Crunchgear has posted pics that they believe are a real ad for the upcoming 3G iPhone, revealing the much discussed video conferencing feature many have been anticipating. Recent patents filed by Apple corroborate this evidence. In addition to showcasing a Product (RED) version, the ads also suggest the release of iChat for Windows. It also appears that the new firmware will support UMTS/HSDPA, as expected. 
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Member since:2005-11-10
The iPhone isn't a product that Apple has just released into a market of unsuspecting carriers. Apple did both a good thing and a bad thing going to the carriers first.
Apple has the balls to get the carriers to listen to them. That's why Apple got the carriers to implement Visual Voicemail (at their expense); but the carriers also have the weight to get Apple to do what they want. There must have been massive fighting and backroom arguments over the carrier's RIAA-style requests, and Apple wanting to make their vision.
No MMS? Crappy camera? No bluetooth Sync, no bluetooth modem?, no bluetooth obex? You can bet the lack of these are not because Apple couldn't do them, but because the carriers were so *afraid* of the iPhone they wanted to stunt it as much as is possible by using their sheer monopolistic weight.
It's the very same thing when the RIAA demanded DRM on iTunes and other partners because they feared what was not their own. It's why BluRay is stuffed full of DRM, even delaying the PS3 for months. It's why HDMI and HDCP mean that an incredibly small %age of expensive PCs are only just now capable of playing BluRay content at native res, when high-res screens have already been around since 2000.
I have before called the iPhone a joke in the UK, and it is clear that the success of the iPhone, even in its crippled state is going to strike such fear into the carriers and the competition that they are going to lash-out in blind fear.
Remember what the Creative CEO said about the iPod Shuffle?
Where's Creative now?
Heck, remember what Creative said about the original iPod?
I really clearly foresee that AT&T, RIM and many more will be reduced to pathetic nervous wrecks just like Creative because they can not see beyond the iPhone.
And I don't think that's a good thing; that the competition fails to understand its customers so much that features can be taken away from us and may never return, because there's no competition to fight for us.
My Sony w810i is a product, put onto the market, for use on a carrier. It has a full compliment of bluetooth services
The iPhone is a long list of backroom deals. It will not, nor ever in my current opinion, have a full set of bluetooth services, because that could allow customers to use the very cell-network they're paying to access, in ways that said backroom deals do not approve of.
The idea of P2P and VOIP apps "leaking" onto AT&Ts network literally keep them up at night. Apple's AppStore-only gateway for apps is yet one more backroom deal that's crippling the device.
I do not see this changing, even if things improve on Monday.
Edited 2008-06-07 18:24 UTC
Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2008-06-02
Step out of the RDF for a second and the obvious explanation might occur to you: Apple couldn't get those features ready in time for launch (or they couldn't be bothered to), but they released anyway, knowing that they would have no shortage of apologists from the legions of "Apple-can-do-no-wrong" fanbois.
Clearly someone can't see beyond the iPhone, but it doesn't appear to be AT&T or RIM...
Member since:2005-07-06
I seem to be missing something obvious in your post. Why would the carriers care if you use a Nokia, Samsung or Apple phone on their network. Surely all they care about is that you use their network lots and lots and rack up huge bills. Shouldn't the hardware you use to rack up these bills be secondary to them?
The carriers 'let' every other phone maker in the world have these features, why wouldn't they let Apple. I genuinely don't get it.
My current Nokia phone came with VoIP built in and my carrier was happy to not only let me buy it, but even subsidized the cost of the phone. So some carriers obviously seem to be sleeping well enough at night.
Member since:
2005-07-22
Apple has to have something to add for the third gen, ne?