iPhone: Very Small. Very Cool. Very Expensive January 10, 2007
Read more Digital Audio , Gadgets , Home Entertainment , Mobile phones , Peripherals , Portable Media , Smartphones , Software , Wireless
The world’s smallest ever surprise took place yesterday when Apple finally announced the iPhone, which will ship in the US in June. As expected, it’s a good looking wee thing boasting just one button - a novel idea for a phone - and a big 3.5in display.
It’s a phone, an iPod and an Internet comms tool in one, according to Apple, where all of your applications can be controlled using your fingers on the touch screen and some whiz-bang software from Apple.
It’s really skinny too at 0.5in, sports a 2-mega pixel camera and has a battery life of five hours for continuous blabbing to your girlfriend, which jumps to 15 hours if you are using it for listening to your tunes. There was also a first with Visual Voicemail, a feature that will let you choose which voicemails to listen to first. Internet sites visited also looked a lot like they do on your computer screen, which would be a nice change.
There will be two versions, 4GB and 8GB, which will cost $499 (£260) and $599 (£310). Altogether now: Ouch. Still, it’s not launching over here until 2008 so there’s plenty of time to save. Don’t expect that price to fall anytime soon since Apple is expected to give Cisco - owners of the iPhone trademark - a big bag of cash today or tomorrow for nicking it.- Martin Lynch
Editor | Martin Lynch
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Supposedly the UK release date is 2nd-half / 4th-quarter 2007, not 2008.
No mention of device security and only push email if you have a Yahoo! account. It seems email was an after thought, and with smartphones email is the top of everyones shopping list. All this really brings to market is a media savvy slick toy for the kids to be sold off the back of the iPod brand.
They missed a trick - it should double as a remote control for itunes - then at last, we could visually see songs streamed from a Mac to speakers in the living room. Goodbye Sonos.
To e-mail you can simply go to hotmail.com, yahoo.com, etc. And you are done. That is the whole point of using OSX. Real acces to the internet. SECURITY? OSX get it!
Maybe I'm caught up in the hype but it looks like a phone of the age should and seems to work like one too. I want one, I just hope that when it hits the UK it won't be saddled with an "exclusive to network" deal as in the states with Cingular, especially if that exclusive deal happens to be Vodafone, T-Mobile or 02 because coverage sucks around here! Personally I'd pay £500 for one SIM free and probably put up with not having visual voicemail etc. No doubt it's probably just some sort of data push service anyway, no biggy for the networks to sort.
To sum up, I WANT ONE... ps I don't own a Mac or an iPod or a Blackberry for that matter.
Hmmmm, not what I was expecting. Bit of a let down.
5hr talktime/video
You cannnot install apps (therefore not a smartphone)
Only 8Gb? who are they trying to kid, hardly the "iPod" they claim it to be
No 3G
I do however love the browser, love the album art touch screen UI, and love the look of the device itself.
I think by the time this launches, Nokia and SE will have some kind of answer to it...
I've got a MDA Vario II and it can do all the iPhone can do (apart from lacking in storage space). But it runs Windows Mobile 5, oh dear, where's the reset button again.
Apple UI looks tons better than any Smartphone I've seen, this alone will make it on my Christmas List. If it was 3G plus 20G+ storage looks like it would be perfect.
Couple comments: Who says you cannot install apps? The thing runs OSX, its only a matter of time before hundreds of apps are streamlined for use with the iPhone.
Part of the reason there is no next gen data transfer is that so few people can actually use it (at this moment). This phone was designed to be used out the door in 6 months nearly anywhere, not just where EVDO is available. When next gen data transfer is a bit more ubiquitous I imagine it will be added.
Same thing with the Cingular "lock in" comment. I can't be sure, but I wouldn't be suprised if the Cingular exclusive deal has an experation date. The simple fact (stated in the keynote) is that Cingular changed the way it did lots of things in order to get apple's business. Notice the "visual voice mail" feature? Thats not something that your carrier can add easily - it requires upgrades and will be unsupported till they do.
Plus, Cingular spent lots of money adding cell towers all over the place to satisfy Apple. As much as I would love to see the iPhone set free (carrier and data transfer tech speaking) Cingular was brought on because they would do whatever they could to make the initial release as successful as possible, irregardless of what was it took.
No, it doesn't have GPS, but it has cellsite triangulation. (unless I am mistaken) Good enough for v1.0.
I thought it did has gps thats how the google earth thing works isnt it? And i remember hearing a while ago about some hidden menu in iphoto that told you the location where the photo was taken and some part to do with the iphone being in the list of cameras.
I dont actualy think its that expensive. If you look at how much your fone would be with out network subsidy normally £300 so its cheap and wehn you think about it its a pda basically which are nomally £400-500 so its a bargin and it has 8gb of storage.
Im wondering how the contracts will work though because normally you pay for the fone in your contract so either cheaper deals or wer being scamed.
I think this phone looks excellent and when it does hit the UK it will start at around the £500 mark. I don't own a Mac or iPod but I think this phone might just replace my XDA Orbit bought for £360.
I can't see them making the last quarter 2007 release for the UK. It would be nice if they did, but I just cant see it. No builtin GPS, he was manually searching for locations in Google Maps.
Thats gonna be one greasy screen!! ;) Maybe somebody will sell cotton 'fingertips' for saving the screen from smudges!
Ed you are way way out with your estimate of price Apple keeps their pricing pretty much the same where ever you are in the world £500 is ridiculous. One thing that interests me however is how the contract going to work with only one supplier same as in America, as after just looking at a couple of "smartphone" contracts the phone is heavily subsidised for an expensive contract is it going to be the other way round with this as i doubt anyones wanting to fork out the better part of £400 for the 8gb version and then be landed with a £40 a month contract. Its just not worth it even for the Apple fanatic i am. And the one question thats been bugging is it a full version of Safari ie can i watch youtube videos through it or not?
Well, Amazon Germany have announced European pricing for these iPhones.
900 euro for the 4GB version and 1000 euro for the 8GB version. That hurts.
Are the prices mentioned for a sim fee iPhone, if so then it's not that expensive, a quality sim free phone in the UK costs £200+
The phone will NOT be able to run third-party apps. It's been made quite clear that it will be closed. In answer to anirog's query I've read a couple of reports that estimate the UK contract SUBSIDISED price as £500. With no 3G and an average camera, to name but two flaws, it seems that there is great deal of unjustified hype about this device. It looks nice, but if I want to pose with a phone I'm not going to pay a ridiculous price for the privilege.
This is another case of US pricing vs UK pricing. Sony tried to do it with the PS3 and then realised than no one would but the PS3 if they didnt give them a fair price instead of the overinflated price they first stated. The same will happen with apple and soon the price of the iPhone will be very similar to the US model. There is no way that people will pay £500 for the phone when it costs $300. They will import or just not buy...
What is this?! 2megapx?! lol (n95 5mp)