iWant an iPhone
January 22nd, 2007 by matt
I’m sure by now that anyone who uses a computer has heard about the iPhone. What? You haven’t? Well, you are one ignorant bastard.
Now that you are appropriately shamed, go here and learn: http://www.apple.com/iphone
I want one. Badly. Will I get one? I’m not sure. It depends on a lot of things, like this list:
How bad will Cingular ass rape users?
Apple and Cingular have all ready said that they are going to have a special rate plan for the iPhone. And it’s actually understandable why, since the visual voicemail requires back-end support on the server, Cingular would need to set that up for each user who has a phone that can support it (read: iPhone). So Cingular would give each iPhone user a special rate plan as a means of deploying the visual voicemail. But what Cingular can also do is butt rape you on the rate plan. I could easily see them charging $80-90 a month for the plan. My hope is that they’ll have a special data plan for $20 that you can add to any voice plan. That way you could have the $40 voice plan and tack on the $20 data plan for a much more reasonable price of $60 a month (before taxes and fees, of course). We’ll see how greedy Cingular is going to be.
How durable is it?
My noodley appendage, does that phone look gorgeous. But that huge screen…how scratch resistant will it be? Can I get away with sticking it in my pocket 20 times a day and not have the screen look like a PS2 game owned by a 10-year old?
How long is the battery life in reality?
Apple says it will have a five hour talk time. Companies tend to overstate the battery life of their products, but Apple has actually understated the battery life of the iPods. I hope they are doing the same thing with the iPhone because I would be annoyed if I had to plug it in every night. Of course, I’m lucky if I talk for 5 minutes on the phone on any given day, let alone 5 hours, so it might not be a big issue for me. But it would be a big issue for others.
How do you get to the SIM card?
Apple has been mum on how you put the SIM card into the phone, and Cingular has gone on record to say that they and Apple have gone to extra lengths to attempt to prevent people from unlocking the phone. I wonder if one method is to have the SIM card internal to the iPhone. That would be a huge mistake, because SIM cards do fail, but you never know with Apple. The battery is all ready internal, which sucks for people who talk on the phone all day, so Apple could have done the same thing with the SIM card.
What kind of processor does it use?
The iPhone runs a scaled-down version of OS X, so while the processor in the phone doesn’t need to be a Core 2 Duo, I assume it does need to have a little bit of beef to it. So how hot will the phone get? Hot chips in desktops, and to some extent laptops, are OK, but not in an electronic gadget that is often stored in a pocket, purse, or holster. I’m sure the chip won’t get hot, but until we find out what type of chip it is, we won’t know.
All that aside, the only thing I’m really worried about is the greed factor of Cingular. I have this bad feeling that they are going to have a rate plan so high that the iPhone won’t sell as well as it should. I mean, they’re already forcing people to sign a two-year contract to get it, with no hardware discount, so that’s greed right there. I can certainly see that trickling over to the rate plan.
Still, I want one. Anyone want to buy a kidney?