My family of five has precisely four cell phones between them. Guess who’s the odd man out? I think Apple knows this, and have specifically targeted one of the ads for their new iPhone at me. This is horribly cruel. Not only is the ad focused on calamari, but wow, that gadget is sweet and elegant and had me thinking that I must own one, now. Hitting me with techno- and cephalo-lust at the same is no fair.
Fortunately, I have also seen the price, and I have seen my bank account, and I have seen my income, and that particular work of artfully hewn technology is squarely in the domain of economically impossible. But if I ever see someone with them, I’m going to ask them to find the nearest seafood restaurant for me, just because.
Riding the Pirates Of The Caribbean wave, if you ask me. Apple’s marketing people have always leveraged movies.
If the price of the phone didn’t give you pause, the latest news is that AT&T requires each purchaser of an iPhone to commit to an unlimited data plan, which is an additional $30/month. I might spring for a one-time charge of $500 for a cell phone combined with a super-PDA with wireless connectivity. But paying extra for a low-speed data connection? No, thanks.
I’ll buy an Apple iPhone just to pet it.
Does that make me a bad person?
I saw a TV ad, and I’ve never really lusted after the new Apple stuff until now.
For $500 you could take knitting classes and knit yourself any number of cuddly cephalopods to pet.
Russell: From where does this information come? I haven’t seen anything of that sort from any of the reputable sources of iPhone information. I’m highly skeptical that AT&T would “force” you to sign up for any data plan for the iPhone, much less their unlimited plan.
I will wait for Rev B it’s gotta be coming in Pink soon!
I will wait for Rev B it’s gotta be coming in Pink soon!
Posted by: Michele | June 4, 2007 08:42 PM
Or Fire Engine Red!!!!
The iPhone is beautiful and it works amazingly. But I’m not buying one right now. Its storage capacity is ridiculously low for such a price, as it’s being advertised as, besides a cellphone, the latest generation iPod. My 80 GB iPod has 10 times the storage capacity (and it’s already turning up to be too little for me) for almost half of the price. Besides, without having tried it yet, I think the touchscreen QWERTY keyboard is going to suck, in view of my experience with similar interfaces in other equipment (they don’t provide tactile feedback while typing, and the mistakes made are plenty). And the three most important things I would be doing with the iPhone, text messaging, typing e-mails and surfing the web (and, probably, typing comments in Pharyngula), depend on it… I think I’ll wait until the next generation comes out and/or competing companies launch their own (perhaps) more affordable and improved versions.
Oh, I think the iPhone is totally worth it, considering all the extra features you get.
I mean, I could always use some of those (guess which).
Am I the only person who wants a phone to just be a phone? I don’t want something with a needy identity crisis that tries to meet my every desire. I just want to be able to call people when I need to.
If I did have a cell phone, which I don’t (had one and it wasn’t worth the plan for as little as I used it, and on an assistant professor’s salary I couldn’t afford it), I would totally have one of these.
Oh, fishy, etc: Not exactly the sort of improvements I expected, but it certainly made me laugh hard. Kind of proves Carlie‘s point…
ThinkGeek is great! By the way, I also feel like you Carlie. I have now a pre-paid phone with T-Mobile, and it’s been great so far. I put $100 for the first year, and I got $0.10 a minute. Then after the year is over or any amount of money you put after, it will be the same price, and all your minutes will last for one more year, so just put $10 or so to renew. The first year I did only like 50 bucks or maybe less.
And this is not a shameful plug. It is a shameless plug. T-Mobile has been the only cell company that up till now hasn’t done any shady and utterly unethical practices, like blocking bluetooth, hidden charges (like the $1 a day some charge for pre-paid, even if you don’t use your phone, etc.)
I don’t get how people can talk on the phone all the time, though. That plan is for people like me who don’t. I didn’t want to have one, but living in L.A. I just needed one, for emergencies and such.
Hell, I can’t even find my ipod right now. No way I’m losing a $5000 phone.
I bet they do charge you for a data plan. I had a sidekick and had to pay for a data plan. I also currently have a Blackberry Pearl and have to pay for a data plan (plan cost+data plan every month).
like most of Apple’s stuff, you can of course get the same or better functionality with already existing items far cheaper, just not combined into a single unit.
the same is true of the ipod itself. far from the best mp3 player wrt to any measure you care to choose, and one of the highest priced too.
I suppose if you’re an apple junkie and want the latest toy, then by all means, I’m sure it’s an acceptable product, if on the pricey side.
my recommendation would be to simply wait a few months, until other companies produce far better quality units for less cost, as is always the case.
seriously, apple could have cornered the market ages ago if they produced slightly better quality products at a better price point.
Dan, here’s a link:
http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/9794
Of course, it could be completely bogus. And even if AT&T does this, that doesn’t mean they will stick to it.
PZ,
Look at the original price of the iPod. Look at how the product line was expanded across price levels, and what’s available today.
This month’s price for an iPhone will not be the price in six months, or whenever they get the back-orders caught up.
-jcr
Was I the only one that sent you that link PZ?
I can’t justify $500 either. I’ll wait for the 2nd gen version.
I won’t even get into war with the apple naysayers…
but who wants to bet that the iPhone outsells the blackberry or treo during the next year?
I’ve used the Pearl… the web is virtually useless.
Don’t do it!
“But the tentacles tell me to!”
Sounds like somebody is getting an IPhone for Father’s Day!
Carlie wrote:
Actually a recent large scale survey done here in Germany showed that more than 70% of all uses just wanted their cell phones to be phones with no additional gimmicks what so ever but I bet that when it comes on to the market here at the end of the year the iPhone will be an instant best seller.
I bet the iVibrator is next. This i(product) naming scheme is getting annoying.
Ooooh. I’d like to see the specs and feature list for the iVibrator. I bet the gestural control interface is going to be something else, too.
The ad where the user taps “find calamari” into it is also going to have all kinds of interesting levels of meaning.
Carlie writes:
I don’t think simple cell phones are going away anytime soon. The drive for convergent devices comes from those who carry multiple devices. Long before I acquired a cellphone, I had a PDA. I still have it, and its database of many years stores a lot of information that I frequently use. I carry it on trips, still. But now that I carry a cellphone, I don’t have room to carry the PDA on me, wherever I go. No, I’m not interested in a holster that clips on my belt. One pocket gets the card case, keys, pocketknife, and change. The other pocket gets the electronic device du jour.
Only the high-end smart phones have acceptable PDA software. I need the multiple address fields, and free-form notes. I haven’t made the jump to a smart phone yet. But that’s what is driving me away from the simple phone: limited pocket space.
Hey, how’s the life over there, 5 years ago?
The Google is your friend.
A couple of worthy metions.
Oh yeah… there’s a bunch of iPod sextoys… gives new meaning to rockin’ to your own beat.
Ooooh. I’d like to see the specs and feature list for the iVibrator. I bet the gestural control interface is going to be something else, too.
Introducting the iGasm. Apple is not pleased.
weird, I used to work about half a block from that restaurant.
Mate, what you really want is one an open source smart phone running OpenMoko. Well, I do anyway. Expected to be ~US$150 cheaper than the iPhone.