Technobuddy

By Scott

June 27, 2007 1:10 PM | Link to this

It is unlikely to make you richer, smarter or better looking.

That’s too bad. You could’ve benefited from owning a few of them.

By Golly

June 27, 2007 1:37 PM | Link to this

Scott that was mean. Now go apologize to the nice man and go take a nap!

No, I won’t be getting the latest and greatest wonder-gadget. I’m enjoying a gadget-free life.

By Bill

June 27, 2007 3:11 PM | Link to this

It’s OK that must have been my brother Scott. (And he’d sure be right about the smart, rich and good looking part).

By faye

June 27, 2007 3:25 PM | Link to this

I’m intrigued, but I will wait for the price to come down, and the kinks to be worked out :-)

By Shannon, M.Div.

June 27, 2007 3:27 PM | Link to this

Aside from the price (yowzers), there are several reasons I won’t be owning an iPhone anytime soon. I’ve been with one cell phone company since 2000. That makes it fun when we call customer service and they look up our history with them—the company falls all over itself making any problems right, as it ought to! But the iPhone is limited to just ONE company, and it isn’t mine—and I understand that the pricing for a plan to actually use the iPhone is crazy-high.

If the iPhone comes out for my cell company and doesn’t require a $30 monthly addendum to my cell bill, then I’ll consider it, even with the high price. I have an iPod mini which is a few years old now and showing signs of wear, and I wouldn’t mind turning my two gadgets into one so I look a little less like Batgirl coming down the street.

I get the hype, though. It’s a fully-working browser in your cellphone, and ain’t nobody done that yet.

By Susan

June 27, 2007 3:28 PM | Link to this

I’ll probably get one - I use Cingular (AT&T) and I actually need some of the features and want some that I don’t need.

By ken

June 27, 2007 3:53 PM | Link to this

DUH - of course it’s over hyped, but of course people will fall for it and just have to be the first to get on. Such a materialistic country …….

By DavidT

June 27, 2007 4:58 PM | Link to this

Can this phone be used on corporate networks like a blackberry? Sync with MS Outlook? Treos. Blackberrys, and Qs do.

By Zafar@deltacomputers.com

June 27, 2007 6:04 PM | Link to this

Hey, Bill…How are ya my friend? Nice to see someone playing the devil’s Advocate. But in all honesty, isn’t this iPhone exactly what everyone that has bought a laptop, PDA, PSP, Blackberry, Razr, Gameboy, or Beeper ever wanted? You have to tip your cap to Apple and their uncanny abilty of knowing what we want and how it should be “packaged.”

By Bill

June 27, 2007 7:01 PM | Link to this

Hey Zafar - man it’s been a long time. I hope things are going well at Delta - love that place.

Truth - as far as the iPhone - maybe I’m the wrong guy to talk about it. I leave my cellphone in my car and, instead of wanting to be more in touch, I usually want to be less in touch.

Anyway, I’ll give you a call before long and see how things are. We haven’t talked in a long time. Thanks for dropping by - I need to get out to visit with you, it’s been too long.

By SuperDave

June 27, 2007 9:22 PM | Link to this

One funny thing I wonder about the iPhone, is how good of a phone will it actually be? By “phone” I mean reception, call clarity, and ease of dialing in a hurry. When you have a device that does a lot of things, some things are usually sacrificed. A lot of times in the mobile phone industry, it’s the phone part that gets the ax, especially with new “smart” devices. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to be able to easily check e-mail, surf the web, and listen to music on one small portable device, but it’s also nice to have a reliable device that you can make, receive, and hold calls on.

Personally, I think if you are with Ma Bell, and want something like the iPhone, just get an HTC 8525, which has true 3G, a good qwerty keypad, and gets good reception, as well as being able to do nearly everything that the iPhone can, and some things that it cannot.

For me, even if it comes to Sprint, I wouldn’t even want to waste my money on it. Way, way too much money for what it is. I’ll just stick with my “dumb phone.”

By Michael

June 28, 2007 1:24 AM | Link to this

This blog makes me wonder if Bill has ever used an Apple product before. He claims he has, but it doesn’t sound like it. Yes, the iPhone is supposed to do the same things that other devices do (just like MP3 players existed before iPods and personal computers existed before Macs).

Apple makes their money off taking these products and making them simpler to use. If someone else out there has created a home network with any variety of routers and computers and then tried it with Macs and AirPort, they know what I’m talking about. Same thing goes with iLife (go compare iTunes to all the other comparable applications. It’s not even close on ease of use).

There are of course drawbacks to the iPhone. It costs at least $500, it uses the slower network (unless you use WiFI), it doesn’t have a GPS option (yet), and it doesn’t have enough storage to be used as a true iPod replacement (I have more than 10GB of just music).

The iPhone probably won’t be as widely used as the Razr because of the price, but I’m betting that most everybody who uses it will love it, just like most Mac and iPod users.

By Anthony

June 28, 2007 7:58 AM | Link to this

I’m hardly surprised. Your column has always been so PC-centric, I would have been shocked if you hadn’t been in the naysayer camp.

You’re a tech journalist in the same sense that FOX delivers “news.”