Apple's Iphone

[Plus]

Price drop means less revenue for Apple, means they'll think hard about making iPhone 2. Eventually they'll have to admit that going against giants like Nokia is not sustainable.

[cdnvic]

I think they'll go for a NanoPhone before they try iPhone2. Just a basic phone with touch screen and a price tag under $299. Wasn't that many years ago when Nokia was in the position of thinking that Motorola was too big a company to tackle. It's only recently now that Motorola has made a comeback.

[bubba]

I wonder whether all these cracked iPhones will go poof after the next iPhone update to be released later this week (if you apply the update):

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/24/ip...nlock/index.php

[nikster]

I think they'll go for a NanoPhone before they try iPhone2. Just a basic phone with touch screen and a price tag under $299. Wasn't that many years ago when Nokia was in the position of thinking that Motorola was too big a company to tackle. It's only recently now that Motorola has made a comeback.

I fully agree. I was going to get a cheap and small basic mobile phone last weekend and I couldn't find one that is small, cheap, and basically can just make calls. Couldn't find one.

There are no phones out there that are like the iPod nano: Small, pretty, functional, reasonably cheap. And no unneeded features. The most basic phones at 1000 - 2000 baht are ugly and not working very well. I have an LG with a battery life of half a day. The 1100 works well enough but looks like it's from 1985.

Once you go up in price to 5000 Baht+, the designs get nicer, but you end up paying for lots of features you will never use. Flash lights, FM Radio, crap mp3 player, bad cameras. I have a previous generation iPod nano in black aluminium and frankly there's no mobile phone that can touch it in terms of good looks. A phone that looked like the nano would wipe the floor with the 5300s of this world. It would cost a bit more but look so much better.

PS: If you do know a phone that's similar to the venerable 8310, only new, let me know. I don't think they make these anymore

[Abrak]

I was very cynical about Apple's ability to produce a decent phone...

1. Its their first phone

2. They are a computer company

3. Its got a touch screen

4. Although people rave about them, Apple fans rave about anything Apple

BUT having had my hands on one for a few days, I have to say not only is it way better than I expected but as a smartphone/pda it is years ahead of its competitors. Just try one for 30 minutes and you will be sold.

The killer app on the phone is the ipod integration - simply put the iphone is much better than any existing ipod due to the large screen and integrated speakers. 3rd party app lets you set any itunes song as a ringtone or send an itunes song to anyone.

The other app I love is the way the ipod manages your photo albums - synching with your computer or photoshop and then displaying them on its large screen.

Everything else - mail, web browsing, sms, phone, wifi - it does at least as well as any other phone with a fast and beautifully intuitive interface. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I know what my next phone is going to be after this one - another Iphone.

[Plus]

Apple CAN compete with Nokias IF they show enough dedication. They would also need to expand into all different market segments. Mass volume is essential.

It's a tough business. Siemens went under, Sony Ericsson was on a verge of collapse once.

[Gary A]

A few weeks ago I saw a Nokia promotion. A new phone for 999 baht. A friend of mine was having problems with his fancy Sony Ericsson so he bought one. He later called me. I told him the new phone sounded great and he said, "Yeah, it's got a better signal too". He's got his Sony Ericsson back but is still using the cheapie.

[nikster]

I am discovering more and more fantastic iPhone features. The photo album lets you

- slide images smoothly and beautifully by pushing them left-right with your thumb

- zoom in and out by pinching the screen

- pan by moving the finger

- change to landscape mode by turning the phone.

And all that on a huge beautiful screen (166 dpi!)

Music is a similar experience - I thought it was hyperbole when they said it's also the best iPod they ever made but actually... they may just be right. It includes an iPod Touch after all, the touch interface for music is intuitive, smooth, efficient, and beautiful. I was not planning to use this as a music player but now I think I just might.

I am really trying to not sound like an Apple fanboy here but the iPhone makes that very hard.

Like the iPod, the designers of the iPhone give a lot of attention to little details. Details so small that most people will never notice them. For example: The camera trigger button on the screen will turn with the camera when you go from landscape into portrait mode. Tilt the phone, and the camera icon will tilt as well. I was wondering if the phone would know I had tilted the camera to landscape mode - then I took a look at the button and it was very clear it did.

PS: Cheap Nokias are awesome - but they do look like they are from 1985... OK make that 1995 but it _seems_ like 1985.

Edited September 26, 2007 by nikster

[gisjames]

any rumours on which carrier will get the iphone here in LOS?

[Abrak]

any rumours on which carrier will get the iphone here in LOS?

Well one thing for sure... whatever agreement isnt going to happen until next year.

To be honest I dont really see an exclusive deal happening. Iphones are readily available on all networks at the likes of MBK. A network provider could offer Thai menus and thai apps (such as thai stocks) but in general the high end users of thai phones can speak and read english.

[Plus]

Apple wanted to squeeze as much money as possible from the early adopters, tying phones to ATT&T got them over $100 per phone extra. Now they dropped the price by $200 already. Why? It's been on sale for less than three months.

They will get the volume by selling iPhones cheaply but they won't get profit margins. Not good for future develoment.

Motorola is struggling again despite having the best selling phone ever - the Razr, the point is that after couple of years no one wants it anymore, and they can't produce hit models every year.

I'm using second hand Razr at the moment, and I'm not buying a new Motorola - they all look exactly the same. Pity if Apple will go down that way.

[backflip]

"Apple wanted to squeeze as much money as possible from the early adopters..."

Similar to every other company.

"...tying phones to ATT&T got them over $100 per phone extra"

You are not making any sense.

"...they dropped the price by $200...Why?"

Because the iPhones weren't selling.

A week before the iPhone was introduced, Apple commented that it expected to sell 10 million iPhones in the first year. Three weeks after the into, Apple commented that it hoped to sell 4 million in the first year. Two weeks later, Apple commented that it wanted to sell one million iPhones by the end of 2007. Its forecast is going down quicker than a bucket of fried chicken at Oprah's house.

As comparison, Motorola has sold over 80 million of the V3 series of cellphones in the past 5 years.

The two Chinese iPhone vendors have essentially shut down their manufacturing lines, waiting for Apple to sell the current inventory of several hundred thousand iPhones.

A couple years ago, a hacker found his way around the Applr iPod DRM software. Apple immediately released a new version of iTunes, and the hack was ineffective. As promised by SJ, Apple will do the same for the iPhone. The difference is that the iPhone update will lock the hacked iPhone, turning it into a rather expensive doorstop.

[Abrak]

Because the iPhones weren't selling.

A week before the iPhone was introduced, Apple commented that it expected to sell 10 million iPhones in the first year. Three weeks after the into, Apple commented that it hoped to sell 4 million in the first year. Two weeks later, Apple commented that it wanted to sell one million iPhones by the end of 2007. Its forecast is going down quicker than a bucket of fried chicken at Oprah's house.

As comparison, Motorola has sold over 80 million of the V3 series of cellphones in the past 5 years.

The two Chinese iPhone vendors have essentially shut down their manufacturing lines, waiting for Apple to sell the current inventory of several hundred thousand iPhones.

I am not sure you are right - for your info Apple has already sold over 1m iphones and that was before the price drop.

If iphones are selling so badly, how come my Apple shares go up in price virtually every day?

[nikster]

iPhones were initially priced high in order to curb demand. Apple has over 4M phones lined up for the holiday season and the price cut is part of a major assault on the market. I think supply will still be restricted because they are entering new markets at the same time.

iPhones are selling extremely well which is surprising given that

- They are only available in the USA

- They are only available on the AT&T network in the USA, and only with unlimited data plans

- They were - before the price cut - extremely expensive for a subsidized phone

Apple has been in the position of not being able to make enough machines so many times, they have learned from past mistakes and they didn't want to repeat them with this key product.

AAPL shares are flying high because of the unlimited potential of becoming one of the top 4 mobile companies in the world, because of the continuing dominance of the iPod line, and because they are selling more Macs than ever, both absolute and percentage wise. In the U.S. they had 20% of the notebook market recently. As for whether the high price is justified - who knows.

[jetzie]

guys, i am thinking of buying a Iphone from america, and den having it unlocked here in thailand,. is it possible?

i saw them in MBK but it's really too expensive for me. a friend is visiting next month i was thinking of asking him to perchase 1 from USA and bringing ti over for me. possible? thanks

[ThaidleHands]

A couple years ago, a hacker found his way around the Applr iPod DRM software. Apple immediately released a new version of iTunes, and the hack was ineffective. As promised by SJ, Apple will do the same for the iPhone. The difference is that the iPhone update will lock the hacked iPhone, turning it into a rather expensive doorstop.

You will always be able to reinstall/roll back to a prior version of the iPhone firmware or software, and no doubt someone will author a patch to prevent any future automatic updates. At worst one will lose minor features in a few applications and access to the odd service such as the iTunes store.

To talk of bricking a device is all well and good but there are very few ways to irrecoverably disable a collection of circuits with code alone. (Malicous or inept firmware that overheats a chip or explodes a battery being extreme examples.)

[Guest Reimar]

A couple years ago, a hacker found his way around the Applr iPod DRM software. Apple immediately released a new version of iTunes, and the hack was ineffective. As promised by SJ, Apple will do the same for the iPhone. The difference is that the iPhone update will lock the hacked iPhone, turning it into a rather expensive doorstop.

You will always be able to reinstall/roll back to a prior version of the iPhone firmware or software, and no doubt someone will author a patch to prevent any future automatic updates. At worst one will lose minor features in a few applications and access to the odd service such as the iTunes store.

To talk of bricking a device is all well and good but there are very few ways to irrecoverably disable a collection of circuits with code alone. (Malicous or inept firmware that overheats a chip or explodes a battery being extreme examples.)

A few days ago I was read somewhere (I forgot where) that Apple plans to submitt an update which cancle some functions of the "cracked" iPhones and that there will be NOT a way to roll back!!

[Gary A]

I'm VERY amazed that anyone would buy a device that they have to hack to use. What's the matter with these people? Anything that I buy that costs more than 500 baht had better work exactly as it supposed to or I walk. Can you imagine buying a car and being told that you have to take it to someone to be repaired before you can drive it? I guess that Apple fanatics are a strange breed.

[A_Traveller]

Despite viewing this as extraordinary, imagine the fuss if M$ made these type of comments.

Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.

This is the first time I know of that an update might actually 'brick' the hardware. Does this mean that AT&T has been putting the pressure on Apple, I wonder.

In my view this is legally questionable, the DMCA had to be amended to specifically allow the unlocking of phones. Whilst it could be argued that Apple is not directly trying to brick the cell phone the company could find itself facing lawsuits if that is the result of the firmware update.

Regards

BBC News Item 25/09/07

Edited September 27, 2007 by A_Traveller

[Gary A]

This is like buying a new gasoline engine Toyota, filling it with diesel fuel and then suing Toyota because it won't run.

[A_Traveller]

This is like buying a new gasoline engine Toyota, filling it with diesel fuel and then suing Toyota because it won't run.

Sorry but no it's not. The position is very clear. In the US the owner of a phone has the legal right to unlock it so it may be used on the network of his choice. Any handset manufacturer would be in a problematic position if it acted as Apple is implying. To borrow your analogy it's rather like buying a car which can only be used on roads belonging to the manufactures' partners.

Regards

[HDRIDER]

I'm VERY amazed that anyone would buy a device that they have to hack to use. What's the matter with these people? Anything that I buy that costs more than 500 baht had better work exactly as it supposed to or I walk. Can you imagine buying a car and being told that you have to take it to someone to be repaired before you can drive it? I guess that Apple fanatics are a strange breed.

Hi

I am not a Apple fan and will never be, it just happens that i like the iphone, and i cant get it if its not hacked, 500 baht you say, 8 pound, what did you buy, a meal.

[ThaidleHands]

A couple years ago, a hacker found his way around the Applr iPod DRM software. Apple immediately released a new version of iTunes, and the hack was ineffective. As promised by SJ, Apple will do the same for the iPhone. The difference is that the iPhone update will lock the hacked iPhone, turning it into a rather expensive doorstop.

You will always be able to reinstall/roll back to a prior version of the iPhone firmware or software, and no doubt someone will author a patch to prevent any future automatic updates. At worst one will lose minor features in a few applications and access to the odd service such as the iTunes store.

To talk of bricking a device is all well and good but there are very few ways to irrecoverably disable a collection of circuits with code alone. (Malicous or inept firmware that overheats a chip or explodes a battery being extreme examples.)

A few days ago I was read somewhere (I forgot where) that Apple plans to submitt an update which cancle some functions of the "cracked" iPhones and that there will be NOT a way to roll back!!

To reiterate, there is nothing that can be done with code alone that cannot be undone with more code so long as no hardware is damaged along the way. The only limiting factor is the price and availability of the code (and perhaps the technician) to put things right. As in all things, caveat emptor.

The legal aspects are quite interesting. Apple has no obligation to take into account all possible user modifications to software or firmware before releasing any update or patch. They could close the holes in the code by which unlocking processes work and do so legitimately if they can make a valid case that these were security holes. But a direct attack on the user's ability to unlock their phone would probably not survive a court challenge if the code released for that purpose had no other benefit to the user or appreciable effect on the operability of the device.

[kudroz]

I've received my iphone today and unlocked it myself - was very easy. The cost was:

- $399 + free shipping to a friend in USA

- $80 for shipping from USA to Thailand with DHL

- THB 2100 custom duty

Total cost around $550 (THB ~18,500)

Took about 1 hour to unlock because of all the downloads that were slow. It's an incredible phone, especially for me because it syncs perfectly with my macbook's addressbook, mail, bookmarks, etc. For a few bucks more, I head they are selling for around THB 22,000 in MBK already unlcoked.

Edited September 27, 2007 by kudroz

[nikster]

BBC News Item 25/09/07

I am kind of amazed at this BBC News article. Like so many others, they got it totally wrong.

All Apple did was to release a strongly worded statement that basically said "we are not going to guarantee anything with the hacked iPhones". That's non-news. Of course Apple can't guarantee that future updates will work with the hacked phones. Specifically, Apple never said that updates were "going to" break hacked phones. They said updates "might" break hacked phones. Big difference. Later on they even specifically said that they were not trying to break hacked phones.

Even if Apple wanted to seriously crack down on hacked iPhones, they couldn't. No one's forcing you to update iTunes or the iPhone, and no one can. So worst case, a new firmware comes out and if you have a hacked phone you will have to wait a week or two until hackers have gotten around the problems. Terrifying, isn't it?

In reality what Apple will do is inconvenience hacked phone users (stick) and offer new cool features in software updates that won't work on hacked phones (carrot) - but it won't stop determined users from using their hacked phones. Apple is doing the same thing with the iTunes music store DRM. It's easy to get around, but it's more convenient to just live with it.

That said - I am pretty annoyed with having to hack the iPhone to get it to work. And if there was a worthy competitor out there I would buy that competitor. Only there isn't

Edited September 27, 2007 by nikster

[Guest Reimar]

BBC News Item 25/09/07

That said - I am pretty annoyed with having to hack the iPhone to get it to work. And if there was a worthy competitor out there I would buy that competitor. Only there isn't

Only a question of time I believe!! There will be one sometimes in the future but no one knows how long that furture would be!!

[Plus]

It's not like legal iPhones are coming here next month. I won't be surprised if Nokia or whoever released a similar thouchscreen phone well before Apple gets his act together here.

Actually I don't see how they hope to limit users to one specific provider and become top selling mobile phone brand. I don't see how they can become top selling brand if most of their phones need to be illegaly hacked. It's ridiculous.

Re ATT&T: I've read somewhere that Apple gets a share of subscribers fees, more if it's a new ATT&T customer.

Just yesterday on BBC they said that estimated profit margin on iPhones was 45%. Surely they can give a middle finger to Apple fans and drop the price by 30% after two months of sales, but it's not sustainable.

To me it looks like Apple has no clue what it has got itself into and doesn't have a viable long term strategy.

Surely Apple found a new dimension in the mobile technology - touchscreen, fast OS, but there are also market demands that it simply ignored, like 3G and locking issue.

Next year Europeans will be able to make real video calls, thanks to 3G. iPhone doesn't even have a videocamera. All you can do is stare at your picture gallery. How much fun is that? Internet browser that takes two minutes to open Yahoo page - that won't win Apple any kudos either.

[dekka007]

The devs from the iphone dev team that brought the original hacks are working on a relocker which will be available within the week. Wouldnt worry about bricking just dont upgrade tomorrow when the patch comes out until the dev team has the solution.

[cdnvic]

There's nothing illegal about unlocking an iPhone. They may not like you doing it, but there's no law against in in most jurisdictions.

[bubba]

Don’t say you weren’t warned. After cautioning customers earlier this week that unlocked iPhones may be disabled when installing future Apple software updates, the company on Thursday made good on its warning.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/27/ip...nlock/index.php