The IPhone is totally awesome oh my gawd thread

[pk500]

Cue up the famed orgasm in Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" for Corey as he thinks about this device:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/



Take care,
PK

[Danimal]

$650 I just went limp

[Sudz]

no kidding.

uses the dashboard interface.

[JRod]

$650 I just went limp

Yes but that's probably retail and not attached to any network. I bet the iphone goes for $399 with 2 year agreement with cingular.

[wco81]

It's got an accelerometer (like the Wii wand) and a proximity sensor.

Supposedly recognizes gestures to resize web pages and zooms into and out of photos.

It hits every spec. I was interested in like Wifi, Bluetooth, quad-band.

But it's only available with contract. So what is the point of quad-band if you can't take it overseas and use a prepaid SIM or use a pay as you go SIM?

I would guess that about a year or two after they intro, they will have models with more storage, more RAM, maybe UTMS (or HSDPA) support, better camera. All for lower price (previous $600 iPod was the iPod Photo with 40 GB HDD and a year later, they cut the price).

All hopefully unlocked.

[10spro]

Amazing.

[Spooky]

That iPhone looks totally bad ass!!!


I will definitely be the frist in line to get one...





...when they drop down to $299 before instant savings and use Spint as a carrier.


The thing is really cool though.

[RobVarak]

Looks amazing, but I'm waiting for my personal gadget mine canary db to try one out before I get too excited

[LAking]

I just don't get the appeal of these all in one phones. I'm totally happy with a phone that just acts like a phone and nothing more. The idea of lugging around a huge device like the iphone, blackberry, blackjack or whatever sounds horrible. I rarely find the urge to surf the web (on a small screen) or listen to music on my phone. I can understand if it's more of a business device but for personal use it just sounds like tech for the sake of tech. Even being constantly tethered to the office is a frightening thought. Just my opinion.

[pk500]

King:

As someone who never has owned a cell phone, I agree!

Take care,
PK

[Leebo33]

Even being constantly tethered to the office is a frightening thought. Just my opinion.

My employer wants to provide me with a Blackberry, but I've refused on multiple occasions for the same reason. I don't mind periodically checking emails on my laptop or working from home if absolutely necessary, but I'm not going to be on call 24/7. There's nothing important enough that requires me to lug that thing around at night or on the weekends. A lot of people in our office carry those things around and act like it makes them important, but if they were that important they wouldn't have to read their own email. Someone else would be paid to do it

[LAking]

King:

As someone who never has owned a cell phone, I agree!

Take care,
PK

It took me a long time to hop on the cell phone band wagon. I think i've owned one for 3 years or so. The company i work for is buying me a blackberry very shortly. I cringe at the idea of carrying that thing on my belt and having to respond to emails at all hours of the day.

[Inuyasha]

Count me in as one not in with the whole handheld tech thing. I like to have my cell phone do simple things, like make calls and take calls. I have a camera on my phone but have never used it. Also never downloaded any songs, ringtones, games, etc...

Another thing that bugs me now is those cellphones people wear around their ear. I can't believe some of these people didnt get in front of a mirror just to see how foolish they look. One my co-workers who didn't realize one of the people had a phone on their ear thought the person was crazy since it appeared like he was talking to himself.

I find pride when I am in a meeting and rollout my paper pad and pen to take notes.

[Murph]

King:

As someone who never has owned a cell phone, I agree!

Take care,
PK

No call phone? No 360? What are you, a caveman?

[wco81]

I just don't get the appeal of these all in one phones. I'm totally happy with a phone that just acts like a phone and nothing more. The idea of lugging around a huge device like the iphone, blackberry, blackjack or whatever sounds horrible. I rarely find the urge to surf the web (on a small screen) or listen to music on my phone. I can understand if it's more of a business device but for personal use it just sounds like tech for the sake of tech. Even being constantly tethered to the office is a frightening thought. Just my opinion.

At this point, I think Apple is doing this partly for defensive reasons. Cell phone market dwarfs the MP3 player market (although expensive smart phones are a small sliver of that cell phone market).

When cameras got integrated into cell phones, it didn't take long for camera phones to outsell dedicated cameras. It's probable that millions of people around the globe take pictures with their phones and never with dedicated cameras.

So a lot of people are predicting a convergence and absorption for the MP3 player market, at least on the low-end.

A lot of people who've gotten rid of MP3 players in favor of these smart phones or phones with MP3 playback capabilities do so because they don't want to carry two or more devices around.

You can get a Nano and a good phone and both of them combined could be lighter and take up less volume than a smart phone. But it's still easier to carry around one bigger device than two smaller devices. Not just having pockets or belt clips or whatever to hold them but to keep track of them. Carry multiple expensive little gadgets and you're more likely to lose one of them. Not to mention dealing wiht one breaking down or forgetting to recharge one of them or whatever. An integrated device does provide some convenience, for the tradeoff of bigger size.

But smart phones have bigger screens and better input intefaces, like QWERTY keyboards. So you do get something for the bigger size.

Now I don't know how big of a market smart phones are relative to the overall phone market, which is 1 billion units or almost 10 times the size of the MP3 player market. But as costs come down, all these extra non-phone features will filter into more and more phones, at lower and lower price.

So an MP3 player maker like Apple can ignore the convergence market but it would be foolish.

The thing is, people are looking at the iPhone as a phone and at $500 or $600 with a 2-year contract, it's way expensive as a phone. What they should have branded it as is an iPod with phone features (with really novel phone features like video voice mail). That might make the price more palatable.

However, Nokia sells N9x series of devices with a 4 GB HDD and ability to record video. And those things are around $1000 unlocked.

I would like a portable web browsing device (also was checking out the Nokia N800) so that if I see a billboard or a magazine while I'm out with some URL, I could check it out. I try to remember to check them out when I get back home but I always forget. Also when I see some product for sale at B&M, I'd like to look up what it's selling for online.

But I don't want to pay what any phone companies charge for data. So Wifi is crucial. The Cingular contract however is a big buzz kill.

[WillHunting]

I hate cell phones. I reallly do, I think it is crazy that most people is willing to spend hundreds of dollars every couple of years for a new phone.

As far as I am concerned, if it can pickup a call, the phone is perfect. I don't need it to play MP3s, watch movies, check internet, play games, do my laundry, cook rice, or give me a bj (although I will pay extra for that). I just need it so people can reach me, and can sustain good signals (not too much of a problem here in NYC, for the most part).

Oh yah, a cell phone with a long last battery would be a bigger sell for me more than anything else. My brand new cell phone can't even hold charge for more than 1 day. Blows.

[pk500]

King:

As someone who never has owned a cell phone, I agree!

Take care,
PK

No call phone? No 360? What are you, a caveman?

I work at home. Nearly every service I need is within a 20-minute drive. My wife owns a cell phone.

Why the hell do I need one?

Take care,
PK

[sportdan30]

King:

As someone who never has owned a cell phone, I agree!

Take care,
PK

No call phone? No 360? What are you, a caveman?

I work at home. Nearly every service I need is within a 20-minute drive. My wife owns a cell phone.

Why the hell do I need one?

Take care,
PK

I agree with Pk. I have a cell phone and as much as I say I will only use it in case of an emergency, I still use it to call friends, the wife, family, etc. My contract is up at the end of April and I'm highly considering not renewing it. My wife has one, and that's all we really need. Our parent's and grandparent's sure got by without one when they were young.

[Naples39]

I know I'm younger than most here (mid 20s), but I would be lost without my cell phone. I resisted getting one for a while, but now I just take it for granted that I can call anyone, anytime. Most of my friends don't even have land lines, we just all call each other on cells. While I've never had any interest in camera phones (image quality simply too crappy), and don't need internet on my phone, I am curious about MP3 phones. This is because I rarely bother to take my mp3 player anywhere, but if I have some songs on my phone (which is always on me), I might listen quite a bit. That being said, I'm not interested at $400+.

[Spooky]

Absolutely LOVE and NEED my cell phone...BUT...

I don't really get these all-in-one phones either. Until this thing can truly represent all of the things it is setting out to do (i.e. replace my iPod with an 80GB version) then I don't need one.

I do, however, get sick of carrying around a phone, iPod and blackberry and would love it if they could all be in one device.

I have a Blackberry from work and hated when they made me get it as well. Not so much because I had to now respond to e-mails at all hours, but more so because I had to carry another goddam gadget.

[EZSnappin]

I'm a back in the paleolithic with PK - no cell phone, never owned a pager, don't even have cable. It's nice not being tethered by tech all the time.

[pk500]

I'm a back in the paleolithic with PK - no cell phone, never owned a pager, don't even have cable. It's nice not being tethered by tech all the time.

Wow -- more of a mastodon than me!

The Speedway gave me a pager in 1998, which it shut off in 2004 because everyone had cell phones by then. I didn't even know it was shut off until last summer, which tells you how much it was used.

I've been on cable TV since I was 11, in 1976. Digital cable now with a DVR. I'm high-tech!

But I'm with you, E. I don't want to be tethered. I don't have the need to talk to someone at the second I think of it, and there are times where I sure as f*ck don't want people to be able to reach me.

I can also see Naples' point. If I was single and in my mid-20s, I doubt I'd even have a land line today. I'd probably go exclusively mobile as I would be on the go all the time.

I have nothing against mobile phones or mobile technology. But since I work at home and enjoy spending time here with my family after years of wildness on the town, both single and with my wife before kids, I have no need for a cell phone.

Take care,
PK

[wco81]

You guys aren't Luddites. You all have computers and are connected.

You're just cheap because mobile technology carries premium pricing.

You want the benefits of being online but don't need or want to pay for mobility and ubiquity of online access devices. That is, you're not giving up being online, you're just giving up being online all the time.

That's fine though. The burden is on these device makers and service providers to come up with a more compelling application than online mobility. Smart phones are just miniature computers.

What really made the web take off was cheaper pricing for getting online. Remember the days of Compuserve and Prodigy and other metered ISPs? Then they went to flat-price as the WWW hit and people were buying computers to get on the Internet.

Maybe it would take providers charging a flat rate for unlimited mobile data at 3G speeds. A cheap flat rate, like $20 a month which you could also use at home (like Bluetooth pairing your smart phone to your computer).

[dbdynsty25]

I just don't get the fascination with tech gadgets...you guys spend waaaay too much money on that kinda stuff.

[pk500]

I just don't get the fascination with tech gadgets...you guys spend waaaay too much money on that kinda stuff.