iPhoneStuff.org

I’ve compiled a list of 7 facts about the iPhone that are often overlooked, and also what they mean to me, and maybe to you too.

1. The iPhone features a built-in battery that is not intended to be user-replaceable (”we knew that,” you cry), similar to existing iPods. The battery is capable of providing five hours of video, web browsing, or talk time. HOWEVER - the battery life for music playing is 16 hours. It is unknown how long the batteries will last in sleep mode.

The fact that underneath all the gloss and music and video, it is a cell phone, here’s hoping that the sleep mode battery life will be at least 48 hours. Most cell phones can be left on in sleep mode for a few days.

2. There will be new headphones which are similar to those of current iPods, but which incorporate a microphone.

If you thought you had to hold the iPhone right up to your mouth to talk, and worry that you’ll drop it, worry no longer. Also, if it’s illegal to hold a cell phone and drive at the same time where you are, out of the box this will not be a problem for you with this corded solution.

3. Calls can be answered and ended by squeezing the microphone.

I hope you don’t have an itchy finger for squeezing, because if you squeeze twice quickly, you would have just answered and hung up on your friend. A good way to lose friends!

4. The loudspeaker is used both for handsfree operations and media playback.

That’s right - it has a built-in speaker. Well of course it does, it has MP3 ringtones doesn’t it? Annoy all of your coworkers while you watch the latest episode of Scrubs or The Office without headphones!

5. Storage: 4 or 8 GB Flash memory, storing files (music, video, contacts, photos) and operating system.

Unlike current iPods, the iPhone will use flash memory, not a hard-drive based memory storage. This is good news for a cell phone, which will more than likely get tossed around more than an mp3 player. A hard bump and you might get the sad iPod icon on an HDD based iPod, but flash memory is solid with no moving parts like the USB thumb drive sticking out the back of your computer right now.

6. Apple has announced that the slimmed-down version of OS X running on the iPhone will take up “considerably less” than 500MB.

Does this mean it will take up 495MB? Add a couple of widgets and most likely it will be close to 500MB. This means that on a 4GB model, you will be able to add only 3.5GB of your own songs, videos, and photos. Also of note is that the flash memory will not be upgradeable.

7. The iPhone has three switches on its sides: sleep/wake, volume up/down, ringer on/off. All other multimedia and phone operations are done via the touch screen.

We knew that it was basically an all-finger operation, but I for one am glad to see a manual volume control on the side. When I used to ride the public transit bus through the heart of the ghetto known as the north end in my city, I always kept my CD player in my backpack and just reached in to adjust volume. I didn’t want to pull it out. The problem with the iPhone is that if you want to change tracks without looking, you might have a tough time.

That’s my roundup of things I found interesting that haven’t been talked about to death. Anything I missed?

Well the initial oo-ing and ahh-ing about Apple’s new iPhone dead, most journalists have turned their writing from sweet to sour; many talking more about what other phones can do that the iPhone can’t, taking shots at some of the iPhone’s negatives such as price, Cingular/AT&T ties, etc., and overall disappointment.

This leaves this writer with one question. Obviously Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple knew this might happen if they introduced something 6 months before it’s slated release. Generally speaking, Apple has been the king of announcing a new product, and then stating that it will be available at the Apple Store in 5 minutes. It has proved successful for them in the past, as the initial excitement has driven many to impulsively buy the new hot toy. This was not the case for the iPhone.

So why did Apple introduce the iPhone so early? My guess is that they have some secrets.

It makes sense that they introduce it early: to quash the hundreds of rumors about an upcoming cell phone from Apple. Enough people were expecting it, but no one knew exactly what it would be like. Steve Jobs laid those rumors to rest in a very satisfactory way. How did the public react to the news?

The blog sphere exploded with glee. The front page of Digg.com was filled with stories about the iPhone, and every local news channels featured the hot new product due out in June of 2007. Everyone who knows anything about technology and gadgets now knows about the iPhone, what it will be like, and most of the features. They also know the price tag. Initially, the excitement of flicking through digital album covers was enough to make us forget the price, but would that last?

The general feeling I get from most recent posts about the iPhone from bloggers and news sites in general is that it’s not lasting. Reality is setting in. An incredibly expensive smart phone with no expandability or access to office-centric applications is not so hot of a ticket anymore. Did Apple see this coming?

Apple is a smart company. They make decisions that usually always surprise us in a good way. If they knew this type of lull would happen less than two months after the iPhone was announced, they must also have a backup plan. This is my theory: Apple has more tricks up their sleeve. They will deliver something even more with the iPhone than we’ve been shown up to this point. What will it be? I don’t know, but I’m certain they’ll pull some Apple magic before the final release of the iPhone that will again make the hesitation at the high price tag melt away.

What do you think some secret features could be?

Cisco and Apple have announced that they have agreed to BOTH use of the trademark iPhone. In the terms of the agreement, “both companies have the right to use the name iPhone for their products around the world“, said the head of the press service of Cisco Systems in the CIS Alexander Palladin.

He said that both companies recognize the prior ownership of the trademark and waive any claims to each other about it.

Cisco and Apple will explore the possibility of cooperation in the field of security, individual communications and corporate communications. Other conditions of the agreement are not known at this time.

Cisco has had the right to the trademark iPhone since 2000, under the company name Infogear. The agreement allows Apple to label and sell products under the brand iPhone for a number of years.

[source]

If you were like me and watched the oscars, you might have seen a sexy little compilation of some very famous people all picking up a phone and saying “hello.” This was Apple’s first television ad for their upcoming iPhone.

The video for this amazing ad is on the official Apple iPhone site.

A Macrumors forum user put together a list of the actors seen in the short clips, and I use this as reference for my list of actors together with still frames from the ad and of course from the original movies and shows they were taken from.

Lucille Ball

Jackie Gleason

Humphrey Bogart

Marlon Brando

Jerry Lewis

Marilyn Monroe

Clark Gable

Peter Sellers

Steve McQueen

Richard Dreyfuss

Burt Reynolds

Betty Rubble

Robert Redford

Michael J. Fox

Harrison Ford

John Cusack

Audrey Tautou

Kevin Spacey

William H. Macy

Dustin Hoffman

Will Ferrell

Sarah Jessica Parker

Jeff Bridges

Billy Crystal

Cameron Diaz

Samuel L. Jackson

John Travolta

Robert DeNiro

Ben Stiller

Michael Douglas

Mr. Incredible

Hello

This was quite an amazing ad and I’m really looking forward to the forthcoming ad campaign as we get closer to the launch of the Apple iPhone!

Stanley Feinbaum wrote an interesting article about why he’s not interested in buying an iPhone. A humorous look at some of the ‘features’ of Apple’s new cell phone.

Cingular only. This makes as much sense as selling computers that can only access the internet through AOL.

In this recent article from the Ohio Akron Beacon Journal, technology journalist Eric Benderoff makes some good points about the iPhone and the possibility of a similarly design iPod on the horizon:

If you want to know what the next iPod will look like, go to Apple.com and watch the demo for the coming iPhone.

In his article he echoes something on the minds of every MP3 enthusiast out there; what will the iPhone mean about the next iPod? Probably, quite a bit.

At Macworld, January 9th 2007, Steve Jobs stated that the iPhone was the best iPod the company had every built. That’s great, but for people who just want a new iPod, and not necessarily all the features the iPhone has built into it, why pay $500+ for a new iPod?

Apple plays the product release game very well, keeping all new technology under tight wraps, and then revealing them via one of Steve Jobs charismatic speeches, in order to pump everyone up and prepare them to buy buy buy. The next generation iPod is overdue, and probably well along in production.

If the iPhone is the best iPod the company has made yet, we can expect a new iPod with many iPhone-like features within a few short months after the iPhone’s slated June release.

When the iPhone was first announced, Mac-enthusiasts the world over hit the internet hard, blogging about it, about how much they wanted one, and debating what would be good or bad about it. Now - just over a month after the iPhone was announced on January 9th at Macworld, is the buzz still king?

As you can see by this chart listing blog mentions by day of “iPhone,” the buzz peaked around Macworld, Jan 9th, but quickly tapered off to just under 1000 mentions per day, and now has settled at a lull of around 200 mentions per day.

Evidently, people still care very much about this new revolutionary phone, mp3 player, and internet connect device, however, the intial buzz has died out.

In the top 100 keywords, also provided by Technorati, iPhone was not even close to within the top.

One thing is sure about the upcoming launch; as the time gets closer, we’ll see these numbers picking up again, enough to easily surpass the numbers around Macworld.

The great thing about Apple’s new iPhone, is that it’s got great touch-screen technology, especially useful for flipping through your MP3 albums to play on the “iPod part” of it. However, the iPhone also has loads of other features that - well - business users might enjoy having, but 15-year old Brittany has no use for. For Brittany, is the iPhone worth $500+? Are her parents ever going to buy that hot piece of technology for her, hoping that she won’t get mugged for it?

Apple’s iPods are today’s best-selling MP3 players, but are in need of a facelift. The 5th generation iPod has been around for a while now, and now that we’ve heard what the iPhone’s features would be like, we’re only waiting for the same features to come to a standalone iPod.

In this recent article from the Kansas Wichita Eagle, the writer makes and interesting point regarding a possible 6th generation iPod with many iPhone-like features:

By the time 2007 ends, you can bet Apple will sell more new iPods than iPhones.

We can be certain that - even though the iPhone is the greatest cell phone available to North America - it will probably never outsell a similarly produced, and a lesser-priced iPod.

Verizon, the 2nd largest U.S. cell phone dealer, had the chance to be Steve Jobs’ new best friend, but passed. Why would such a stable, prospering company even hesitate when presented with one of Apple’s sure-to-be gold nuggets? Verizon likes to play fair, and Apple likes to be in control.

Jobs would let the iPhone be sold in Apple stores, and Verizon stores, but not in Verizon partnership stores such as Wal-Mart or Best Buy. This deal might sour Verizon’s other partners and make future business partnerships seem stale.

If a technical issue comes up with your iPhone, who would you call? Apple stores are few and far between, whereas distributors of Verizon or Cingular are nearly everywhere. Convenience itself would reason that one might hop on over to their local cell phone distributor and ask them a question about repairs. This is not what Apple wants, and it turned Verizon off even more. Apple wanted the sole discision over whether to replace or repair the phone.

“They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support,” Jim Gerace, Verizon Vice President said.

With Verizon saying to Apple “No Thanks,” Steve Jobs and his cronies ran into the waiting arms of Cingular for an exclusive U.S. deal.

[source]

The iPhone is a lot of things, including:

• a cell phone
• an iPod
• a photo viewer
• a video player
• a wireless web browser

This package of features will retail for $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB) USD and be available in June in the US.

Now let’s switch gears and talk about another touch-sensitive device. The Nintendo DS.

The Nintendo DS is currently the most popular hand held gaming device on the planet. Because of its’ widespread popularity, it also has a massive fan following. Part and parcel nowadays with a fan following, is a modifications following; a group of individuals who seek to unleash the DS for all that it can be. Some of these modifications and newfound abilities the DS has come across make the Nintendo DS:

• free VoIP wireless phone
• an iPod
• photo viewer
• video player
• web browser
• personal organizer
• a TI-85 calculator
• AIM, MSN Messenger, and IRC chat
• Linux
• a Gameboy, a SNES, and a Dreamcast emulator
• a live weather updater
• an FTP client
• and many, many more

Here’s a video of the iPod homebrew program running on a DS Lite:

Something of note here, is that in order to be more than just a regular Nintendo DS, one would need to purchase a Nintendo DS storage device. One such storage device is the R4DS which requires no actual modding of the Nintendo DS in order to run homebrew programs.

The Nintendo DS retails for $129.99 USD. The R4DS retails for $44.95, and a 4GB micro SD card with USB adapter for the R4DS retails for $118.99.

The grand totals:

Apple iPhone:
$499 USD (4GB) and $599 USD (8GB).

Nintendo DS Lite + R4DS + 4GB Micro SD card storage:
$293.93 USD.

Of course, the iPhone is made by Apple, and many of the homebrew applications for the DS are made by any regular Joe, so they definitely won’t be as pretty. All told, however, if you don’t absolutely need a new cell phone, and want to save a few bucks, the Nintendo DS is the clear winner for features and price.