THE Treo Killer - the iPhone

[Hdhntr23]

I thought another company had just recently trademarked the word "iphone"?

 

[dvdmon]

wait wait wait.. 750p?

Oops! Wishful thinking! I meant 700P.

 

[cardio]

I thought another company had just recently trademarked the word "iphone"?

I believe Apple bought the name rights from the other company (Cisco maybe?) before the conference.

 

[whatever7]

Well at least Steve Jobs come out pounding. I will give him credit. The biggest draw back of this phone is the price. I mean, it's like a phone from da future!

 

[cardio]

Sorry, but am I the only one disappointed with this? As everyone else drools (sure, it's sexy, but get ahold of yourselves!), I keep thinking about the fact that it will only do EDGE. This isn't coming out till June and yet it's using cellular communications technology that came out a couple of years ago! Now that I have EVDO, I can't go back to speeds that are 1/3 - 1/8th what I get on my 750P.

I'll just have to get the next iPod that integrates the same touch screen stuff. Heck, Apple could probably even sell it to me without the phone, just Wifi, although I don't think I could deal with only 8GB of memory (let alone 4GB). When or if Apple decides to make the phone for other carriers, in particular EVDO carriers, I might go for it - or when they integrate HSDPA even! But for now, I can't do it. Plus, I'm only 6 months into a 2-year contract. Will this phone be so alluring to some that people will pay $300 on top of the $500-600 in order to break their contracts with all the other carriers? There's no mention of an unlocked version, either, and it sounds like they are doing some special stuff that only Cingular has (the voicemail stuff)? So talk about proprietary! Ugh!

Finally, no mention of A2DP, which to me says that it won't have it...

Don't understand why the stayed on Edge, that is a big dissapointment. Nice features, but if you have to use edge, sit back and enjoy a cup of coffe while you wait for the download.

 

[RolloM]

Hmm... there's another good thing with this phone. They kick Palm in the a**. They'll now need definitely better ideas than selling several years old hardware in different cases... You have time till October to win my heart back, Palm.

R.

 

[duanedude1]

did you just say "only 8 gig"? Doesnt your treo have 64mb?

I was thinking about the 8bg being comparable to a mere Nano instead of an 80GB Ipod... I contemplated buying my wife a nano for Christmas, then thought it would be best to cough up the extra bucks for an 80 GB Ipod. Glad I did as the beloved wanted the extra HD space. Also, I can swap in an unlimited number of SD cards to load more music or movies on the go with my treo, the iphone has no SD card slot? Right? So you are locked into that 8gb for all your storage space.

 

[Treodoctor]

I am sorry but you see that sticking in Palm? That's a giant fork.

I work (indirectly) for Palm. I sell and support Treos all day long and I have long said that if Apple came out with a smartphone that would be the death of Palm. For that past couple months I have been suspecting an Iphone but I figured it would not be a smartphone. Just a phone that could integrate well with I-Tunes.

I am blown away. I have a feeling there are quite a few people at Palm that are busy working on their resumes as am I.

This is the Treo killer I am afraid.

Sure there are a few shortcomings that we can nit pick over but the fact of the matter is this...

1) It's their first one and given how quickly they brought it to market just shows their superiority over Palm.

2) I am a MacBook owner which has had it's far share of well publicized bugs but almost all them were quickly addressed and corrected by Apple. I am sure this phone will suffer from some bugs and issues once it hits the market but Apple had proven that they are quick to address these types of concerns something that cannot be said for Palm.

3) The majority of people I deal with on a day to day basis are Mac users. Mac users LOVE Palm because it is pretty much the only smartphone maker that isn't cramming WinMobile down their throats. So much for that.

4) Apple freaks love anything Apple does and those people will run out and buy this. Palm just lost a huge chunk of their market.

Ok...I know I am rambling and I am sorry. I guess I am still trying to digest all of this. I have been a Palm user since day one. I have a long history with this company. I have seen them on what appeared to be their deathbed before and they have struggled back. Let's see if they can do it again.

 

[ambtreo]

Addressing a couple of well pointed critiques:

1) Only an 8gb hard drive - this is irrelevant as you will sync your iPhone through iTunes on your computer. Whatever data you need on the iPhone will sync seamlessly. And not only is 8gb more than 64kb, the treo I think can only use 4gb SD cards.

2) Edge only -
a) the iPhone has WiFi
b) Hi Speed GSM on the 2008 v2

3) iPhone was purchased from Cisco and announced simultaneously by Cisco during the MacWorld conference.

I think the iPhone is going to seriously damage Palm's plans for the 680, even with the price point disparity.

 

[whmurray]

Sorry, but am I the only one disappointed with this? As everyone else drools (sure, it's sexy, but get ahold of yourselves!), I keep thinking about the fact that it will only do EDGE. This isn't coming out till June and yet it's using cellular communications technology that came out a couple of years ago! Now that I have EVDO, I can't go back to speeds that are 1/3 - 1/8th what I get on my 750P.

I'll just have to get the next iPod that integrates the same touch screen stuff. Heck, Apple could probably even sell it to me without the phone, just Wifi, although I don't think I could deal with only 8GB of memory (let alone 4GB). When or if Apple decides to make the phone for other carriers, in particular EVDO carriers, I might go for it - or when they integrate HSDPA even! But for now, I can't do it. Plus, I'm only 6 months into a 2-year contract. Will this phone be so alluring to some that people will pay $300 on top of the $500-600 in order to break their contracts with all the other carriers? There's no mention of an unlocked version, either, and it sounds like they are doing some special stuff that only Cingular has (the voicemail stuff)? So talk about proprietary! Ugh!

Finally, no mention of A2DP, which to me says that it won't have it...

You may have missed the part about Wi-Fi; very fast. You may have missed the part about GSM; really hard to make it proprietary (but I am already a Cingular subscriber). You may have missed the part about Safari. EDGE is pretty fast; Blazer is the bottle neck. I admit that I would have expected UMTS but there are many on TC who would rather have Wi-Fi. You may have missed the part about OS X; no dead end and no WM. You may have missed the part about BT 2.0/Apple. I already have wireless BT stereo on my iPod; not to worry about code words like A2DP.

The design is not only elegant, it is revolutionay. Now I can stop worrying about UMTS/POS. iPhone is to Treo as ........

As to "disappointed." perhaps you missed the part where Apple Stock was up 8.31% and Palm was down 5.7%. I think that is a vote on "disappointed."

Any offers on my 680? I think I waited too long to get rid of it.

 

[starshipxm]

Look on the bright side. The price of the 750 should very quickly drop to a purchasable level!

 

[RSGMOOSE]

Treo Killer

whmurray,

Agreed about Edge vs UMTS. As thin as this thing is...battery life with EDGE was probably a better choice. And besides, unless it'll connect to your Vista or XP laptop and function as a wireless modem - EDGE should be fast enough if blazer is not part of the picture.

With iTunes onboard and everything else - well running a UMTS that supports data at the same time as voice - this is a phone first and not a data conduit device. This will be a consumer device and not an Enterprise device - initially. I wouldn't be surprised that before this comes out that Apple doesn't announce some sort of Enterprise iPhone that has UMTS/HSPDA functionality without some of the "consumer" preferences.

Remember this was announced at the CES show and not the EES show.

It won't replace a Cingular 8525 from a corporate perspective - but every kid that owns a phone and an iPod will line up for this puppy......I can already here my Daughter complaining that I don't give her enough allowance to be able to buy this thing say June 1st.

 

[Bob-C]

I just posted an article at the following link summarizing the capabilities of the iPhone. It is basically has every improvement we've asked for over the last few years while Palm worked on other things - whatever they were - and ignored us. Steve Jobs just put the fear of God into the Palm CEO who laughed at the idea of iPhone competition just a few weeks ago.

iPhone = iToldYouSo (i.e. weToldYouSo) for Palm

 

[waldo15]

If anything, the iPhone has been the one and only device to this day to shake the "smartphone" arena to its very foundations. And that ain't no small thing. The only other device that achieved that was, yes, the Treo 600 and it actually defined the whole term...

In terms of features, there's some debate on the inclusion of EDGE vs 3G. They definitely are off-setting that with WiFi switchover. Yes, a 3G will be coming as a natural evolution, but this first iteration seems to be just in the right direction.

Everything else in this device is just plain revolutionary.

Let me tell you, the ripples of this wave are far reaching. And we all hope Palm can have a comeback... and soon.

Today the Treo has died... long live the Treo!

 

[Malatesta]

Steve Jobs just put the fear of God into the Palm CEO who laughed at the idea of iPhone competition just a few weeks ago.

iPhone = iToldYouSo (i.e. weToldYouSo) for Palm

I love how that "story" spread like wildfire.

Gotta point to the truth though and Mr. Colligan did NOT say that or laugh off the iPhone, read HERE.

This is niche market device, imo. Without a keyboard, 3g (for goodness sakes, Sprint is getting to roll out 4g in 2007!) or expandable memory and a focus on music/media and not business I do not think it'll be a thread to Palm.

Palm is a thread to Palm. lol

 

[JD76]

im without a doubt going to switch from palm to the iphone. I love apple products and having osx on the phone is a big plus.

Im sooooo sick of Palms faulty phones. My 13th refurbished phone is coming in the mail soon. Seems these phones dont last for 2 months before something goes haywire - for me at least.. im a heavy user.

Palms features look great on paper but the device just doesnt cut it under heavy use.

 

[starshipxm]

Can you say iPhoneCentral? I knew that you could...

 

[noodle]

I will be happy to drop palm for apple, only, if, it adds CDMA with EVDO or better, and the price comes down.

I'd like to see expandable memory, too.

 

[Iceman6]

I think this phone will work like an iPod, i.e., it's not designed to download directly from the iTunes store. You do your downloads to your PC and then sync up with you iPhone. This makes EDGE less of an issue for downloads, but it will still suck for surfing the internet.

Of course, once my city's citywide wifi network is up, I won't care about how slow EDGE is.

 

[vw2002]

Can you say iPhoneCentral? I knew that you could...

I second the vote for iphonecentral.