New iPhone 3G[S]– yay or nay?

When the battery gives out on your expensive investment, then what do you do?

Buy a replacement battery or pay through the nose to get Apple to do it[/url]

takes Micro SD cards

iPhone is now available up to 32GB. What do we need SD cards for?

has an FM radio

I just use streaming internet radio.

is available for any network

Unlocked iPhones are/were available from Amazon.

, has a higher res. screen,

Okay – though I find the iPhone screen adequate.

can forward texts, can cut and paste,

Both handled in the free upgrade to OS3 released next week.

works with BBC iplayer, streams live bbc tv, works with youtube,

Yup – same with iPhone I think.

works with Nokia’s free Sportstracker and other GPS apps such as Viewranger.

iPhone has just a few more apps available than that! (50,000 at last count).

Takes any 3.5mm headphone/earphone and has fantastic audio.

Yup.

The web browser is adequate, but not outstanding.

As I said, I do almost all my evening browsing via my phone. The web browser is excellent and is only set to get better with the new update.

A Nokia 5800 is a better phone because it’s costs far less, takes Micro SD cards, has an FM radio, has a replaceable battery, is available for any network, has a higher res. screen, can forward texts, can cut and paste, works with BBC iplayer, streams live bbc tv, works with youtube, works with Nokia’s free Sportstracker and other GPS apps such as Viewranger. Takes any 3.5mm headphone/earphone and has fantastic audio. The only limitation i can see is the limited number of IP radio stations in the realplayer format. The web browser is adequate, but not outstanding.

iPhone…
at 16 or 32 gig doesn’t really need a card slot does it
no radio except over wifi
don’t care about networks – o2 works fine
replaceable battery has no value for me
iphone screen, very good
cut, past etc in a week
works VERY WELL with youtube and iPlayer
tomtom proper gps soon
3.5mm obvious (although not on g1 phone!)
fantastic browser!
and..
50,000 applications that you can get/buy from the handset including stuff to track your ride.

new camera with touch focas looks really nice, video with editing, uploading to youtube etc.
i think it’s way ahead of it’s competition. honestly, people comparing megapixels and screen sizes are really missing the point – the whole thing works so easily, you use it all the time… for so many things!

get what you pay for i think, not marketing and fashion as it’s popular to say these days

well to be honest upgrading from 3G to 3GS is really keeping up with the fashion, as it offers no significant upgrades.

2x faster processor has not been tested yet, and the 3G is already very fast. 7.2mbps 3G is also questionable, as only AT&T in America has PLANS to do it (by that time a new iphone will be out).

get what you pay for i think, not marketing and fashion as it’s popular to say these days

There’s no way the iphone’s retail price is purely about it’s cost price, everyone pays for marketing etc but I bet moreso for apple products. It’s overpriced but people buy it as nothing else truly competes.

iPhone is like XTR, if you can’t afford and/or justify one or the replacement parts, then go somewhere else and whine about your shitty make-do version, and leave the rest of us to enjoy our purchases.

The main three points that counted against the iPhone when I looked into getting one were price (not much change there), the camera (apparently improved) and iTunes.

I ended up with a Nokia 5800 – it certainly doesn’t feel as nice as an iPhone, the tactile screen isn’t quite as good, the plastic body feels cheaper than the metal iPhone, but it has all the applications I need, synchs perfectly with Outlook, a reasonable camera, WIFI, etc. And no iTunes. If the iPhone were cheaper I’d consider it, but at that price it never really competes.

Reading the specs the new iPhone seems to use the same remote control earphones as the Shuffle, that would be a bit of a pain, too – assuming that’s the case?

How long until this model gets replaced?

I’ve heard from someone who works for Vodafone that they’re getting the iphone when the new model is launched. If this isn’t that new model, how far off is another one?

allyharp – Release cycle is one year. Carriers use ‘when the next model comes out’ as a method of making customers stay with them in the hope they can save the hassle of switching to O2.

The screen (multi touch-capacitive) and the UI (including the apps) are what makes the Iphone great, mostly the apps IMHO.
Apple are playing catch up with this phone, and still not caught up.
The hard work, and what people love about apple was done developing the original UI/OS, Apple’s forte. Even this has only been massaged to include the things that were missing the first time round. All the advancements that everyone is excited about are included in every other high end phone already.
I think the Apple UI is the best out there, frankly i’m dissapointed no-one has come close to it yet. However at the same time it is the lowest specified phone out there with even budget phone offering better

However at the same time it is the lowest specified phone out there with even budget phone offering better

Hyperbole much?

A budget phone:

Nokia 1661: £14.50 PAYG
Features: FM Radio, 8MB storage, polyphonic ring tones, TFT display and a vibrating alert.

mogrim: I don’t particularly like iTunes either, but I can’t imagine why the need to install it would put you off buying an iPhone??

Last time I looked Nokia PC Suite was a complete shambles – has it improved any?

Thats bargin basement, not budget. 😉

can anyone explain to me why the iTunes hatred. ?

I’ll hopefully be getting one, but does anyone know if iPhone 3G owners who bought one shortly after they came out last novemeber ish will have to pay a cancellation fee?

P.S. I’m also selling an unlocked 1st Gen iPhone if anyone’s looking 😉

I’d like one “thing” to replace my phone “thing” and music/video “thing”. Can i use itunes with a Nokia?

TBH for a bog standard music player (and for users without a degree in Geek) itunes is just about perfect TBH, all the family use it, and I don’t want to change a platform that works for another, just to use a Nokia phone…

If you go on nokia web site their is a small program that you download that enables you to use itunes with nokia phones. It’s simple to use well must be if I can do it.

I’ll hopefully be getting one, but does anyone know if iPhone 3G owners who bought one shortly after they came out last novemeber ish will have to pay a cancellation fee?

According to The Register[/url]:

O2 has since told Register Hardware that existing customers on monthly contracts will be able to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S by “buying out” of their contracts. The cost of this is calculated on a case-by-case basis, but you’ll then have to pick from the standard list of monthly 3G S contract options (shown above) before the operator will ship you the device.

Kewwlll luv the new features!!
Black will looks soooo coool next to my new handbag, when I’m in Costa!!!! When can I buy an iMagination? My boyf says I NEEEEED one & he knows his gadgets!!

Sorry ooOOoo, iMagination is only available to people who can assess a product for themselves rather than just dismissing it because it happens to be popular and hyped.

Last time I looked Nokia PC Suite was a complete shambles – has it improved any?

Nope, and if you use a Mac, you get the wonderful, Nokia Multimedia Transfer – a complete bag of shee-ite. I got myself the N95 8GB a while back and it’s just a big fiddly piece of crap. Back in the day, I was jealous of my Nokia owning mates because they seemed to have the intuitive use thing far better than Ericsson etc. They’re just so obsessed with bringing out fifteen models a year that they won’t just concentrate on getting a few different models working really well.

I’ve had it up to here with the phone I have. It’s just shit, shit, shit.

[stomps off to see how he can justify having an iPhone]is there a way I can get an iPhone and put my vodafone contract down to the smallest possible monthly tariff and get a PUK code at the same time to keep my number?[/stomps off to see how he can justify having an iPhone]

I’m sure on a Mac iTunes works wonderfully, but on a PC it’s a clunky POS with a non-intuitive my-way-or-the-highway UI.

The Nokia PC suite works fine for what I need – which is basically synching Outlook. The music app is similar to iTunes, ie crap. I usually just copy the files over using explorer. Every now and then I use the other bits, application installation, use the phone as a modem etc., but not often enough to form an opinion.

The main sticking point about the iPhone is still price, though – if they were cheaper I’d probably have put up with iTunes. I’d have to change operators, too, or play around jailbreaking the thing.

Edit: forgot – Nokia doesn’t make me install Quicktime, nor ask me if I want to install Safari. It doesn’t start up at runtime unless I tell it to.

PUK

PAC

regardless of how much money they’re making, I can’t see Apple ever dropping their prices
I’m waiting to see how much the N97 is going to be, and possibly the Palm Pre
but if either of them are too expensive = much more than £100 on a £30/m 2yr plan then I’ll probably give up

no-one seems to ever mention 3 – shouldn’t they be coming to the fore now everything’s gone 3G?

I usually just copy the files over using explorer

Seems a shame to forego all the functionality of playlists, smart filtering etc, just because you don’t want to install a couple of pieces of software.

I’m sure on a Mac iTunes works wonderfully, but on a PC it’s a clunky POS with a non-intuitive my-way-or-the-highway UI.

Really? my 8 year old works it just fine (on a PC as well), which bits are you having difficulty with?

Yesterday a friend called me to ask what I thought about the Nokia. He has an iPhone which is nearing the end of it’s 18 month contract. He is looking to switch handsets because he doesn’t want to spend £35 a month on airtime. He’s now going for an 18 month contract with a free Nokia 5800 and will pay £15 a month. So he’ll have a brand new handset and will save £180 over the the iPhone upgrade. A no brainer IMHO.

Your mate should do what i’ve done and move to O2 simplicity tariffs. It’s a rolling 30 day sim only contract. 1200 texts, 600 minutes and unlimited web/wifi bolt on for £20p/m. that way he can keep his superior handset and save £15p/m. I doubt he’s getting that for £15p/m aswell as a new handset.

i-phone, costs apple £4 to make it.

S.

Solo: that seems highly unlikely to me. Evidence?

isuppli.com estimate that the basic manufacturing costs of the 3GS are $173 and that’s just manufacturing. There will be development costs, distribution, marketting and patents on top of that.

Even if it were true – so what? The cost of an iPhone is a lot more than the cost to manufacture it. The designers didn’t work for free, just to mention the most obvious additional cost.

Muggomagic, does that work then? girl in 02 shop told me I couldn’t do that as they would know and barr the phone. The only way you were allowed use one was under contract from 02 or PAYG.

Just can’t see what problem people have with iTunes, honestly I can’t. How much easier does an application have to be? You shove a cd in the slot, iTunes opens, you click import cd, job done. How stupid do you have to be not to be able to cope with that? Once you’ve set the bit-rate for 320kb in prefs there’s nothing else to do. Then all you need do is drag the tracks you want onto the phone. If you want to get all whizzy there’s smart playlists, but I don’t bother. The sound quality is superb through quality phones, so please, somebody explain just what the problem is. And don’t fall back on the sneering at Apple ‘cos their stuff’s just for the image consious, the image consious buy Prada phones.

I’ve had issues with iTunes when transferring files from one computer to another and it manages to lose them
they also don’t make it easy to upload tunes from your iPod to a computer, say if you lose them
otherwise it’s ok

Ipods are great but itunes is the devil’s work, particularly on a PC.

I ripped about 400 albums in wma format using windows media player 11 for use on our Creative Zens (a Sleek and a Nano+). Everything worked fine, all but 2 albums were correctly identified and the album art was faithful to the CD cases. Every single album stayed put as one folder.

The Zens were getting on, with one crashing alot and battery life dropping. We also had a dock running off a 3.5mm jack, so I bought an ipod Nano 16G for the wife’s birthday and intend getting a classic for my birthday.

I installed itunes8 and the PC now runs like it is wading through treacle, presumably thanks to quick time and other needless gubbins. It won’t do anything else while ripping as the CPU usage is at 100%. I’ve ripped just over 300 albums in Apple Lossless and converted them into AAC 256vbr for the Nano. Most compilation or guest artist albums have been a nightmare to tidy up. For example Tom Jones Reload isn’t one album anymore but about 12, each with one or two tracks. Album art is often non-existant or wrong. Gracenote favours american sleeves too and doesn’t know much about UK dance albums.

I finally cracked itunes by manually entering the lead artist in the entire highlighted selection of tracks from a CD (scattered about the playlist) or typing in various artists, then prioritising album artist. It took many many late nights to sort out. Syncing is all one way, Genius is just an excuse to advertise similar stuff to buy and the whole programme has an air of spyware about it.

One great feature is smart playlists. Our files are split by bit rate so the lossless and vbr files can be accessed and synced independently. That aside, itunes8 is the most frustrating piece of software I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. It really shouldn’t need so much manual correction when a less well established programme such as WMP11 does it all automagically.

Just can’t see what problem people have with iTunes, honestly I can’t. How much easier does an application have to be? You shove a cd in the slot, iTunes opens, you click import cd, job done. How stupid do you have to be not to be able to cope with that?

Don’t get me wrong, I know how it works – it took longer to learn than it should have, as Apple Knows What’s Best and ignored all the standard Windows GUI guidelines, but I know my way round it. But like downshep’s said, it’s installed a whole load of services which run on startup, checks for updates without asking, installs quicktime (why???), and is generally a PITA.

When I finally got bored of my iPod crashing and the overly sensitive wheel thing I gave it to the wife and happily uninstalled the stinking POS that is iTunes.

The Nokia Music Manager is as clunky as iTunes, but it doesn’t seem to slow the whole computer down the way Apple software does.

So is the new iphone worth it over the old one? Thinking of getting the older version as I need a new phone and ipod. 8g of storage is plenty as I gave my old 32g ipod to my sister as I never used all the space I think the max I ever used was about 5g, not to bothered about the camera as i’ve got a decent digital camera that I use and as for 2x speed it’s alright the phone doing it but can the o2 network is it even going to get close in the next year or two?

Biggest issue with having an i phone is that it drags you closer to being a mac fanboy, see various posts above to illustrate this :o)

Kind of already their maxray I own a nano and new ishuffle and a macbook pro. But then again been a bit of a mac fan for the past 5 years after being with Microsoft since the old ms dos days and haven’t looked back since.

The best thing I’ve discovered recently about my iPhone (and there are so many discoveries…) is the Remote App. Using AiportExpress(es) connected to my Hifi or powered speakers I can play any track or play list from iTunes from anywhere in my wifi range, choose which speakers around the house I want playing the music and control the volume while I’m at it.

Gadget-tastic. I love it.

Well, it’s out today. Anyone got theirs yet?

I’m going to be queueing tomororow morning…

as for 2x speed it’s alright the phone doing it but can the o2 network is it even going to get close

There are two speed increases here:

Firstly the new one 3GS has a faster processor and graphics chips (ARM 600MHz with PowerVR SGX graphics vs ARM 412MHz with PowerVR MBX-Lite) and more memory (256MB vs 128MB) so basically apps will start and run faster, the browser will be quicker at drawing web pages and the whole thing will be a bit more responsive.

Secondly there is the faster cellular speed. The new one supports HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps, while the old one only does 3.6 HSDPA. This is the speed boost that needs network support. O2 HSDPA coverage is still pretty patchy (round my way anyway) and I’m not sure what maximum speed it can actually handle.

You can check coverage around you using http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/

I guess it will come, but you’re right, it is not an immediate reason to buy.