I really wanted to buy an iPhone but...

I may just be nitpicking on a month or two, but i expect the 3g announcement to be made at WWDC in June - historically, WWDC and MacWorld are the two biggest dates for announcements/releases. Those are when game-changing developments are released, and the rest of the year generally just sees incremental improvements on product lines. About the only exception to that are items that are announced at those times but not released until several months later (like the iPhone).

 

With WM6, is that possible? We got the Samsung i760 when it first came out a couple months ago (a smart phone as memory, touch screen, thin-ness, feature, battery durable rich as any) and were horrified at the memory leaks this OS has. The up side was that at least it (running on Verizon) could easily push the database into the Prius. Stupid VCast missing, thank God.

 

I meant Apple was becoming worse than Microsoft in terms of philosophy and lock-in.

As soon as Apple offers a true smartphone, then we can compare the platforms. Right now, the iPhone is just a really expensive feature phone.

 

It is a huge deal if you travel abroad with any frequency and don't care to pay at&t's usurious international roaming charges. I usually get a prepaid sim in every country that I visit to use in my unlocked phone.

 

It's not like you can't have a second quad-band GSM phone for use when travelling internationally if you buy an iPhone. I've had my pocket picked and phone stolen so many times that I keep my US phone in my hotel room safe and carry a cheap unlocked quad-band GSM phone (bought used from someone on craigslist) with a local prepaid SIM card when I travel internationally.

 

What I am going to refer to may be before your time, but.... Sony made a huge splash in the late 1960s with a black and white portable TV with something like a 3" diagonal screen. The receiver box looked like an 8"w x 3"h x 10"d brick. If memory serves, the total weight was somewhere around 8lbs. And everyone had to have one. Fast forward to the present and you may be surprised at how popular true HD TV via the iPhone might be. Steve Jobs might be able to convince every current iPhone owner to trade in their suddenly obsolete iPhone for the iPhone HDTV.

 

That's a fantastically ridiculous and uninformed claim.

In order to resolve the full resolution of HD on a 3.5" screen, the screen has to be so close to your eye that it is uncomfortable and tiring to focus that close.

Or did you think humans were going to evolve in the next few years and massively increase the density of rods and cones on our retinas?

 

It was a joke! Are you looking at being laid off soon or what?

 

Another point is coverage. This is the list of cities with 3G coverage by AT&T

AT&T

At least in my case 3G would be unnecessary and would be unwilling to pay for it. I bet EDGE is lots more widespread (and cheaper) and GPRS even more so.

After this happens maybe a 3G iPhone will make more sense.

AT&T Expanding Their 3G Network in 2008 - Mac Rumors

 

3G and Edge cost the same on my AT&T plan. In fact, I'm not aware of any plans where you pay more for 3G.

 

I meant the possible added cost to the iPhone itself. Not too mention increased thickness and reduced battery life.

 

Yes. Unfortunately the US lags the rest of the world in cellular communications. Its because the phone operators have historically controlled the handsets and features available to users. Very convenient for them because there has been very little incentive to upgrade their networks.

With the iPhone and other imported unlocked phones things are changing a bit.

 

wow great stats... too bad US cellular service is about 2 years behind the curve...there is nothing here that will touch that...the i-phone probably wont be there in 2 years either.

i picked up a Voyager by LG. it has a touch screen on the outside. larger, but folds with dedicated qwerty keyboard inside so its ok. only had it one day so still checking it out.

the graphics are awesome and it comes with verizon's mobile tv free for a month. the picture and sound were excellent if you have a good signal... unfortunately, the signal is live and not cached very well so inside a restaurant last night, we got audio dropouts. when its live, the video does not pick up where it left off so made it impossible to follow anything.

but in the car driving around, it worked great. the best part was that the touch screen on the outside you could put wallpaper on it so i put a pic of my son on there, the image was larger than the wallet pics i carry around... now THAT WAS COOL!!

 

EDGE is fading because its end of life technology... no amount of tweaking will increase its speed and its slower than midtown traffic at 5 PM.

 

Um, you can buy a HTC Touch here in the US... just FYI. You can buy them from a mobile store (like MobilePlanet), or boogie on down to a HTC shop and pick one up.

Not sure if T-Mob/AT&T carry them yet, but they will/should shortly.

 

OH YA!! lets buy a phone....and exactly whose network are we gonna use it on?

the best 3G network we have (sprint and verizon) cap at 2 mbits and that is best case scenario...nominal speeds are UNDER 1 mbit...(highest speed i have ever seen on verizon was 1.3 mbits and that was with an external antenna on rev 1 broadband access card... average is usually 600-800 kbits)

no thanks... i will wait until the network can handle the phone first. by then, it will be much cheaper

 

Well, I'm quite happy with my 3G speeds on AT&T...