I’ve always admired the iPhone purely because of it’s sleek looks and elegant design, but it was encumbered by an excessive price tag, a lack of 3G (which for the price was scandalous), and a ridiculous telco tie-in that meant you could only (officially) use it on O2 here in the UK, which made it even more useless to me since O2 do not operate where I live.
However, the new 3G instalment which made its widely anticipated appearance at WWDC 08 is looking much more interesting. Obviously there’s the 3G support, which really should be a given in a modern high-end phone, although I can understand that since the US cell phone networks have been very slow to deploy it, it might not seem as important across the pond. GPS is in too, which is good, and Exchange support is probably for those who are wedded to it. But more importantly, they’re slashing the price; it’s half what it was last time ($199 for the 8GB model). Even better, Jobs is claiming that people are not going to pay an inflated price outside the US – they’ve promised that you won’t pay more than the converted price. Of course, given the fluctuations in the dollar rate, I’m not sure what rate they’re going to pick, but it would be a refreshing change not to get ripped off so badly here in Europe if they deliver on it.
The final issue is whether they’re going to lock the phone to a provider again, something I considered to be manifestly stupid from an adoption point of view. In the US they’re still doing this, via AT&T again for a pretty inflated monthly price which I guess is the point of them doing it. If they repeat this in the UK with O2 they’ll once again make it pointless me getting one. Sure I could try to bypass the locks, but the potential for my device to be bricked by a future update isn’t exactly enticing.
So if they lock to O2 again it will be a shame, because otherwise the new iPhone would be a likely purchase for me. It’s a great device, and if I have an excuse to have one I’d love to get Ogre running on it – the SEGA Super Monkey Ball demo in the video was certainly pretty cool 
June 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Help! Somebody is slowly converting Steve into a hardcore apple fan!!
[No, it's ok, I understand, but a bit funny anyway *g*]
June 10th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I don’t know, I had a touch phone before and it’s aqward to actually enter phone numbers in to it. Once you can voice dial etc its fine I guess. And it’s pretty.
I recently got a Nokia 95 myself, the GPS got me out of trouble this morning on the way to work – and it’s 3.5 G *shrugs*
Apple have that whole cool thing going on though, and if someone gave me one I would accept it
June 11th, 2008 at 7:31 am
I recently got my hands on a iPhone just to check it out, and I must admit that I was disappointed. IMO, the phone’s potential userbase is even more limited than the iPod. It’s obvious that the iPhone attracts look-oriented users (i.e. mostly students and tech gizmo fans). When all is said and done though, almost any other PDA on the market can at least equal and usually outperform the iPhone in terms of usability and features. The iPhone is particularly unsuitable for businesses, and I don’t think Apple has any plans to improve the iPhone in this area. In short, the iPhone strikes me as the facebook equivalent among PDAs. Unlike facebook, however, there are many other better competitors on the market. I would definitely take a Nokia or Blackberry anyday over an iPhone. The upcoming Google phone also sounds interestingly useful.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
My wife has pointed out that I barely use my existing phone (since I work from home) and thus hankering for a shinier one is entirely pointless. I know she’s right, but she’s also not factoring in the geek coefficient.
@irrdev: you should watch the WWDC08 footage if you’ve got any reservations about business usage of the iPhone, that’s one of the area’s they’ve significantly changed in the iPhone 2.0 software. Not that that matters to me since I don’t need push email from an Exchange server
I’ve tried a Blackberry and found them clunky, personally – I’d need to play with an iPhone first too for sure.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Even if you don’t get an actual iPhone, the developer kit has a very nice iPhone emulator which runs OpenGL ES, and could be used to port Ogre. If it works in the emulator, it will work on the device.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:53 am
my iPhone was actually a gift from my girlfriend. i really love this phone and i think that this is the best phone that money can buy. i like the features and the design.