iPhone news and reviews

[Scandiman]

We all know the hype over the iPhone and it's death blow to .mobi, but it appears it will not measure up to the hype. No surprise to me really, as a long time Apple user I'm accustomed to downgrading my expectations a wrung or two when compared to the early spin on new products. No doubt I still prefer a mac but my Apple BS filter is well developed, I don't drink the cool aid.

With Apple hoping to reach 1-2% market share, I'm curious why all the frenzy over this product other than it is one of the first to so heavily market a consumer mobile internet device. Hopefully other manufacturers and carriers respond in kind, increasing subscriptions to unlimited data plans which is a KEY element to increasing the mobile user base, aka customers to .mobi sites.

Read the reports for yourself and come to your own conclusions, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/23/new-details-about-the-iphone/

http://www.mbmagazine.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2470&Itemid=62&dm_i=127992513

http://techdigest.tv/2007/06/iphone_wont_run.html

[mjnels]

my take: the iphone is a cool device and some people will buy it.. the touchscreen although seems like a novelty item because you have to use your fingers and from what i hear will not respond to a touchpen.. people are going to find out how annoying that really is with an item that small, trying to punch in keys via a touchscreen while holding the phone at the same time.

hype is often a combination of good marketing, excitement, and at very least a decent product.

their commercials could not be better.. i mean talk about grabbing your attention and selling it to the consumer..very well done. this is a major part of why all the hype.. it is a cool product being mass marketed as get on the internet on your phone, but like all hype you have to read between the lines.

[Scandiman]

The touchscreen is creating some serious problems for them. The original plastic bezel, though scratch resistant, was still getting obvious signs of wear so they switched to optical grade glass. That is likely going to be a major breakage issue and unlike a regular phone, if you break this you better get it fixed since it is a touch screen and not just a viewing window.

[Gerry]

Someone also just posted that the keyboard does not work in landscape mode where it seems to be better suited for many.

As for my thoughts??? My God, just go to any of the numerous posts I have done to battle this BS.

Frankly, I am getting tired of the iPhone and all the pissing and moaning already.

And frankly, glad to be here.

[nombre]

i am also a longtime apple deprogrammed cultist who sees the iphone as a mixed bag

i agree with scandiman and mjnels and think the touch screen might pose a problem for heavy users and for texters .....the glass may be fragile and there may be breakage issues ......i also hear there will be battery issues

but i think the biggest problem will be download speeds, people are arguing that the iphone will display the "real" web, leaving aside the issue of what the real web might be and leaving aside the issue of how pages _should_ look on mobile phones ...

simple math tells us that the amount of data in a page like apple's home page or the new york times is just too much to download in a speedy and useful fashion

despite all the hype which is coming mainly from techies, most non-techies will stay away from the iphone because of size, price, fragility and text-input issues

despite all of the possible negatives, i still the iphone as a big plus for mobi as it will get people to think of doing _more_ with their phone than just talking .......and it certainly is pretty

(what i wonder is whether it is the prototype for the next ipod ? i suspect it is and _that_ would get me going :-) )

[newton]

I was tempted by its sleek good looks until I saw that there was an alternative .. one I am looking at quite seriously is the htc touch http://www.htctouch.com

The interface for the apple iphone was out a while ago to be downloaded from torrents for use on other phones/pdas

[Scandiman]

The HTC is looking nice also. I think a lot of people have swallowed the hype and think the iPhone will revolutionize everything but existing devices can do many of the same things. I think the biggest change is the marketing of high end phones to general consumers instead of it remaining a niche for business users.

[nombre]

david pogue from the nytimes gives the iphone a pretty good review today and says this:

The Web browser, though, is the real dazzler. This isn’t some stripped-down, claustrophobic My First Cellphone Browser; you get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip —much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.

i may be dead wrong but i don't think this is what users want to do on the iphone, i don't think they want a pretty web page or want to have to zoom or scroll ..... i think that they will be on the go and will want _specific information_ to do a specific task, most of the time anyway ...i think they want simple layouts that give them information they need ...fast

i really believe that the iphone will be beautiful, even dazzling, but won't provide the kind of usefulness that users want

until they find mobi sites anyway :-)

i still think that the iphone will be a plus for mobi

just found this page at wired ...the possible cost of an iphone .....wow.... : http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/iphone-total-co.html

[dentalpro]

The HTC is looking nice also. I think a lot of people have swallowed the hype and think the iPhone will revolutionize everything but existing devices can do many of the same things. I think the biggest change is the marketing of high end phones to general consumers instead of it remaining a niche for business users.

also...most mobile usage is outside the U.S....My wife is from Ukraine and I can tell you 99% of that country wouldn't have the $ to buy an iphone and I'm sure many peeps in other countries wouldn't...and I was thinking today, if I rubbed my finger around an iphone as much as the ad shows, the screen would be so smeared up I wouldn't be able to see anything...imo

[mejcdj]

There is no way I am going to spend $500 or $600 on a phone!
Do you have any idea how many .mobi names I can buy with that??

Give me a normal Nokia TY.

[newton]

iphone .. 600 bucks
Having one before your friends and getting RSI first .. priceless :)

[Gerry]

david pogue from the nytimes gives the iphone a pretty good review today and says this:But continuing on the same article by the same author:


There’s no memory-card slot, no chat program, no voice dialing. You can’t install new programs from anyone but Apple; other companies can create only iPhone-tailored mini-programs on the Web. The browser can’t handle Java or Flash, which deprives you of millions of Web videos.
The two-megapixel camera takes great photos, provided the subject is motionless and well lighted (samples are here). But it can’t capture video. And you can’t send picture messages (called MMS) to other cellphones.
Apple says that the battery starts to lose capacity after 300 or 400 charges. Eventually, you’ll have to send the phone to Apple for battery replacement, much as you do now with an iPod, for a fee.
Then there’s the small matter of typing. Tapping the skinny little virtual keys on the screen is frustrating, especially at first.
Two things make the job tolerable. First, some very smart software offers to complete words for you, and, when you tap the wrong letter, figures out what word you intended. In both cases, tapping the Space bar accepts its suggestion.
Second, the instructional leaflet encourages you to “trust” the keyboard (or, as a product manager jokingly put it, to “use the Force”). It sounds like new-age baloney, but it works; once you stop stressing about each individual letter and just plow ahead, speed and accuracy pick up considerably.
Even so, text entry is not the iPhone’s strong suit. The BlackBerry won’t be going away anytime soon.
The bigger problem is the AT&T network. In a Consumer Reports study, AT&T’s signal ranked either last or second to last in 19 out of 20 major cities. My tests in five states bear this out. If Verizon’s slogan is, “Can you hear me now?” AT&T’s should be, “I’m losing you.”
Then there’s the Internet problem. When you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, going online is fast and satisfying.
But otherwise, you have to use AT&T’s ancient EDGE cellular network, which is excruciatingly slow. The New York Times’s home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo, two minutes. You almost ache for a dial-up modem.
These drawbacks may be deal-killers for some people. On the other hand, both the iPhone and its network will improve. Apple points out that unlike other cellphones, this one can and will be enhanced with free software updates. That’s good, because I encountered a couple of tiny bugs and one freeze. (There’s also a tantalizing empty space for a row of new icons on the Home screen.) A future iPhone model will be able to exploit AT&T’s newer, much faster data network, which is now available in 160 cities.This has already played out on NP. That is why I wish when someone wants to take the initiative to proclaim

iPhone Annihilates Mobi's Future?
That is why it would be wishful thinking to ask that the OP read the entire article rather than just a few words and bust his butt rushing to give it to the masses.

Just like Moses bringing down the Ten Commandments.

A couple of people in the crowd only read:

Steal, Kill, Covet they neighbor's wife.

[Gerry]

just found this page at wired ...the possible cost of an iphone .....wow.... : http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/iphone-total-co.htmlThat's nice. Not to mention the fee for shipping it to Apple to have the iBattery changed, for a fee of course.

For that kind of money, you could buy a decent phone and take it on a cruise or a trip to Rio...

Bricio! Open the door! It's Gerry from the forum.

I know you're in there. Open up.

I'm not going away.

[Scandiman]

This thing will still sell due to the extensive marketing and the cool factor but I think they will need to make some serious changes to reach their desired 1-2% market share.

[ezinaz]

A reminder that we should be accepting and embracing the iPhone, and attempt to design our .mobi sites with the iPhone in mind. Even if the iPhone is a failure, someone is going to come up with a device that works that is similar, that gives more of a rich experience to web users on the go.
We have to make sure that .mobi sites are the ones that those users run to when they want to hit the web.

[Scandiman]

A reminder that we should be accepting and embracing the iPhone, and attempt to design our .mobi sites with the iPhone in mind. Even if the iPhone is a failure, someone is going to come up with a device that works that is similar, that gives more of a rich experience to web users on the go.
We have to make sure that .mobi sites are the ones that those users run to when they want to hit the web.Agreed!!! I still think the overall impact of this device is positive for .mobi since it will get more people using the internet via mobile. That's an increase in our primary customer base, a very good thing!!

[nombre]

A reminder that we should be accepting and embracing the iPhone, and attempt to design our .mobi sites with the iPhone in mind. Even if the iPhone is a failure, someone is going to come up with a device that works that is similar, that gives more of a rich experience to web users on the go.
We have to make sure that .mobi sites are the ones that those users run to when they want to hit the web.


Agreed!!! I still think the overall impact of this device is positive for .mobi since it will get more people using the internet via mobile. That's an increase in our primary customer base, a very good thing!!i agree with both of you guys

iphone will be a big plus for mobi and we need to prepare for it
i am seeing articles here and there which mention mobi _and_ iphone in the same story as if they were both the next big thing

as far a usability, mobi is still the way to go, even with 3g networks there is no way any cellphone can download and format a page in anything like the time and efficiency of a mobi site that is well designed from the ground up

it will be a long time if ...... ever ....until the "real" web works really well on cellphones ....imho, naturally :-)