The restrictions I remember with the ROKR was that the iTunes component wouldn't deal with more then 100 songs, to try and prevent the ROKR from eating into the iPod sales. The majority of iPods sold are the lower end flash based ones, so a phone that could be expanded into their range would be a threat.

Now that the phone is 100% apple controlled, they don't have a problem with this. I'm betting the Motorola alliance was one to allow Apple to learn the phone business a bit before jumping in with both feet. Similar to how Microsoft worked with Sega on the Dreamcast before going ahead with the XBox.

There is a load of stuff about the iPhone on Apples website already. Interestingly, it crashes my IE7 so I can't only look at it using Firefox

Just watching the stream, and at around 24 minutes in Steve actually says that they'll do 3G in the future.

"...plan to make 3g phones and all sorts of amazing things in the future"

I've read a few comments saying part of the reason they didn't go with 3G might be battery life. I'd guess it's partially that, lack of Cingular 3G coverage, and possibly the potential city wide wifi networks. Here in SF soon enough, you won't need the EDGE or 3G... we'll have Google/Earthlink city wide wifi.

he fact is, all of those envelope-pushing aspects need to come together to make a phone that I'll feel comfortable using, and I can't see that happening without a real keyboard.

Am I the only one who just wants a phone that lets me talk to people once in a while -- and nothing more than that?

Probably so. Sigh...

tanstaafl.

If you guys/gals haven't seen it, here's the keynote: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

- Jon

tanstaafl: Amen. My StarTac never crashed like my Treo 650 does all too often. It was 100% reliable.

loren: Amen, also. iPhone is finally the dream of convergence come true. 21st century has finally arrived.

I'm surprised everyone isn't amazed by the interface. Judging by the vids on Apple's site, there are some nice things there (besides crashing both my browsers constantly). Velocity to "flick" a list upward, the left/right iPod menu structure used in PDA style, etc. And cover art browsing looks brilliant, even coming from me who thinks cover art is a total waste.

Too bad I couldn't load the virtual keyboard video because I agree that using the Treo is much better. But, the world will probably find virtual keyboard to be the winner.

Cingular is clearly the only American carier that matters anymore. Only they have the Treo 680 ("for average people") and Treo 750 (3G internet). Now they have iPhone. Goodbye to all RAZR's and rip off Kytanaa's. Goodbye to Nextel push-to-talk, Verizon's unreliability, Sprint's malicious incompetence, and T-Mobile's downright unimportance. Cingular wins.

I expect even Hugo can't spill the beans, but I'd love to know whether this thing's internal codename was "Newton 2"...

And that wasn't meant to be snide -- a Newton made out of C21st technology would be a great product. If that's what Iphone is, I'm all in favour.

Peter

Yup - I use NoScript in firefox. But to be fair my job means I have become very jaded. I still love cutting edge stuff, but only until it becomes a good target for the black hats, and starting off with MS, html stuff etc means it is already asking for trouble.

And I'm with Tanstaafl - all I want from a phone is good reception and battery life, even though I do use the camera in mine to moblog...cos it's there and I couldn't get this type of phone without a camera.

Speculative, but...

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/09/iphone-will-not-allow-user-installable-applications/

Yes, I manage the AP hardware team (ie the people who work on the non-RF bits). Great it see it in public finally, I've had units around on my desk for many months now - mostly taken to pieces

Hugo

Real OSX. Same source tree.

Hugo
(who has to keep re-reading his messages to ensure that he stays within the guidelines as to what he's allowed to say!)

Congrats!

Now how do I get one as a beta tester before June? :-)

Seriously, I love the UI and it seems like it's fantastic at most things that matter to me. I'm not thrilled with the email support (I'd like to see some kind of tight Gmail integration), and I'm suspicious about the general lack of hard buttons. I'm also curious if you can pull the thing out of your pocket and, by feel, figure out which side goes to your ear.

Another intriguing question is the extent to which the iPhone will support VoIP, whether over EDGE or WiFi. It's got all the hardware. All it needs is the software.

The biggest question, of course, is the extent to which you can develop and install third-party apps. Given that Google already has a J2ME app for Gmail, they'd presumably be willing to do something custom for the iPhone as well. They might even hook it in to Google Talk, including voice, as would Skype and others, if given the chance.

Other random thoughts: the side of the iPhone has what looks to be some kind of MicroSD slot. It might just be a long-skinny button, for all I can tell from the Apple web site. Expandable memory would certainly be a feature. Another interesting question is how much of that 4GB or 8GB is actually available for storage and how much is consumed by the operating system. Also, there's no indication that the battery can be replaced. I tend to burn through a cel-phone battery in 18 months. This phone, with the extra features, might destroy a battery in a year.

EDIT: it's not a MicroSD slot. It's a volume button.

Of course, what I *really* want is something more along the lines of the RAZR, in terms of form factor and all that. I'd give up a lot of the coolness of the iPhone in return for something small and simple.

Hopefully "Real OSX" means that you won't run into most of the same problems porting from OSX to the Apple phone than you would porting from Windows to the versions of Windows for smart phones. Example: I just talked to a guy (someone not within Microsoft, this was outside of MS) who said that the compact Windows versions they use for smart phones don't support any right-to-left languages at all. They had to use a third party tool to to get Arabic to work.

WORST ... FIRMWARE ... EVER.

I shouldn't say that, since I work at a close partner of Mot's, but come on people.

Motorola hasn't written decent phone firmware since the StarTac. My biggest problem is the lousy contact book design.

Yeah? Can you have a contact with multiple numbers now? (As opposed to multiple contacts with the same name.)

On my phone pressing the center of the dpad while on a contact brings up all the numbers. At least four numbers can be entered. Also, email addresses are in the list if you want to send a message.

The standard RAZR has what you want. You can change the mode where multiple contacts, with the same name, are rendered on one line of the contact list. Left/right arrows let you select the different dialing icon. Kludgy, but it works.

The new Moto KRZR is exactly what I want, from a hardware perspective, but the software is clearly just a derivative of the existing RAZR software, which pretty much sucks. As such, I'm going to stick it out for six months to try holding an iPhone in my hand and see how it feels.

Nice. Only took them five years to get basic year 2001 functions.

Oooooh.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonbauer/353066118/

- Jon