iPhone Passion

Why on Earth would I donate anything just to see the so-much-awaited gadget of the year smashed to pieces?

People, please, don’t donate any money (though it doesn’t seem you do, anyways - there’s been one dollar raised so far). If you prefer, donate me some money in order NOT to smash an iPhone. Well, donate some anyways and I promise I won’t smash it. Period.

Via Engadget: comparing the two best-designed touch-screen phones of the moment: Apple’s iPhone versus LG’s LG KE850
LG has already won the International Forum Design Product Design Award for 2007. My guess is that the award for 2008 goes to iPhone

Computer World has a set of 20 questions now, after the Reality Distortion Effect has faded out. Read their article for a feet-on-the-earth view:
Among the questions:

• How much will it actually cost to own it? (data fees and SMS fees seem to get pretty important)
• How fast is it, actually?
• Can you use it as a mobile modem as well?
• Will the name remain the same once the CISCO suit takes off the ground?

Etc…

In an interview given to the nytimes, Steve Jobs confirmed that people won’t be able to install third-party apps on the iPhone:

“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

The iPhone, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

This is bad news for independent developers, looks like only Apple and its partners will get to develop software for the iPhone. Really bad news, I was already looking forward to develop some cool drag&drop games for the multitouch screen. Well.. with a bit of luck, maybe we’ll at least get to use already-existing Dashboard widgets. After all, Jobs greatest concern (besides making shitloads of money) seems to be the well-being of the network provider(Cingular, in our case):

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

(msnbc)

Also, Jobs doesn’t seem excited at the thought of letting people freely install their own ringtones onto the system(or make custom ringtones out of their iTunes songs). Plenty of money in sight? Definitely.

What can we say? The man is a hardware genius. If he is a bit evil on the side, we still may forgive him. As long as the iPhone will live up to its promise

Mac Forums 2001 - see here the reactions and rants of hard-core Apple users to the new iPod. Quite a change of perspective from now, ain’t it?

The Gizmodo Guys have given us the scoop on the oh-so-interesting OSX operating system that the iPhone boasts to have..

The most depressing piece of news? iPhone’s OS isn’t the real OSX, but a closed version that probably won’t allow third-party apps. We can just hope they’ll change their minds. If not, there are always some ways to develop for the iPhone: Dashboard widgets, full-javascript web apps, etc.

The OS: It isn’t OS X proper, as you’d expect. And like an iPod, it won’t be an open system that people can develop for. Remember, this is both an iPod and a Phone.

Music Store Access: None planned, as of yet.

Screen is the same polycarb as the iPod, with a touch element over it.

Accessories: Remember, this has an iPod dock connector, so many accessories will be fwd compat.

AppleGadget is comparing, side by side, the iPhone with some other common gadgets. Wow, that’s a pretty big phone, I might say…; a small pocket pc, though…

Eesite provides us with insights on the iPhone’s insides (pun intended )

According to a report from FBR Research, the winners are Samsung Electronics (applications/video processor), Marvell (802.11), Infineon Technologies (baseband), Broadcom Corp. (touch screen controller), and Cambridge Silicon Radio (Bluetooth).
FBR believes that Apple has contracted with Taiwan suppliers for 6 million units this year, with an option for another three million units if demand is good.

A report from Macquarie Research noted several Taiwan companies will also benefit, including Foxconn International (assembly), Catcher and Foxconn Tech (stainless casing and mechanical parts) Cheng Uei and Entery (connectors/cable and Bluetooth module), Unimicron and Tripod (PCB), Largan Precision (camera lens) and Altus (camera module).

Why the Samsung processor? The answer is obvious: Intel processors, while economic enough to power the MacBooks, were never ment to be mobile processors: they consume waay too much power. Still, Samsung is a surprise, given that Motorola has been a past Apple ally and would have seamed like a first choice.

What does this tell us again? That the stripped-down OSX version that Steve Jobs boasted runs on Samsung. Since it’s obviously OSX based(runs Safari and Dashboard at the least), this tells us quite a lot about the multi-platform capabilities that OSX has in store. Hmm… another of many Apple mysteries…

Forbes has an insightful article today on our favorite gadget and its European version.

“The general standard in Europe is you get a handset for free or a small premium of maybe 50 or 100 euros ($65 or $130) at most,” said Arber from his office in London.

The bad news comes for Vodafone, Orange and Whampoa users, which might not get their favorite mobile iPod on the network; the good news might come for UK users:

Niek Van Veen, an associate analyst at Forrester Research in the Netherlands, said the phone would not be attractive to networks like Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa’s 3, which already have their own music download services.

He points to British cellular operator O2, a subsidiary of Telefonica (nyse: TEF - news - people ), as a potential initial carrier, given the quick way it picked up the Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) Rokr when it launched in Europe in September 2005. Rokr was the first cellular phone to be integrated with Apple’s iTunes music player. “I see O2 as a more relevant operator to start with.”

A lack of capability third-generation capability had also looked like an initial problem for the iPhone’s acceptance in Europe, since all operators there have launched 3G phones, whose broadband capabilities make them useful for music and video downloads. “To come into the European market at the end of 2007 with a non-3G phone for high-end users,” said Van Veen, “just wouldn’t be attractive for the target audience.”

After all, the current EDGE specs for the iPhone are a bit slim for Europe’s 3G spoiled asses; the download speed is orders of magnitude slower. The good news is that Steve said he’ll eventually add 3G to the iPhone. Maybe the European version will have it?

CBS’s video is without any doubt the one showing best the cool features of the iPhone: the multitouch screen, scroll, address book in sync with the OSX one, contact calling, and the innovative video voice mail where you can jump directly to the call you want. Neat!
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk[/video]

First iPhone videos online.