Apple has confirmed that its uber-cool iPhone will go on sale on June 29, at $500 or $600 a pop (depending on the model).
It’s also released three TV commercials, which began airing Sunday night, on 60 Minutes.
So, of course, I’ve got a bunch of additional iPhone questions Steve Jobs doesn’t want you to ask.
First, here’s one of the commercials. (You can watch all three here on Apple’s Web site.)
That ad is so warm and fuzzy, it almost makes me want to toss my Blackberry away but before I do, I’ve got a few questions:
1. What’s with the zero boot-up time?
Does it really turn on that quickly. I know, the actual operation of the iPhone has been time-compressed for the sake of the commercial.
Most people don’t really care about boot time, anyway, because you only do it once a day, unless the thing locks up which could never happen, because this is Apple we’re talking about.
2. Does it surf the Web that quickly?
Okay, now I’m just being unfairly cranky with all these speed questions. However, in the commercial, it’s loading a Web site really quickly; faster than I’ve ever done on a desktop.
My Blackberry’s browser is slow as molasses, so if the iPhone is really an online speed demon, I probably do want the thing. However, here again, I’m skeptical.
3. What happens if I drop the thing?
The iPhone looks real pretty, but also pretty fragile. Not at all like the new, ruggedized G’zOne phone from Verizon Wireless, which a friend of mine yesterday proudly showed off.
He assured me he could throw it against the wall and it’d keep on ticking. Bet you can’t do that with an iPhone!
4. “Can you hear me now?”
What will the sound quality of actual phone calls on the iPhone be? That’s always been a bugaboo for multiple-duty devices.
My Blackberry is great with email, but the sound quality on phone calls sucks, unless you use a Bluetooth headset. The iPhone will be much better in this regard, right?
I realize that I’m being a bit unfair here, with all these picky questions about how such a hot new device actually performs. The iPhone will clearly connect with a huge consumer base in the general public.
As for business use, I think that’s beyond the iPhone’s grasp at this point, because of my ongoing and still biggest problem with the thing:
5. Where’s the hard keypad?
I hate to keep bringing this up, but take a look at that commercial again. The guy is tapping through his list of email, presumably to read them. So how the heck is he supposed to answer them?
Until I use the thing myself, I’m not going to believe that the phone’s soft keypad will be adequate.
Already, it looks like one has to be very careful when activating the major-function buttons on the phone, to touch a key head-on.
Seems like the demarcation between the different soft keys will be muddy, to say the least (i.e, you think you’ve typed “a,” but you’ve really hit “s”).
For now, no thanks. It’ll stick with my Blackberry, thank you.
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I’ll be waiting a while before I invest in an iPhone. It doesn’t look sturdy, I don’t believe their speed estimates and I surely don’t need another piece of gadget gear to be broken because of my clumsiness.
The browser was using the phones WiFi connection which is why the NY Times site loaded pretty quickly.
If you want a hard keyboard, the phone isn’t for you. I’m betting there will be a plethora of plugin keypads though that fit into the dock connector. Kinda defeats the point of the screen however.
Don’t drop it.
We haven’t actually seen the iPhone boot. I’m guessing it will be iPod esque in that it just ’sleeps’ and wakes from sleep most of the time, ensuring instant on and off.
The motion sensor puts to sleep/ wakes from sleep. You might need a hibernate setting if you are jogging with it. But if you are passively watching its screen as it sits on a table, it probably will ’sleep’, to save battery.
If you want to see the keypad in action, go back to the original demo video at the iphones macexpo introduction. A lot of context sensitvie pretyping going on.
My main concern, almost no one has mentioned directly yet, is keepin that touch screen clean, and free of scraches. which are bound to happen. Or facial grease if you hold it up to your ear.
Probably the biggest accessory sales at launch will be cases, and bluetooth earpieces.
If GPS is not built in, it might be able to sync via bluetooth to a standalone GPS bluetooth gadget.
pretty sure that the speed of the web browser was it just resuming a page that was already loaded.
Did you see the Keynote in January MacWorld Expo where Jobs announced the iPhone? It would be worth it for you to take a look, and many of your questions would be answered.
Jobs did a demo where he showed the virtual keypad and typing emails, and he actually made several calls right there and the quality was pretty good from what I could hear.
I’m not saying there won’t be any issues with it when it comes out, but I think most of the criticism so far is unfounded. Wait till the thing is released, then critique.