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3G versus Edge... why Apple is waiting...

A

ashVID

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 30, 2007
239
0
I pointed this out in another thread but I think it needs its own thread. Apple will be in no rush for 3G in the US, have you guys even bothered to look at the coverage map? I think there are 15 states with no coverage at all and another 15 that only have ONE city with any 3G at all. To put it into perspective, EDGE is available in over 13,000 cities... 3G is available in less than 175.

I dont think anyone will argue that 3G is superior in just about every way but it is in its INFANCY in the US.



ash =o)
 
G3 is physiclly to big and takes to much power. The network would have been better, but the battery would not last and the phone would be hugh
 
In California, we've got 3G everywhere we go. I'm inclined to believe the "takes too much power" argument over coverage area.
 
synth3tik said:
G3 is physiclly to big and takes to much power. The network would have been better, but the battery would not last and the phone would be hugh
Click to expand...

A G3 maybe:) but 3G is not that big. The power issue it maybe but then again I get about 3 days usage on my phone.

It may be a power issue but you get more done in a shorter time. So you spend less time on 3G. So it is a case of 5 minutes EDGE usage for a total of maybe 8 minutes of battery or 2 minutes of 3G for a total of 8 minutes battery drain.
 
xUKHCx said:
A G3 maybe:) but 3G is not that big. The power issue it maybe but then again I get about 3 days usage on my phone.

It may be a power issue but you get more done in a shorter time. So you spend less time on 3G. So it is a case of 5 minutes EDGE usage for a total of maybe 8 minutes of battery or 2 minutes of 3G for a total of 8 minutes battery drain.
Click to expand...

It's not just a problem of power usage when you are using the internet. 3G phones use a lot more power even when they are on standby. That's why you see WM users going out of their way to manually set their 3G phones to GSM whenever they aren't using the internet.
 
synth3tik said:
G3 is physiclly to big and takes to much power. The network would have been better, but the battery would not last and the phone would be hugh
Click to expand...

This argument has been debunked several times already. Check the Germany/UK iPhone-related threads for more info.
 
appleii2mac said:
It's not just a problem of power usage when you are using the internet. 3G phones use a lot more power even when they are on standby. That's why you see WM users going out of their way to manually set their 3G phones to GSM whenever they aren't using the internet.
Click to expand...

Then how come i get stellar performance out of my k800 with 3g on all the time +plus very heavy usage.
 
xUKHCx said:
Then how come i get stellar performance out of my k800 with 3g on all the time +plus very heavy usage.
Click to expand...
Maybe it's a UK thing, but if you Google for any of the 3G phones in the US (esp. the Samsung BlackJack), you'll see that they get horrible battery life. (to the point where some owners are doing registry hacks to keep their phones on EDGE instead of 3G)
 
xUKHCx said:
Then how come i get stellar performance out of my k800 with 3g on all the time +plus very heavy usage.
Click to expand...

Simply because we have a much more consistent and better 3G signal here in the UK. 3G puts a huge strain on battery whilst it's finding and locking on to the network as opposed to 2.5G, and clearly our phones over here don't have to do that as much.

Plus the K800 is nowhere near as battery intensive as a smartphone.

Also - what do you mean by stellar performance? K800s in my experience get around a day and a half of normal usage. Hardly amazing.

-Leemo
 
aristobrat said:
Maybe it's a UK thing, but if you Google for any of the 3G phones in the US (esp. the Samsung BlackJack), you'll see that they get horrible battery life. (to the point where some owners are doing registry hacks to keep their phones on EDGE instead of 3G)
Click to expand...

Same with 8525 users as well.
 
anyone in a halfway rual area is cwry lucky if they can get 3g in their area
it is just no widly avalable enough at least not with AT&T
 
Leemo said:
Simply because we have a much more consistent and better 3G signal here in the UK. 3G puts a huge strain on battery whilst it's finding and locking on to the network as opposed to 2.5G, and clearly our phones over here don't have to do that as much.

Plus the K800 is nowhere near as battery intensive as a smartphone.

Also - what do you mean by stellar performance? K800s in my experience get around a day and a half of normal usage. Hardly amazing.

-Leemo
Click to expand...

Points taken, I easily get 3 days out of my phone with using internet, email, rss, texting, phone calls and video calls. If i limit video calls and internet activites then it can go up to somewhere between 4-5 days.
 
maokh said:
3G in the USA has been mature for one-two years now (EVDO)

Its just that AT&T's 3G network is not mature :D
Click to expand...


ATTs 3G network is in every major city, and if you have a 3G phone and only EDGE is present, then the phone will throttle down to EDGE speed. Also adding a 3G chip would only have cost Apple $20 more per phone. There was no reason for Apple to not include a 3G chipset other than it either 1) ate up battery life like a hungry goat on grass field, or 2) Apple is using it for leverage for iPhone 2.0, which will probably come around in 1Q '08.

Apple has it's marketing down right, feed 'em enough to survive, but not enough to get them satisfied, so I'm going to go w/ #2. I imagine eBay is going to be flooded w/ iPhone 1.0s next Jan or so.
 
I wish there was a way to physically change whatever guts is in the phone to go to 3g. There must be a way.

We tested 596 kbps on our EVDO phone last night. Seems EDGE users are getting 150-180ish if lucky. That's a vast difference.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
ATTs 3G network is in every major city
Click to expand...


I'm sorry, but Minneapolis / St. Paul is the 16th largest metro area in the country according to wikipedia, just larger than San Diego, Tampa, St. Louis, and Baltimore.

We have NO 3G on AT&T's network. We do however have blazing EVDO on sprint.

That said, I really don't care because I use wifi most of the time anyway. It would be one thing if I wanted to tether, but that's what my work blackberry on sprint is for anyway.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
ATTs 3G network is in every major city, and if you have a 3G phone and only EDGE is present, then the phone will throttle down to EDGE speed. Also adding a 3G chip would only have cost Apple $20 more per phone. There was no reason for Apple to not include a 3G chipset other than it either 1) ate up battery life like a hungry goat on grass field, or 2) Apple is using it for leverage for iPhone 2.0, which will probably come around in 1Q '08.

Apple has it's marketing down right, feed 'em enough to survive, but not enough to get them satisfied, so I'm going to go w/ #2. I imagine eBay is going to be flooded w/ iPhone 1.0s next Jan or so.
Click to expand...


Have you seen the coverage map? With the massive move to the burbs, most people who had coverage in the city would not have coverage at the homes. Outside of 1 or 2 states, most have more area without 3G than with it. Fact is, that right now, for every city with 3G, there are almost 100 cities with EDGE. Look at the backlash of people whining about features already, now imagine a bigger phone, with less battery life and a data network that was tiny...



ash =o)
 
Chupa Chupa said:
ATTs 3G network is in every major city, and if you have a 3G phone and only EDGE is present, then the phone will throttle down to EDGE speed. Also adding a 3G chip would only have cost Apple $20 more per phone. There was no reason for Apple to not include a 3G chipset other than it either 1) ate up battery life like a hungry goat on grass field, or 2) Apple is using it for leverage for iPhone 2.0, which will probably come around in 1Q '08.
Click to expand...

SJ said two things during an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

- 3G chipsets weren't in the power usage range they wanted yet.
- 3G chipsets were bulkier than they wanted.

He said that when 3G chipsets lower their power profile more, and get more compact (like GPRS/EDGE chipsets are now)... You will find 3G in the iPhone.

Considering the other things fighting for battery power right now, and with information I have seen on battery life impact of 3G versus EDGE (using otherwise similar hardware and software)... I think the decision to avoid 3G for a year was a smart one. I am not sure I would want an iPhone that got less battery life than my old Dash/Excalibur because of 3G. Right now, 3G + Push E-Mail is a great way to make a device something you need to charge twice a day.
 
I happy there is no 3G cause 3G is not in my area, so if iphone was 3G I would be depressed.
 
This 3G vrs battery life vrs EDGE, argument is non-sense.

Its a scientific fact that Apple should have produced more than just two versions of the phone (4gb/8gb - the 4gb one being pointless anyway).
They should have offered a 3G one, with a battery twice the capacity,.. twice as thick (?),... the phone as it is, is silly thin anyway,... most would be just as happy had it been twice it's current thickness and had 3g capabilities even if another $100.
 
Noumenon said:
This 3G vrs battery life vrs EDGE, argument is non-sense.

Its a scientific fact that Apple should have produced more than just two versions of the phone (4gb/8gb - the 4gb one being pointless anyway).
They should have offered a 3G one, with a battery twice the capacity,.. twice as thick (?),... the phone as it is, is silly thin anyway,... most would be just as happy had it been twice it's current thickness and had 3g capabilities even if another $100.
Click to expand...

And split production capacity between three models? While that might work down the road, you don't enter the market with an entire product line all at once. It increases R&D costs, manufacturing costs, and marketing costs, and splits your revenue when you don't even have solid evidence that the device will take off. When entering a market, for the sake of being able to spread R&D costs around a bit, you don't develop it all at once, but you develop a product to hit one part of the market first, and then follow it up with the next model to hit the next part of the market, paying for the R&D with sales from the current model.
 
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