Second generation Iphone - who else is planning on getting one?

BennyB_2

Wow, that looks like a nice piece of kit.

Leopard

TheGuvnor wrote: »

You should also consider the HTC diamond (aka O2 XDA Diamond) as a replacement, which is what I am doing. It has an iPhone-esque interface, and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. http://www.htc.com/www/product.aspx?id=46278

It has a 3.2mp camera, GPS, WiFi, VGA screen and should be coming out about July time.

Take no offence, but the principal appeal of the iPhone to many - and to everyone (including me) who has Apple Macs - is that it doesn't run on bloody Windows but uses the Mac OS X system instead.

epz_2

spec wise the sgh-i900 looks like it will eat the iphone alive ,it might not have as fast a cpu but 5mp camera, ever other requirement especially 16 gig memory and a microsd slot (theoretically max storage of 48 gig)

it might run windows mobile 6.1 (an advantage to some) but i would guess it is going to be minimal hassle to put android on it and google os is going to kill osX

linkage http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/01/samsung_sgh_i900_touch_display_phone.html

http://www.unwiredview.com/2008/05/16/samsung-i900-live-pics-detailed-specs-provided-by-chinese-website/

oh and its sheduled for late july/august

Cavey

Leopard wrote: »

Take no offence, but the principal appeal of the iPhone to many - and to everyone (including me) who has Apple Macs - is that it doesn't run on bloody Windows but uses the Mac OS X system instead.

Surely it doesn't really matter what OS the phone is running, but the actual experience of using it. After all, it's not like you can load up desktop apps on them (although there may be cut-down mobile versions) and they are different enough to not really be equivalent - while I may prefer a linux disto on my desktop it doesn't mean I (currently) want it running my mobile phone.

The best reason to pick an iPhone over any WM phone is the screen - WM phones cannot achieve multi-touch features as the actual touch screen technology is different. This makes the iPhone just nice to use (from a finger-friendly perspective), but the features on phones such as the HTC TyTN II or Diamond, not to mention the forthcoming devices such as HTC Raphael and Sony Xperia, make the WM phones a much more useful all-in-one device.

So for a communication and data device, I still pick the WM phone. If i want a toy, I'll choose the iPhone.

Leopard

EPS,

Er, the first page you linked to reads:

"I don’t think that this will come even close to the mobile Mac OS X… As I said before, having cool hardware is not enough these days."



To be honest, I think that the real limiting factor to handheld data devices (whether you also use them as a telephone or not) is the size of the human hand and how much visible data you can put legibly on a screen that will fit sensibly within the grip of one.

Ultimately, the dilemma in all portable data devices, from mobile 'phones to 20" laptops, is the trade-off between screen size and practicality.

The keyboard/pad is the other egonomic factor. You can't write anything professional with thumbs on a 12-key pad and a QWERTY device with keys so small that you have to type with a cocktail stick is equally useless.

The other aspects - computing power, memory size, weight, battery-life, operating system and other technical things can, and will, be perfected but nothing is going to alter the dimensions of the human hand in the forseeable future.

It's the same with watches, I've seen chronographs with their circular slide-rule so tiny that you'd need a magnifying glass to read the figures. What use is that? My Breitling is the size it is because that's been found to be the best compromise.



Cavey,

The crucial difference is how well your 'phone synchs with your (other) computer devices.

The iPhone and the iPod Touch are the only hand-held data devices that synch seamlessly and comprehensively with Apple Macs - enter a piece of data in one device and it just automatically appears on the others; edit it on one and all the others change; delete it from one and it's deleted from all. Wirelessly. If you take a photograph with an iPhone, it's already sitting on the desktop of your Mac(s) when you get home.

True, the iPhone has a pathetic camera, but you can Bluetooth the photos taken with, say, a K850i into an iPhone and they'll then waft their way back to your Mac(s) at home or office.

By the same token, you can retrieve a document from any of your Macs, work on it with an iPhone and then send it back.

Same with calendar and address book. An iPhone (or iPod Touch) simply becomes an extension of your personal Apple network, fully synchronised.

I wouldn't recommend (and I haven't) that anyone who handicaps themselves by using only Windows (of any flavour) should buy an iPhone - for them it would indeed be a toy, because they can't use its functionality to the full. The point is, that if you use Apple computers it's the mobile devices from other manufacturers that are toys - for the same reason, in reverse - and the iPhone is the communications and data device of choice. To me a Nokia N96, an HTC/XDA Diamond or a Samsung SGH-1900 would be a (very nice) toy.

At the moment, and with several Apple Macs in our household, I'm using a Nokia 9300i (which for my own particular needs has the best compromise of keyboard size / display / overall dimensions of any 'phone I've found for emailing, writing, editing documents, etc.) and a Sony Ericsson K850i which complements its features well (5MP camera, radio, music, making 'phone calls, etc.). My personal interest is in whether to upgrade my iPod Touch to a 3G iPhone. Any information I have discovered while researching that, I have been happy to share with others here who have different preferences and requirements. I haven't urged anyone else at all to buy one.

TheGuvnor_2

Leopard wrote: »

Take no offence, but the principal appeal of the iPhone to many - and to everyone (including me) who has Apple Macs - is that it doesn't run on bloody Windows but uses the Mac OS X system instead.

haha - I forgot how much some people hate Microsoft products!!

I thought that the principle appeal was its functionality, the slick user interface etc etc....the diamond seems to offer that. Even running on Windows

Cavey wrote: »

The best reason to pick an iPhone over any WM phone is the screen - WM phones cannot achieve multi-touch features as the actual touch screen technology is different.

I could have sworn I saw a video preview of the Diamond that contained a function that is activated via a "dual-touch" of the screen (i.e. two different touch points at the same time). I think that it was zdnet mobile gadgeteer, and I also think it was to do with zooming on the Opera browser. The screen is apparently fantastic on this phone too, being VGA.

Can you tell I am contemplating either the iPhone or the Diamond? The one thing I cannot get past on the iPhone is, beautiful as it is, it still cannot send MMS. I know it can do email instead, but I don't always want to send an email, sometimes I just want to send a photo etc to someones phone!

Cavey

Leopard wrote: »

The crucial difference is how well your 'phone synchs with your (other) computer devices.

The iPhone and the iPod Touch are the only hand-held data devices that synch seamlessly and comprehensively with Apple Macs - enter a piece of data in one device and it just automatically appears on the others; edit it on one and all the others change; delete it from one and it's deleted from all. Wirelessly. If you take a photograph with an iPhone, it's already sitting on the desktop of your Mac(s) when you get home.

Have you met Missing Sync? Costs US$40, but it does sync WM devices with Mac OS X based computers (sync's Calendar, Entourage, iTunes, iPhoto etc...).

There's also a free one for Linux called SynCE, and given MacOS is based off something resembling BSD I guess it wouldn't be too hard to port (if it doesn't work already that is).

Cross-platform support for WM devices is currently better than the iPhone, but I reckon that might be due to the maturity of the market.

TheGuvnor wrote: »

I could have sworn I saw a video preview of the Diamond that contained a function that is activated via a "dual-touch" of the screen (i.e. two different touch points at the same time). I think that it was zdnet mobile gadgeteer, and I also think it was to do with zooming on the Opera browser. The screen is apparently fantastic on this phone too, being VGA.

As far as I know it is down to the use of different tech, the one is capacitance based while the other is resistance based (I can't remember which has which, but it's the same deal with Apple laptops vs non-Apple laptops, so I assume there's a patent in there somewhere). In the videos I can find, the zooming was done by making circles, it's similar to what is available in the HTC Album program. If you can find the video you saw I'd like to see it.

I did just spot that the Diamond now has an accelerometer, which is kind of cool, and claims to have a dedicated GPU to accelerate touchflo 3D, which is nice but the drivers were not installed on the old handsets with the same chip, so it would be nice to get a copy back-ported.

I also note that Vodafone Italy have set an out-of-contract (ie PAYG) price for the iPhone of €499/€569 (and that's the first time I have used the € key on this computer... and I've had it a year )

vix2000

So what are the main reasons to upgrade to the new iphone?

I gather it will be much faster on the internet, and there will be wider wireless access (I assume the latter will apply to the old iphones aswell?)

But what else would be better on it?

TheGuvnor_2

Cavey wrote: »

As far as I know it is down to the use of different tech, the one is capacitance based while the other is resistance based (I can't remember which has which, but it's the same deal with Apple laptops vs non-Apple laptops, so I assume there's a patent in there somewhere). In the videos I can find, the zooming was done by making circles, it's similar to what is available in the HTC Album program. If you can find the video you saw I'd like to see it.

Apologies, I have just watched it again and it seems that it is a double tap, with it vaguely looking like he is using his finger and thumb. That'll teach me for watching it when I am tired! It is not too far into the video, when he is demonstrating the zoom capability of the web browser.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1172

Leopard

Cavey,

It is extremely kind of you to take the trouble to point me towards "The Missing Sync" and "SynCE". I do appreciate your thoughtfulness.

I've been aware of MarkSpace for several years but it's been a while since I checked out "The Missing Sync" on their site and the last time I did so it was still saying "Coming Soon" (it had been saying that for quite a while!). I'll definitely examine it in detail now, but I wanted to express my gratitude to you first.

I suppose I am a bit wary about all programs that set out to bridge the treacherous waters that flow between conflicting operating systems - in part due to past experience of it generally - but hopefully this particular river has now been tamed.

I've had too many nightmare hassles to sort out, over the decades, when one operating system or the other changes its modus operandi and the bridge is swept away - invariably at the most inconvenient moment from a work point of view - and one has to wait for it to be rebuilt.

Wariness is also induced by Apple's own attempts to counter the lack of interest shown by many mobile 'phone manufacturers towards recognising that there exists a world that does not beat to the erratic pulse of Microsoft. Only recently, as Apple goes from strength to strength on its remarkable roll of making the greatest comeback in computer history, while Microsoft starts to implode at ever more worrying pace, has this trend been reversed.

Apple itself incorporates drivers for some third-party 'phones (it had to) in its operating system but which new ones get added, usually after quite a long delay, and which ones, somewhat alarmingly, get dropped with each successive generation of it is a cause of some concern.

Nor is confidence inspired by the limited, and frequently rogue, manner in which such synching does take place, even when a 'phone is on Apple's privileged list. Not all the fields transfer correctly and some are not even included at all. Add to that that mostly the process has to be carried out by Bluetooth and it becomes a far from certain and satisfactory process.

By and large, I've found that far greater success is possible when the issue is tackled at the 'phone end (by the manufacturer putting software in the 'phone that can synch with the Apple OS) than when it is tackled at the computer end (by Apple, or anyone else, trying to produce dedicated drivers for a plethora of different 'phones).

In my own case, the whole issue is further complicated by the way I use various symbols at the beginning of some fields to force the device to sort and present my data in the order I want to have it displayed. The 'phones invariably sort the symbols in a different order to the way a Mac does and also to the way 'phones from other manufacturers do.

The whole issue is compounded by the fact that one enters new data on either of the devices but what works when synching 'phone to Mac does not necessarily work in the other direction (when synching Mac to 'phone) and bits of data can end up in strange places.

It's for that reason that although, with a great deal of hard work and ingenuity, I could probably get, say, a Nokia N96 to synch my personalised data tolerably well with my Apple Macs, and vice-versa, eventually, neither of them would then synch properly with a Sony Ericsson as well!

I've given up trying to get a Mac, a Nokia and a Sony Ericsson to all keep my data synchronised identically and simultaneously. I have two old external hard drives that each have the current Mac OS on them: on one I keep the synch info for my Nokia (9300i) and on the other I keep the synch info for my Sony Ericsson (K850i). Using Firewire, a Mac can boot off either one, so I can keep the 'phones backed up once a week.

With an iPod Touch, however, all the data in every field gets transferred perfectly, comprehensively, seamlessly, instantly and automatically because they are both using the same operating system and the same utilities and applications.

But an iPod Touch can only do it where there's a WiFi signal. Hence my interest in the 3G iPhone because that can also do it where there's a cellphone signal.

So, for me, personally, the question revolves around whether, in effect, to spend £639 (8GB) or £699 (16GB) to get my iPod Touch to go live, for 18 months, where there's no WiFi. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford the money but it does seem an extravagance about which I suspect I would feel guilty.

I realise, too, that the really sophisticated smartphones can do some amazingly complex and impressive things but they aren't necessary things that I want to do myself. It's rather like having a Ferrari when you live in the middle of a large city. What I've got does me well for my own particular needs but an iPhone would do the same things for me better.

I've written all this publicly instead of PMing it to you because the issues it addresses are shared by others and may be helpful to some, in their own deliberations as to whether or not to spend the money on a 3G iPhone. But thank you again for you own help to me on this. I am most grateful. You are a :A .


Guv,

Thanks for taking no offence! The HTC looks a beautiful device indeed (apart from that wretched and notorious Windows logo on its supremely elegant display!).

I don't hate all Microsoft software. Word and (particularly) Excel can do amazing things: I run them on Macs.

It's Microsoft's operating system that I despise. Every time I have to use it I find myself detesting it more.

The advice you offered was most kind. You are a :A , too.


Vix,

It's now 3G and they've added GPS. Er, that's it...

it's a bit cheaper, though.