So, the iPhone has been announced.
 
What does everyone think about it?
 
(to make this 'other hardware' i'll mention it's 8gb hard drive)

seems more appealing to me than an Ipod, but thats because there are a lot of better alternatives to the Ipod. *Pats his Archos AV500*
 
but this Iphone is really unique compared all other phones out there, unlike the Ipod. so i give it a thumbs up if i can get it free after rebate when i sign up for cell service.

Well it pretty much has an iPod nano (actually more than a nano cuz of the video playback) built in, so I doubt it'll be free with a contract, but im sure it won't be as expensive as they said today ($600 for the 8gb model).
 
'Handset-only' prices are always high.

looks good alot like a concept idea i had for a mobile phone but they just out did me with proximity sensor hadent thought of that  
hopefully this will encourage other phone manufactures to start pushing touchscreens more and be abit more creative then just releasing another flip phone  
needs at least 16 gig in my opinion but that will come with time once everyone has brought the first one

I don't know if they'll do one with a hard disk in - obviously a flash one of any decent ( > 20gb) size would be ludicrously expensive, but they might think that 'hey, it's a phone, it'll get bashed about alot, which a hard drive can't take'.
 
Of course my MP3 player goes in the same pocket as my phone, so it takes just as much of a bashing as my phone gets.
 
Any bigger and it might start to compete with iPod itself, which isn't exactly bad for Apple but companies don't really like to do that do they.

 
dont you think the idea of this is to slowly phase the ipod out as all devices will slowly move into one portable everything device? that will certainly happen withing the next 5 years.
also i agree a hard drive would be a bad move in such a device it would also increase size significantly  
also are the prices stated are sim free?

No idea, but when it gets released to providers we'll have a better picture.
 
I was more wondering what people thought of the thing as a unit rather than as a concept.
 
I personally think it's stunning, stunning technology.
 
Comments?

the technology is amazing they seem to have through it through very well as apple normally seem to do  
the touchscreen and GUI is great too the software behind it seems quite revolutionary for a mobile device of its kind  
but the only downfall i can see with such a device is that it might have battery life issues due to them trying to achieve a nicer form factor but we will have to see about that
i would never buy an ipod but i would by this from what i have seen so far apple have finally won me over on something

The prices set are WITH a two-year contract with Cingular. Expect to see another $200-300 added to the price if you want an unlocked phone.  
 
I was reading the live coverage of the keynote in school (web design class, what do you expect), and we had half the class so excited until the prices and storage capabilities were announced at the end. If Apple were to offer a hard-drive equipped version of this, something on the order of 60 Gb, I'd get one in a heartbeat, but 8 Gb simply isn't enough for my music collection, especially at this price.

You got it. The iPod as we know it is now officially in decline. All the features that were expected for the "real" video iPod are now in the phone. Maybe a vPod without the phone is still in the making but I wouldn't buy it. The iPhone I'll definitely buy.

I wonder how long until someone gets a flavor of Linux running on it?
 
Truly an evolutionary step for the mobile market. Up until now, we have been stymied with half-decent GUI interfaces and fragile buttons that wear out. I'm liking the fact that Apple created a stripped-down version of OS X just for this product. This means that the phone will become a part of this development process, and if history is any judge, I could see patches and updates for you phone now as well as your computer, and unlocking new features with a software update. Need to add support for a Bluetooth keyboard? Download the driver and patch your phone's OS, since it will work as long as someone has developed a driver for OS X. I wonder if it will allow you to use your iPhone as a WiFi or Bluetooth modem to connect to your wireless provider's network with a laptop? How long until we see other plan providers clamoring to offer the iPhone to its customers to keep them from switching to Cingular?
 
But I can see problems on the horizon. Remember the iPod nano scratching? Yep. And I can see problems with people pressing too hard on the touch screen and damaging the LCD screen (let alone shock damage from being mishandled and dropped, which I have done with my own phone).

One thing I'm curious about Mesa: what happened to the iPhone nano? I was very interested in something like that, just a phone and an MP3 player merged without all the other features and using the (text based) iPod interface. I know many companies are offering cell phone/MP3 player combos but I'd prefer the iPod's simple UI. Electronics companies have been trying unsuccessfully to shoehorn the traditional GUI into 2" screens. What I like about the iPod is that it departs from that approach by ridding us of the ugly icons and silly graphics. Now it seems like Apple is trying to build a GUI on top of the iPod's text based interface and from the looks of it they've succeeded.

There will be problems. Apple almost never gets it right the first time around. I'm relieved that it didn't go on sale today. This product is too complex to send out into the market until the bugs are worked out. 200 patents? Sheesh!

kukito i agree with you on the idea of the iphone nano as this seems to be a very high end phone and we can see from the price that this clearly wont be a product for the mass consumer market until the price of that comes down or there is a cheaper version of the product released. I think we can count on seeing a cheaper slimmed down version of this phone at macworld next year. they will use the current iphone as a marketing tool as they are not experienced within the mobile telecommunications industry i but also they will continue to keep a iphone and iphone nano or whatever to appeal to both markets just like with the ipod  
and also with your concern of scratching screens i think its a very real one but this problem has occurred before for apple i think it would be very poor of them to make the same mistake twice i think battery life will be the biggest problem

Well I don't know about running linux on it, that seems like it would be a bit of a waste.
 
The fact that it has a hard drive and a 'traditional' operating system tells me only one thing - it's going to be hackable. And in this case I think it'll quite easily be hackable to take the SIM of another network operator, or be 'unlocked'.
 
We don't have any particular 3G carrier in the UK, well, we have '3' but they're a bit of a joke really. They all do a bit of 3G but it's pretty crap. I just wonder who's going to carry this product when it gets here. I love the idea of being able to do something practical with mobile internet at last!
 
I actually never heard of the iPhone Nano, but it sounds like an interesting idea - maybe a gigabyte of memory and a simpler UI? But then there'll be people saying 'ugh, it's too much like an iPod' and others saying 'ugh, it's too much like a phone' so I duno. This seems to be a pretty decent balance.
 
Another idea for Apple - iPhone Shuffle. It doesn't have a screen and when you press 'call' it rings a number at random from your phonebook.

The devil's in the details...  Which haven't been released yet, at least not ENOUGH detail.  If its GSM only, then its bandwidth is limited.  And Apple seems to have a knack for wanting to be proprietary.  I don't really think they can compete with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Samsung, et al.  And no CDMA version announced yet, makes it a bit of a limited phone in some areas of the US.  No international release either...
 
Check out the Nokia N91...
 
Personally I see lots of issues with the 'touch screen only' input methodology.  
 
My 2p...
 
(and don't get me started on Blackberry...)
 
Edit...  Did a bit more checking, and they are only offering 2.5 G.  Basic GPRS tops out about 46 to 53 Kbs, so no bandwidth...  3G is 384 Kbs, and HSDPA is ~3.2 Mbs...   So all I can say is sing the refrain..."Life in the slow lane..  Life in the slow lane"  Basically not much better than my XDA.  (Except no contracts with my XDA.)  I doubt that this iteration will ever make it to Europe, let alone to Oceania region.
 
A pretty face and no brains.  and the pretty face may very well have issues...

I think GPRS is probably enough for this content. Perhaps the Google services (like Google Earth and Maps) won't be quite up to scratch, but sending and recieving of e-mail and basic web browsing. You seem to be forgetting that it's a phone - the vast majority of the time it'll be just doing text and phonecalls.
 

 
Could you qualify that please? What problems with the 'pretty face' - it was only announced yesterday!

 
I have no issues with my BlackBerry.  Works like a champ.

 
That's the major problem for the iPhone to enter for example in portuguese phone market since we are moving here fast to the 3,5G broadband and handhelds selling a lot nowadays all have 3G.