Influential tech pundit says iPhone 'will be 3G in 60 days'

I'm sure the advertisers can't wait

For all the hype that will surround this launch (not that it will get to the UK anytime soon).

It will be interesting to see if the fanboys remember how they were stung by early adoption of the original (dare we say "old") iphone - what with the price cuts so soon after it's launch.

For the rest of us, who don't need a trendiness badge and just want to make a few calls, I'd sum it all up with a big fat YAWN

About time

The other phones on the market are truly Neanderthal in comparison with the iPhone's slick interface. I spent a couple of hours wandering the High Street looking at alternatives to the iPhone and the conclusion I drew is that they're all universally awful for doing the things *I* want to do: browsing, emailing, listening to music, etc.

The iPhone's accuracy of browsing, gestures, screen scrolling, zooming, rotating, the bright screen, ease of use, even the virtual keyboard... They're just wonderful up against the 1990's browsers of the others, their confusing UIs, lack of touch screen on many/most phones, use of numeric keypads for typing. The Samsung F490 needs to be especially mentioned as being *really* awful - it's as much a copy of the iPhone as a child's scribbled drawing is to a Constable).

And then there's the tariffs. According to Vodafone, 120Mb is unlimited browsing. Well I suppose it would be on those other handsets. Now O2 have dropped their rates, it almost look as if they're a good option. Pity about their network.

Sure, the iPhone has many faults, but from my brief look around it's going to be extremely successful as there's not much competition.

Looks like a July launch; Mossberg's predictions are repeating what most people are saying. Confirmation will come in June when Jobs goes on stage.

Jobs' will more than meet his target of 10M iPhones this year.

Why do we need a 3G iPhone

iPhone users keep saying that EDGE is fast enough and wifi is available everywhere. So why do we need a 3G iPhone?

And about the useful stuff that is missing:

- aGPS

- A2DP

- HSDPA

- BT profiles

- Edit capable Office applications

- Video recording

- 3MP+ camera

- use of the phone as a modem

@CharlieClark & MalcolmHall

have either of you actually used an iPhone? or are you just trolling with regurgitated rumours that you read somewhere before the iPhone was released last year?

i'm not had a problem with sending txts or recieving phone calls on mine. it's perfectly possible to send txt messages, you can send to multiple people, the keyboard is very fast to use, i can type a full proper message faster on that than i can a crpy txt msg 1

the only thing that is missing is MMS, and to be honest, i'd rather send an email for free with the picture at full res than send an expensive mms message

Re: Why do we need a 3G iPhone

Simple, so shut up those complaining it's not 3G.

As for all the other features, features are great so long as the phone works. I have GPS and other nice things on my Nokia, but every now and then when someone phones me the mic doesn't work and I have to reboot it.

What good are features if the core function of the device doesn't work 100%?

getting there

3G is one of the major requirements for me - I travel regularly to Japan and there is no GSM network there.

I probably will wait awhile and see what happens with the SDK - I won't be getting an iPhone until I can get rid of my PDA, so there are a few shareware apps I will be waiting for first.

Can you....?

Delete a single SMS message rather than an entire "conversation" yet?

Genuine question. I know that you couldn't do this before, and had to delete the entire "group" rather than having the option to (e.g.) delete the last 4 from 5 messages because the first one was the only one with useful info that needed keeping and the rest were BS.

(yes, I know there are 3rd party apps available, but for a phone to not have this function available by default would annoy the ever-lovin' @!$£ outta me!)

Cheers for any (sensible!) replies

Re: Why we need a 3G iPhone

I can't speak for folks in other places, but here in Japan where I happen to be, the answer as to why 3G is very simple: We have no GSM here, only 3G and some older homegrown Japanese systems which are incompatible with anything else.

Thus for Apple, if they want to sell their iPhone in Japan, a 3G version is the only option. And for Japanese iPhone would be customers, no 3G means the iPhone is useless as a phone.

@John

John, what network are you on? I've used EDGE round a lot of North Yorkshire, rural Cambridgeshire and beyond. There are areas where I have to drop down to GPRS, but then there isn't any 3G there either.

What does seem to be rarer than Hen's teeth is HSDPA - rarely find that anywhere....

So, EDGE is certainly widely available beyond London, and often in areas beyond 3G.

Japan

Hopefully the new one will work in Japan. Its the reason why I havent bought one yet.

Oooh

<troll type="usual" repeat="always">

It's now nearly capable of two thirds of what my Athena can do.

There's nothing like using PuTTY to launch a server instance, then VNC'ing into KDE on your phone, launching whatever you like, saving the results, and SCPing them back down to your phone. It feels absolutely bizarre and totally brilliant. :-)

</troll>

Re: Stop reporting

Register - please note that I do not like Windows so please stop reporting on it.

(NB - It's not just me, I know of a few other people who do not like Windows - how many more do you need to realise that you must stop reporting on it?)

Re: Stop reporting

I don't like football, many people don't either. But the news always carries stories on it.

Here's a hint, if you don't like something then ignore it.

@AC

"Message to El Reg - you guys need to start Moderating around here. The comments, while once useful, are just a flame-and-troll playground now. Might be better to just turn them off altogether."

Depends. I even put <troll> tags around mine and you still rose to it. Who's the bigger muppet? :-p

Probem with Iphone = O2

I did some tests of various networks (have a lot of phones!), and oddly enough in Edinburgh o2 with edge is actually slower than t-mobile (fastest) and Orange over mere GPRS. Duh.

Anyway, all that needs to be said about the Iphone can be summed up by usage stats: it's the most used mobile browser out there by miles, even though there are bazillions of windoes mobile devices out there. Having used countless Windows Mobile devices, this didn't come as a shock - the Iphone over GPRS is much more usable than WM6 over HSDPA.

@AC, The Sequel

First up, if laughing at you is your definition of getting riled up, the people you meet must be really pissed off. :-p

But if you want to turn an argument, you make out like all the stuff I can do with my Athena is just there to show off. (Personally, I was under the impression that that was about the only thing the iPhone was designed for, but hey.) That's a fairly stupid thing to say - it's an Athena. It's big, it's ugly, the HTC drivers make it lag like hell, and for some reason T-Mobile thought it would look awesome in silver and pink. It is not the kind of thing you show off with.

What you have to remember is that PuTTY, VNC etc are only on there because I installed them - ie, I need them. I admin servers and it is damned, DAMNED handy to be able to pull my phone out of my pocket anywhere in the world and sort them out. Just ask Maddox.

Plus, using the massive internal hard drive and a custom media player I installed to watch DivX and Xvid movies on the go is a bonus. ;-) But I guess you can do that with the iPhone to-...what? Sorry? It doesn't support those code.....oh. My bad.

Sorry mate - for actually doing anything, which is what smartphones are actually for, the Athena wins hands down, again and again and again. The iPhone is just a toy for showing off to your mates.

Did I need to add sarcasm tags?

Oh dear, was it not clear enough?