I stopped off at my local O2 shop at lunch time today.

I was told they had "loads" of 8Gb 3G iPhones left but sold out first thing of the 16Gb model. It looked like their systems were down and were doing everything on paper and telling people that their SIM's will come active over the weekend at some point.

Just wondering what people think of it.

I have to admit now it acts as a remote for my Apple TV I am quite tempted.

Cheers

Cris.

iPod touch will do this as well but you'll probably have to fork out some money to get the upgrade...

Drove past the O2 shop down the road on the way to work this morning at about 8:30 and was quite amazed that there was already a queue.

I really do want one, but still got 9 months until the end of my current contract... My original plan was to get a 1st gen one on eBay or something, but thinking about it I use the GPS on my phone a lot and its so useful to have in my pocket I'll just hold out until I can get the new one on a good deal.

Has anyone seen any screen shots of this yet?

Cheers

Cris.

Just making sure: you don't need turn-by-turn directions, do you? Because you can't get it on the iPhone.

There might be:
http://gizmodo.com/5024018/telenav-confirms-iphone-in+car-navigation-app

To Answer my own question....

http://www.apple.com/itunes/remote/

Looks pretty cool!

Cheers

Cris.

...and TomTom too.....

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSB46553120080609

Cheers

Cris.

Yeah needs turn by turn for me. I just got a WM6.0 based phone and it has serious issues. The hardware is all there - the software/firmware is total crap. I've come from all Nokias beforehand.

Anyway, I went and had a look and had a play with one in the store. They were opening at 7 and 8am here in Australia. The Optus system went down in the morning too. By the time I rocked up only 8GB were left or wait a week or two. Wasn't a total sell out like I thought it might be.

It just seemed a bit minimalist to me and I'm kind of glad I couldn't get one right now and I'll stick with the Windows POS for a while I guess. I will wait a few months and see what the applications are like that will come out.

Turn by turn is a biggy for me too. I really like having Tom Tom on the Windows Mobile and Nokia E series before that.

Well...I'm waiting for DHL monkey to deliver my 16GB...could be up to 9PM tonight

The apple remote is very cool, tried it on my iPod touch, really comes into it's own with the airport express!

Adrian

I tried to get one today. Line was around the building. I shall try again later.

There's going to be more variety of navigation software for the iPhone than any other portable platform in history.

The built-in Google Maps does turn by turn according to Apple's web pages. It just (supposedly) doesn't do route re-calculation. It's not meant to compete with something like TeleNav or Tom Tom's nav though. Both of which are also coming to the iPhone.

I'm just waiting until I can get a phone while screwing the operator selling it - ie. without contract or breaking contract while retaining price close to advertised "retail." Then it gets jailbroken and unlocked so I can use it with any SIM and subscribe to a Pay as You Go plan here in Canada - likely without a cellular data plan.

I'm still really wanting one with 200GB of storage though. Not to mention a 4 or 5mp camera that can also shoot video clips. Might as well double the battery life while we're at it. A way to connect it to a compact flash card or other camera to unload photos would also be cool.

Speaking of jailbreaks, engadget reports that the pwnage people have already done it.

Everyone is now hawking the new Pwnage tool with a lot of hot air. Mostly linking to a video that shows only that the new tool has a new interface, but shows that it's currently broken or that the producers of the video had no intentions of showing it working in the video. In other words it's pretty useless.

Jailbreak/Unlock has been mentioned by a few blogs but nothing has materialized yet except a single screenshot of the new iPhone with an icon for Installer.app on its screen.

I have no doubt everyone will have a jailbreak and unlocker in their hands soonish though. Additional opportunities are also clear, though I haven't heard about anone working on them yet. Getting arbitrary iPhone/iPod applications to install via iTunes without using the App Store - mainly how to get unsigned apps on there, maybe by fake signing them. Copying applications back off the iPhone and onto a computer. Wireless syncing. And of course the biggest hack of them all... How to get an iPhone without a contract in North America .

Hell, if the NemusSync guy started selling his work for $10, I'd pay for it via the app store in a snap.

Optus in Australia will officially unlock your iPhone for you A$729 outright + $80 to unlock if unlocked in the first six months.

Hopefully a lot more people will jump onto the App store now that it seems Apple is granting more approvals to publishers. I'm sure that some people would still like the opportunity to sell their wares without having to dish out 30% commission to Apple though.

I wonder how much Apple is wholesaling the iPhone to the carriers for. They have to be making at least 20 to 50% when reselling them without a contract. I'm also guessing Apple is charging them a greater premium than they do to consumers when selling their other gear direct.

Should be a very profitable year for Apple.

eBay selling prices for the new iPhone have climbed easily over $750 since earlier today when many auctions closed at $700. There are definitely some scammers mixed in with potentially legitimate sellers. It'll be interesting to see where the prices go over the next week.

With respect to turn by turn guidance there is this in the SDK agreement essentially forbidding it:

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/06/11...idance-dancing/

How close Apple stick to it remains to be seen of course.

Apparently that real-time route guidance thing is a generic piece of text from ATT documentation as well. It was included with the very first revision of the SDK long before anyone even knew the new iPhone was coming this year, let alone would feature GPS.

Apple/ATT are protecting their arses with that item. Basically the phone is an entertainment platform and should not be relied upon for potentially life-affecting situations. No one wants to get sued by careless Brits and Americans driving into lakes or getting stuck under bridges.

We'll see proper GPS nav applications come out. Two have already been mentioned by their respective companies, though no release dates were given.

Where do you get this from? Unless they came out and said that, it seems unlikely to me that this is the reason.


Yeah, those were announced, and then promptly rejected by Apple. And apparently the SDK is not the reason, according to this.

Actually I haven't seen anyone else offer up any other reason for that mention in the SDK. Similar text can also be found in other documentation, including cell contracts according to some.



Apple hasn't said boo about any GPS related developments. The only thing "from Apple" is that small note in the SDK that I'm aware of.



Exactly. They're basically echoing the point I made about Apple covering their asses. Tom Tom isn't going to announce the product before its time. When they were interviewed they also had no way to make the software fully functional nor releasable.

There was no GPS in first gen iphones nor could one be paired with a BT external GPS that I know of. Then there was the fact that no legitimate way to distribute nor install applications existed at that time.

If Tom Tom had iPhone 3G hardware it would have been provided by Apple and under some heavy NDA. Another reason for them to try keeping the whole thing quiet.

The iPhone will likely become the most popular and widely distributed GPS in the world. Sales volume will eclipse all other GPS products handily.

I got mine today. AT&T sent me an email this morning (dated 5am) saying that my "direct fulfillment" would take 5-7 days, maybe more. Screw that. I went out at 8am (store opening at 10am) and got 20th place in a line that grew to about 50 by 10am.

I was on my way home with a new iPhone at 10:30am. My old phone ceased working as I walked out the door, but my new phone was reporting "no signal" for hours thereafter. I went back to the store around 3pm and griped at them. It took 30 minutes of tweakage before everything started working. The store manager said "I sure how this doesn't happen to many other people, otherwise it's going to be really difficult for us."

So far, aside from all the usual coolness, my biggest observation squares with Walt Mossberg, namely that this thing eats battery like nobody's business. In six hours, I managed to consume 3/4 of the battery strength with occasional use, switching between my home WiFi and AT&T's 3G/Edge network (varying, depending on where I was, while we were doing errands).

Well, just about anything that uses WiFi is going to be hard on batteries, compared with the optmising power modes of a proper mobile network.

cheers

Looking at the review, it is 3G connectivity that kills the battery, not wifi. When Walt tested Internet usage using 3G he managed 6 hours using 3G compared to 9 hours on the 1st gen using Wifi. Which isn't really a surprise as 3G is well known for using a lot of juice.

Wasn't this the reason Apple gave for not putting 3G into the original iPhone?

Indeed it was. And it's still true today. To get a 3G iPhone, you've basically got to charge it every single night. Forget one night, and you're toast the next day.

In line for mine today. It's day 3 and there is still a significant line. Probably about 60-80 people. They are handing out bottled water and umbrellas but so far we are all still in the shade. They are out of 16 gig models so everyone today gets an 8.

(I haven't been in line for three days. Only about 40 minutes. I drove by on day one and said "fsck that", I'll wait.)

Strolled past the Apple store at the Trafford Centre this afternoon, no lines, just a bunch of people looking at them.

EDIT: Both models still in stock.

My accelerometer is broken

Although all I've got to do is take it to the apple store this week and they'll replace it for me....not bad as it came direct from O2.

I got one the day it came out. My nephew wanted to wait all day so I said what the hell and picked one up. Poor kid was waiting in line for like 8 hours.

I'm really enjoying the new features but I seem to be having a problem. It seems like I'm getting 3-4 bars less than I should be. At home with my old iphone I used to get 4-5 bars, now I get 1. In general it seems I'm getting way crappier reception. 3G still works though. Anyone else experience something similar?