So who bought an iPhone?! Or planning to?

[TadW]

It's hard to ignore the iPhone frenzy when you open your browser nowadays.

Anyone here lucky enough to get a hold of one? Is anyone planning to get a hold of one within the year?

[Alexander Turcic]

I'd buy one immediately, but according to the news, Apple won't be selling any iPhones in Switzerland before 2008

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by TadW

It's hard to ignore the iPhone frenzy when you open your browser nowadays.

Anyone here lucky enough to get a hold of one? Is anyone planning to get a hold of one within the year?

Actually, I found is pretty easy to ignore.

The iPhone is overpriced, locked down, tied to a carrier with a poor record.

Several articles on the web demonstrate that you can get better for less elsewhere (like the Palm Treo). Didn't really see much reason to even consider buying one.

[doctorow]

From JQ: Top 10 Reasons Not to Line Up for an iPhone...

10. It can’t make video calls, AT&T’s latest cool offering.

9. It won’t connect with corporate e-mail networks. (So you’ll still have to carry your Blackberry.)

8. It doesn’t have enough storage space. (8 GB maximum for music, videos, photos? We don’t think that’ll do it, and there’s no memory slot for expansion).

7. Slow-speed cellular data connection means it won’t pull up Web pages like it does in the deceptive Apple TV ads.

6. Don’t you remember the Newton?

5. First year total cost of ownership: $1,500 (phone plus AT&T contract).

4. Geez, it’s not as if it's the last Star Wars movie or anything.

3. Sticky fingers and greasy faces and something called sunlight, which makes dialing outside on a nice day, er, shall we say challenging? (Okay, so I snuck three reasons into one item.)

2. A glass screen? Have you ever dealt with Apple’s warranty police?

1. Never, ever buy version 1.0 of anything.

[HarryT]

The killer for me would be that it doesn't have 3G support. Who on earth would make a "top end" phone these days without that?

[Egghead]

I'll probably wait until version 2.0. Or rather, wait until that MacOS X-powered widescreen video iPod comes out. UMPC - oops, I mean UMMac - anyone?

[yvanleterrible]

It's not quite the price of the device itself that puts me off, it's the upkeep. They say that Rogers, here in Canada, will be the only carrier for it and the charges will be over $100Can a month, that's $1200 yearly!!?!!

I'd be pleased with the device without the phone capability. It is pretty much like a fancy iPod. If they add ebook reading, well!...

I've tried before to get a smart phone without phoning services because I like the PDA features they have. They won't sell them. I'm pretty sure Rogers will do the same.

[NatCh]

You could try buying it direct from Apple ... I don't know if that will work or not, but I know you can buy a Trēo (for example) directly from Palm without service. Costs more that way, but there you go.

[HarryT]

I don't know if it's the same in the US, but here in the UK if you buy a fancy phone without a phone contract it's generally enormously more expensive - twice the price or even more - than buying it with the contract. The service operator massively subsidizes the cost of the phone.

[NatCh]

Oh, it's precisely the same here, HarryT.

The Trēo I mentioned (the 680, specifically) goes for $399 with no coverage and unlocked, but if you get it through Cingular/"The New AT&T" you can have it for as little as $199. I figured since I can get the thing unlocked for ~$30 through various web-services, I'm way ahead taking the subsidized approach, and unlocking it after the contract expires, if that's what I decide I want to do.

[Azayzel]

I'd just like to get my hands on one to take it on a real-world test-drive. I did this with one of the Blackberries and found that it was nowhere near as useful as people were making it out to be. It was pretty well locked down to homebrew and really didn't work for me as expected. I think the iPhone could be cool, but like Egghead said; I'd rather wait for the widescreen iPod that's on the horizon.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know if it's the same in the US, but here in the UK if you buy a fancy phone without a phone contract it's generally enormously more expensive - twice the price or even more - than buying it with the contract. The service operator massively subsidizes the cost of the phone.

I just received a BlackBerry Pearl 8100 from my company, and man was I lucky, it's unlocked!

[Adrian]

Originally Posted by doctorow

From JQ: Top 10 Reasons Not to Line Up for an iPhone...

10. It can’t make video calls, AT&T’s latest cool offering.

9. It won’t connect with corporate e-mail networks. (So you’ll still have to carry your Blackberry.)

8. It doesn’t have enough storage space. (8 GB maximum for music, videos, photos? We don’t think that’ll do it, and there’s no memory slot for expansion).

7. Slow-speed cellular data connection means it won’t pull up Web pages like it does in the deceptive Apple TV ads.

6. Don’t you remember the Newton?

5. First year total cost of ownership: $1,500 (phone plus AT&T contract).

4. Geez, it’s not as if it's the last Star Wars movie or anything.

3. Sticky fingers and greasy faces and something called sunlight, which makes dialing outside on a nice day, er, shall we say challenging? (Okay, so I snuck three reasons into one item.)

2. A glass screen? Have you ever dealt with Apple’s warranty police?

1. Never, ever buy version 1.0 of anything.

10. Very few people ever make video calls. In the UK, we've had video phones for years now, and I have never seen anyone make such a call.

9. Apparently coming soon; still, it has IMAP, etc.

8. Enough storage space compared to what? Other phones? Or iPods? There are no other phones currently released that have larger capacities, and the bestselling iPod is the 4GB nano, which should tell you something.

7. That does suck, yes.

6. We'd better not buy any handhelds from Apple ever again then, because they'll all be like the Newton!

5. Bottom line, this is not much more than comparable plans for the Blackberry: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/26/h...in-total-cost/

4. Sigh...

3. Apparently the screen is very visible in sunlight, even with fingerprints.

2. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=czCCavcnNd8 - enough said. It can survive repeated 6ft drops onto concrete, and cannot be scratched - even deliberately - by a bag of keys.

1. Fair enough, version 2.0 will obviously be better. But you're saying this on a ebook forum where most of the products are 1.0?

The point is, there are problems with the iPhone. There are a lot of good reasons why you shouldn't get one - namely, price, connectivity and custom apps. But to suggest that the screen is not strong, or it costs a vast amount more than any other phone out there, or that people actually care about video calls, is simply flat-out wrong.