Sorry, ISDN would NEVER load a page in 1 min...and another poster already confirmed that page loading is much faster with EDGE...just stop expecting broadband for a phone browser.
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Sorry, ISDN would NEVER load a page in 1 min...and another poster already confirmed that page loading is much faster with EDGE...just stop expecting broadband for a phone browser.
I've had a cell phone for about 6 years, and I've sent maybe three SMS messages, and no MMS messages - why the heck would anyone send a peice of crud phone picture to someone else? I'd rather take out my $99 dedicated 5 megapixel camera and take a much better picture, then if I want to send it somewhere, open iPhoto and click the email button. Then the other person has a picture he/she can actually do something with.
Or I'll bring along my Nikon D40 and light kit to make a really good photo.
But isn't it just as quick to actually call the person you're messaging, and tell that person your message? And it takes only a minute, as opposed to the ton of time it takes to punch in letters on the numeric keypad (even with predictive typing).
I hate it when I see people walking around or driving on their phones, but I hate it more when people are standing still punching in a bunch of letters to send to their friends, oblivious to what's going on around them.
Did you actually read the articles that this discussion thread is about?
David Pogue said:
What about sending to Verizon or Sprint customers...?? i seriously can't believe they didn't integrate picture messaging. That may keep me from buying.
Did you actually read the articles that this discussion thread is about?
Yes I did, and I am saying that this is not necessarily the case everywhere, all the time...probably Pogue had a bad day, or tried in a bad area, whatever. One or two posters in THIS thread already demonstrated otherwise.
Each provider has their own specific ending. However, the best work around is to send the picture to their phonenumber@teleflip.com and regardless of provider, it will get it to them. I have used this for years to save on texts...
Ah, that's cool... my jaw dropped when I initiall read the lack of in Pogues review. That is the the most basic phone functionality that I use all of the time...
Can you have a phonecall in the cinema? Or would you want to do it in the middle of a crowd listening to your every word? Maybe you just don't want to put the effort into having a full blown phone call. You can also do things at the same time as texting and in between texts.
There are many reasons to text over phoning someone, regardless of the reasons texting is HUGE outside the US and phones are used for texting the vast majority of the time.
Why people do it is irrelevant. The lack of MMS is a point against the iPhone in most of the world. Especially when there's no reason why it can't support it. I just read you've sent 2 SMS messages in 6 years so you don't seem to use your mobile like the rest of the world at all. For you texting may seem silly, but for most people it's the primary point of a mobile phone.
The only issue we may encounter is that mms has limits to picture size. I am hoping that this 'desktop class' email system allows you to choose the size of picture you want to send, i.e., the real Apple mail program.
This was a great video. Apparently with the predictive word technology, if say the next letter in the word cannot be an R or a Y, it increases the virtual size of the letter T to increase accuracy. (you cannot see the actual letter T increase size, the software just increases the area on the keyboard that when pressed, selects the T.) Wow, that was hard to explain... Errrm, watch the video.
did anyone catch around 3 minutes when david progue stated that the iphone has twice the resolution of most computers? I will be waiting a couple weeks after release to purchase the iphone to see how fast the internet actually is on edge. If it really does take 60 seconds, that will be a deal breaker; but if it is 15 - 20 I can live with that when I am on the go, better than no internet at all.
Mmmm.... I used to design web sites (mainly with shopping carts/eCommerce) in the late '90s. I lived in the foothills outside of Tucson where the only Internet connection was dial-up.
The slow Internet access showed me how a site would perform for the end users (the customers of my clients) who, largely, had dial-up access.
It wasn't only the amount of data that caused a site to perform poorly. Each link or picture required a separate client-server interaction (with 1 or 2 seconds overhead for each one). It didn't take many concurrent users to bring the server and the site to its knees.
Then, if the user got confused (or was overloaded with information) he would waste even more bandwidth by unnecessarily (re)loading pages, etc.
Good web site design mitigates these problems.
One of my major objectives was to create sites that were clean, fast and easy-to-use... especially to the user with dial-up.
It was easy to show potential customers the advantages of a site with:
-- a home page that loads in seconds over dial-up
-- uncluttered web pages
-- a consistent, intuitive, navigation system
-- the ability to "leisurely browse" or "get in and get out" depending on the users' desire
I would tell clients "If your customers can't get to your home page in 20 seconds... they will just move on to a (competitor's) site where they can"
It was a pretty convincing argument!
I don't know what percentage of today's users still use dial-up.
What I do know is that most of the web sites out there are bloated and terribly wasteful of bandwidth.
I have never browsed the web with a cell. From the comments I've seen, it appears to be a very painful process due to:
1 inadequate crippled (toy) browsers
2 limited handset hardware for storage and display
3 complicated access procedures
4 low-speed Internet access
5 poorly designed web sites (bandwidth bloat).
Maybe there would be more web traffic from cell phones if these problems could be resolved... I don't know.
Enter the iPhone: problems 1, 2, and 3-- gone, just gone!!!.
Problem 4 is (largely) resolved if you have WiFi access... but even "ISDN-Like" speeds should be adequate.
Soo.... the real culprit appears to be the bloated bandwidth requirements of poorly designed web sites.
Maybe web designers should go back to the basics of good design.
The iPhone will, likely, encourage users to access the web, and should cause iPhone competitors to improve their web experience/offerings.
Hopefully, web site managers will analyze their logs and recognize the increased activity from cell phones. Also, they should be able to recognize when a large number of users are abandoning the site because of bloat.
Hmmm.... Our web traffic from cell phones is up... but they all leave after a few pages (many abandoning their filled shopping carts).
Hmmm... maybe they just got tired...
... I wonder what we can do to fix that???
You would bring your D40 to say an amusment park? I am pretty leary about where I take my D50. Having to keep tabs on a nice camera is no fun at an amusement park. Whereas with the iPhone I could snap a quick photo of say my wife making a funny face or something and sent it to her friends right on the spot (well that would be if it supported MMS).
OMG where's that banging on the wall icon! LOL Yes, all the NEW plans released just for the iPhone have cheap data plans IN ADDITION TO THE VOICE PLANS ATT ALREADY HAS. When you get the phone you can activate it through ATT (not online through iTunes) with JUST A VOICE PLAN. UGGGH! LOL Seriously, it's not a hard concept to understand.
I LOVE YOU! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall and people just weren't getting it. LOL
Dear Skavanag, please read any of my posts addressing your constant complaint as well as post #184 by SBROWNLA. That should hopefully clear up the fact that VOICE PLANS ARE ALSO ALLOWED, DATA PLANS ARE OPTIONAL. (please insert head banging against brick wall emoticon here). ITunes activation seems to force this issue if you simply buy your phone through the Apple store (however you can call ATT and change the plan. If you purchase an iPhone through ATT Wireless directly, you CAN use your ATT SIM card (assuming you are an ATT customer) and/or chose from any of the numerous other plans ATT offers outside of the iTunes iPhone activation.
About a week ago I was in Mayfair with some friends and we saw a black enzo parked outside a restaurant. Everyone taking snaps on their "phones" and then quite clearly MMS'ing (myself and 4 friends included) to people on their/our phone books. The idea of the MMS is that if you see something you want to share with people there and then, you have the ability to do that. Who carries around a Nikon D40, powerbook/mbp and lighting for those silly occasions except professional photographers!
I'm sure it's a software feature Apple can just add. But it's a basic feature that's been on phones for years. No reason not to add it.
I think that while the iPhone is a brilliant piece of engineering, it may turn out to be a pain to live with as a phone. In particular, it appears to me that Apple has not got the phone (the killer app) interface right.
Based on what I have read, calling is going to require multiple steps, flicking, looking at the screen, etc. On my old Motorola V710, which I would dearly love to replace, I can make a call from my contact list with one button: voice dial. Or, if I want to go old school, I can press "contacts," then press the contacts' first letter "a-z" and generally scroll to the name in one press of the toggle. Then, press call. Four button presses. If I want to dial direct, I simply press the numbers and call button.
It appears that the iPhone will require a good deal more attention because of it's purely visual interface. First initiate the phone function. Then mess with the scrolling which will require pretty close visual attention, then call. I wonder if dialing a number while driving (Yes I know it's a no-no) with the iPhone will be a pretty big distraction from job one - driving. I wonder if you can even make a call with the iPhone without using two hands?
Most of that problem could be solved with a voice dialing ability. Someone above also suggested a row of buttons on the home desktop with several frequently called numbers. That would also help. Maybe a dedicated wheel control on the side of the phone: press it and scroll to the number you want. In short the iPhone interface seems too fussy to me. On the other hand, I can't wait to get one.
Based on what I have read, calling is going to require multiple steps, flicking, looking at the screen, etc. On my old Motorola V710, which I would dearly love to replace, I can make a call from my contact list with one button: voice dial. Or, if I want to go old school, I can press "contacts," then press the contacts' first letter "a-z" and generally scroll to the name in one press of the toggle. Then, press call. Four button presses. If I want to dial direct, I simply press the numbers and call button.
It appears that the iPhone will require a good deal more attention because of it's purely visual interface. First initiate the phone function. Then mess with the scrolling which will require pretty close visual attention, then call. I wonder if dialing a number while driving (Yes I know it's a no-no) with the iPhone will be a pretty big distraction from job one - driving. I wonder if you can even make a call with the iPhone without using two hands?
Most of that problem could be solved with a voice dialing ability. Someone above also suggested a row of buttons on the home desktop with several frequently called numbers. That would also help. Maybe a dedicated wheel control on the side of the phone: press it and scroll to the number you want. In short the iPhone interface seems too fussy to me. On the other hand, I can't wait to get one.
And it should be noted that the blank spots on the west half of the US are two mountain ranges running north - south. The Cascades and the Rockies. Neither are very kind to cell towers, trust me on this one
That map is too large scale to get a good idea. Pick a zp code in a non-metropolitain area and you will see how spotty service is at a local level. That said, like all cell companies, 95% of people should be able to get at least some signal 95% of the time. It's just a matter of demographics.