So, 3G iPhone?

su_dios

So the 15th is coming up soon and most of us are expecting to hear something of a 3g iphone, but theres talk of it being May, June or July. So when do you think it will be? Will O2 be the provider? Will it be a total revamp/iPhone 2 or just the addition of the hidden 3g chip?

Having being using my iPod Touch with the iPhone apps I would really like to move onto an iPhone when its got 3g capability.

So start with the proven facts and speculation..

Creamy Goodness

everything surrounding the 3G iphone is complete rumour. around the time of macworld you can get strong indications - ie apple buying certain parts (touchscreens around 3 months before ipod touch etc.) - that new products are around the corner. there's be nothing like this for the iphone.

if apple were to announce a new 3g iphone i'd say it'd be august before it's released, and it may not get released in ireland with such a small customer base (we don't even have apple stores).

su_dios

Interesting article over here. They launch firstly with Germany, France and Uk but I remember seeing Ireland as one of the countries in the second phase. Also with O2 as one of the main Apple sellers in Ireland at the moment and the likely providers of the O2 when it gets here we wouldn't need an Apple store for it (although we really should have one by now).

Is it possible that the chips were bought quite a while ago making it less obvious or even that it will be announced on the 15th with a full demo model on show but not with an immediate release like most hardware announcements by apple at keynote events?

IRLConor

As Cremo says, there are no facts about the future of the iPhone at all. The only firmish rumours are those about the new firmware for the current iPhone which is expected soon. Even those rumours could be well wrong.

I reckon Ireland will get the iPhone (from O2) when version 2 launches. I suspect that it will arrive some time in Q2 2008 (actually, WWDC is on June 11-15 so that would be a good launch point) with Ireland getting it some time before next Christmas. It will probably be a 3G phone and might have GPS.

All of the above is guesswork combined with what I've read on various Mac rumour sites.

Creamy Goodness

well before the touchscreen business, the apple store would go down during the keynote presentation and come back up after it and have the new products ready to ship.

i don't know why apple have decided to steer away from this in reccent times, could be longer manufacturing times or could be more testing involved in touch screen products.

anything is possible with apple, i mean they released the 8gig iphone at 500 dollars then like 2months later discontinued the 4gig and dropped the price of the 8gig to 400 dollars, but still decided to give customers rebates etc.

i just wouldn't go getting my hopes up for a 3g iphone, here's a good site http://www.macrumors.com/ that shows rumors for all apple products some of them are more solid rumors than others...

ie.

the ones where apple have registered patents - you'll be seeing them in the next year or two.
the others like apple to take over google - not in a million years.

su_dios

It would be very disappointing if they held off the release for a further year as competition would surely have passed it by in the meantime. The iPhone at the moment.. as brilliant as it is doesn't match up to my k800 especially the camera capabilities. I would like to see at least 4megapixel on the iPhone2. I'm still not so sure about moving away from a tactile phone to a touchscreen phone... using phones in lectures, drunken nights or just not wanting to flash the phone around on oconnell street when trying to write a quick text. I'm still waiting on a remote for the ipod touch to deal with this but apple are being very slow.

Creamy Goodness

i have both an iphone (waiting to get it unlocked to use SMS and phone features) and a k800i and it's true the iphone's camera sucks compare to sony's camera but the iphone is so much more than the k800i.

the iphone's camera is still good though for every snap shots but if i wanted more clearer shots i'd be using a DSLR or a P&S. one thing though i would of liked on the iphone camera would be a macro mode, maybe there is an application out there for it but i haven't seen it and i used this a lot on my k800i taking macro shots of college timetables so i didn't have to carry a page around with me.

it has wifi which is an absolute dream, i can properly check emails/web/googlemaps/youtube from any access point without the need for a laptop.

i too had my doubts over the touchscreen like yourself. but within 30 minutes i was hooked.

using it in a lecture should be fine it's so thin you could hide it behind a a4 pad laying flat down.
drunken nights i see as a problem if your going to be texting, but sure drunken texting is hard enough and mostly unreadable (to the reciever) with a regular keypad.

su_dios

Haha yeah but with drunken texts it would be very funny to watch someone try hit the right keys on that keypad! See I'm hoping apple give me a reason to swap my ipod touch AND k800 for an iPhone. What I was saying is I already have some of the iPhone apps on the touch and love them(so I'm using it just like you're using your iPhone currently). The capability of being able to do that everywhere would be great.. but I wouldn't always have my ipod with me.

babypink

su_dios wrote: »

Haha yeah but with drunken texts it would be very funny to watch someone try hit the right keys on that keypad!

hehehe!!! been there done that....read the message the next day :P

they were surprisingly coherent actually

Creamy Goodness

i don't know about you guys but when i'm drunk texting i seem to concentrate extremely hard on it and couple that with the large display of the letter when you touch it i'd reckon i'd be alright. i hope anyways

su_dios

babypink wrote: »

hehehe!!! been there done that....read the message the next day :P

they were surprisingly coherent actually

It was probably so hard to do that you concentrated a lot more than you should have
I was once convinced my phone was broken and that it kept typing the wrong letter for the key I pressed. Ah the frustration. Lol.

Do you think they will give the iPhone an overhaul with its looks? Although similar I still think it looks far classier than the ipod touch which I hope they don't lose!

babypink

nah i think they'll keep the fundamentals of it, just like they carried over the looks of the PBG4 into the MBP

Eric Cartman

su_dios wrote: »

Interesting article over here. They launch firstly with Germany, France and Uk but I remember seeing Ireland as one of the countries in the second phase. Also with O2 as one of the main Apple sellers in Ireland at the moment and the likely providers of the O2 when it gets here we wouldn't need an Apple store for it (although we really should have one by now).

Is it possible that the chips were bought quite a while ago making it less obvious or even that it will be announced on the 15th with a full demo model on show but not with an immediate release like most hardware announcements by apple at keynote events?

i doubt we'll be seeing 3g at all, there are simply no 3g chips that consume very little power to match up with this, also macrumours would have been all over it if a large order was placed from quallcom or motorola who make them, and there hasnt been, its one of the few rumours that has not patents, Fcc or CE approval documents, orders or technical details to back it up

the iphone hasnt been launced here yet because the network has to be ready with EDGE before the phone is let loose here, the UK started work on upgrading to EDGE long ago, the irish waited, and its only being sorted now,

id say carphone warehouse and o2 stores will be the only ones selling it, id sy the 15th introduces 1.1.3 and is just a feature show for it, then maybee a release date announcment, the phones wont hit the shops then (i already got mine so i dont mind :P ) id personally say were looking at an overhul of the macbook and possibly the xserve range, oct core xserve perhaps and alluminium macbooks

440Hz

babypink wrote: »

they were surprisingly coherent actually

lol!! Shall I supply evidence to the contrary?

WizZard

Eric Cartman wrote: »

the iphone hasnt been launced here yet because the network has to be ready with EDGE before the phone is let loose here, the UK started work on upgrading to EDGE long ago, the irish waited, and its only being sorted now,

EDGE is just a software upgrade on the O2 switches.
Everywhere I've gone with my iPhone - even where reception has been patchy - I've seen EDGE available. Data charges are still far too high for it to be any use without an iPhone specific contract though...

su_dios

Question then would be.. if its released here on the 15th without 3g is it worth going for (provided 02 supply edge to customers at a good price)? I love the iphone but as I stated in the above posts its a bit out of date for our market, hence it not being a good seller in the UK.

cheerspal

edited