As an ardent Mac fan, I was thrilled to see the iPhone is finally out in the UK. I love the design, the sheer beauty and innovation of Apple products but I hesitated to rush out and buy one because in common with other brands, I just know as fast as you buy the latest phone or computer or mp3 player, it will be out of date and the next upgrade will come along.
Do you dive straight in to be the first with the newest craze? Or do you resist the hype and only replace things when they are worn out?
Cheers Diane, We’ve just had a play with an iphone here in Doo-bye and were well impressed by the touvh screen camera options, imagine urnnig your fingers across your screen (make sure no-ones looking :0)) and scrolling through all your photos – then if you bring your fingers together the photo will shrink to fit..like a spider on roller skates doing press ups on a mirror, got it?
Anyone, we liked but will resist for now, Nokia N95 seems cool rnough blog and photo wise…oh and you can talk to people on it as well..
I was really interested in the I-phone Diane, had a play with one of my mates and then he got his phone out and that was equally impressive.
The pinch thing (the spider roller skating in mirrors) is really cool and the cameras great but I read a write up on it and apparently it isn’t all that. Certain applications are lacking and the music function is only 8gb apparently.
I recently bought an 8ogb i-pod because I have a lot of music and literally 2 weeks later Apple anounce they are to produced a touch screen i-pod, typical.
Ha! Very good!
I think its the touch screen-scrolling-zooming-shrinking thing that sells it for me! I had a play with one in the Apple Store – it was amazing!
The iPod touch is only 16Gb though…so if you have a lot of music, you have done the right thing!
The first time Dear Husband saw it, he smiled at me said, “So, how long before you get one?”
So far, I have resisted. A large part of it is that we live in back of beyond, and AT&T doesn’t have much coverage here. And so far my Palm Pilot is still chugging along.
I don’t have to be the first on my block with a new gadget. But I sure like looking at them!
I’m always the last the get the “new” thing…in fact I’m sort of archaic when it come to the new technology…..in time I would think that I might jump on that bandwagon……
I do like my tech toys but the Iphone looks to be more hype than substance, my Belgian colleague has one so I’ve looked into it in detail.
I mainly use an ‘HTC touch’ phone/PDA running windows mobile. It has all the touch screen features of Iphone, I have a 2GB card in it so can fit plenty of music, it can be used on any network, has bluetooth, Wifi, GPRS, & GSM, etc. it also has a quirky cube menu that you rotate with by running your finger in the direction you want. If you put SPB mobile shell on it (about US$20) then it absolutely spanks the Iphone for user friendly touch screen interface.
Its also about half the size of an Iphone.
Added to that all the programs available for Windows mobile make this massively more handy to me than the Iphone (speaking Chinese dictionary being the most handy but also I have Japanese, Korean and German speaking phrase books, Tomtom maps, a bluetooth GPS and much more on it – indespensible when travelling/flower smelling globally).
However I do have to say Mr Steve Jobs deserves some sort of award for business, actually selling loads of people Ipods and then a few years later getting them all to buy Iphones is a fantastic achievement.
I guess if you have a Mac and too much money then it makes sense.
Update:
I’ve just bought a new 3G iphone for my wife as she really wanted one for her birthday. At 500 notes it’d better be good. Still waiting for it to arrive from the UK as here in Thailand its over 1000 GBP and, whilst I don’t think I’m a tight arse, it seemed reasonable to wait a week.
I decided to treat myself to an HTC diamond. With 4GB and similar touch screen interface its not bad. It supports windows mobile which for me is essential. Main thing is it’s not as bulky as the iphone which I think is too large.
The scary thing is technology is only just beginning with phones and what they can do, it becomes an extension of ourselves.
Scary.
I-phone schmi-phone
I’ve just invested in a goblin teasmade
phillipino she is. and makes a cracking cuppa.
LOL Gary!
Iphones are pretty cheap around here. I got an unlocked one 8GB for about $600. So far so good, I really miss tactile feedback but that’s okay. What I really miss is high speed net access via 3G networks. My residential area isn’t exactly crawling with WIFI networks
Please note that this is not an advert, I’m not selling iPhones.
I don’t follow the hype. Like you said, once you buy a hyped up product, it’ll be out of date in the next few months. Personally, I like buying non-hyped products so that I can have an item that only a few people have and secretly smile when it has more features and a better design with a cheaper price!
I sincerely think Apple shot themselves in the foot with the iPhone as a long term marketable product. The hype of it sold big, but it is slowly dying. How many versions has apple released now that included “new” features that should have been there to start with? (cough 3g cough)
The biggest flaw is the fact that apple chose to not allow the iPhone to use current web standard technologies such as flash, java, and any “downloadable executables” from third parties. This severely limits the applications that can be used, and almost assuredly locks users into purchasing applications only through apple.
other flaws in the iPhone
no stereo bluetooth support (while it’s no iPod, even the $79 chocolate can play music over a bluetooth headset)
proprietary/limited application support
no realtime navigation in the GPS
no native support for MMS (picture messaging)
The android platform, and advances in phones will make the iPhone obsolete within the next year or so to everyone except apple devotees. The iPhone is a neat toy, but really that’s all it is. It doesn’t do anything that many other phones can’t, while many phones can do a lot of things it can’t.
Cripes Brad – talking about digging up the grave. This was last discussed in November.
Think your wrong on a number of counts:
- the built in obsolescence of the 1st generation iPhone is exactly what Apple wanted – sell a bucket load of original iPhone then sell a shed load more with improved features (3G, etc.)
- Apple don’t like flash because of power consumption; battery life on a portable device is far more important
- no ‘downloadable executables’ from 3rd parties – are you kidding? The iPhone Applications store is snowed under with clever new toys, gizmos, apps & just like iTunes won’t necessarily make bags of money but makes the whole iPhone/Apple experience better & broader in appeal (… in fact though iTunes, & now Apps Store, are there primarily to improve existing hardware, they’ve been so succesful that they’re making bags of money for both Apple, artists & now Appl’ns developers).
Bottom line – irrelevant of my opinion vs yours – is that Apple are selling huge quantities of the iPhone, the vast sale figures shoot down your argument*. These Apple adopters/buyers then tend to go onto buy other Apple products (Macs) & the knock-on halo effect is another massive money spinner.
Google’s mobile phone platform, Android, is not an iPhone killer. They’re alreday over a year behind. & who’s to say Google & Apple won’t team up during the development or release of Android.
* Full disclosure: I own shares of Apple. Put my money where my mouth is, the fundamentals of Apple as a business (year-on-year growth, great product line, etc.) are strong so don’t see it as a calculated risk. Future’s looking rosey – or maybe appley.
well of course your first statement about the preplanned obselescence of the first and second iterations was partly my point here. You could hope that it will only work once or twice before people are realizing that they are being taken advantage of by a company that wants to keep a carrot in the pantry so they can dangle it in front of you with their next iteration. To me that is completely disrespectful to assume your market is just a bunch of brainless hipsters that will gobble up anything you throw at them; even when you had the technology and resources to do it last time.
As far as 3g goes, apple had the ability to include that in the first iteration, but chose not to. It’s insulting when a phone at half the price includes technologies that were deliberately left out of the iPhone. Much like the GPS support. Third party developers are addressing the issue, but guess where they sell the software? If you said through Apple services, you are correct.
I suppose the downloadable executables needs a bit of clarification. In the SDK, it is pointed out that developers are prevented from using the aforementioned files, which would include flash, java, or any of the others that would require a secondary download. Of course the developed applications themselves are downloadable, but developers are forbidden from using any technology that requires a secondary download or technology; even if the bits required are included in the original application download.
Apple has created a phone that is running on a proprietary platform, and designed to send business to them in the form of downloads and traffic. Given the history and restrictive nature of the iPhone, apple will not give up their platform for an open source alternative run by another company.
It’s a great toy, and people who can afford to pay several hundred dollars on a great toy will do so. The phone is decent, but technologically speaking it is neither groundbreaking nor impressive. It’s all marketing.