Anyone get their I phone yet?

[Tamoske]

but what about battery life?what about touchscreen is it not turning smth else when you talking and touching it with your cheek? are wallpapers could be set on all the screen?
also when somebody calling is it possible to make his photo see on all he screen not small image?what about ring tones and their problems of setting them?

 

[TC]

but what about battery life?what about touchscreen is it not turning smth else when you talking and touching it with your cheek? are wallpapers could be set on all the screen?
also when somebody calling is it possible to make his photo see on all he screen not small image?what about ring tones and their problems of setting them?

The touchscreen goes blank (turns off) when the phone is next to your cheek. When you move the phone away from your cheek, the screen comes back on so you can do stuff with the phone like hang up, switch to speakerphone, enter numbers (like an extension), look up a contact and just about anything that the phone does.

You can set your own wallpaper from photos you take with the onboard camera or from image files on your computer. If you have a photo of a person in our contact book, the image is full screen on an incoming call.

You can create your own custom ringtones using iTunes - no problem technically. The problem is that you have to pay to create a ringtone, even if it is from a song that you already own. So say you bought a song from itunes for 99 cents a few weeks ago. To make that a ringtone, you have to pay Apple again (another 99 cents, if memory serves).

Battery life is very good - last Friday I used by phone for calls for at least 2 hours including 30 minutes of speakerphone. I also have Bluetooth always on for my headset and WiFi for web access. Then I got onto a plane for 5 hours and watched podcasts and listened to music for most of the time. And still had power to spare at the end of that long day.

 

[enkrypt3d]

but what about battery life?what about touchscreen is it not turning smth else when you talking and touching it with your cheek? are wallpapers could be set on all the screen?
also when somebody calling is it possible to make his photo see on all he screen not small image?what about ring tones and their problems of setting them?

Yes I was amazed at the feature where when you are on a call, the LCD touch screen is off and as soon as you take the phone away from your ear, the screen turns on letting u hang up, see who you're talking to, switch to speakerphone, mute, conference etc...

I've never seen any charges for setting an mp3 as a ringtone at all... This is yet another reason to hack the phone even if you dont want to unlock it.

If you already have a music library like I do, then you can just copy the mp3's over and use them as ringtones. You can also set a custom ringtone for any contact as well. I haven't seen any extra charges for this...

 

[Nsxboy3]

I was once an iHater and dislike the fact that Apple can actually design a phone. I always they should just stick with what they were good at which were the iMacs. After having to force my hand by losing my phone accidentally at a Cafe :frown: , I was desperately in need of a new replacement phone. I was looking into the Nokias because they have the reputation for having the best reception. I shopped around vigorously and after doing some comparison, I have to say, Cingular had a reasonable offer worth switching over from my Promo plan which I had for 5 years with T-Mobile (1000 whenever minutes with free 300 texting).

I listen to my friends advice and bought the 8gb iPhone from an Apple store which is comforting to know they wil honor their warranty if the handheld malfunctions. At any case, I got a phat rebate ($275 from a local store) including a rebate for the activation fees . I ended up only forking out $135 including tax for the iPhone. :wink:

I just got it activated, eventually, I will succumbed to terms that the iPhone will become "the standard" of all handheld, most major cell phone manufacturers will be comparing their products against. :biggrin:

-Andy

 

[enkrypt3d]

I was once an iHater and dislike the fact that Apple can actually design a phone. I always they should just stick with what they were good at which were the iMacs. After having to force my hand by losing my phone accidentally at a Cafe :frown: , I was desperately in need of a new replacement phone. I was looking into the Nokias because they have the reputation for having the best reception. I shopped around vigorously and after doing some comparison, I have to say, Cingular had a reasonable offer worth switching over from my Promo plan which I had for 5 years with T-Mobile (1000 whenever minutes with free 300 texting).

I listen to my friends advice and bought the 8gb iPhone from an Apple store which is comforting to know they wil honor their warranty if the handheld malfunctions. At any case, I got a phat rebate ($275 from a local store) including a rebate for the activation fees . I ended up only forking out $135 including tax for the iPhone. :wink:

I just got it activated, eventually, I will succumbed to terms that the iPhone will become "the standard" of all handheld, most major cell phone manufacturers will be comparing their products against. :biggrin:

-Andy

Now u need to jailbreak it and start loading some apps dood! :biggrin:

 

[Tamoske]

what about text messages writing is it difficult with finger on a touchscreen?
what about games and quality of camera?

 

[matteni]

For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

I guess Apple isn't cool with people "upgrading" their phones to work on other networks and to use 3rd party applications. Typical Apple. To those that unlocked to get the same features and extensability everyone else has enjoy your iBrick thanks to Apple:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6371&tag=nl.e539

The company added that it will release its next iPhone software update later this week. In other words, if your iPhone is set up for automatic updates it will become an iBrick. Apple’s take:

Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.

In other words, if you unlock the iPhone you are iScrewed.

 

[Gansan]

what about text messages writing is it difficult with finger on a touchscreen?
what about games and quality of camera?

The keyboard actually not bad. I type about 30-35 words per minute when I use one of the typing test websites in the iPhone. It took a few hours to get used to it--particularly the fact that you have to learn to ignore typos because the auto-correct works pretty well.

Not many games yet other than some interesting ones via websites, but people have found text strings in the UI code that shows that games will be coming.

Camera is ok, but not that great. Standard 2MP phone quality. My Sony Ericsson K750i was slightly better because of the autofocus lens. However, in well lit conditions, the camera is pretty good.

 

[heySkippy]

I've taken some pretty good pictures with my iPhone, but overall it's not a great camera. I've been driving to work right at dawn with the top off the last couple weeks so I've had some nice views to photograph.

Example:

 

[robr]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

I guess Apple isn't cool with people "upgrading" their phones to work on other networks and to use 3rd party applications. Typical Apple. To those that unlocked to get the same features and extensability everyone else has enjoy your iBrick thanks to Apple:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6371&tag=nl.e539

Not surprising, if you think about it, AT&T makes no money from these phones, they make it all from their service. Apple gets paid a percentage of your monthly service plan as well. You yank the phone off AT&T, neither AT&T or Apple are making any money from that phone. Given that these phones are sold at a loss (after all the rebates), Apple and AT&T expect to make up the price difference and profit from the 2 years of service you committed to.

I'll stick with my 8525 (HTC Hermes) and I'm looking forward to seeing the pricing on the 8925 (HTC Kaiser)

 

[matteni]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

Not surprising, if you think about it, AT&T makes no money from these phones, they make it all from their service. Apple gets paid a percentage of your monthly service plan as well. You yank the phone off AT&T, neither AT&T or Apple are making any money from that phone. Given that these phones are sold at a loss (after all the rebates), Apple and AT&T expect to make up the price difference and profit from the 2 years of service you committed to.

I'll stick with my 8525 (HTC Hermes) and I'm looking forward to seeing the pricing on the 8925 (HTC Kaiser)

Hi Rob,

Everything I have read is Apple has an awesome profit margin on the phone and AT&T a similarly awesome profit margin on the plan. My understanding is all the rebates are directly from AT&T at the moment you sign up for an iPhone plan (which at AT&T/iPhone rates they have plenty of room to rebate). This is not uncommon. My phone is a Pharos GPS 600 phone and I paid similar ($599) but any carrier would have offered me a "rebate" on this unlocked phone depending on the plan. For me it was better to negotiate the best plan (TMobile) and forget the rebate as they get it all back and then some. This is similar to how you would get a MSN / AOL rebate on any new computer with a 2 year data plan a couple years ago.

So basically the phone is list minus any rebates you can negotiate directly from AT&T. People who buy these oversees or without any plan at the time of purchase are not getting any break and are basically going to get shut out via updates and strong arm tactics.

It is so typical Apple it is almost funny. For how many years did the exact same peripherals cost MAC fans double what everyone else paid because they were proprietary?

I am not a M$ fan but they look like RedHat compared to companies like Apple and Sony. :redface:

 

[robr]

The number I've seen say that the phone was selling with a 50% profit margin when introduced. I've seen analysts come up with a manufacturing cost of $245-$280 to Apple (4GB vs 8GB). With today's prices and rebates, that equates to a loss. This is very standard for the cell phone industry as you say. My 8525 was free, but I'm sure it costs at least a few hundred to manufacture, plus MS OS licensing costs.

I am absolutely NOT a fan of Apple or the Mac, but I completely understand the business need here to keep the iPhone on AT&Ts network. I of course don't understand or agree with locking down the phone's ability to install aftermarket software and other tweaks and such.

 

[Arshad]

I am absolutely NOT a fan of Apple or the Mac, but I completely understand the business need here to keep the iPhone on AT&Ts network. I of course don't understand or agree with locking down the phone's ability to install aftermarket software and other tweaks and such.

Agreed. I was standing 2 feet away from Steve Jobs when he was making his case for locking it down to John Carmack earlier this year and his primary concern was security related. He made some good points, but as Carmack pointed out -- if it's designed correctly, this is not that big an issue. In fact, it's worse because determined hackers writing native apps are more likely to inadvertantly bring down a tower than if they just supplied the appropriate API's and concentrated on securing the lower levels of the OS/kernel.

 

[Tamoske]

BUT THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WEAK OR WRONG WITH THIS TOY?:biggrin: :wink:

 

[heySkippy]

BUT THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WEAK OR WRONG WITH THIS TOY?:biggrin: :wink:

IMO the weak points are the software that comes with the iPhone. Here is my gripe list.

- Safari sometimes just quits when loading really big pages. It remembers where you were and usually loads the page on the 2nd try, but it's a PITA.

- No copy & paste. This is big. I was composing a post in Safari a few days ago and wanted to include some pics. I opened another tab and got the pics up but had no way to copy the URL to paste into the other tab where my post was. I am sure they'll add this soon enough, but it's a big minus.

- No 'Cancel' when sending an email. My email server hung (or something) the other day when I sent an email and I couldn't find any way to cancel it. It just kept trying.

- No Junk filter in Mail. I set up my iPhone to access the same 3 main emails accounts I keep on my home computer. All are POP3, 2 of them are on servers I own, one is my Comcast account. I get about 100 junk emails a day and while mail.app filters 99% of them on my laptop, they all come flying into my phone. PITA.

- Despite what Teh Steve says, this isn't the best iPod they've ever made. It could be, but there needs to be some software tweeking there, too. When you're in the Cover Flow mode, the covers don't flow when the song changes and there aren't any on-screen controls except PAUSE/PLAY. If you let your phone sleep/lock while you're listening to the iPod, you have to press to wake it and slide the unlock to do anything other than volume (for which there are external buttons).

- No free games. My iPod Nano had Solitaire, Breakout and a couple other simple games. Nothing on the iPhone. I would at least like to have Solitaire to play while I'm on the crapper at work.

- The recessed headphone jack is retarded. I've had to use my Dremel and shave the plugs of all my headphones and MP3 adapters to work. Yeah, I know there's a adapter I can buy, but I don't want to have to keep track of it everywhere I go.

That's most of my whines. The good news is I expect Apple will fix most if not all these items with software releases. And overall I am quite delighted with the iPhone. I don't really care for cell phones, but it's a good phone. It's loud and clear to my old ears and the screen and buttons are big enough that I can make everything work without my reading glasses (this is definitely NOT the case with every other cell phone we've owned). For a v1.0 product, I have to give it high marks.

Hope that helps!

 

[robr]

BUT THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WEAK OR WRONG WITH THIS TOY?:biggrin: :wink:

WHY ARE YOU YELLING??!??

 

[Tamoske]

thanxs for a good review

 

[enkrypt3d]

- No free games. My iPod Nano had Solitaire, Breakout and a couple other simple games. Nothing on the iPhone. I would at least like to have Solitaire to play while I'm on the crapper at work.

I agree with most of your gripes ... but the free games thing is just not true. Well for a stock phone out of the box anyways

There are all sorts of card games, blackjack, solitaire and other games like chess, checkers, and all the Nintendo ROM's you can imagine if you were to jailbreak the phone... "Jailbreaking" isn't what it sounds like... it just allows you to load custom 3rd party apps which Apple will *NEVER* release on their own... it really shows the phones true potential IMO.

Check out www.ibrickr.com for an easy "how-to"....

 

[enkrypt3d]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

I guess Apple isn't cool with people "upgrading" their phones to work on other networks and to use 3rd party applications. Typical Apple. To those that unlocked to get the same features and extensability everyone else has enjoy your iBrick thanks to Apple:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6371&tag=nl.e539

Nope. You are not "Required" to update your iPhone unless you want to... I have all that $@!% disabled in iTunes... and I hardly ever use the ipod function anyways so I hardly ever have the phone docked. Apple NOR AT&T can push updates over the cellular signal especially without consent....

This is a prime example of Apple And AT&T trying to scare those of us who have unlocked their phones.. what a bunch of malarkey!

 

[heySkippy]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

This is a prime example of Apple And AT&T trying to scare those of us who have unlocked their phones.. what a bunch of malarkey!

I'd say it's more an example of the press and blogosphere blowing things way out of proportion. They've taken a straightforward and perfectly reasonable statement from Apple (we won't intentionally brick your phone, but we can't guarantee future updates will work with 3rd party hacks and permanent damage is possible) and turned that into OMG THEY'RE FUXORING ALL OF US ON PURPOSE.

 

[enkrypt3d]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

I'd say it's more an example of the press and blogosphere blowing things way out of proportion. They've taken a straightforward and perfectly reasonable statement from Apple (we won't intentionally brick your phone, but we can't guarantee future updates will work with 3rd party hacks and permanent damage is possible) and turned that into OMG THEY'RE FUXORING ALL OF US ON PURPOSE.

lol true... but u never know... but at the same time how can this be true:

"Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software....."

temporarily irreparable until you reflash (restore) it...... Since this is straight from the horses mouth, its more like apple is trying to scare ppl into thinking it will break your phone... it might if you dont do it right but anyone with any technical proficiency can unlock their phone. I can understand if Apple was talking about hardware modding but damn this is ridiculous !

 

[Arshad]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

temporarily irreparable until you reflash (restore) it...... Since this is straight from the horses mouth, its more like apple is trying to scare ppl into thinking it will break your phone... it might if you dont do it right but anyone with any technical proficiency can unlock their phone.

It depends. The unlock depends on the firmware being flashed (which is why it can remain unlocked even after a system restore). Theoretically, it's possible to make firmware changes that would prevent the phone from booting up. The only way to fix that assuming Apple hadn't built in a backdoor would be to physically remove the memory/wire up the pins and reflash it to a valid state.

There is no way that Apple is going to intentionally brick the phone. But it's certainly possible that they may update the firmware in such a way that if any code or tables had been modified from the original, it would cause the update to hang the microcontroller. It would be a perfectly legitimate update if your FW were unmodified, but potentially catostrophic otherwise. If you can't boot your phone, you can't easily flash it.

 

[enkrypt3d]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

It depends. The unlock depends on the firmware being flashed (which is why it can remain unlocked even after a system restore). Theoretically, it's possible to make firmware changes that would prevent the phone from booting up. The only way to fix that assuming Apple hadn't built in a backdoor would be to physically remove the memory/wire up the pins and reflash it to a valid state.

There is no way that Apple is going to intentionally brick the phone. But it's certainly possible that they may update the firmware in such a way that if any code or tables had been modified from the original, it would cause the update to hang the microcontroller. It would be a perfectly legitimate update if your FW were unmodified, but potentially catostrophic otherwise. If you can't boot your phone, you can't easily flash it.

well even if u cant boot your phone you can always boot into diagnostic mode by holding the power and home buttons at teh same time for 30 seconds until the yellow triangle shows up... this is when you restore from itunes. this wipes the entire iphone to an out of the box state.

 

[Arshad]

Re: For you iPhone "unlockers" - you will soon have an iBrick

well even if u cant boot your phone you can always boot into diagnostic mode by holding the power and home buttons at teh same time for 30 seconds until the yellow triangle shows up... this is when you restore from itunes. this wipes the entire iphone to an out of the box state.

It all depends on how Apple wants to tackle it. It's trivial for them to alter the boot firmware so that it's impossible to boot the device period -- diagnostic mode or otherwise. All depends on what/where in the boot process they put their changes. Of course it's also quite possible that they won't do anything that will prevent unlocked phones from booting normally. I guess we'll have to wait and see once the update is made available.

 

[Arshad]

Well preliminary reports on the 1.1.1 patch seem to indicate that unlocked phones continue to work as normal after applying the update. However, any modded apps/ringtones are removed by the update (or maybe just the plist is altered).

EDIT: Ok maybe the initial report was a hoax as some people are reporting that unlocked phones require reauthorization with AT&T. It would be prudent to hold off on any updates until the facts are clear.