cellrater

So yes we have all seen the iPhone and sure, its a beautiful looking handset; but will people throw down their hard earned cash for some flashy looks and mediocre new features? Well, I think the answer is yes and no. I mean, sure you are going to have your hardcore fanboys, and then you will have your upper class individuals who just want something flashy, you may get the occasional teen who saved up all his lunch money for the past year and a half since it was announced, and probably trick a few business professionals who want a blackberry alternative…

So that makes for a pretty decent spectrum of people but will the phone continue to bring in sales over time once the “hype” has worn out. Once the phone has been in the market and the business professionals realize that the touch screen is no alternative to blackberry’s tactile keyboard and push emails, Once the holy wood trendiness has worn off and people start buying a different phone just to be different, and once the high school kids realize they could have bought a lesser phone with similar features AND a Nintendo wii for the same price.

As you can tell I think that the phone is nice but ultimately not “all that” but to give an unbiased opinion and some real stats Markitecture did a national survey with a sample of 1,300 “responsible” cell phone owners. Statistics showed 77% of people were familiar with the iPhone (thats promising!) and moreso 83% of the people actually stated that they were VERY familiar with the phone AND had an overall excellent impression with the product (Even better news for apple!). When the surveyors were asked their likelihood of purchasing the product in the next year the numbers dropped to 6% with 2/3 of people in the survey giving a Zero percent chance of purchasing the iPhone.

The biggest reason to their decision? Pricing. Coming in a close second was Carrier issues and contracts.

So its not that people don’t want the phone, I think we can all agree apple has done an amazing job creating this product but the price and fact that people are stuck with Cingular/AT&T that is holding them back. I think that I was disappointed to know that I couldn’t just order one off APPLE.com in an unlocked format. As far as the price goes, I read somewhere a while back that apple will be making a 50% profit on these 500 dollar phones. Now I cant really vouch for that being true, some kid in his moms basement probably made that number up but if it is true then why did Apple team up with Cingular and why isn’t there more of a price drop? Is Apple just being greedy? What do you guys think?

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So across the boards today, almost all of the websites I visit were talking about a post by John C. Dvorak (former editorialist for MacWorld), who claims Apple should pull the plug on their upcoming phone. Dvorak says that he recently spoke to a Cingular Employee who mentions multiple problems with the soon to be released cellphone. According to the rep, the phone has many issues ranging from a 40 minute total talk time to an interface which “fouls up constantly”.

I could see how a phone like that would freeze in the wrong hands; one of my favorite phones over the years has been my Nokia N80 which has been mentioned by people to freeze a lot. Then you speak to other users who own this phone and they have no problem with it. After using the phone for a few months I think the problem boils down to the fact that some people are trying to run far too many programs at once on these phones. The N80 is a small computer and gives you the ability to run multiple applications at once easily but if you aren’t paying attention to your file manager you could have stuff running in the background and not even know it. I could easily see this as being a problem with something like the iPhone. The problem is that there are far too many idiots in the world and not enough idiot proof products.

As for the 40 minute thing I am skeptical, I mean I know the phone has a huge screen but I don’t think apple would release a phone with that low of a talk time for the price they are asking. Now I could see the 40 minute mark becoming a reality with bluetooth on, music player going, and screen at full brightness while surfing the web or something like that. I guess only time will tell.

What do you guys think? Would you still be interested in buying the iPhone for $500 if the talk time is only 40 minutes?

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The guys over at phonescoop.com have a new article up discussing some FCC documents which detail the latestspecs of Apple’s upcoming iPhone and no, it doesn’t have Wi-Fi. According to phonescoop, The phone was originally approved for GSM/EDGE 850 & 1900 with bluetooth and wifi; but now looking at these final documents, wifi seems to be missing. Quite a blow for the iPhone. AT&T/Cingular may have talked Apple out of keeping this feature as well as Apple’s widgets which seem to now be replaced by other Cingular services (Cingular Video / Media Mail). According to an Apple spokesperson the wifi was dropped to preserver battery life.

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Popularity: 18% [?]