2 Mb/s for stationary systems. 3G users are expected to have greater capacity and better spectrum efficiency, which allows them to access global roaming between different 3G networks."
 
I sold my iPhone on ebay the last couple of days and only lost about $20. Using my cheapo Nokia phone for a few months and then buying the new iPhone. There are two reasons I want 3G:

1. Can talk to someone and use data at the same time.
2. Hopefully a little faster.

Point 1 is a biggie for me, I hate talking to someone asking where do I need to go or can you pull up that email that I just sent you and lets talk about (work). I have to end the call, do the research and then call the person back.
 
ImageWrangler said:
though it sounds all to familiar from whiny people who think Apple thinks they OWE them something. It's technology, it moves fast, deal with it.
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It's just a microcosm of the political season that is bombarding the country thanks to the presidential candidates making speeches filled with empty promises to appease the whiny people who think they are owed something.

It's life, it moves fast, deal with it. (I couldn't agree with you more)
 
bacaramac said:
I sold my iPhone on ebay the last couple of days and only lost about $20. Using my cheapo Nokia phone for a few months and then buying the new iPhone. There are two reasons I want 3G:

1. Can talk to someone and use data at the same time.
2. Hopefully a little faster.

Point 1 is a biggie for me, I hate talking to someone asking where do I need to go or can you pull up that email that I just sent you and lets talk about (work). I have to end the call, do the research and then call the person back.
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Both points have me sold. I can't wait to own my first.
 
sleepingworker said:
Not that your point is missed on me completely, but what are you implying exactly? That major cities in the US like NY, LA, DC, etc. suffer low bandwidth because we have more land mass?

Mossberg's point is that if we want to have a successful downloadable or streaming video technology that can be utilized on our very large HD flat screen TV's as well as our PC's, then we should at least be at the same speeds as other technologically advanced countries. Do you disagree with that? If so, why?
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I'm just saying it's easier to implement all this technology in a place that is 1/50th the size with a much denser population.

Anyway, my Internet and TV are fiber-optic, and I think anything faster than what I have now would just be kinda unnecessary. I have 30 mbps down and 5 up.
 
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