Love at first sight.....

I'm underwhelmed. I think about how yucky my Razr screen gets and it's not even a touchscreen phone. More over, if we look at this as The New iPod, everyone is missing one huge feature. 802.11 in an iPod. So, now what? Will there be music share a'la Zune, or will it only be usable for web/email use? This is *huge* and it will remain to be seen if Apple will even use this feature. (Personally, I suspect there will be a version of the iTunes store for the iPhone and that is what the wifi + iPod will be used for. Buying new music and video, not sharing. It will be interesting to see how big a cut Cingular would take from such a store as it would eat into their cash cow: ringtones and phone games.)

I guess having a PDA with a good screen and a good UI (if touchscreens turn out to be "good") is nice, but I used PDAs for years and switched to a laptop and have no desire to go back.

As for having an iPod+phone, it's bigger than my current phone and I already have a 20 gig iPod and an iPod shuffle. I use the shuffle for short jaunts (walking to class) and the big iPod for car trips, airplane trips, etc. The iPod feature of the iPhone doesn't serve a purpose for me.
 
Having worked in the mobile industry for a number of years, I imagine carrier operators (such as Cingular) to take a huge cut. They have too much leverage to and don't like third parties commoditizing their data pipes.
 
That's the interesting thing though. With built in Wifi you wouldn't have to use Cingular's pipes or, you may use their data network, but you're already paying for that and Cingular doesn't care about how I use it (cellular modem for my MacBook for example).

Still, for Cingular to agree to support a device that would circumnavigate their own store and potentially (probably) gut their revenue stream from ring tones / music downloads / games, there had to be serious pay off even if iTunes doesn't use their pipe (802.11 for example).

Of course, I suppose this assumes considerable market share for the iPhone since iTunes support would only be for those phones. Right now that kind of market share looks unlikely, but if an iPhone Nano or other iPhone is released at a lower price point it has the potential to be very big with precisely the demographic who buys ring tones, etc.

What an interesting world where companies have to pay "protection money" to support the outdated business models of others. (Microsoft + Zune + Universal for example)
 
I'll stick with my UTStarcom 6700 Mobile 5 device and call it the day ;) wifi, bluetooth, EVO (cell high speed) and outlook push technology. Plus vpn and a large supply of apps, what more could I ask for . Oh the built-in extractable keyboard is a nice touch too.
 
Cingular sells music? I know they sell ringtones and that will still be viable income for them. I know that they even make available software to create your own ringtones and upload them to your phone.

The iTunes store will still market to PC's, iPods and now iPhones. One stop shopping. Get it on your PC and upload to your phone. And probably vice-versa also.

You will have the option of internet surfing either from a wifi hotspot or via Cingulars wonderfully slow data network, can not remember what they call it.

I really do not thing there is any more of a markup for an iPhone then there is for any of the higher end phones.

I know that the iPhone will come with 802.11b/g, bluetooth and quad band GSM. It uses a stripped down version of OS X that has Safari loaded along with some other apps that I can not remember. From what I have read there are still a few apps that they are working on and I would think you would be able to load your own apps up to a certain size point.

For now I am looking towards it as a future purchase, a couple of years. I have a new phone currently and would prefer to see the final product.

Does it put some pressure on current cell manufacturers? Yes I would say so. We should see new features and phones come out this year trying to compete with the iPhone and the perception of the market share it will take.
 
If the iPhone will not let you set a particular MP3 (AAC, whatever) on your iPhone as your ringtone, that would be monumentally stupid. You might as well duct tape a nano the the back of a normal cell phone because that's all the iPhone would be. There has to be integration between the iPod part and the Phone part.

Let's assume that's true. If I can get the full music file from iTunes for $0.99 why would I get the $2.50 ring tone from Cingular?

As for iTunes, I think you miss my point: That is having an iTunes client *on* the iPhone. I can be riding the bus, pull out my iPhone, purchase and download a new music track and when I sync with my Mac it uploads the song to iTunes on my Mac. And from there it gets synced with my Apple TV, iPod Shuffle, and iWhatever. This blows Cingular's store out of the water. This is also the *minimum* I would expect from a wireless enabled music player and PDA by Apple. If they don't provide this type of iTunes service, then it is only because of pressure from Cingular.

None of this really matters to me though since I don't use the iTunes store and refuse to purchase DRMed music.
 
I believe they are supplying that feature. My question was/is does Cingular offer a music store or just ringtones? I do not know. Also I previously stated that with my current phone I can download a ringtone maker from Cingular that will also allow me to connect my phone with my PC and upload my own ringtone so I do not have to purchase one through their store.
 
That's my point :): It is in Cingular/Sprint/Verizon/Docomo/Virgin/Telefonica/Orange/etc/etc/etc's best (financial) interest to funnel people to use their own services (or take a large chunk of the pie from other services), rather than give consumers the option to bypass their network altogether.

Case in point, check out consumer advocacy sites with Verizon and bluetooth.

Blackberry is another example. They only offer it because of consumer demand. They would much rather provide their own service so they don't have to share $$$ with anyone. (And many do).

That's just the nature of the market, I'm afraid. Other markets have their own quirks. :-P

But I digress; the iPhone does look impressive at face value. :)
 
Exactly. The mobile phone market is entirely locked down in the USA. From provider contracts and headset subsidies (compare to Japan or other countries where you can just buy a SIM card from a vending machine) to disabling (DISABLING!) 802.11 on phones (was it a Motorola this happened to? I forget. The phone supported it, but the provider's revised firmware disabled it) to locking down any external development. Want to know why you haven't seen any killer convergence apps for your cell phone? Do some research on what it takes to get your application running on a cell phone. The hoops you have to jump through from the provider and the restrictions are insane. Also, the money the whole process costs prohibits small development companies from getting involved. Even developing my own software (using BREW and J2ME) it is almost impossible. The Verizon phones we used for testing for example purged our program every few days since it wasn't a Verizon certified application.

Anywho, that's a huge digression but my biggest hope for the iPhone was that it would separate the device from the provider and start to make real room for innovation in the mobile market in America. It may still be able to do that, but tying it in to a single provider was not a positive start.
 
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