Technology iPhone 3G Thread

[S. Fourteen]

July 11th. I'll be at the AT&T store.

Time has passed since the introduction of the original iPhone. I said I will wait until Apple gained enough market share and that time has come.

Overall, it's the same phone and like the advertisements read - twice as fast, half the price - although you'd be paying about $160 more after your two year AT&T contract is up. But the price wasn't a significant issue. The number one issue was that the iPhone would never have reached its full potential in the first year of existence.

The firmware 2.0 is coming.
The AppStore is coming.
250,000 downloads for the iPhone software development kit.
A few thousand developers have been accepted into the program so far and there are thousands more in line.

Did I mention that I'm buying an iPhone on July 11th?

Now, if you will excuse me - I must face towards Cupertino and bow 3 times to honor His Jobness.

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Big shoutie to the great people at TUAW for organizing the information

iPhone apps

Audio

BeatMaker (??) - "BeatMaker introduces a new generation of mobile instruments and music creation software. Inspired by hardware beatboxes, loop samplers and software sequencers, it combines them to turn the iPod into a unique, inspirational software instrument."

Education/Reading

Mobile Holy Quran (free/donation) - Quran in your pants. American Sign Language coming soon. (Palm OS ports)

News

MLB At Bat ($5) - "wireless score access and in-game highlights for every game on the MLB schedule for only $4.99 for the rest of the season."


Photo/Image

NearPics (free) - "As soon as you load up NearPics, it gets your location using the iPhones unique location based services, and uses that to instantly find photographs taken near to your exact location (using Panoramio.com)."

No. 2 (or "HB" in Europe) (??) - Drawing on your iPhone.

Productivity

NotePadSync (1 year of service for $15) - "Create notes on your iPhone, with the ability to write text anywhere on the screen. Or use your mac, either way, changes are seamlessly synchronized."

RemindYou ($20) - RemindYou® is a simple, yet powerful application which turns your iPhone into a time management dynamo!


Security

Lockbox (<$10) - "Lockbox is an app that lets you store encrypted photos and notes on your iPhone. Encryption requires that users enter some sort of key into the system, as a means of proving that the person who stored the data encrypted is the person trying to decrypt it."

Shopping

GroceryZen (??) - Grocery shopping list app with recipes and aisle by aisle organization of the required ingredients (Perfect for Yeshua!)

Chef (??) - Same as above.

Tools

Briefcase ($5) - "Briefcase transforms the iPhone into a user-friendly tool for downloading files and uploading them to another Mac: no cables required, no extra software installation, no network set up."

Currency (??) - Currency exchange rate.

Movies (??) - Theater and showtimes search.

VoiceSearch (??) - "Through Nuance speech recognition servers, mobile consumers can simply speak requests into their phone like “Find the Apple store in Boston, Massachusetts,” “Score of the Boston Celtics game,” or “Play Hannah Montana Best of Both Worlds” to quickly and accurately search the mobile web or in the future dictate an IM, SMS or e-mail message."

Toys

PhoneSaber (free) - "As you swing your phone, a range of lightsaber sound effects will be emitted from your phone's speaker (or connected audio output). Not only that, but you can also withdraw and put away your saber.

xHunt (??) - "xHunt leverages the iPhone’s unique GPS and Photo taking abilities to allow for the creation of self guided Treasure Hunt style adventures that anyone with an iPhone can participate in."

VoIP/Phone

iCall (??) - VoIP for iPhone. Looks promising.

RingFree (??) - "When making international calls, get the same great rates that you have set up on your home phone. RF.com is pure calling simplicity. All we do is connect your existing SIP, IP PBX and/or IP-based phone systems to your iPhone. No extra bills."

 

[_carmi]

If I wasn't with Bell Mobility I would get the Iphone. But with Bell there are no sim cards :sad2:

 

[S. Fourteen]

The greatest thing about not getting an iPhone this summer is they'll release a better one in Christmas. By better I mean 32GB and maybe other colors.

 

[Rukas]

Until you can type properly on an iPhone (SLIDE OUT KEYBOARD MOTHER FUCKERS!) I will stick with my Sidekick.

 

[S. Fourteen]

I've heard complaints but I have to disagree. Although the word per minute number is low, I can type properly with one hand. The same way I am able to navigate my current phone using only the thumb.

Not having fixed plastic keys on the iPhone is actually one of Apple's selling points. It's GUI - fully customizable by the developer - you get everything from PlayStation controller to hand (finger) writing recognition of Chinese characters.

Apple will never ever include a slide out keyboard. It's actually Apple's characteristic to be 4 steps ahead of the consumers. The original iMac lacked a floppy drive and people predicted a failure. Apple entering the portable audio market was considered a bad idea because the market was very small. And of course people cried bloody murder when the MacBook Air was revealed to show only ONE FREAKING USB PORT! What they failed to see was Apple's way of telling consumers that "everything will be wireless sooner or later, better get used to it".

I hear that the touch interface of the next WindowsMobile will shit on Apple's multi-touch interface. So, I guess plastic keys will slowly disappear. By the time everyone is on the wagon, Apple will most likely integrate some kind of feedback system on the touch screen to give you a sense that you're actually pushing a key.

 

[Cooper]

does it have a better camera? Or just 3G (which has been around years on most phones)?

 

[S. Fourteen]

^ It has a 2MP camera. I think the same as the original.

The big deal is not the new network or the hardware. Like I've said - it's the same phone. The big deal is the software.

I'm sure you knew this though.

 

[S O F I]

I'll see how businesses and enterprises respond to it before buying it. Up until now, mostly everybody stuck with their blackberries and trios.

 

[S. Fourteen]

^ I think the figure was something like trial participation by 30% of Fortune 500 companies with "great feedback".

We'll see

 

[Rukas]

A touch screen just doesnt cut it, in current tech form, for typing. I'd only ever use a Sidekick or Blackberry to be honest. I prefer a sidekick because of the keyboard layout, Blackberrys are too thin for my hands and it is hard to type.

I write all of my lyrics on my sidekick, step into the booth and read them off the screen. Until I can do that easily and quickly on an iPhone I will not get one.

 

[raywaters11]

i heard it was only 6% faster... and the memory is wayyyy lower. also, does this one record videos?

 

[S. Fourteen]

i heard it was only 6% faster... and the memory is wayyyy lower. also, does this one record videos?

As far as the AT&T 3G network goes - the speed is something like 2.4-2.8 times faster compared to EDGE. In the demonstration at WWDC - they visited the National Geographic website with both EDGE and 3G -- the load time for EDGE was 59 seconds, and 21 seconds for 3G. The WiFi on the phone loaded it in 17 seconds.

I think the original iPhone has 128MB of RAM - it wouldn't make sense to go any lower than that, so I doubt that claim.

Video on the iPhone - officially, no. unofficially, yes. The iPhone would need a faster network to do any quality video calling so maybe we'll see a front side camera at revision 4, 5, 6 or 7.

 

[Caesar]

Video on the iPhone - officially, no. unofficially, yes. The iPhone would need a faster network to do any quality video calling so maybe we'll see a front side camera at revision 4, 5, 6 or 7.

3G is fast enough to handle video calling.

 

[S. Fourteen]

^ yes, people use videocall on 3G but the videos are often laggy - I'm sure the service provider used is a factor here - and I don't see the iPhone having a camera for video call until there's a faster connection available. there's a possibility that a greater power is at work here because front side cameras get taken out on number of mobile phones that are released in the US.

Apple is proud to have creative consumers (ie. Logic / Final Cut) - they won't settle for half-assed video call.

 

[S. Fourteen]

I added a list of Apps. I will try to update as much as I can.

 

[Prize Gotti]

Until you can type properly on an iPhone (SLIDE OUT KEYBOARD MOTHER FUCKERS!) I will stick with my Sidekick.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

 

[masta247]

^ yes, people use videocall on 3G but the videos are often laggy - I'm sure the service provider used is a factor here - and I don't see the iPhone having a camera for video call until there's a faster connection available. there's a possibility that a greater power is at work here because front side cameras get taken out on number of mobile phones that are released in the US.

Videocalls are no longer laggy these days, even on my k800 they work really smooth. It's just I don't see any use for videocalling.

I never liked Iphones btw. It makes basic tasks hard and timedraining.

 

[S. Fourteen]

It makes basic tasks hard and timedraining.

Curious - what tasks are you referring to?

 

[masta247]

Curious - what tasks are you referring to?

texting or calling for example. That's what it's made for actually.

 

[S. Fourteen]

I think the extra few pushes and the few extra seconds it takes to do that isn't exactly hard or draining, but I understand what you're saying.

[edit] "that's what it's made for"

When the original iPhone was introduced, they made a funny by saying "we're introducing three new products" - a phone, an ipod, and a revolutionary internet device. iPhone is actually a mobile computing device and that's how it's marketed.

You turn the thing on, click on the phone app or the sms app plus a few more pushes -- I'm sure people are able to do this faster (by about a second or two) on other phones but that's hardly a reason to dislike the iPhone.