No suprise there then! Just a chance to sell everyone (well, the iFanboys) a phone, then sell them a 3G one six months later, then in late 2008, Apple will put a decent camera on it, and they'll buy it again!

Isn't there an iCon for iPhone

Um... are they ahead? Did I miss something? Did they suddenly overtake Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG, etc, etc?

I was starting to hope that the Reg was a fanboy-free-zone. Obviously not.

Hope they do 3G and a better camera for late 2008 as that is when my current contract will be up. Might just fancy a 3rd generation iPhone to match my 3rd gen iPod, which by then really will be ancient (currently holds 2 1/2 hours charge for a day or two)

I am sure o2/Carphone Warehouse have a few spares...

I must call T-Mobile and arrange my upgrade to the Vario III (TyTn II) with the 3G and GPS and windows mobile 6 (so i can run all of the useful apps i take around with me like putty and openvpn).....

El Reg isn't a place for fanbois. it's a place for fanboi haters!

I've had Windows CE/mobile devices since the XDA launches many years ago and the only one I'm actually impressed with was the orbit being small enough and having GPS in it.

Saying that, I bought an iphone last week (and a vista based macbook) and I've honestly got to say it craps all over the windows devices. Coupled with a £45 contract (er wifi at 7.5k hotspots and unlimited GPRS, 500 text and 600 minutes - do you honestly think that's bad? I mean, come on) it has made using the phone a nice experience. Well, for my uses anyway. Nice bit of kit.

I have to chuckle ... no LAUGH outloud hysterically, every time I hear or read the Apple FanBoys (Apple Kool Aid Drinkers) including the paid off Media Hacks proclaim how Apple and Stevie Gods are the great market trend setters.

No ... try iNOvators.

Unlimited GPRS? That's like BMW flogging adidas boots with an unlimited walking package...

> Saying that, I bought an iphone last week (and a vista based macbook) and I've

> honestly got to say it craps all over the windows devices.

I dunno... I usually like to stay away from things that crap all over other things. Honestly, you make the iPhone sound like a badly trained puppy.

As for the, shall we say, iPhone-unimpressed, just give up. For many of you, this is the same old Mac-vs-PC argument again. If you don't understand that some people actually value simplicity, elegance, and the ability to do things more quickly, and are willing to pay for them, then you won't understand the iPhone. (You are the logical equivalent of the people who said that GUIs were for wimps, until Windows 95 came out.)

And if you are willing to admit that elegance, simplicity, and so forth are actually worth something, but don't see them in the iPhone, then your mind works differently than the minds of those who do. Not worse, not better, just differently. So give up telling people that there's no advantage to the iPhone, because what you're really doing is insisting that everyone's mind must work the same way yours does. And it'd be a funny old world...

Right? And in return, iPhone users, please stop telling people who complain about the iPhone that they're stupid, or [obscene gerund] [anatomical noun]s, or whatever. Oddly, it doesn't seem to be convincing anyone.

-fred

PS: No, I don't have an iPhone. Maybe someday I'll stop being optimistic enough to believe that I'll be able to get rid of my cell phone altogether, and just buy one.

Anyone else worried that if the iphone is a major hit, the telco's will come to realise that maybe they don't really need to heavily subsidise the mobile phones? If people are willing to fork out £250 on an underpowered pile of rubbish, then they should be more than happy to fork out £250 on a decent mobile phone, right? Could this be the beginning of the end of free mobiles?

Hi, firstly, I am not an fanboy at all, in fact I wanna puke every time the media sucks the Apple and find it puzzling why Apple worshippers put a commercial entity as their cult item, BUT

iPhone is undoubtedly good looking and has some great touches, furhtermore, since it is based on a sowftware, it is easily scalable to other devices. Without a doubt, the direction of the GUI is the right one. Yet, a year has passed and NO other manufacturer had the guts to put out a device with truly large touch screen, finger-centered controls and touches like "physical" feel of scrolling, etc (i mean how annoying it is the "jump-scroll" on my TyTN II, even if i can touch scroll it? In the end, a phone is all about the GUI, cos the innards are purchased as building blocks.

The future is with devices like the iPhone only with physical qwerty keyboard and some other touches (the form factor of my TyTN II is great) but the only thing that comes close to this is the Nokia Tablet 810 (a concept in jan07 called N99 was close, but it disappeared), and its not a phone, so the future looks bleak for us, Apple-skeptics. After all, the iPhone costs say $250 to produce, how much does the most basic Nokia cost? not less than $100. With the prices of components falling (and the price of OS negligible), which will u rather buy, a basic Nokia or pay a bit more (yea i know the margins, etc) and get a "tablet" style phone with good media and browsing abilities?

Nokia and others were caought like rabbits in the light of the Jobs truck and were unable to react. the mots ridiculous, was the party line by Nokia and MOT that "iPhone is good for everybody cos it broadens the market for expesive phones". the sheep, they will not know what hit them, and again, i am Apple hater, rather than Apple fanboy, i will rather be seen dead than with a product that everybody and their dog finds "cool"...but I predict that Apple will overtake Microsoft in market capitlisation terms (i dont own AAPL) and become the new dark side. By that time some of the "faithful" will try to desert to a new underdog (Microsoft?) but it will be too late and the new jumpers on the Apple band-wagon will rejoice.

30% seems like a lot - but what would I get if I set up shop in Spain or the UK as an independent cell phone store? Isn't is about 30% of whatever contract I can get the Man Off The Street to walk in and pay for? 40%? 50%? I'm just wondering if Apple is asking for more, less or about the same amount of kickback that a cell phone provider already willingly gives other 3rd party sales.

Anyone? Anyone?

Anyone who bought an iPhone (me included) and bemoans its lack of 3G is being stunningly naieve. It said it on the tin and it does exactly what it says on the label. Also it does it rather well, but that is just my opinion.

Continuing the theme - anyone who has bought an iPhone this month and then gets upset when the 3G model comes out should have thought about it first. It is entirely logical and predictable that Apple will indeed do this. If for no other reason but to answer the non-America (i.e. the rest of the real World) critique about launching an old-technology device into their modern networks. Not many nations outside of the wealthy West are going to want to re-invest in EDGE to go alongside their shiny new UMTS deployment.

For my part, I fully anticipate a 3G iPhone and I may purchase one when it comes out to replace my 2.5G iPhone. At £269 it is near half the price of the average Smartphone, not quite disposable but then again not so expensive that I could not replace it at a whim. That is always supposing that a 3G iPhone is of a similar price. Given Apple's trend with the Mac to increase performance but maintain the price I see no reason for that not to be carried over to the iPhone. And maybe later when the HSDPA model comes out I may buy that :)

Never mind all of this Fanbois nonsense - people buy all kind of product labels. If it fits the bill and makes you feel good then who is anyone to criticise you for it? It is all good.

Remember we had our iPhone (UK) a few months after the US - I suspect we may have to wait until the end of 2008 to have a 3G iPhone. By then Nokia, Moto & SE will have devices with new UIs and touch screen (UIQ4 & 5th Edition S60) running 3.5G. In the UK O2 probably wont even have a 3.5g network until 2009! The great thing is Apple is paying (well O2 and T-mobile) for 'educating' consumers on what modern devices can do. Nokia and the others can only benefit from this as they can sell across all networks unlike Apple.

The slowish sales of the 2G iPhone, however, does point to a porblem with the Apple/O2 postioning of the iPhone, in Europe, as internet on the move when people actually like to make calls and send SMS. How many 'normal' people really use email rather than SMS or MMS?

"You are the logical equivalent of the people who said that GUIs were for wimps"

But GUIs are for wimps surely!

Call me old-fashioned, but my requirements for a cellphone are:

1) phone calls

2) synchronising addresses and events

3) SMS

I couldn't possibly care less about anything else.

Will I be getting a 3G iPhone should it launch here in Japan?

Absolutely yes. Why? Simply because unlike Nokia, Sony-Ericsson et al, Apple would never allow a cellphone company to carry their phone and disable the ability to do address/event synchronisation with Mac OS X.

That's what Japanese cellphone companies have been doing for years. Apple's iSync software supports a large number of phones available in Japan, yet the syncing doesnt work because the operators won't digitally sign the applet that iSync sends to the phone to communicate for the purpose of synchronisation.

Use the same model of phone purchased outside of Japan on a network outside of Japan and the synching via iSync works just fine.

Talking to customer service about this issue has been a waste of time. They simply don't care. And no, its not due to language barriers, I do speak the local lingo well enough to be confused for a native on the phone all the time.

Japanese cellphone companies lock down the phones so totally and completely,

there are may situations where you cannot even view content if it hasn't been signed by your Japanese cellphone service provider. Not that I care about multimedia on a cellphone anyway, but it shows how bad things are over here.

With such a complete lockdown, I will be looking forward to an iPhone cause synching with my Mac is the one thing that is 100% guaranteed to work and it is the one thing that along with phone calls and SMS I do not want to miss.

Not that this is of much interest to anyone in Europe, but perhaps it illustrates how silly it is to assume that everybody is buying a given item for the same reason, and how ridiculous it is to make conclusions based on what one may presume that reason to be.

Just in time for when 98% of the current issue iphoney batteries have departed for lithium heaven and 12 months after the competition have cloned Linux unlocked variants on the scene as well .

Just as well not even nukes would budge the Apple iFan wankers to empty their wallets yet again for some dumb ass contract !

As god would say only iFools would fall for the same old trick every time he sucks their wallets empty like a blood out of stone sucking vampire !

With apologies to both Nelson Muntz and Ginger Rogers too "Ha! Ha!"

You people believe anything you read. Makes me laugh. 3G iPhone will not appear in 2008, and get real if you think Apple would divulge this to a 3rd party like Telefonica.

So Apple brings out an iPhone with an improved feature set and everyone buys another iPhone,

OHH, no other manufacturer has ever done that !!!

How old is you current phone ???

How often do you want to take official wedding photos with your phone ??

How often do you use it for more than calls and texting ???

I have a cracked iPhone on Orange in the UK, I travel all over Europe, and it hops between Networks / Providers the same as any other cellphone across 10 countries.

I had a 3G and to be honest I don't even notice the difference going back to pre 3G.

Why ??, HOW often do you video conference.

WiFi hotspots are everywhere, it works flawlessly which is more than I could say about windows mobile.

The email, contacts, and PDA functions with excellent UI, far outweighs anything else.

since I've seen jeans sold for 300€, I better understand the people who buy a 600€ phone.

Surely you can use it longer and wash it more often than your jeans.

I'm shocked to learn that people are willing to put a week's worth of salary into their phone. My personal limit is two hours, but I'm overpaid.

But I find it even more shocking to pay three days salary for trousers...

...a phone that doesn't do what i want, but has media attention therefore i must slate it openly as the worst thing ever, probably without ever having used one.

Grow up you lot, if you don't like it, don't buy it, if it doesn't do what you want, don't buy it, however if it does do what you want, or you like the idea of it, then buy it - it's really that simple and doesn't require childish behaviour everytime it's mentioned...... amazing how much attention it's got, and numbers it's sold for something that is apparently so rubbish. Maybe, just maybe it's actually pretty good and does what a large number of people want? Or maybe it's just fanbois isn't it.....

Why is that iPhone so in the news?

Just bought a brand new 3G phone for only £49.99 on PAYG with camera / internet / skype etc etc...

... I'll be asking o2 to give me an iPhone for free.

When they refuse, i'll ask them to give me a TyTN II (The phone I want). I'll make it sound like it's the last resort... I NEED iPhone but TyTN II will JUST about do.

Could this work?

... there's actually a lot of common sense here (mainly of the "buy and enjoy" or "don't buy but respect other peoples views and decisions" variety).

Wouldn't it be nice if we could make all these comment sections genuine discussion areas (like - do we agree with the 3G/battery-life decisions that Apple made with the iPhone was the right choice?) rather than slagging sessions.

To all you balanced and well considered writers above - thank you.

I had a 3.5g icon appear on my n95 / o2 phone at the weekend (or at least i noticed it for the first time then) in central london.

I'll put this here.

http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_secretly_monitors_personal_data-news-364.php

Pull your finger out, Reg!