Apple iPhone? What do you think?

[Netami]

Jesus... 500 dollars can go a long way in a different direction. If I want to call someone, I'll use Skype!

[xHaZxMaTx]

A Closer Look at the iPhone

You have to admit, it is pretty nifty.

[Jack McSlay]

I'd rather buy a DS and Flash Card and then get/write homebrew software for it. It'll do everything an iPhone does and still play kickass games.

[Melpomene]

Jesus... 500 dollars can go a long way in a different direction. If I want to call someone, I'll use Skype!

Same. If I had that sort of money for a crappy iPod phone, I'd rather use it on a PS3.

[Cvstos]

There's a rumor going around that Cingular may offer current Verizon customers 18 months free service for switching and buying an iPhone.  I have *severe* doubts about the validity of that rumor, but if it was true then it would be easy to justify that purchase.  18 months of Cingular's cheapest plan is $720.  If they include a larger plan, it just goes up from there.

$500 is a bit much, yes, but if I sold my old iPod, Palm, and phone, and got free service for 18 months, well, I'd call that a pretty damn good deal!

[bill]

Except that unlike the Palm, you don't get third party apps. Or Office support. Though I do have faith that Apple will realize how dumb having no Office support is.

[Boog]

iMsickofextracellphonefeatures. Seriously people, what happened to "Ring ring"? You don't need all that stuff.

[LionHeart]

Except that unlike the Palm, you don't get third party apps. Or Office support. Though I do have faith that Apple will realize how dumb having no Office support is.

Either that, or someone will create a port of OpenOffice.org for it...

[ITOS]

iMsickofextracellphonefeatures. Seriously people, what happened to "Ring ring"? You don't need all that stuff.

Yes I do!

I get a great musicplayer with an equalizer and 2 gig memory.

Also, I use my phone's wi-fi waaay more than the phone feature.

It's more of a PDA, really, but why carry two things?

[Tapewolf]

You don't need all that stuff.

Yes I do!
I get a great musicplayer with an equalizer and 2 gig memory.
Also, I use my phone's wi-fi waaay more than the phone feature.
It's more of a PDA, really, but why carry two things?

It can't be used as a PDA, therefore it's not one.  Even the Psion Organiser could run third-party applications and that's twenty-two years ago.  So if you need to do PDA stuff, you'll have to buy a PDA, or a phone that can do both.

While I'm not opposed to a phone that is just a phone per se, the price for such a thing is shocking.  Of course, one of the reasons I'm bitter is that I was hoping it would force work to buy me a Mac for the porting work 

Either that, or someone will create a port of OpenOffice.org for it...

That's easy enough, but there's no point since unless things change, you won't be able to install it...

[Madd the Sane]

What is this rumor that there will be no third-party software? There probably will be a way to add third-party software.  You forget that it is basically Mac OS X Lite.  You can add features to OS X, so you can probably do the same with the iPhone.

[Tapewolf]

What is this rumor that there will be no third-party software? There probably will be a way to add third-party software.

Oh, it's something Steve Jobs said.  It might be that he's being taken out of context - I hope so.  Here's one of them:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16566968/site/newsweek/page/2/

You forget that it is basically Mac OS X Lite.  You can add features to OS X, so you can probably do the same with the iPhone.

Now I've never used a Mac since they went BSD, but I think you're forgetting how locked-down phones can be.  How about Orange?  Their recent devices run WM2005, but you can't install or run anything unless it's been digitally signed by them.  It's an OS feature - part of the right management subsystem.

If Apple wants to stop people running apps on the device, they can remove the shell (which they probably already have), stop the file explorer from being able to launch apps and remove any autorun facility it has on whatever removeable media it supports.  Or they can use cryptographic signing.

**EDIT**
It looks like they are allowing apps - if they've been 'blessed' by Apple.  Don't know if it's going to have enough impact for me to persuade anyone... still need to get the Symbian codebase operating properly first.

It's starting to make me wonder if I can score a cheap Mac on ebay or something, though...
(EDIT:  Apparently not  )