3G iPhone Expected in June 167
MaineCoasts writes "The Times Online reports that European sellers of the iPhone are braced for 'significant losses' on unsold inventories of first-generation iPhones which must be cleared away for the new 3G versions expected in June. The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"
In other news.... (Score:1, Funny)
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Are you kidding me? Off-topic? Flying chairs and Microsoft are never off-topic, and you bloody well know it! Here... is this better?
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Done to death? Done to death? This is Slashdot! Christ some of the jokes around here are older than some of the posters.
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Speculation has already started on what exact second it will be released. Betting pools have started on which Hollywood star will be the first to sport the new iPhone. Industry pundits have already covered > 99% of all possible news angles regarding the release of the new iPhone, and yet people mindlessly drive
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Lighten up Francis.....
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I'll take one (Score:2)
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Re:I'll take one (Score:4, Informative)
The accuracy when you can't get 3 satellites is no better than using cell tower information.
And many times you can't even get that. Indoors of course, nothing at all.
In the country, it is better, but then, most of the time when I want directions for Google Maps I don't care if it positions me to a "mere" half a kilometre of precision (which is about as bad as it'll get - in city you can often get to within one or two hundred metres).
Battery drain and increased internal demands of GPS on the already space-tight iphone isn't worth that for my uses of it.
So. Basically, hell yeah I'll take what amounts to a UMPC - especially at a discount.
And for the
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Features i'd like before considering getting one (Score:3, Insightful)
3g
uncripled bluetooth so it pairs with a gps mouse
mms
copy/paste
camera with flash
flash support in browser
Re:Features i'd like before considering getting on (Score:3, Insightful)
Very few phones have camera's with flash
I disable flash most of the time now anyways,
I will take 3g and either uncrippled bluetooth for a GPS dongle, or my favorite a car adaptor dock, with a GPS receiver built in. That way GPS runs off my car battery not killing the iphones battery. Copy paste, is a software/interface issue. figure it out and release it as a patch apple.
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You sure? My own Sony Ericsson K750i hasn't got a flash. It's got some naff white LEDs which light up, but they're on continuously - it's definitely not got a conventional, camera-style xenon flash tube.
Not that I care, of course - flash photography is the spawn of the devil. And is why I spend a bit too much on fancy, low-light lenses for my Canon dSLR...
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If you're after a lens, you need to know what you want to do first. If you're after low-light lenses, there aren't many choices. Just look at lenses with a maximum aperture of f2.0 or wider in fixed focal lengths. If you are after zooms, then f2.8 is considered a low-light zoom. But I prefer the fixed focal lengths - my low-light lenses are: 28mm f1.4, 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4, 135mm f2.0, 200mm f2.0.
Usually there is only one such option for these in a given manufacturer's lineup.
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Cell phone camera's are dumb. The only good reason they have to exist would be for a video phone that no one uses.
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The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:1, Insightful)
Nerd as I am I don't have any friends, girls and don't do phone calls. So the "services" I get for the monthly fee are more or less completely useless. Just give me the gadget!
I've been thinking about getting one and unlock it but I'm to lazy to read how it's done, but I've got the impression it's easy and y
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Re:The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:4, Funny)
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I guess it may be for the average reader
Re:The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be pessimistic, but I can only imagine that O2, T-Mobile and Orange are looking at their excess inventory, looking across at the US market with envious eyes, and are then beginning to try to figure out how they can conspire to handicap the EU market, just like US politicians have been paid to do over there.
Re:The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're current
Re:The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:5, Interesting)
Nerd as I am I don't have any friends, girls and don't do phone calls. So the "services" I get for the monthly fee are more or less completely useless. Just give me the gadget!
I've been thinking about getting one and unlock it but I'm to lazy to read how it's done, but I've got the impression it's easy and you can do it yourself nowadays? But I don't think they are sold in Sweden yet so I still have to buy it from some other place and then someone have probably already unlocked it and try to earn some cash on it.
I'm from Canada, and perhaps it's a blessing that it isn't available in Canada yet
I purchased mine in the states and unlocked it to use with Rogers. I've done a bunch for friends too. Gets easier by the day (Thank iphone dev team!)
Anyways, my point is, It's probably cheaper if you buy one from somewhere else and unlock it and use it on your own terms. No pesky contracts, you pick the plan that you want (or keep your existing plan).
I've never used my cellphone so much before the iPhone. It just does so much. It's an amazing device.
Just my $0.02 CAD.
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I feel so sad for the suckers which buy an
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The irony is that they two companies that support GSM here are the same company, since Microcell (aka Fido) got bought out by Rogers. Knowing how Rogers work they will probably only sell the iPhone on the Rogers brand and force you to pay a penalty to move from Fido to Rogers! Yes I am cynical. Then again, I would rather get my iPhone from someone else, other than Rogers and unlocked.
Re:The ridiculous monthly fees (Score:5, Insightful)
Phones doesn't require monthly fees. (Score:5, Insightful)
Over here you can buy a card with credits on it which you spend if you make phone calls, so it's easy to have a cellular phone which doesn't cost anything / month if you don't use it. Or you can get a real cheap subscription with free calls within the network and eventually other networks and/or landlines to.
If I could get the iPhone for 3000 sek as a gadget and then only pay for the phone calls I would actually make I would probably have gotten one by now.
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Anyway, yes, even with only missing out on the phone part (and camera? Or is that in the touch aswell?) it's indeed much less functional
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Something which indeed prevent me from walking into an Apple store are that there aren't any in Sweden
If I could order a locked new phone I would, I don't feel like ordering an unlocked one if someone have added a lot on the price and it's really easy to do, but it's more tempting then buying one with
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http://wikee.iphwn.org/news:pwnage1dot1_announcement [iphwn.org]
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I can only speculate at what 18.000sek would buy..but if you want to see prices that are at least equally ridiculous, hop a plane to Canada. We have a triumverate monopoly here that keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average of $50-60 CAD ($50-60 USD or 1 Canadian dollar = 5.93180398 Swedish kronor,) per month. And thats without any support for data-If you want 3G data it will cost you another 50-60 on top of that. Furthermore only one of our carriers is GSM and its been sa
Where I came up with the prices. (Score:2)
Yeah, I know there doesn't live that many people in Canada and that it's huge, northern Sweden are poorly covered outside bigger cities aswell and we have much higher population density I guess even thought it's low by almost anyones standards.
Over here you can get an unlocked phone without subscription and put in
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keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average of $50-60 CAD ($50-60 USD or 1 Canadian dollar = 5.93180398 Swedish kronor,) per month
Mmmmm - go to 7-11, buy a Speakout phone... $65-$100 for a phone (or free - sometimes they run a "buy $100 of airtime and the phone is free" offer), then buy some time - the time lasts for 365 days without expiring and air time runs at $0.20/minute. My average cost is $6/month.
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You could also go to PC (President's Choice /Loblaws) which is also $0.20/minute... the time only lasts 60 days which is not as good as 7-11 Speakout's 365 days but the phones have unlimited web access, including googlemaps, gmail etc. for a flat $5/month, run java etc. etc. The point is that, while I am definitely disappointed with the cell providers in Canada, your previous statement:
"We have a triumverate monopoly here that keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average o
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I visited siba.se and they seem to show total price now. But the fucking blown out price in red should be the total, not in store =P
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Cheap phones and girls for the evening. (Score:2)
Yes they are. So why do you require this phone then?
Get yourself a cheap phone from a few years ago off ebay. Decent battery life and a clear display. Then you can send your texts, phone for a taxi and use it in emergencies. Sorted.
Maybe you could use the cash you save to get yourself a girl for the evening? Just a thought...
Because "don't do phone calls" was a round off, I guess I may do cellular phone calls like 2 times a month, and regular ones 1-2 times a day, but I could see myself scrapping the SIP-client and only use cellular if my phone wasn't shit.
I had an Ericsson T28s (3500 sek or something) which I liked, was quite "high end" and expensive then but had 60h battery life. Replaced with Samsung C55 (1200 sek) which I killed by some food wetness, had good battery life and slim form factor and was cheap with no extra fu
Re:mmmmm meat eating girls (Score:2)
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Get yourself a cheap phone from a few years ago off ebay. Decent battery life and a clear display.
Hardly worth the hassle of eBay unless you want a specific old model, to be honest. Brand new phones with a similar specification to (e.g.) the old Nokia 3310 are still being sold today, but as bottom-of-the-range models. These cost next to nothing, even on pay-as-you-go (actually, I suspect that most of them *are* sold on pay-as-you-go to people who just want a cheap, no-frills phone "just in case").
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I actually catch myself saying stuff in game which I get anxious about later becasue I feel bad using the words to people who maybe wasn't used with it or understood I was just "spamming" them.
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Apparently, you are incapable of that kind of insight. That suggests you've hit your social/cultural ceiling.
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Me! (Score:2)
Unlocked (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unlocked (Score:4, Insightful)
You're quite right that the iPhone can be unlocked easily, but that's not the point. It shouldn't be limited to those with the technical savy to do so. Anyone should be able to buy an iPhone handset and use it on any network they please.
In the not so distant past, iPhones unlocked with the simple as pie hack you suggest were bricked by a subsequent Apple update. Non techies should not have to worry their unlocked iPhone may die in this way.
Whether we can hack our way around the roadblocks is irrelevant. We shouldn't have to play these games with devices we spent a lot of money on.
boo-hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
What they really say is: "Damn, we shoudn't have been THAT greedy." or "Hm.. maybe our pricing model was too over the top?"
I'd like to take a moment to say: I told them so! (Score:3, Insightful)
What they really say is: "Damn, we shoudn't have been THAT greedy."
Says who? O2/T-Mobile, or Apple... Apple is the one demanding a cut of the carriers' revenue. [businessweek.com] Hence, no carrier subsidized iPhones.
What I find interesting is.. oh wow, only 50 posts in the first 90 minutes? Where are the fanboys now? Seven months ago, when I predicted with prefect accuracy that Apple would fail, [slashdot.org] you couldn't get them to STFU. They were gaa gaa over the iPhad, and now look... They are nowhere to be found. Fair weather fanboys as always. Those fanboys aren't real Mac fans. They don
Re:I'd like to take a moment to say: I told them s (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd like to take a moment to say: I told them s (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody buys them in the US (Score:1, Insightful)
£100 price drop in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.
Say no to the new pricing model - if you have to, buy an iPhone, but get another phone for free on a new contract and sell it to recoup the costs.
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I have a feeling the window of opportunity Apple opened by the unlimited internet deals they struck has now been closed.
Back in September, unlimited deals were rare and the Apple contract looked like a good deal. Now, data costs are dropping like a stone and the iPhone I was sure I was going to buy in November when my Orange contract expires is starting
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I've still haven't seen one in the UK. Do they exist? Has anyone actually bought one? Does anyone buy personal phones on contracts in the UK?
Buying a pay-as-you-blow phone is far more attractive for most people I know. My provider, Tescos, knocked £80 off the price of my last phone and unlocked it after I'd bought £30 worth of credit. How can any retailer compete with that?
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For me, I find that the combo of a BLackberry curve and an iPod Touch does me fine: I'd probably prefer to have them in a single unit but I learned a long time ago that mobile internet over cellular networks sucks, so it's kinda helpful to know that the device in my left pocket gets crappy internet everywhere while the device in my right pocket get
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only 3G (Score:5, Funny)
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3G doesn't refer to the memory, but refers to the network capabilities and how fast it can handle data. Currently, iPhones work with EDGE, which is essentially a souped-up version of GPRS. EDGE is generally described as 2.5G, and is not very fast.
The new iPhones will be 3G (HSDPA/UMTS on GSM networks), providing a much
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3G doesn't refer to the memory, but refers to the network capabilities and how fast it can handle data. Currently, iPhones work with EDGE, which is essentially a souped-up version of GPRS. EDGE is generally described as 2.5G, and is not very fast.
3G is not just about bandwidth, but has many other advantages over 2G.
A big advantage of 2.5G over 3G is the range, as you with 3G have to be within 2km of the base station (antenna). This is also the reason you will probably have to use 2.5G outside cities.
The new iPhones will be 3G (HSDPA/UMTS on GSM networks)...
No. There exists no such thing as UMTS on GSM networks. There are UMTS networks and there are GSM networks. (And most 3G phones can handle both networks.)
GSM uses TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) while UMTS uses CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
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Imports? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, since iPhone unlocking is so easy now, I'd consider buying one if it worked out to be cheap.
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Additionally, I've heard that 3G's performance gains
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I get about a 180-200 Kbps per second connection with EDGE and about a 2 Mbps connection with a 3G modem (the advertised speeds being 3.4-7 Mbps, depending on who's doing the advertising).
That's in London though, the UK is generally better for connectivity thanks to having a dense population in fairly small populated area (particularly in the South East of England).
As much as I really like the iPhone software I'm
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iPhone? In Europe?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, to be frank, I'm surprised that iPhone took off in Europe at all.
Before iPhone, over here in Germany, there were literally no affordable data rates. Now there are. But still those which are affordable are useless on iPhone due to the all the limits set low.
Also, 3G despite being rolled out all over Europe, still used by only fraction of people. So it is not really any major attraction.
If Celcos want to move more iPhones they have to lower data rates considerably, so they will be accessible to majority of European market - youth, students and alike.
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Sources My Ass (Score:5, Insightful)
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After 20 years of putting up with complete and utter horseshit from the Stockholm Syndromed Windows Wankers, Apple and the Mac are on top of the world again, and Apple is releasing the hardware that defines every industry they enter. It's never been a better time to be an Apple Zealot, especially with the naysayers able to dine on so much crow.
Why I won't buy an iPhone anytime soon (Score:2)
Until the iPhone can hold a candle to one of these [dynamism.com] running Xubuntu ( Ubuntu + Xfce ) , then I will just consider it a toy, with its one redeeming feature being multi-touch integrated with a great UI.
See my previous post on this topic : [slashdot.org] http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=513868&cid=22992830 [slashdot.org]
jdb2
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OTOH i browse the web with flashblock and only have it enabled on bbc.co.uk (they have iplayer anyway) youtube (they have that too) and other video sites (wont the youtube trick work for them too?). The Java problem sounds like a biggy, i think sun offered to port it but, apples SDK blocks it. I only use Java for a cou
Re:Why I won't buy an iPhone anytime soon (Score:4, Insightful)
It's got a number of features that the iPhone doesn't... but i could say the UX is a toy compared to a regular mobile laptop, and that such a laptop is a toy compared to a desktop replacement, so really everyone should lug around a desktop replacement.
The iPhone easily slips into a pocket, and fills it's intended role well. I'm very happy to see the shock it's given the market. There are 4-5 iPhone-esq phones that should be available in the US in 2008, which will hopefully encourage more than incremental improvements from apple.
The UX is 5.9x3.75x1.5 inches and weighs 1.2 pounds. It's certainly tiny, but it's not something that would fit into most pockets. They're built different roles, and should be judged as such.
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What kind of sites are your browsing that require *Java* these days? If the bulk of your daily visits is to sites with scientific visualizations, I can buy this, but most of the web has been Java free since the applet craze of the late 90s passed.
At any rate, yes, if bulk of your web browsing requires Flash or Java, then, yes, the iPhone is certainly not how you should be doing it. There
Yes but does it run... (Score:2)
I'm actually shocked i haven't heard of one running Linux yet!
poor showing (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a really poor showing. The Nokia N95 sold more than a million units in the UK alone in 2007; that's a single model and a single country, and it didn't have anywhere near the hype surrounding the iPhone release:
http://www.intomobile.com/2007/11/28/brief-nokia-n95-sales-in-the-uk-top-1-million.html [intomobile.com]
I can't figure out why anybody would buy an iPhone: it's a clunky phone with clunky desktop integration. Adding 3G doesn't change that.
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you can say anything about the iPhone (and Apple) but being clunky can't be further from the truth
If someones software is clunky then it's Nokias
Even your comparison is deeply flawed: How long has the N95 been available and how many providers support it? The N95 is availa
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It's stable in Europe and Asia and somehow not stable in the US? Get real.
ANd is this one of the Nokia phones with 21 function keys and hierarchical menus that go down to level 9? That what I'd call clunky.
Apple keeps its UI simple by crippling the phone. The Nokia UI isn't intuitive, but it is much more functional than that of the iPhone.
The N95 is available everywhere and since (at least) 12 months, the iPhone is
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You think Nokias interface "isn't intuitive", I think its crap, utter crap and I always hated fiddling with the settings and gazillion of function keys.
Nokias software tends to get stable after a few revisions. At least they now allow you to flash your phone so you don't have to go to some service point and pay 40 Euros for an upgrade of a buggy firmware.
And well crippled: I can phone, send SMS, take photos, add and edit contacts,
It hasn't hit the FCC yet! (Score:2)
That approvals process takes time. I somehow doubt that it only takes 6-8 weeks.
So, retail availability in June?
Any news of an iPod touch upgrade? (Score:2)