WWDC '08 Sees Slimmer, Improved, 3G iPhone 804
Many of us have been watching Apple's WWDC 2008 keynote unfold live. There are many exciting tidbits, but most of all is the announcement of the 3G iPhone. Featuring an even thinner profile, black plastic back, metal buttons, flush headphone jack, improved audio, GPS support, and improved battery life, this is bound to make quite a few people stand up and take notice. Update 18:54 GMT by SM: Best of all it looks like they really took the price point to heart, 8GB iPhones are now $199 and a 16GB model will be available for $299, coming to an Apple store riot near you on July 11,2008.
Biggest news is... (Score:3, Informative)
Price... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:5, Informative)
Can hardly beat the prices (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Verizon (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly enough, one program, "Loopt" is available on both providers, but I cannot find it in any of the App listings on Vz's website.
Re:Buttons? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Price... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:2 hours (Score:5, Informative)
And now the small print... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:5, Informative)
Several? Lets say you get a normalish plan and with taxes ends up costing you $100/month. So over the course of 2 years you spend $2400. This plan would include something like 900 minutes, unlimited nights/weekends, unlimited data, and 1500 texts. The Sprint everything plan is $99/month and that's before taxes (although it does include unlimited minutes). Can you show me any other cell phone with unlimited data that's cheaper than I've listed here?
Re:And now the small print... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like the lower price comes from carrier subsidy. They're no longer available to buy direct from the online Apple Store. You have to do it in a brick and mortar store, or on the O2 or Carphone Warehouse websites (which haven't been updated yet, Boo-urns), which I suspect means signing up for a contract before you get your hands on one.
Still no word on UK pricing either.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:4, Informative)
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=MTE2NTQ [apple.com]
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Quick! (Score:4, Informative)
Further, can you ge an unlocked version (even if subsidised with a contract would be great), I refuse to pay anything for a phone if I cannot switch SIM card in it. I live in the UK, have my parents in Sweden and my girlfriends family is in Belgium and I am going to the Netherlands a lot for work.
So, tell me, even though the EU have done a lot of work in capping the roaming fees, they are still way to high, and especially for data transfers, why would I get an iPhone. I would really want one, but without front facing camera and reasonable options to ge an unlocked phone (I dont mind signing a contract in my country of residence), why the heck would I get one.
Frankly, I will not get the iPhone until those items are fixed on the todo list.
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:3, Informative)
When buying gadgets, you have to evaluate the value proposition as of the moment when you hand over the money. Holy shit, has this been a nice phone. When the 3G model is released, I will be lining up like a stereotypical fanboy, because the 1.0 hardware's ownership experience has been an exceptionally good one.
NOT slimmer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where's the meat? (Score:5, Informative)
The keynote did have a discussion of a standalone IM client, not based on SMS. It won't run as a background process, but rather rely on a new push service that Apple (and carriers I guess) are adding with the 2.0 firmware rollout. The push service is intended to be used for lots of things, not just IM-ing, and will be available through an API to all 3rd-party devs.
First-gen iPhones can already do some locating-aware stuff off of the location of cell towers. It ain't great - accuracy is to within a hundred feet at best in my experience, but it is good enough for some location-aware applications. It can already be used to tell you the nearest restaurants, etc., just not give you realtime directions, geotagging, etc. Why do you suddenly expect that the rollout of a next-gen iPhone would suddenly mean an upgrade in the hardware of your current iPhone? New hardware with new capabilities is the march of technology.
Improvements to the software will come out on a continuing basis. In addition to getting 3rd party apps (which as you say can fill in a lot of missing capabilities), firmware 2.0 on first-gen iPhones will give support for a lot of enterprise stuff (I don't know if that applies to you), support for iWork and MS Office file formats, push-everything, and access to MobileMe (all your stuff is in the cloud, and accessible from anywhere, and pushed to all your devices).
Re:Can existing users upgrade? (Score:4, Informative)
The only way Apple might be involved is in verifying your existing iPhone account at purchase before handing you the box. This seems likely, given the price and the fact that they're obligated to honor their exclusivity agreement (and AT&T, for all its other missteps and poor decisions, has been doing a decent job with providing iPhone customers with service and value-added perks [including rapid expansion of their previously pathetic 3G network]).
Re:Verizon (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Verizon (Score:3, Informative)
The data service will still be limited to verizon only phones. Sorry but if your stuck on Verizon your screwed. AT&T suks but at least they use GSM. So you can switch to t-mobile in the USA.
Re:Verizon (Score:4, Informative)
No, EV-DO is a flavor of Qualcomm's CDMA2000, not GSM. That article is simple talking about Verizon upgrading their EV-DO network to the newer and faster Rev A version.
What is happening though is Verizon will be switching to a GSM technology called LTE for their 4G network. So maybe with the next iteration of the iPhone will be available on Verizon. But until then, I'll stick with my HTC 6800 and a network that actually has 3G coverage.Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's the meat? (Score:3, Informative)
No one ever said this was the desktop mail client. That was the MobileMe web app. I'll give you that spam filtering is good to have, but server-side has always been the "better" solution.
1st gen iphones will handle location just as they always have - a little location button in Maps with cell tower and wifi triangulation. You'll need the latest released iPhone firmware.
Re:Where's the meat? (Score:2, Informative)
Where's iChat or am I supposed to keep spending like $0.15 a text for SMS. Speaking of SMS, where's the damn MMS?
Of course, GPS Maps will be a no-go.
It's hard to tell whether Apple intended iPhone 2.0 to be much more than this before the wailing and gnashing of teeth "forced" them to make a developer API. I get the impression that somehow, some way, they didn't see that coming, and may have had to change plans really fast. Creating an SDK/API for a completely new device is a **huge** undertaking, and it has major implications if they get it wrong.
Still, I think we're going to see 3rd party apps as a very big deal in the coming months, as long as Apple stays reasonable about access to the developer program. If so, they will have created a pretty huge infrastructure that will allow independent developers to seriously compete with the major software houses.
There are some things I don't like about the SDK rules, but the fact that free (speech and/or beer) apps will be distributed at no cost could also be a boon for public awareness of free software.
Re:Will over seas iphone be unlocked by law and wi (Score:3, Informative)
GSM is much better than CDMA because of its interoperability.
Insert SIM card & talk.
Some overseas iPhones will be sold unlocked (France I know for sure), but unlocking the phone is so easy, I don't see why it should be a problem if it's sold unlocked or not.
Re:Can hardly beat the prices (Score:1, Informative)
Hahahahahaha like that will ever be the conversion rate a US company would use.
Re:Will over seas iphone be unlocked by law and wi (Score:3, Informative)
Last I heard, unlocked iPhones were being sold in France, but they're significantly more expensive than the locked iPhones. When I crunched the numbers a few months ago, I think the cost came to over $1,000 USD (probably even more now, since the dollar is still getting weaker compared to the euro).
In addition, Apple won't provide support for iPhones outside their country of purchase, so if anything goes wrong with it, you'd have to make an international trip just to get it serviced.
Re:Can existing users upgrade? (Score:2, Informative)
So all you have to do is buy the new iPhone and put your old sim card into it!
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:2, Informative)
$30/month.
totally rad.
AT&T definition of worldwide coverage (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Verizon (Score:4, Informative)
W-CDMA, despite name similarities, has nothing to do with CDMA-2000 which is a standard developed by Qualcomm mainly used in the US market.
Re:Quick! (Score:5, Informative)
There is hope yet.
Re:Verizon (Score:2, Informative)
In other words, what the rest of the world calls UMTS?
What's Missing (Score:3, Informative)
* No expanded capacity. I had hoped for 24Gb or 32Gb models
* No improved camera. I had hoped for more megapixels, maybe a flash, or at least better controls and options and editing
* No mention of copy/paste. Come on! Copy/Paste!
* No mention of rotatable keyboard, across all aps
* No MMS. Come on! Multi-media messaging is standard on most phones sold now!
* No mention of email search. Contact search is great, but let us search through everything. Pervasive search!
That said, I'm still buying one
kernel panics (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Verizon (Score:5, Informative)
As for Verizon "opening up" their network, that's a funny variety of newspeak. It is still more closed than any GSM carrier. Verizon's variety of "open" means that they are publishing specs and setting up a certification lab so that 3rd party manufacturers can make devices compatible with their network. You can't use any old CDMA phone and use it on Verizon, it has to be Verizon certified.
Compare to GSM, where you can take any unlocked phone, put in a sim-card from any GSM carrier you like and off you go. There is no need for the phone to be $cell_carrier_x certified, it is sufficient that the phone complies with the GSM spec.
The CDMA family is:
CDMA (2G) - CDMA2000 (2.5G) - EV-DO (3G) - UMB (4G)
The GSM family is:
GSM (2G) - EDGE/GPRS (2.5G) - UMTS (3G) - HSDPA/HSUPA (3.5G) - LTE (4G)
Re:So When Did a Year Become 18-Months? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Already? (Score:3, Informative)
BTW it's easy to unlock (one click on ziphone.com) and easy to
use with WIFI as a phone WITHOUT A CONTRACT using fring.com
That's my current iPhone, and the new 3G iPhone is an even better bargain (with GPS & 3G) that will revolutionize the cellular and even commnications industry which is why it deserves all the press it is getting. IT'S DEFINITELY A BREAKTHROUGH!
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Already? (Score:3, Informative)
Also, jailbreak won't work on the new iphone.. so there goes all of your selling points.
Keynote Video (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Price... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually they do :P AT&T, Virgin, T-Mobile, amongst others, sell pre-paid phones in convenience stores, including 7/11 :P