Just out of curiosity, who here has bought a ring tone?

I’ve never used a musical ring tone for all my years with a cellphone ever, not even for a day. I’ve debated putting on Banana phone as a ring tho’. I find it offensive Apple would prohibit custom rings, not really because I use them but because everyone else allows it and cellphone companies nickel and dime your ass to no end,.

I did once, long ago, but now my phone lets me drop MP3s onto it via bluetooth and set them as ringtones.

I have a couple coworkers who are cutting out early today to go line stand and try and get iPhones. I’m thinking that Manhattan is about the best place to do it, since they’re going to flood the market with it.

...except he goes for the microphone rather than the iPhone. Probably he was just someone who doesn’t like FoxNews.

At least he was kinda somewhat smooth about it. the people in the newsroom were clueless though.

Jim, King of Awesome - 29 June 2007 12:51 AM

A device made for music and phone calls that costs roughly the same as a PS3 should toast my bread and clean the dishes.

And don’t forget, you’re most likely going to pay a premium on your monthly service as well. For example, my phone cost $100 with a two year contract and I pay $40/month. Prorating the cost of the phone over two years give a cost of $44.17/mo. An 8GB iPhone costing $600, plus a $60/mo service plan, gives a prorated cost of $85.00/month.

I don’t know about you guys, but $85/mo is a whole fucking lot for me. That’s more than all of my utilities combined right now. I don’t think I even spend that much on gas.

Okay, so if we take that and extend it over the term of the contract, we get a marginal cost of $980, ignoring interest. For a phone that’s going to cost me, after interest, over $1000 more over two years, it sure has a lot of negatives:

No removable battery, meaning its useless if I’ll be away from power for more than a couple days. Nevermind that after 20 months or so I may only be able to get a day’s use out of it.

No tethered dialup networking, so I’d no longer have mobile internet on my laptop.

GSM only, which is limited to distances of less than 22 miles, since it uses time division. CDMA uses code division and has no hard set distance limit. In places like Oregon, which have managed to contain their urbanization to specific areas, distance matters.

No 3G of any sort. WTF Apple?

The Google Maps looks neat, but is it really much better than MapQuest that’s currently available on any WAP enabled phone? Visual Voicemail was an obvious improvement, and would’ve been nice that time a bunch of collection agencies decided I was someone else and started harassing me with 10 calls per day. But under normal circumstances its just a “well, that’s nice” feature.

So I wonder, what is it this phone actually DOES for an extra $1000?

What I’m hoping it will do is change the cell phone market a bit towards fewer, but better known, models. And maybe it’ll be possible to actually find decent in-depth reviews of them. Right now it seems like cell phone reviews, when you can find them, are just laundry lists of included features and how well those specific features work, with complete disregard for how those features function together as a unit. In this next week or so we’ll surely see many multi-page reviews of the iPhone. Hopefully in time we’ll start seeing those same types of reviews for other phones.

What excites me is that eventually there will be several big phones like the iPhone that have very specific features that are software related to the phone, as opposed to the locked jaw method of crippled software that you’re charged to use on similar hardware. The iPhone is not a total win, no MP3s for ring tones… Obviously that’d kill a cash cow service from AT&T and other services data transfers, text messages and so forth are still overly charged. But its a step towards for the manufactures controlling services instead of the phone company. Nickel and diming still will be a cold reality but it’ll dissipate to just bulk data charges as cellphone war has been escalated to world war status.

I want to play with an iPhone but its just not worth $600 + giving up free data transfer/USB Modem functionality + breaking cellphone plan.

HeadWes - 30 June 2007 03:23 AM

Jim, King of Awesome - 29 June 2007 12:51 AM

A device made for music and phone calls that costs roughly the same as a PS3 should toast my bread and clean the dishes.

And don’t forget, you’re most likely going to pay a premium on your monthly service as well. For example, my phone cost $100 with a two year contract and I pay $40/month. Prorating the cost of the phone over two years give a cost of $44.17/mo. An 8GB iPhone costing $600, plus a $60/mo service plan, gives a prorated cost of $85.00/month.

I don’t know about you guys, but $85/mo is a whole fucking lot for me. That’s more than all of my utilities combined right now. I don’t think I even spend that much on gas.

Okay, so if we take that and extend it over the term of the contract, we get a marginal cost of $980, ignoring interest. For a phone that’s going to cost me, after interest, over $1000 more over two years, it sure has a lot of negatives:

No removable battery, meaning its useless if I’ll be away from power for more than a couple days. Nevermind that after 20 months or so I may only be able to get a day’s use out of it.

No tethered dialup networking, so I’d no longer have mobile internet on my laptop.

GSM only, which is limited to distances of less than 22 miles, since it uses time division. CDMA uses code division and has no hard set distance limit. In places like Oregon, which have managed to contain their urbanization to specific areas, distance matters.

No 3G of any sort. WTF Apple?

The Google Maps looks neat, but is it really much better than MapQuest that’s currently available on any WAP enabled phone? Visual Voicemail was an obvious improvement, and would’ve been nice that time a bunch of collection agencies decided I was someone else and started harassing me with 10 calls per day. But under normal circumstances its just a “well, that’s nice” feature.

So I wonder, what is it this phone actually DOES for an extra $1000?

What I’m hoping it will do is change the cell phone market a bit towards fewer, but better known, models. And maybe it’ll be possible to actually find decent in-depth reviews of them. Right now it seems like cell phone reviews, when you can find them, are just laundry lists of included features and how well those specific features work, with complete disregard for how those features function together as a unit. In this next week or so we’ll surely see many multi-page reviews of the iPhone. Hopefully in time we’ll start seeing those same types of reviews for other phones.

But Wes you’re making too much sense. Don’t you see? It’s about what’s totally cool! People with lotsa cash will pay to be hip. Even more so, it’s Apple here! They made the iPod! The iPod! Don’t you see, they made the iPod and a phone too! Oh please! Please just take my credit card and bank account number Apple!

When you ask what the phone actually does for what it’s worth, it’s like asking politicians to make decisions that actually benefit the majority of citizens who elect them. We hope they’ll do some good, but many of us fall for the same gag, the same song and dance before election day, and then we grumble about how much they suck 6 months later when they vote themselves a pay raise.

That probably made no sense at all, but it’s because you’re a sensible, rational, logical person. The type of person marketing and advertisers love to hate.

Jep - 30 June 2007 06:01 PM

-sucky trolling image here-

You’ll need to do better Jep.

/me looks at this thread.

/me shrugs

/me has to end up waiting for an iPhone anyway, as he had to extend his current phone contract another 2 years.

/me fully expects revisions to the iPhone within that time, and fully expects another round(s) of pissing and moaning about how its not up to snuff.

Strange.

On the news I’ve been hearing about long lines in NY for the iPhone and Apple telling people to get there early to wait in line, supplies are limited etc.

Just checked the availability of the iPhone in Texas Apple stores…every single one of them has them in stock. None are sold out. There are 12 Apple Stores in Texas. Maybe the iPhone isn’t selling like hotcakes…

I went down to the Apple store in downtown Portland yesterday at 18:05. There were maybe 80 people there, which didn’t seem too impressive considering there are only three Apple stores in the Portland metro area.

Zack - 30 June 2007 09:33 PM

...every single one of them has them in stock. None are sold out. There are 12 Apple Stores in Texas. Maybe the iPhone isn’t selling like hotcakes…

The store near me had around 1000 people in line, most people were buying two, and they still had leftovers.

Stores were also getting some more in stock Saturday and Sunday.

Word has it they sold > 500,000 in the first day.

Surely it will fail like the PS3 did.

Well it didn’t sell out totally day one:
http://news.com.com/iPhone+supply+lives+to+sell+another+day+-+page+2/2100-1041_3-6194361-2.html?tag=st.next

But AT&T stores were hit hard
http://news.com.com/ATT+says+almost+sold+out+of+Apple+iPhones/2100-1041_3-6194413.html?tag=nefd.top

And Crave’s review, multitouch sounds like it works a little better than one might expect.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9738119-1.html

And no one can fuck up like Sony can, and a blast from the past:

Greg Gant: Check this out, I’m working on my Sony Impression
Greg Gant: Tell me how it is
Greg Gant: Hi I’m Sony, I want to make my own format and lose money.
Greg Gant: I think its pretty good
Wes Robinson: Good, except you didn’t imply divine right.

I held one in my hand today and fell in love, if I had the money, I would have bought it on the spot, but I’m poor.  Still for all you cynics out there, get your hands on one at the store and just play with it for a minute and you will be amazed, I was at least.