Steve Talks Up The iPhone?

[ccrandall77]

Well, to be fair, your radio ROM/software can have some effect on your reception, and different companies release different radio software at different times, and that can have some effect.

My 8125 has a t-mobile radio ROM, but I run it on cingular. There are a few wrinkles in that, but you are generally correct.

You are correct. With my testing, I used an unlocked Nokia 6620 (originally from Cingular) with both T-Mo and Cingular SIMs. Also did the same with a SE T610 (unlocked, but originally T-Mo). In both cases, I found Cingular's service (NOT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!) much better.

 

[stormj]

Features

What I gather would really make the iPhone something special:

1. Have the storage capacity of an iPod nano.
2. Work with 3G networks.
3. Built in iSight.
4. Integrates standard OS X applications: Mail, iCal, AddressBook, and iChatMobile with video and audio integration.
5. Works as a front row remote.
6. Intergrates with iLife: iTunes (itms), iPhoto, and iMovie. Perhaps GarageBand ring-tone capability in the future.
7. Integrates with .Mac.
8. Mobile Dashboard.
9. Bluetooth
10. WIFI
11. VOIP (through wifi and/or integration with your computer with a dialer widget)
12. A windows version with some integration, but limited.
13. A real TimeMachine (okay, just kidding on this one)

How it functions hardware wise, there’s been so much speculation as far as touch sensitive keypads and touch sensitive screens, the verdict is out on this one. I think the sidekick and blackberrys have it down, but wouldn’t be surprised if Apple could take it to the next level. It certainly will be interesting to see what they do.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, especially the 3G aspect and the iCal etc. integration.

It simply must have 3G or else the itunes store won't work without MAJOR annoyance.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

I could also ask why the rest of the world doesn't get with the program and move to better technology with CDMA2000 like the US and parts of Asia have?

As I said before GSM has 81% of the market. UMTS (W-CDMA) enable hand-over back and forth UMTS and GSM. CDMA2000 can not do hand-over between GSM and CDMA2000. (See Wikipedia: "The CDMA family of standards (including cdmaOne and CDMA2000) are not compatible with the W-CDMA family of standards that are based on ITU standards.")
Hence all networks that has GSM will transfer to UMTS since this decrases their initial investment as they transfer from 2/2.5G to 3G. Changing network standad is expensive, but the GSM/EDGE marketshare has been growing in US and will most likely continue to grow. At the same time CDMA is non-existant in europe.
The conclusion is simple - CDMA2000 is in the long run as dead as betamax.

 

[stormj]

The US GSM carriers suck. T-Mobile has great customer service, but their coverage stinks. Cingular has great coverage, but they have BY FAR the worst customer service.

Plus EVDO beats the pants off of EDGE. And Verizon + Sprint + Amp'd + US Cellular + a bunch of other, smaller CDMA carriers account for over 60million potential customers in the US. If they only do a GSM version of the phone, it'll be a big mistake.

EDGE is not meant to compare with EVDO, UTMS is.

Can you imagine them making the phone only for CDMA? That translates to "US only." There will be a GSM version, it will most likely support UTMS, which is as good or better than EVDO.

Even assuming for the sake of argument, which I don't in reality, that CDMA is better than GSM for voice, the annoyance of not being able to swap SIM cards is enough for me to avoid it.

That and the fact I can't use it anywhere outside the US.

 

[vand0576]

My bets are that it will be either with Nokia or with HTC.

Nokia make the best phone interfaces in the world, which is a very Apple-like thing to do. They're also very experienced at phone hardware desigh and integrating it smoothly with the interface.

HTC are a taiwan company that design and make the best phone hardware in the world, and then sell them to companies like O2, T-Mobile etc to put their brand on. Most HTC-built phones run Windows Mobile, which Apple may be interested in replaceing with OSX Mobile...

I can quite easily see Apple commisisoning HTC to make a Apple phone, these people are simply the best at hardware phone design and manufacture.

Someone suggested Blackberry, but Blackberry is more geared to corporate use - not a very Apple-like sector - and also are quite heavily dependent on having access to a Windows server to get the most out of your phone.

Overall, I feel it will be HTC and OSX Mobile...

Um, I think the point is that it is an Apple phone. Apple would make it. Otherwise we end up with the Motorola ROKR or which ever other models they have that "feature" iTunes.

 

[Westside guy]

Hahahahaha you do not know much about the cell business here in the U.S. T-Mobile uses Cingulars network in a better part of the country, and Cingular uses T-Mobiles in the other parts, under a roaming deal agreement they made when Deustche Telecom bought Voicestream creating T-Mobile.
Which pretty much means your contradicting yourself by saying T-Mobile sucks and Cingular is better coverage wise.

Sorry, but I'm a T-Mobile customer, and unless this is the world's best-kept secret and needs some special authorization - what you're saying is patently false. T-Mobile's coverage area is rather bad.

My wife went to visit her folks a few weeks ago (in small-town USA) and couldn't make cell calls for much of the drive nor during her stay. A friend's Cingular phone had no such problems over much the same region.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

Doesn't Europe have many many carriers in each country? There's no carrier that spans the entire EU, is there?

We have many carriers in each country in europe, but we all of them have the same system which allows roaming between networks.

Who wants to pay 400$ for a phone that will look like an antique 12 months from now? That's a lot of money to pay for the status of having a brand new phone.

Why not?
People pay $399 for an iPod today that is antique within 12 months...

 

[BornAgainMac]

Mac Mobile should be the name of the phone. Remember that Steve said he wants Mac in the name. Mac Mobile will be perfect. Complete with Pocket Photo, Pocket Movie, Pocket Tunes, and Pocket iChat.

 

[ccrandall77]

As I said before GSM has 81% of the market. UMTS (W-CDMA) enable hand-over back and forth UMTS and GSM. CDMA2000 can not do hand-over between GSM and CDMA2000. (See Wikipedia: "The CDMA family of standards (including cdmaOne and CDMA2000) are not compatible with the W-CDMA family of standards that are based on ITU standards.")
Hence all networks that has GSM will transfer to UMTS since this decrases their initial investment as they transfer from 2/2.5G to 3G. Changing network standad is expensive, but the GSM/EDGE marketshare has been growing in US and will most likely continue to grow. At the same time CDMA is non-existant in europe.
The conclusion is simple - CDMA2000 is in the long run as dead as betamax.

If long run is 10yrs, I'll grant you that. But in the US and much of Asia (Australia maybe) where there's CDMA carriers, CDMA2000 1x-EVDx is going to be around for a while.
Actually WCDMA also inherits much of it's tech from CDMA/IS-95 and I have seen some documentation that shows that WCDMA can be compatible with CDMA2000 just like UTMS/WCDMA is compatible with GSM. But it sounds as if the upgrade path for GSM/GPRS/EDGE to WCDMA is easier than going from CDMA2000 1x to WCDMA.

But since for the next several years CDMA2000 1x-EVDO will be better than the GSM related technologies. And by the time WCDMA takes over, the iPhone will be as antiquated as the Newton.

Apple needs to create both versions as CDMA has about 5x% of the US market... and Apple has and probably will continue to cater to the US market first.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

Hell I have only now seen 3G phones that can handle UTMS ( Japan).

Hmmm, I dumped/retired my first UTMS cellphone more than a year ago... and I live in Sweden. Moreover, Japan have had UTMS phones longer than in Sweden

 

[ccrandall77]

EDGE is not meant to compare with EVDO, UTMS is.

Can you imagine them making the phone only for CDMA? That translates to "US only." There will be a GSM version, it will most likely support UTMS, which is as good or better than EVDO.

Even assuming for the sake of argument, which I don't in reality, that CDMA is better than GSM for voice, the annoyance of not being able to swap SIM cards is enough for me to avoid it.

That and the fact I can't use it anywhere outside the US.

I agree that EVDO is more analgous to UTMS than EDGE, but for now in most places UTMS is not present... esp the US. So when I compare CDMA technologies to GSM technologies for domestic carriers, the CDMA camp wins hands down.

There are many places CDMA is used outside the US. From the maps I've seen, much of Asia, Australia, and the Americas have CDMA coverage. And has I mentioned in a previous post, the big 2 (VZW and Sprint) do offer hybrid CDMA/GSM phones (or at least they did... we can still apparently get them through our business).

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree about your point on SIM cards. I wish to God Sprint had SIM cards. I have a Treo 700p and I LOVE IT!!! But I don't want to haul it around with me everywhere. Frequently I steal my wife's new Samsung A900 since it's so thin and is hardly noticable in my pocket. I'd love to have the freedom to have 1 line and 2 phones.

 

[DakotaGuy]

The only way this iPhone or whatever it is called will be successful is if they team up with a carrier or carriers and offer promotions on it like all the other cell phone manufactures do. I am not sure about Europe or other parts of the world, but people are used to getting a decent phone for not much money either at their initial contract or every 2 years when the contract is up. Selling an unlocked phone at some outrageous price ($200-300) is not going to cut it when I can go down and get a decent phone for around $50 with rebates from the cell provider and whoever made the phone.

Now I know there are plenty of people who would buy an Apple phone no matter the price, but if you are going to compete with companies like Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, etc. you have to work with carriers and provide great contract prices.

The whole CDMA v. GSM debate is kind of like the PowerPC v. x86 debate.lol Actually from everything I have read CDMA is actually the newer of the 2 technologies and actually has a lot of benefits over GSM. In then end however, both work fine. I think in the US you will find CDMA has a lot better coverage if you look at the coverage maps on the providers websites. With GSM you hit a lot of dead space especially in the rural areas. CDMA pretty much covers the entire US. Now in Europe I know it is different and that GSM is the standard.

 

[yoak]

I´ll buy one. It´s a while untill I have to upgrade my Ericsson, so maybe around that time.
great to only have to carry one item as opposed to ipod AND phone.
My Ericsson is a walkman phone, and dosen´t work to well with mac. iTuneMyPhone saved the day though, at least with this little script I can transfer songs onto it.

 

[freeny]

If Apple pick a carrier, I hope is not Cingular. But from past situations, that's very likely.

All carriers suck in one way or another. If you are unhappy with one you just switch to another. There is a constant migration from carrier to carrier because of this...

The carriers dont give a crap if you leave them because there is always a group of unhappy consumers who hate the competitor and are ready to move to their service.

This is why it takes forever to cancell a cellular account, they will try as hard as possible to not let you or talk you out of it. Its their only ammunition. My wife and I spent 2 hours on the phone with Sprint last week trying to cancel our extra phone we usually give our nanny. They were giving the most rediculous excuses as to why we shoud keep it when we no longer had any use for it. They wouldnt take no for an answer. It wasnt until we threatend to cancel all three of our accounts that they "graciously" cancelled the account.

This is also why there are such high cancelation fees. apparently people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get away from any of the providers...

Bottom line; it doesnt matter what provider it would be, youll be screwed anyway.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

If long run is 10yrs, I'll grant you that. But in the US and much of Asia (Australia maybe) where there's CDMA carriers, CDMA2000 1x-EVDx is going to be around for a while.
Actually WCDMA also inherits much of it's tech from CDMA/IS-95 and I have seen some documentation that shows that WCDMA can be compatible with CDMA2000 just like UTMS/WCDMA is compatible with GSM. But it sounds as if the upgrade path for GSM/GPRS/EDGE to WCDMA is easier than going from CDMA2000 1x to WCDMA.

But since for the next several years CDMA2000 1x-EVDO will be better than the GSM related technologies. And by the time WCDMA takes over, the iPhone will be as antiquated as the Newton.

Apple needs to create both versions as CDMA has about 5x% of the US market... and Apple has and probably will continue to cater to the US market first.

OK. let us just cut to the chase. The keyword here is hand-over. CDMA2000 doesnt support it from GSM. GSM has 81%. Hence cdma is and will always be a small local network that can be used in small pockets on this planet. Furthermore, I seriously doubt ITU/FOMA will change anything in the standard to allow any compability for CDMA2000 since it is not in their interest.
The faster cdam/CDMA2000 moves to oblivion the better.
We would all benefit from one standard, cheaper phones, worldwide access, lower minute rates (from higher competition) Just look at how Vz bills you.
Having multiple standard on cellphones is just as clever as having two incompatible internet.

 

[zac4mac]

I'm on my 3rd cell phone now. First was a panasonic brick and was CDMA. It totally sucked. Switched to GSM 2 years ago but initially Cingular sent the wrong phone - an LG flip. Reception was as bad as the CDMA but roaming was much better. After 3 weeks, I got the phone I ordered, a t637 and I love it. I have NO desire to go back to CDMA and I won't lose the tight BT link I have to my Macs with the t637, but it's getting old and due replacement.

I'm watching and waiting...

Z

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

Now in Europe I know it is different and that GSM is the standard.

It is more like 81% of the world market.

 

[ccrandall77]

OK. let us just cut to the chase. The keyword here is hand-over. CDMA2000 doesnt support it from GSM. GSM has 81%. Hence cdma is and will always be a small local network that can be used in small pockets on this planet. Furthermore, I seriously doubt ITU/FOMA will change anything in the standard to allow any compability for CDMA2000 since it is not in their interest.
The faster cdam/CDMA2000 moves to oblivion the better.
We would all benefit from one standard, cheaper phones, worldwide access, lower minute rates (from higher competition) Just look at how Vz bills you.
Having multiple standard on cellphones is just as clever as having two incompatible internet.

I wouldn't call over 50% of the N American market a small, local network. Time will tell whether GSM or CDMA will win out. I agree in the long run WCDMA has more upside, but who knows what'll come out in the next few years.

VZW doesn't bill me. I hate VZW for crippling phones and expensive service. I have good service from Sprint, similar capabilities, and the plans are very reasonable... and they are CDMA.

 

[gugy]

All carriers suck in one way or another. If you are unhappy with one you just switch to another. There is a constant migration from carrier to carrier because of this...

The carriers dont give a crap if you leave them because there is always a group of unhappy consumers who hate the competitor and are ready to move to their service.

This is why it takes forever to cancell a cellular account, they will try as hard as possible to not let you or talk you out of it. Its their only ammunition. My wife and I spent 2 hours on the phone with Sprint last week trying to cancel our extra phone we usually give our nanny. They were giving the most rediculous excuses as to why we shoud keep it when we no longer had any use for it. They wouldnt take no for an answer. It wasnt until we threatend to cancel all three of our accounts that they "graciously" cancelled the account.

This is also why there are such high cancelation fees. apparently people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get away from any of the providers...

Bottom line; it doesnt matter what provider it would be, youll be screwed anyway.

It's true. I had Cingular and I hated it. Now I have Verizon, it's sucks but better than Cingular for my circumstances.
Hopefully, Apple will have a solution that will help us say goodbye to all those lame carriers.

 

[Westside guy]

Hmm... maybe I stand corrected on this - see paragraph three (or four, if you count bullet points as a paragrapn).

T-Mobile USA to End Network Venture with Cingular and Acquire California/Nevada Network and Spectrum

I was curious; so I went into my V600's network settings and found a Cingular network. I registered with it, and was able to make a call.

I don't understand why this isn't automatic though. I don't always have coverage at times when my Cingular-using office mate does.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

I wouldn't call over 50% of the N American market a small, local network.

I am sorry, but it is... 150 million people is a small market compared to the other +6 billion people. Europe alone is more than 700 million people...

 

[bigmc6000]

That's the problem

They are failing because they believe media content is what is important to people. Pumping their phones full of media and "services" which only are really advertisements that don't help anyone but Disney and ESPN. They are phones with superficial artificial sustainance.

Technology wouldn't be such a boom if people couldn't advertise with it some way. Apple will only succeed if it can avoid this and make a product that is functional and serves a true purpose in the consumer's life without the bullcrap content.

It's same issue of turning people from Windows to a Mac but WORSE. If people had to pay MS a fee for switching I doubt it'd be more than about 1% share. And that's what the US business is right now. Sure there are going to be a few people who pay the 170 to get out of their contract and then another 300 for the iPhone and then, most likely, an increase in their calling plan becuase now noone is free mobile to mobile.

We've headed down this contract path and I personally think it's fine. I don't plan on switching carriers all that often and if it saves me $280 off of a phone for a service I'm going to subscribe to anyway I say go for it.

Really - please pick Cingular - my g/f has it and won't get rid of it so I"m stuck. That's my plea to Steve - PLEASE!!!!

 

[mmmcheese]

Although I'd be interested in an Apple created phone (depending on what it turned out to be), I doubt they will come out with a CDMA version....so in the end I'll be SOL anyway...

 

[jaxstate]

Apple will choose Cingular because they lock their phones and T-Mobile don't.🙄

 

[asphalt-proof]

If Apple pick a carrier, I hope is not Cingular. But from past situations, that's very likely.
The ideal is a carrier free phone. That way the iphone can reach many more people and make it possible to upgrade phones without asking people to terminate their contracts.

I agree that a carrier free ohone is the way to go but a carrier-subsudized phone is cheaper for the consumer (or at least appears that way in the beginning). I think there maybe networ issues as well. Doesn't Verizon or Nextel operate on a different freq than Cingular/AtT? Not sure.