Have you tried an iphone yet?

[pennwalk]

I took my girls to the dentist last week. When we got there Dr. Bill handed me his new iphone to play with. Amazing! So small but what a beautiful screen, Of course I headed right over to Tractorbynet. Not as fast as the computers at home but totally mobile. I was thinking about when the mower slips a belt wouldn't it be nice to pull out your iphone and pull up the manual from the Woods site? Remember when apple came out with the ipods? I thought who the heck would pay $250 for a tiny stereo? Now I am wondering if the iphone is going to be the next revolution. Very slick little toy and it keeps parents in the waiting room from getting too rowdy. I'd have posted from there but it took me a while to get used to the keyboard and thankfully it was a quick visit.

Chris

 

[jdbower]

Maybe if they release one for Verizon's EVDO network (or the US gets off its butt and deploys the 3G services the rest of the world are) I'll consider it simply because the user interface is a bit slicker than most of the PDA phones and my company will support their email service soon, but functionally it's the same as the P800 I had back in 2003. Until then I got tired of waiting for the iPhone owner to dig up a random fact on his phone so I looked it up for him on my company-sponsored Blackberry - I guess experience beats "intuitive" any day.

 

[N80]

I'm a big Apple fan, always have been. Got 4 Macs at home. But, I'm not a gadget guy so I don't own an iPod or an iPhone. My son has an iPod.

In fact, I use my cell phone so infrequently that when it goes off I start looking around wondering what's making all that noise. I've never gone over on minutes. In fact, in 4 years I don't think I've ever used up a month's allowance of minutes.

Still, I hope the iPhone does well. And remember, Apple rarely comes up with its own shocking new technology (although I think they did invent FireWire) they perfect existing technology to the point that it seems new and innovative. I'm not putting them down, I think its great. I cannot abide in clumsy, inelegant users interfaces. Not for a second.

 

[randy41]

too bad its only good with at&t.....the only local provider here is verizon.

 

[jimg]

Ive messed w/ it a good bit and will get one when my contract runs out. Its *exactly* what ive been waiting for. Up to now nothing matches it. Basically its a Mac in a handheld format. I understand ATT has exclusive sales rights for 6mos. Then anyone else can pick it up.

 

[Chuck52]

Our computer guru has one. He is with AT&T, but he said it is likely that other carriers will support them, too, because there is apparently a law which excludes the "exclusive" kind of deal AT&T presently has with Apple. Don't have any idea if that's true or not.

Chuck

 

[jdbower]

there is apparently a law which excludes the "exclusive" kind of deal AT&T presently has with Apple. Don't have any idea if that's true or not.

I doubt it, Verizon has a bunch of "exclusive" phones like the Chocolate that's been out for quite some time. Unfortunately in the US it's not as easy as opening up the iPhone for sale to other carriers (some people have actually already unlocked and bypassed Apple's security), that will buy you T-Mobile and not much else. For Verizon, Sprint or most of AllTel to offer service Apple would need to replace the GSM circuitry with CDMA circuitry - it's different hardware (not a difficult task, but Apple isn't forced to do it).

 

[KubotaSteve]

Some guy all ready broke the code on it and was using it on T-Mobile I believe. He said it was some software but he did have to solder a connection or something. He sold it on e-bay for a car and 3 more I-phones or something like that.

 

[MikePA]

or the US gets off its butt and deploys the 3G services the rest of the world are

Huh? ATT already has this. My wireless card uses the 3G or Edge networks.

 

[jdbower]

Huh? ATT already has this. My wireless card uses the 3G or Edge networks.

I guess it depends on how you count it, I treat EDGE as a 2.5G service and just a half step up from GPRS. EDGE is typically <100kbps, my EVDO card is closer to the 1Mbps range typically but unusable overseas. I'd love to see Wideband CDMA and UMTS deployments (or even WiMax), Scandinavia and Japan/Korea are the early adopters of technology like this.