So apparently last night Kevin Rose, of Digg and Diggnation fame, apparently confirmed information he knew about the iPhone on his eponymous vidcast. According to Kevin, who, to his credit, accurately predicted one of Apple's most secretive and hyped launches of 2005, the
iPod nano, the
iPhone will feature the following:
- January launch on "all" providers, both CDMA and GSM
- Extremely small form factor
- Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions
- Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
- "Slide-out keyboard"
- Possibly touchscreen
There's obviously a lot there to process -- some new rumor, some old rumor, and some which does and does not jibe with what we've heard. According to a trusted source of Engadget's, whose iPhone information has gone heretofore unpublished, it's pretty safe to say it won't have a QWERTY keyboard (although it may be a slider), touchscreen is out, and it's only going to be GSM with 3G at launch, going with a singular carrier in the US (guess which). So that covers basically all of the rumors we've already heard anyway. We can confirm we've also heard about this dual battery design which powers the flash music player and phone portions separately, but that's about all we've got that crosses over with Rose's information. Either way, we don't want to bark up the wrong tree with this one because insider and rumored information is so often totally inaccurate, even if only because radical design changes are known to be made, especially by Steve "loose cannon" Jobs. Guess we'll have to settle in for our usual wait until January.
[Thanks to Andrew and everyone who sent this in]
posted Dec 3rd 2006 2:12PM
If $249 is the outright price and not contract dependent, my previous concerns about the iPhone might be overcome.
$200 for an extra 4 gb? Sounds a little off if you ask me.
Perhaps there are more differences between the two than just memory capacity. There was talk that two iPhones would be released; one catering towards the general mass market while a 'smartphone' version would also be available. Perhaps that's why you see the big jump in price between the two versions.
Frankly- I'll say the same thing I said at Engadget...
This dependency on one device to do everything is getting insane. People combining MP3s, Phones, and cameras, these days when you loose your phone, everything's gone.
I'll stick with my Blackberry and iPod (Video) separately- and I can carry my entire music collection, not just a few CDs.
Chris
@4: As I'm sure someone said over at Engadget's main site, "different strokes for different folks." If a convergence device is too much for you to fathom, don't buy it. That's a matter of personal taste, and not really worth making into such a big deal.
As for me, I'd much rather Apple release a WiFi media device...think something along the same lines as Sony's Mylo or Nokia's 770. Add email, text, music, web-browsing and some VOIP action, and I'd be too happy to fork over the dough. But for the people that want a convergence device, an Apple iPhone is probably the way to go.
One thing that I find a little surprising (and very non-Apple) is that whatever kind of iPhone they release, it's going to be necessarily limited to specific markets, probably permanently. Sure, the iPod was released in the US first, but very soon after, you could buy one almost anywhere around the world, iTMS or no. I really doubt that an iPhone will ever enjoy that kind of global position.
Pity there's no touch screen -- it can be so useful if you're skipping the querty keyboard (which I do prefer to skip, for aesthetic reasons). Still, I'm intrigued enough to wait for January before I commit to my next device.
@Christopher M
I disagree - I refuse to carry a phone AND a MP3 player. I have an unlocked RAZR V3i with iTunes and it works great!
Also - back up your data regularly and there is no need to worry about "losing everything".
https://zyb.com/
Has anyone noticed that Apple are advertising on engadget mobile? (a site primarily about telecommunications) - looks like we're close.