Cons of iPhone and Apple TV

[Tommo]

Sorry, bad choice of words. I meant marketing it as a type of PDA rather than a sophistcated mobile phone/media player. As you say programability for third party apps will be the key to its success.

[g/re/p]

The price is a bit too high IMO, but when i bought my unbranded/unlocked
TREO 600 directly from PALM, i paid just under $700 including 2nd day shipping
rates - at the time i thought it was well worth the price, and still do.

I got an ubranded/unlocked/still new and sealed in the box TREO 650 from ebay - $478 including 2nd day shipping - and that was a damn good deal at the time!

If user-reveiws reveal that this new iPhone works as well as expected, i will gladly pay as much as $700 for one that is unlocked/unbranded.

It will most probably work on other carriers that use a SIM card - it just will not be optimised for those networks, but i do not want the broadband feature anyway because cingular will charge at least 3 times what such service is actually worth.

*I would chew ground glass and drink motor oil before i would sign up with cingular - they SUCK.

[fryke]

The things I _really_ find negative about it right now:

1.) Onscreen keyboard. I have yet to use one that actually works fine. If it does, that's good, but I don't believe it just yet.

2.) 3rd party apps. It's a must, in my opinion - unless Apple provides _everything_ you'll ever need.

3.) Messaging is split into SMS and E-Mail. I like how the Nokia Communicator has a combined messaging application. Plus: No MMS? Pity.

4.) iChat. So it's Mac OS X with "full desktop applications" and WiFi? It should at the very *least* have an iChat client, shouldn't it. Or they should integrate it with SMS and E-Mail. Yes, there's no front-cam, but iChat's much more than just videoconferencing - in fact *i* rarely ever use it for that, most of the time it's just text-messages.

Then again: Let's all take a deep breath. Obviously, if this thing runs OS X, it *has* the basics for many things I want. It's up to Apple to make good use of what features the iPhone _could_ offer.

[lbj]

Originally Posted by Mikuro

And what extra features would it need to qualify as a PDA? I thought it was a PDA. And a great one, at that.

Bingo. I think Apple snuck back into the PDA world via the backdoor.

"Yes we remember the Newton, but this is not a PDA, it's a phone!"

Also, I can't help but think we are looking at the next iPod. Rip out the phone guts and you've got tons of space to put in memory storage. Maybe even shrink the size a bit.

And the multi-touch touch-screen lends itself perfectly to playing full body video and allowing for virtual controls.

[fryke]

"tons of space", nah. The phone parts don't take up that much space, really.

[chevy]

Originally Posted by symphonix

...

DivX, Video_TS, ...

While it would be nice, I can't really see it happening, because that would mean that the AppleTV would need to licence DVD decryption and region coding algorithms, just for one format that it really wasn't designed for.

Will not be required. Your Mac or PC will do it (read the DVD or other media) and prepare it to be sent wireless (probably encodeed) to the Apple TV that will decrypt it and push it to your TV screen. You will not put a DVD in the Apple TV directly.

[mindbend]

I think this is a great thread, FWIW.

In addition to the other excellent points, here's mine:

AppleTV

1. No HDMI 1.3 AFAICT
2. No 1080P

iPhone

1. No speech recognition for dialing?

Random thought:

I can't imagine that the iPhone won't support third party apps (whether Apple likes it or not!)

But to be clear, I think both of these products are excellent. I already ordered my AppleTV. Personally I think the AppleTV will be more influential than people think.

[chevy]

The worst thing in the iPhone is its name. "iPhone"... bleark. iPod would be much better !