"It must be a little galling if you go all the way to Barcelona to present a shiny new range of phones, many with music players, only to be asked questions about a competitor who has yet to show anyone an actual product."

What exactly was the iPhone intro at MacWorld San Francisco about then? Was the iPhone that Steve Jobs had up on the stage, playing with live in front of a massive audience a hologram or something? The actual product exists - they're just polishing off the software before release.

Actually mr. Matthew Waters, Apple is notorious for talking about and showing ONE OFF proto-prototypes that barely function and only enough for PT Barnum Stevie Gods to demo at MWSF at the Apple BS Sideshow. (I know, I worked at Apple for 5 years!)

It's more likely, pertaining to you comments, that Apple is despirately trying to "polish off" all the inherent BUGS and FLAWS that ALWAYS accompany Apple products on the first launch and regularly follow in serious form well into the product life. Care to debate the G3 and G4 iBook-junk that cost Apple to have to extend the warranties to THREE YEAR or else be sued by the US Federal Trade Commission??? (I work at a huge School Dist. which leased 1700 G3 iBooks and had 32% of them FAIL in the first 6 months! Dont' tell me about PISS POOR Apple Quality!

Stevie Gods, err Jobs is the iCon of the computer and gadget industry and I think that Nokia, Samsung, et. al. should just more direct in telling the Apple whore media to just F.O. and just try to BUY a Vaporware iPhone (no not a Cisco, who OWNS the TM) and them make comparisons!

Ps, Where was that 3G feature capability in the Apple phonyPhone?

So every single phone announced at 3GSM is available right now, huh?

I love the Apple hypocrisy. Now, vaporware no longer means a product that will never come out or substantially slips in schedule or feature set, but which is announced anyway to produce hype to bolster the company or instill FUD in competitors. Now it means a very definitely real device that has a launch date that it is very likely to make.

Guys, everyone single cell phone gets preannounced by six months if not as much as two years. Most of what was announced at 3GSM is ALSO not available. Anything that is available was spied eight months ago. Just because it's Apple, doesn't make their preannouncements more real.

Dear mr(sic) "Webster Phreaky",

Did you actually read your post before you pressed submit? I don't particularly like Apple any more than Nokia/Sony/Creative or any other consumer electronics company, but you have just placed yourself plainly in the "forget about balanced argument" category which seems to affect most who don't like their products.

As pointed out by "togibem" above, every hardware example you see 6 months before its release is going to be the best one-off prototype they can show you at the time, whether it's Apple's or anyone else's. If it was a functioning phone they'd be shipping it in 6 days not 6 months!! What else would they be doing apart from finalising the build design based on prototypes at this stage?? Ever heard of "concept cars"?

Naturally they are working on reliability too. Every manufacturer has quality or performance issues at some stage, even if they normally fare well in this area (you remember the unstable early Mercedes A-Class perhaps?). I'm sure Apple would not dispute the issues you mention they had on iBooks but you seem to be getting a bit carried away with yourself - no-one was telling you "about piss-poor Apple quality", that was just you...

Regarding the "Apple whore media", you probably describe them as such for their furious ranting whenever anyone dares to criticise an Apple product. This then may be a fair (if inelegant) criticism, but can you not see that your immature rant displays the exactly same traits as theirs, which you insult?

Lastly the 3G point is a fair one, if you lived anywhere apart from the US. This is because, rather embarrassingly for you I would have thought, the US has the least technologically advanced mobile telephony market in the whole developed world. Were Apple a European, Middle-Eastern or Asian company then I'm sure 3G would have been included, but the US market simply has not demanded it yet.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll enjoy loudly shouting your disdain for Apple for a long time yet so really, far be it from me to stop you. Just one question though, what is it that Apple fired you for anyway??

All the best!

Duke

I'm pretty sure the kit announced by Sony Ericsson is already available in retail outlets (albeit they were announced the week before 3GSM).

I'd be interested to know how many current ipod owners plan to replace their current device (which is probably scratched to shlt, and has a battery that lasts 1/3 of the original spec'ed time) with one of Apple's competitors products?.

Personally I can't wait for my summer bonus, and I'll happily abandon iTunes, Apple DRM lockins, crap battery, and a device that can't be kept in a pocket for fear of scratching it's looks (that it's laregly sold on). I certainly won't be "upgrading" to a 2G phone with large battery sucking screen and crap web browser.

Went from stacking ibook boxes for 5 years at Apple (too high) to stacking ibook boxes in a 'huge School Dist'.