UK iPhone news..

[Barkotron]

It can't be developed, safaria is about as much of a platform, as i am a belly dancer, i can sort of do it, but compared to whats available you'd have to be nuts to think it made sense.

Quote of the day - winner!

[DeludedGuy]

I think SE are going to release a winner with there new W960i. Its sleek, slim, has wifi, bluetooth touch screen and 8gb internal memory and 3.2 cybershot camera.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...e=pp&pid=10908

I think its an iPhone killer.

[Cloudane]

Very sweet, the screen is unlikely to be as good but at least they've finished the feature set!!

[DeludedGuy]

Very sweet, the screen is unlikely to be as good but at least they've finished the feature set!!

Yeah, the screen on the old model was decent at best, hopefully this one will have better handwriting recognition.

SE FTW!

[Tom Scott]

Sorry to drag it back to the data funtionality of the device.... but I still struggle to see the point in 3G phones unless its got a 7" screen (HTC Advantage, which is truly truly terrible anyway), or for use with a Laptop/PC. Websites aren't designed for mobile devices, and if they have an alternative version it will generally work absolutely fine on a phone that uses GPRS properly.


To make matters worse if you disregard web'n'walk, and the new Vodafone Mobile Broadband packages, mobile data is still far too expensive to make it practical.


Let look at O2s data bundles shall we, seeing as they are getting the iPhone first...

5MB Data - £5.88
20MB Data - £10
36MB Data - £17.04

Lets say in theory that the iPhone was GPRS/UMTS enabled and not HSDPA. If you were downloading at full whack you'd get through 36mb of data in just under 13 minutes, its £1/mb from there on in.... not cheap, and definetly not a worthwhile experience on a poxy little screen.

[Cloudane]

Websites aren't designed for mobile devices

Good websites are. BBC, Slashdot, Google (search engine, mail, reader, news) and even vB messageboards with the appropriate addons.

Just because you don't personally have any use for mobile browsing doesn't mean that others don't

Also you tend to get more data allowance on 3G. It's unlimited on my Three tarriff, which is still cheaper than the rumoured minimum tarriffs for the iPhone...

[Tom Scott]

Good websites are. BBC, Slashdot, Google (search engine, mail, reader, news) and even vB messageboards with the appropriate addons.

Just because you don't personally have any use for mobile browsing doesn't mean that others don't

They all work well on GPRS though don't they?
If you read my post again you'll probably realise that I was referring to 3G phones for browsing true internet sites... its unpleasurable at best.

Websites aren't designed for mobile devices, and if they have an alternative version it will generally work absolutely fine on a phone that uses GPRS properly

[Flibb]

I can hapilly browse websites on my HTC Universal, 640 x 480 screen handles most of them.

[dangel]

Unlimited data makes 3G more desirable than GPRS on it's own - the fact it's faster too is added bonus. Browsing can be alright, with the right browser installed (but not fantastic)

[Cloudane]

They all work well on GPRS though don't they?
If you read my post again you'll probably realise that I was referring to 3G phones for browsing true internet sites... its unpleasurable at best.

They work "well" in the same way that the internet works "well" on a modem If all you've ever surfed on is 56K, you don't really feel that bothered... but once you've sampled broadband, you go on a 56K and feel like you're wading through treacle. It's the same sort of principle.

That's why I say 3G is very much worth it....

True internet sites, well yeah, those will always be bad as they're designed for 800x600+ and a fixed broadband connection these days.

[crcr]

Lacking in 3G is absolutely diabolical. I guess in the USA it isn't really a priority and hasn't caught on much. Heck it hasn't caught on *massively* here, but it certainly has amongst the geek crowd, those who would've wanted the iPhone for any reason other than the Apple brand... and when just about every new phone on the market is 3G, this is a huge backwards step and seems nonsensical.

Just like to bring this up, why wouldn't Apple use 3G?

Anyone have any ideas/speculation on why? Surely they are fully aware 3G is currently superior and the industry standard...

[Cloudane]

My guess is they couldn't cram it into the dimensions they were looking for (3G phones tend to be a bit chunkier).

This is why I'm quite disappointed at Apple lately - in the past they've always been ones for pushing the technical boundaries in every way they can, whilst making the stuff good to look at as a *secondary* objective (and one that they were generally still good at doing).

Nowadays the focus has shifted, their priority is only in making stuff look good, even if it sacrifices functionality...

[Spud1]

most likely due to the increased power consumtion by a 3G module in the phone. Its true that it would be simple enough to simply swapout the current chipset for one which supports 3G, however with the iPhone already having a relativly short battery life this could completely kill it. There is also the fact that in the USA EDGE is far more prominent, and that is their biggest market.

Apple are not known for targeting europeans with custom made products after all...here's hoping that it will be in the revB version of the iPhone, and that it will be on a half-decent network like Voda or three

edit: unlikely to be a size issue, 3G phones can be tiny now Look at the new Samsung D-series or the Nokia 6233 for example.

[Aaron]

Just like to bring this up, why wouldn't Apple use 3G?

This is the iPhone v1 and Apple doesn't have a track record in mobile phones.

Developing a 3G telephony stack is not a simple or quick business. It took Microsoft years to catch up with the established mobile players in terms of 3G support. I'm sure they didn't have time to implement it before the iPhone was released.

The same could be said of the iPhone's Bluetooth stack, which currently only supports mono headsets at the moment.

[master811]

I think SE are going to release a winner with there new W960i. Its sleek, slim, has wifi, bluetooth touch screen and 8gb internal memory and 3.2 cybershot camera.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...e=pp&pid=10908

I think its an iPhone killer.

Its a shame there's no HSDPA on it though seeing as its on their other 2 new phones, I'd much prefer that over wifi if anything. HSDPA + T-mobile web'n'walk and I'm sorted

[kapowaz]

I'm amazed that this thread has lasted this long without anybody mentioning the reason why the iPhone doesn't have 3G (as in, Steve Jobs actually specifically answered the question):

"When we looked at 3G, the chipsets are not quite mature, in the sense that they're not low-enough power for what we were looking for. They were not integrated enough, so they took up too much physical space. We cared a lot about battery life and we cared a lot about physical size. Down the road, I'm sure some of those tradeoffs will become more favorable towards 3G but as of now we think we made a pretty good doggone decision."

So, battery life was the key issue. I think that given most people want a phone to be a phone, a phone that eats all its battery the moment you start using it for stuff other than as a phone wouldn't go down too well. Remember, not everyone who buys one is a hardcore geek like the average hexus.net visitor.

Oh, and to those of you saying Apple don't understand the market for (whatever); er, you guys aren't IT industry analysts are you? No?

Thought not.