swajames

Primarily personal - it will be my main cell. I'm going to keep the BlackBerry for a while to see how Exchange support shakes out on the iPhone. The iPhone is primarily going to be used for voice (replacing my Razr), so as a phone it's a hell of an upgrade. I do get a ton of voicemails through work so the visual voicemail feature is one of the things I'm most intererested in.

JetBlack5OC

No worries. I like a nice debate every once in awhile. I guess we will see the real reviews of the phone after tomorrow. I hope its stands up to all the hype. I read an article recently that the new ipod will basically be the iphone without the cellular capabilities. Anyways enough with electronics, back to talking about cars.

swajames

Agreed - funny thing is that there are very, very few companies that can generate the kind of customer loyalty/fanaticism that drives discussions like this - and BMW and Apple are two of them.

BetterMakeWay

If i may jump in your grate d-bate.

Here's your phone that will own imo iphone: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_w960-2008.php
And it has 8Gb ! This will probably be my next phone.

THe fact that Iphone doesn't have the function of exchanging the battery, and doesn't support MMS, along with other factors including poor battery life (just like the N95) is more than enough for me to run away from the so called ultimate phone. When a phone has so many gadgets in it, just like the N95 does with the gps and stuff,it must have one big ass battery to keep them juiced up.

Another tech company better imo than apple in marketing is Sony.

ImolaRedM

You may want to double check the battery life on the iPhone. It's rated (albeit by Apple) at 8 hours talk time and 250 hours standby, the N95 is rated at under 3 hours talk and 215 hour standby. The high power consumption of current 3G chipsets was one reason Apple didn't go with 3G in this first release. As for the replaceable battery, iPods don't have "official" replaceable batteries but there are tons on the market sold through third parties. However, I still have my original battery in my 4th generation iPod that I purchased 3 years ago and use it almost daily. MMS may be added later but you can still send rich media email. The lack of IM is a big one for me but I'm betting that this will be offered in a later software update.

swajames

The W960 is indeed a nice phone, but it's basically a current generation device - it has a standard input interface, and standard Symbian OS. People misunderstand one thing about Apple - as beautiful as the hardware is, it's the software and UI that makes the difference. iPhone is all about the interface and software, and that's where Apple is second to none - this phone isn't even close to the iPhone in that respect. Time will tell on battery life, early reviews are actually that it's better than most current devices. As for MMS, that's only a software update away. Sony has struggled a lot lately with brand and marketing, that's an area where Apple is indeed second to none. You won't find many brand and marketing professionals who agree with you on this one.

SoCalM5Mang

Great debate here. I'd like to weigh in. I have been an Apple front and end user for about 18 years now.
I have made a great deal of money in the stock and I have considered myself as a "worshipper of all things Jobs".

But......

I am honest about the iPhone and I'll offer my opinion.

It's a wonderful device and a giant leap forward. There are some sizable and significant limitations(more on that later)

People in this debate have hit on it. With apple it's never been about the Hardware but the GUI and the programs(software running on it). It's the same thing here.

Sure the Touchscreen is nice. It's the Safari Web Browser made specifically to work over a mobile interface which is the real highlight. There hasn't been a web browser yet made specifically for a phone. I've seen this up close and personal when connected thru a Wi-Fi network. It's a thing of beauty. It really is.

Their are many other highlights to the phone that make it an amazing "pocket communication device". If you are already a Cingular user and you want one device for your phone-mp3player-contact mgmt this is a no-brainer.

The limitations are definitely on the Business User and Web Surfer end. Cingular's edge notework is a joke. Cingular's voice footprint with GSM is spotty in North America at best. Living in LA, Cingular will drop one out of every 10 calls made and other times call quality is just bad.

The biggest limitation clearly is the lack of broad band provided by Edge.
What good is a innovative mobile web browser if you are trying to access websites on dialup speed? Sure it's great when connected to a Wi-Fi network but what is the big improvement in a place where your laptop will work just as well?(Coffee shop-Home Office-Network Office etc) People want to be able to surf the net at BB speed in their cars-while walking down the street or shopping in their favorite dept store.

Apple is not a dumb company. They understand this. Jobs will sell a ton of these suckers to the Fanboys-Early Adopters of all things Apple. The 2nd generation will be 3G and probably have a built in Exchange Server interface. (The current interface is ass-backward and requires your Server Administrator to do some back end tinkering).
I would also assume the AT&T/Cingular will be spending profusely trying to upgrade their 3G infrastructure so that the 2nd and 3rd gen iPhones make sense to all parties. Once a 3G iPhone is out there and assuming the network infrastructure can support it "everywhere in NA".....this thing will rock like there is no tomorrow. If I were Michael Dell, I'd be working on a portable hand held laptops as fast I as I could.

I give the iPhone a Big Thumbs Up for what it "can do now". It will also significantly improve the GUI's from the other handset manufacturers or they will face extinction.

I believe we will see a bandwidth logjam on the Cingular end over the next couple of weeks as so many iPhone users start trying to surf the internet on their spotty Edge Network. It will probably cause some negative press at first as many people will be disgruntled and wanting to take their iPhone back.

So Cal

swajames

Good post SoCal. I totally agree the primary limitation right now is AT&T. Rumors around today that AT&T have made some changes to Edge over the last couple of days as users are reporting increased speeds - interested to see if there's any basis in that. That said, my Treo ran on Edge and I never considered it underpowered for most tasks, including web browsing. My BlackBerry runs EV-DO on Verizon's network and it's not noticeably quicker in normal use.

JetBlack5OC

And the debate continues........

I just can't get over the fact that its a phone without a removable battery. That may not be an issue for your average IPod user, but when it's your phone, that's another story.

I remain skeptical, call it first-version jitters, if you want.

fjwagner

I do not believe the 3G is that big of a deal. 3G is a big drain on the battery and the phone does have Wifi which is faster than 3G; assuming you are in a Wifi area when you want to do high speed. Crackberrys are Edge and they download email very effectively. So, the Edge can be effective. I do not necessary enjoy cruising the net on a small screen, so as long as basics such as Google maps and email download, then I am happy. Both of those are great on Edge. The Wifi is gravy in case you have to look at espn.com while sitting in Starbucks.