Well, Japan…?
As ready as I was to call “gimmick” on the iPhone, as I did (and still do) with iPod Video, I gotta say that this iPhone looks like the real deal — useful as well as stylish. But here is where I’ll observe something unprecedented: Japan’s cell phone industry just got outplayed by an American!!
This is a watershed event and a joyous moment for the mobile consumer: American cell phones have long been laughably primitive compared to Japan’s. I’m now very curious to see what the rest of the American market does to keep up.
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 @ 6:21 pm 
Apple, Consumerism, Gadgets, General
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January 9th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Hey, that’s a good point. I didn’t think of that. If the reception is good (or even decent), I’d say that everyone in the mobile industry just got “Pants’d”. They’re gonna have to try hard to keep up by innovating not copying (if I’m to take Stevie’s comments about patenting the hell out of the phone’s technologies as truth (which I do))
and in response to Japan, I say “FACE!”
January 9th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
I absolutely agree on the phone tip. It looks great and the movies on the site have reassured me that the interface is fucking outstanding. I want one.
Yet I’m left with a quite serious, lingering concern that the network(s) the phone is destined to ride on are not up to snuff by a friggin long shot.
I mean, EDGE? Seriously? That’s 140kbps on a very good day, and much slower on average. “It has wifi!” you say? Well, that’s fucking super if I’m at home, only, at home, I’ll just use my PC. Wifi’s not even close to ubiquitous enough yet to actually be contender for mobile connectivity. Not by my standards at least.
On top of which, I’m curious to see how well it handles protected gateway access points, like the for-pay ones at, say, every starbucks, borders and airport (which are, or used to be, run by T-Mobile, incidentally). Probably fine, but it’s still annoying to have to login to a protected gateway so I can check the weather or my email. If we had some metropolitan area networks, a la WiMAX or something, or if the phone supported HSDPA like it bloody should, I’d be busting nuts that split zippers, but as it is, my undeniable attraction to this phone is hampered by serious doubts that the network can live up to the obvious potential.
Color me skeptical. And worried… there’s plenty of time between now and june for everyone else to have this same concern bounce around their heads.
Changing gears, I agree that iPod video’s as they exist now pretty much own the “gimmick” moniker : that screen is too small, rendering the video playback features pretty much useless. Note that I don’t own one. At the same time, at the size of the iPhone, i think it becomes a much more sensible product. I admit it would still be a bit of a niche device (as the the other extant personal video players remain), but portable video in and of itself doesn’t seem gimmicky to me. I still expect a wide screen iPod video (e.g. an iPhone with a stripped down interface, bigger battery and hard disk storage) soon enough. They’d be insane not to do it now that the die is already cast, and they’re already sourcing large numbers of 3.5 inch touchscreen LCD’s.
January 9th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
>Yet I’m left with a quite serious, lingering concern that the network(s) the phone is destined to ride on are not up to snuff by a friggin long shot.
Yeah, definitely. What happened in Japan was that internet-ready phones hit the market in 2000-01, and those phones exceeded network capability in the ways you described for 2 to 3 years. So these awesome phones seemed “all dressed but nowhere to go,” as the iPhone could well be also. But in time those features became available, and in the intervening years J-cellys got quantum leaps more stylish and functional. The benefits were not immediate, but the competition did create a win-win situation for the consumer. That competition did not exist in America literally until today. That is why I am splitting powerful nuts on this one:)
>portable video in and of itself doesn’t seem gimmicky to me.
I agree with that general statement, but the iPod Video is the wrong size. Portable video should either be in the form of a hard drive that can be connected to a TV, requiring a smaller energy-efficient screen; OR have a screen that’s a proper size for actually watching anything, not to mention a sturdy built-in stand. The iPod Video takes the worst of both worlds, IMO. Hence, iPod Video in its current incarnation = gimmick. Its up to Apple to change my mind about its particular product with a smarter product than the current offering…
January 10th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
g- you do know that you can hook up the ipod video to a TV right now, right? I do it fairly regularly when on trips…
Also, I have no problem watching mine on planes. Then again, my eyes aren’t as terrible as the two of yours.
January 10th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I know it can be hooked up, but my point is that the thing outta focus more on hard disk capacity, being smaller-sized, and having longer battery life, instead of having having pretensions of being a proper video player…I find it unnecessarily chunky, which is why I’d get a nano right now if my 4th-gen suddenly esploded.
I do wish I had better eyes, I will say that much:P