More iPhones and a documentary

iPhone

More information has come out from AT&T about the iPhone release and plans. While I'm not going to dig into the plans for the phone itself, I just want to reiterate the pricing of the phone itself for customers.

Steve Jobs was very quick and loud to announce the 'low price' of the iPhone. Well the prices for the 8GB and 16GB iPhones will different depending on where you fit in. I will be giving the prices in 8GB/16GB format so I don't have to reiterate myself each time.

So, to get an iPhone 3G without any contract at all, you will have to pay $599/$699. For customers who are not 'upgrade eligible' you will have to pay $399/$499. Finally, for customers who are 'upgrade eligible', opening a new account or adding a line will be paying $199/$299 for the iPhone. I do not have any sources that explicitly say that iPhone users will be 'upgrade eligible' when the iPhone 3G is released, but many are touting that they will be. Only time will tell about that for certain. Typically, a customer is 'upgrade eligible' when their contract has expired. Which I would expect AT&T to be money hungry enough to do just that because Apple fanboys would still be willing to pay that premium just to have the iPhone 3G.

Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is a very nice piece of technology and it is starting to have a real impact on mobile phone industry. The multi-touch interface and web browsing capabilities were very innovative. I have qualms about the multi-touch because I have large fingers and had problems typing with the on-screen keys. Plus the lack of feedback when touching the keys or numbers was not very user friendly. LG has the Voyager, which has a touch interface with feedback whenever a touch button is activated, which is very nice.

However, the blackberry still seems to be the corporate phone of choice by many companies. Be it the features it has, the pricing of the phones or their possible avoidance of certain mobile carriers (*cough* AT&T *cough*). Holding a blackberry is very nice and I do very well using the qwerty keypad even with my large fingers.

I want to see the reviews of the iPhone 3G after 2 or 3 months of use by an impartial judge. Even then I will still probably be using my LG 8300 phone because its cheap, good, and has excellent signal.

Voting Documentary

Someone twittered a link to a video online, that originally aired on HBO, being shown at freedomdocumentaries.org called 'hacking democracy' about electronic voting. Its a long video at one hour twenty-one minutes, but something very interesting to watch. They visit a company in Huntsville, Alabama and go through the trash from Diebold (completely legal).

iPhone 3G followup

I did a little number crunching after I heard what was said about the iPhone on stage. Jobs said it would be "half-price", but I noticed it actually costs more. Here is my breakdown.

Old 8GB iPhone costed $399. Add on $60 per month for 450 minutes of voice and the unlimited data plan (manditory for the iPhone). Then with a 2 year agreement (since you are required to sign a 2yr contract with AT&T to get the iPhone 3G) it would total $1,839.

New iPhone 3g 8GB will cost $199. Add $70 for the basic monthly voice plan and unlimited data (no word if the 450 minutes is still the norm here). Again with a 2 year agreement it will cost $1,879. Which is $40 more over the life of your contract and neither total includes fees or taxes).

Users who are classified as 'Business users' have a minimum monthly service plan of $85. That extra money gets you the ability to get email via Exchange.

Plus, in order to thwart the hackers, the new iPhone must be activated in stores instead of the comfort of your home and it will not be available to purchase at launch.

*This should clarify the previous post that noted the $199 price of the 8GB iPhone 3G being 'after rebate'. Rather they make it manditory for you to get an AT&T account (if you do not already have one) and pay the extra $10/month to recoup that 'discount'.

WWDC Coverage

So, today all of the hard core Apple people were clogging the tubes with their coverage of World Wide Developers Conference today. I thought I would sip the kool-aid and watch some of the coverage while I was running some tests with my thesis guys.

Steve Jobs announced a couple things today. The one that excited most people, but we already knew for a week or more, was the 3G iPhone (dubbed online as the iPhone 2.0) but more on that later (save the best for last you know).

But beyond that, the announcements were lackluster. The name for the next version of OS X will be called Snow Leopard. One word, boring. The .MAC service will be rebranded as 'Mobile Me'. All .MAC users will be upgraded to Mobile Me. Again one word, boring.

Old iPhone's will have a firmware update to 2.0 software. It will have enterprise, SDK, and 3rd party apps support. It will be free for iPhone owners and will cost $9.99 for iPod touch owners. But some of the numbers quoted by Jobs are astounding if true: "90% customer satisfaction, 98% are browsing online, 94% are using email, 90% are using text messaging, 80% are using 10 or more features." Plus, 6 million have been sold in the first year until they ran out last week.

They had a list of new challenges: 1) 3G support 2) Enterprise support 3) third party app support 4) more countries and 5) more affordable. Some of the aesthetic changes are: black plastic back (I suspect for better reception), solid metal buttons, a nice display, camera, flush headphone jack, and improved audio.

The addition of 3G to the iPhone will impact data transfers and make them roughly 2.8 times faster. But 3G has been know to suck battery life in phones. Jobs announced that the iPhone 3G will have 300hr standby, 2G talk time of 10hrs (5hrs previously), 5hrs of 3G talk time (most phones have 3hrs), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7hrs of video, and 24hrs of audio.

The iPhone 3G will also have GPS integrated into it. With GPS, it can do tracking and show a pulsating dot moving across a Google Map as the car drives down a road. Plus, 70 countries will now have the iPhone as well, including Canada (as stated several days ago).

Enterprise support includes MS Exchange ActiveSync, push email, calendar, contacts, secure access to corporate resources with Cisco IPSec VPN, WPA2 and 802.1x authentication. Now the last obstacleon the list is affordability.

The 8gb iPhone started at $599 and is now $399. This also caused some strife with people because the price dropped $100 pretty quickly after it was launched so some people received rebates that could be used in the Apple Store. The iPhone 3G 8gb will sell for $199. But this is a bit misleading. It will cost $199 after signing a 2 year contract with AT&T, so its prices AFTER rebate will be $199. Same way with the 16gb iPhone, $299 after service contract, blah blah blah.

But all of this was a bit boring. I expected something on the Macbook line to be announced, like maybe a tablet version. With these features and 3rd party apps coming soon, this has somewhat peaked some interest in the iPhone. But I still will not get one because it is locked to AT&T only. I am very pleased with Verizon and have yet to find a place that I regularly go that does not have near flawless service. Jeremy cannot pass under a cloud without his service crapping out. I can walk around in 'the dungeon' with no worries about dropping or missing a call. Plus, Verizon is buying Alltel wireless for $28.1 billion to further expand their network.

Now if Verizon would only stop monkeying with the firmware on the phones to cripple certain features...