iPhoneStuff.org

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.

iPhoneMatters.com recently had an interesting poll about why one would opt out of getting an iPhone.

The choices were:

1. Cingular
2. Way too expensive
3. I despise everything Apple, I am a troll
4. The lack of a real keyboard
5. I’m getting one!

…and the results were:

1. 41.66% Way too expensive
2. 25.97% Cingular
3. 21.80% I’m getting one!
4. 6.75% I despise everything Apple, I am a troll
5. 3.81% The lack of a real keyboard

It would appear that most percieve the iPhone’s price to be it’s biggest downfall. Another thing of note is that very few - perhaps only the business types - would say they wouldn’t get an iPhone because it lacks a real keyboard or the ability to use with a real keyboard. As always, there’s lots of angst for Cingular.

What drives your opinion? Will you be getting one? Why? Why not?

Ars Technica got some great information from a well-known professional usability expert, Bruce Tognazzini, including his opinions on whether the iPhone’s touch-screen interface will be the next big thing, or the next big flop. You may find the results surprising.

Naturally, besides a few elite media people, and Steve Jobs himself, no one has really had a good “hands-on” with the iPhone to test it out for usability, however, perceptions and predictions can be formed.

Bruce…

Loves:

Gives ordinary people widespread access to technologies that have otherwise been very limited for public consumption (such as multitouch and whatnot)
Very approachable, even for older folks
Visual, random-access voicemail. “It’s about time.”
Hates:

Five hour battery life, and non-replaceable battery (without a crowbar…). “That’s a bad interface,” Tog says.
Relying on public WiFi (”Public WiFi is a mess”) for Internet access, or expensive cell networks affect fundamental reliability
SMS, e-mail, and voicemail are all separated out as much as possible. “I should not have to visit three different places on my phone every few minutes to see what is happening.”
Widgets are the only add-on path for the iPhone. “I can only hope that changes.”
Needs a keyboard. Touchscreen keyboard is nice and all, but not good for extended use and takes up much of the screen.
Nits:

Desperately needs to be tested for ruggedness (is that a hint for me, Tog?)
SMS should include an interpreter to expand upon common abbreviations
Camera should be higher resolution
Facial recognition “would be a plus”
iPod interface potentially confusing, much more complex than phone interface
Safari browser on iPhone may and may not be forgiving to web pages that are not totally strict on HTML. Forgiving will be much better in the long run than not.
Maps on the iPhone should just “know” where you are and tell you how far, distance and time-wise, you are from appointments that are on your calendar

He did, however, comment on how much of an improvement on current cell phones this phone from Apple really is, saying “Traditional cell phones are dull, limited, and at end-of-life. iPhone is glorious, and it is only the beginning.”

Yes, if we can learn one thing from our technologically and cell-phonically advanced neighbours in Japan, it’s that cell phone innovation has to start somewhere, but where it leads to with competition, is limited only by imagination.

In a recent interview, New York Times reporter John Markoff sat down with Steve Jobs and pointedly asked a few probing questions regarding what the iPhone can, and can’t do.

The following is a transcript of one of Markoff’s questions:

Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”

Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”

Markoff: “Flash?”

Jobs: “Well, you might see that.”

Markoff: “What about YouTube–”

Jobs: “Yeah, YouTube—of course. But you don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube.”

So, Steve Jobs, you “don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube” do you?

The help section off the YouTube homepage has this to say:

The video won’t play—what’s wrong?
All of the videos on YouTube are streamed through a Flash player, so you need to have the latest version of Macromedia Flash installed on your computer. To download it, please visit Adobe.

In other words, if Apple does plan on giving full support to YouTube, then we can expect they will give full support to having a Flash player on the upcoming iPhone.

German Apple enthusiast magazine Macwelt recently drew new details out of Apple Germany, and in this article, discuss a few things the iPhone has, and has not.

Apple has apparently confirmed that the operating system on the iPhone - which is a slimmed down, 500MB version of OS X), will take up part of the hard drive space allotted for iPod songs and videos.

This means that the 4GB version of the iPhone will mean you’ll get 3.5GB of storage, and the 8GB version will get you, the user, 7.5GB of storage.

The question still remains, as to whether Safari’s cache will clear upon exiting, or will it take up even more space from the hard drive? The same could be asked about iPhone contacts, SMS messages, and voicemail messages. Only time will tell.

German Apple enthusiast magazine Macwelt recently drew new details out of Apple Germany, and in this article, discuss a few things the iPhone has, and has not.

One item of note, is that Macwelt discerned from Apple that iPhone users will not be allowed to use their multimedia mobile communications device for VoIP. That means that connecting wirelessly to the internet via WiFi will not get you a free call.

This news is disappointing for users who tie their other mobile devices - like laptops - to their wireless bluetooth headsets. It also comes at a time when many critics have been hitting Apple with bad reviews of anticipation due to a number a recent details about the iPhone’s limitations.

Being 5 months away from production and shipping, Apple surely has some tricks up their sleeve that will make us salivate even more as we get closer to June.