The new iPod phone - at last.

[Nottingham Nick]

Steve Jobs is currently announcing it at Macworldin his keynote speech - it looks the dogs.

See http://www.macrumorslive.com/ for the speech as it happens.

I am sure there will be a LOT of better views of it in the hours / days to come.

Nick

[Scrooge]

Yeah, may have to wait for the price to come down though, nice looking phone, nice app's but sorry $499 base price with a 2 year contract just isnt going to cut it for me.

[fozzyo]

Not until the end of the year for us Brits.

[HighFlyer]

Oh man, i was there at the keynote this morning and the place erupted when it was unveiled! Witnessing Steve calling the local Starbucks to order 4000 Latte's was fantastic! Seriously, it looks amazing, really revolutionary bit of technology there, and having Google Maps inbuilt too ...

I agree that the price point is quite high, i think the RAZR was highly priced in the US too though. We'll also have to see how our UK providers deal with some of the features such as the visual voicemail as this was something worked out with Cingular, the only network the iPhone is running on.

Still .... i will HAVE to get one!!

Oh, and orders are being taken today for AppleTV (previously known as iTV). So tempted ...

Thanks,
Sarah

[Scrooge]

Yeah the Razr came out high and stayed high for a couple of months then dropped like a stone, the only one that is kind of high now is the I-Tunes one..

[Scrooge]

Ok I have now done a little more reading on this thing (thanks Apple for getting the website up...at last) all I can say is..give me give me give me, I want I want I want...

Any of you Macheads out there have any contacts with someone at Apple who may feel like a weekend in Vegas ? or even an invite to a birthday party [?][:I]

[mcmbenjamin]

So will the Apple TV record TV like a Tivo? (think not buy worth a go)

[Nottingham Nick]

Link to the Apple website.

[preiffer]

So how long for the 3.5", proximity sensing, light sensitive, widescreen, vanilla ipod video to be launched then? [:w]

I've not read into this although it sounds great. Are they capable of solving the shortcomings of the poor baterry life of the ipods for the iphone???

[preiffer]

Originally posted by daywalker
I've not read into this although it sounds great. Are they capable of solving the shortcomings of the poor baterry life of the ipods for the iphone???

The "poor" battery life is primarily down to the use of a physical hard disk (with spinning bits). The nanos (24hr playback) and the iPone use flash memory, so the issue is much less apparent.

Having said that, I don't know what life they're claiming. The auto-shut off of the screen as it's put to your ear will undoubtedly save a lot of "phone battery".

[Pete]

I watched the keynote stream (I have to hand it to Steve Jobs, he's a real showman!). I'm very tempted by the iPhone, even though I've only just taken delivery of a Sony P990i (which, frankly, is a step back in functionality from the P900i, but that's another story). However, a couple of concerns...

Let's hope when it gets to the UK (touted as Q4 2007), it won't be in a restrictive 2 year contract with only one supplier. I realise the 'visual voicemail' feature needs co-operation with the network provider, but I prefer to chose my own provider and contract terms!

Whilst the reasons for flash memory are understandble, the limitation to 4Gb & 8Gb models would appear to cripple the potential to really use this as a video iPod. That's not many movies. I wonder whether there's potential for expansion at any point?

The addition of Google Maps is neat, but where they appear to have really missed a trick is to include GPS navigation. Hell, even if I could use my Bluetooth GPS reciever in conjunction with the phone that would be a killer app right there.

If the OS under the hood really is OS X, then I imagine I might be able to write my own little apps for this beastie. I can't find any documentation yet on the Apple Developer site, but as soon as I can don't be surprised if there's a V-Flyer Phone Widget made available for it!

Pete

[Scrooge]

Oh gee thanks Pete, just what I need, another reason to part with $500, VF messages all night at work

As ever I think that unless I can get a killer deal on one im going to wait till Christmas time, give everyone (Apple and Cingular) a chance to work the kinks out of the system first.

[HighFlyer]

Battery life is touted at 5 hours (for using iPod/Video?/calltime etc). I'm also hoping that the memory can be increased, there is a memory stick slot on the bottom of the phone but i'm not sure if that is for expansion or the one in use. Either way, i hope it can be increased. Also having concerns about the network provider but i guess it will all get worked out.

I'm presuming that you can use Cocoa for development on it for those little apps too!

The iPhone is set to go on sale in the US in June, and be available in Europe from Q4.

As for the AppleTV, its a wireless Media Centre that can pull your media from iTunes so you can watch it on your TV. You can buy movies and watch trailers and stuff on iTunes too. One cool features is its ability to share media from other peoples computers, so you can watch videos or photos on your TV that a friend has on their laptop. I think we'll have to get one, along with a nice Mac Mini for the living room

Thanks,
Sarah

Am I right in saying that if I bought an iPhone in the US in the summer, and then brought it back to the UK (+import tax of course [:(!]) It wouldn't be able to connect to any of the UK phone networks (like Vodafone etc) ?

[preiffer]

Depends if it's tri-mode enabled. Cingular is GSM though, so... [:?]

(Unless it's actually locked to the network ID)



Actually - I think Cingular's GSM is on the 850MHz band, so not compatible. You need to know if the iPhone supports 900MHz/1800MHz for it to work in the UK & Europe.

[RichardMannion]

It's quad band. Supports 850, 900, 1800 and 1900Mhz bands.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html

Thanks,
Richard

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by preiffer
Depends if it's tri-mode enabled. Cingular is GSM though, so... [:?]

(Unless it's actually locked to the network ID)



Actually - I think Cingular's GSM is on the 850MHz band, so not compatible. You need to know if the iPhone supports 900MHz/1800MHz for it to work in the UK & Europe.

Cingular GSM works in the UK

[preiffer]

Only with a tri/quad band phone though Dave - Cingular itself is on a non-UK frequency.

I'd rather not waste $600 to find complications, so I'll think I'll just wait until christmas to be safe.

Thanks anyway for your helpful replies [y]

Chris

Can't find the information on the apple site; how many GB of music etc with the ipod fuction hold?

Dean

[preiffer]

Originally posted by Wolves27
Can't find the information on the apple site; how many GB of music etc with the ipod fuction hold?

Either 4GB or 8GB - they're the two options Dean.

Specs here

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by preiffer
Only with a tri/quad band phone though Dave - Cingular itself is on a non-UK frequency.

Oh, there you go then, I bow to your knowledge on this [oo] all I care about is the damn thing working when I turn it on.

Got very excited about this bad boy when i was watching it all unfold on Tuesday. However I have now had a think and in my eyes there are a couple of whopping flaws in the plan...

Firstly and probably most importantly its missing even the most lowly spec of 3G. GPRS only since no carriers in the UK support EDGE (Orange used to?). With the browser and stuff GPRS aint gonna cut it and Wireless isn't widespread enough round the UK to have blanket cover.

Secondly this..
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/12/1 ... chocolate/

Thirdly its not (well in my eyes) not what you would call small and the huge screen will be scratched inside 2 mins of being in your pocket.

Fourthly UK release Q4 - Thats a good 9 months away.

Its a shame cos i love apple, i really do. I think that their innovation is amazing and they make some wicked stuff. Sadly in 9 months time I can't help think Sony and Nokia will have closed the gap and make this look like a very expensive toy.[:#]

[HighFlyer]

The reason the iPhone isnt 3G is purely down to performance. 3G chews through battery power (3G users, come to the US and switch to Cingular, you'll see you dont need to charge your phone half as much). A 3G version of the iPhone is on the planning board, but Apple need to get around the power issues first - otherwise it will be a phone that needs charging every hour or so with regular use.

Thanks,
Sarah