Iphone 4

But even that is manageable. Look at how quick a hack for v. 2.2 was released for the HTC EVO before it had even been available for general release....

Just my opinion, but I think the market will take care of that. Developers who can't handle the pace of OS evolution will go away and be replaced by others. Users will move on. It is not like the cost of switching is prohibitive.

Motorolla understands that they have to innovate.... The Droid has been out 6 months and already a replacement is in the wings....

Interesting how iOS provides for a Bluetooth keyboard.... Apple - iPhone 4 - See how the iPhone Multi-Touch keyboard works (Go to the bottom of the page where they talk about connecting an external keyboard.)

That could burn Google. They thought they knew better with their direct sales of the Nexus One.... That was a complete fail. Fortunately for Google, they had a fallback position with the other handset manufacturers who were selling their handsets through the wireless carriers. I remember the senior executives at Google who were so full of themselves when the Nexus One was released - they were going to take over the smartphone market.... Yeah right. What a difference a failure makes. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

 

They still are taking forever and a day to release a new O/S. There are some great features in OS 6 that needed to be available about a calendar quarter back, that are maybe going to be available in 3Q2010 on AT&T (what about Verizon and Sprint?).... Just because Apple is stuck on AT&T doesn't mean that BlackBerry has to be.

The Bold 9800 Slider could be a killer phone, but it runs the risk of being a calendar quarter late to the party.

 

Android vs Apple, Ford vs Chevy, Toyota vs Honda, Mac vs PC, each was improved by competition with the other. Necessity is truly "the mother of invention" and competition in the marketplace ensures the continued evolution of the technology that benefits us all. I don't care which product is perceived as better, at the moment, by whom, because the success of each product ensures continued develop of better products for all.

 

ultimately, i like Android. having your data backed up online automatically is where its at. the phone is no longer a phone, its your computer, secretary, file cabinet and shoe box personal paper storage all wrapped up into one. the old days of plugging into a buggy software program to backup data regularly should have been retired a long long time ago.

any platform that still requires a wire of any kind is a mistake period.

a lot of people question online data security, but its where its going and trusting a company to protect your data is always going to be a gamble, but trust me; having one maintain their own data is simply not workable. i deal with people daily who lost data because they simply miss the concept of replication, scheduled backups, etc. i mean they simply missed BIG TIME and its not computer neophytes or electronic newbies i am talking about. i am referring to corporate blackberry users who have been carrying one for 10 years and up until this point, they had simply been lucky. now their luck has run out, they have their entire business stored on one and its lost, stolen or drowned. the Desktop manager RIM uses has major issues, not very user friendly and not very compatible with most desktop systems either. that is what RIM needs to fix. they put everything else thru their servers, why not personal data as well??

Verizon recently created a version (backup assistant has been available on basic cellphones for about 4-5 years and works by transfering data on the cell tower network...) of their phone book backup program (automatically checks the phone contact list and backups any changes and stores it in their verizonwireless.com account) that can now be used on all new blackberries. what i have to ask is why are u letting a cellphone company take care of something you should have addressed years ago??

 

So did the palm os on my Handspring back in 2000. So does my HTC. Actually my favourite is the laser keyboards that have been around for about the same amount of time. I think I first heard about them in 2002 or so, but I didnt buy one until 2005. It is pretty cool, but I rarely ever use it. I am a gadget person.

(Mine isnt bluetooth though, it is IR)

 

Apple iPhone 4 versus HTC Evo 4G | iPhone Atlas - CNET ReviewsWould you buy the Apple iPhone 4 or the HTC Evo 4G?

• Apple iPhone 4
  
  36%
• HTC Evo 4G
  
  60%

 

i think the real question is would you rather be on AT&T or someone else? i know 2 people who have i-phones and are fed up. not with the phone, with the service. it always works, but sometimes its pathetically slow.

i also know several who are not on AT&T who desperately want an i phone but wont do it if they have to change carriers

 

Of course, on the other side of that, I had Verizon before i got my iPhone, and never want to go back. Service with them was horrible, based on my experience. I got 0 bars at work, and had huge problems with their customer service. Since switching to AT&T, i haven't had any problems, and have a full, strong signal at work (in fact, it's pretty much been full and strong almost everywhere i go).

I don't post this to say that Verizon is horrible - I know some people in other parts of the country that have had a great experience with them. However it is worthwhile to keep in mind that coverage and service for ANY provider is going to vary across the country. None of them are perfect.

 

iphones are giving AT&T a bad reputation. With a good phone, AT&T has awesome coverage and awesome speeds. iphones are poorly designed, and poorly built. First reason is the antenna is put on the bottom of the phone. You hold the phone, you are blocking the antenna. Whos idiotic idea was that?

For example, with my HTC Touch Pro, I get 4-5 bars all the time in my house. My sister with her iphone gets 2-3. I get 3G everywhere, she phases in and out of 3G and 2G/EDGE. That drastically reduces the speed of data. In the boonies, I still get 1-2 bars, she has no reception.

The only place I ever have dropped calls are a) on the top of the continnental divide at Monarch pass during a blizzard b) when driving through the Eisenhower Tunnel (everything goes away GPS/FM/AM/Sat Radio/Phone/Babies) and c) this weird dip intersection by a big lake. These three places without fail with drop a call and give me no reception. However 99.9% of the time I have perfect reception, perfect calls, and 3G.

Why? Because I have a goog phone. And anyone that thinks for a second the iphone is a good phone, is either extremely ignorant or extremely stupid. It is shiny and popular, and that's about it. If apple made the iTurd, it would be bought by the masses.

 

true true, all carriers have strong and weak coverage. so what works in your area is the prime determining factor, but based on coverage maps (how accurate they are, who knows?) Sprint and Verizon have 3-4 times more 3G coverage than AT&T. now they both use CDMA and AT&T uses GSM.

is 3G simply easier on CDMA? or is that a coincidence?

AT&T says they cover more people but its for voice. lets face it, if i dont have good data coverage, i am not really interested.

now, in this area, AT&T says they have 3G, but my niece says she can rely on mid morning and early evening periods where 3G is not available and its like clockwork. iow, the network is unable to support the # of users here

 

Everywhere there is CDMA coverage, there is EVDO or EVDV (I think that is the acronym...). Basically a CDMA phone takes voice and data, then splits it over lots and lots of frequencies. This leaves a ton of bandwidth available for whatever else, like data.

So they can get 2Mbps downspeed. However, in real life it is closer to around 700kbps or much less depending on how old and crowded the tower is.

GSM on the other hand use TMDS (again not 100% on the acronym...) but it uses a single frequency and modulates voice and data on that. This leaves less room for data. So everywhere you have voice coverage you have EDGE coverage which is anything between 30kbps and 384kbps and it varies greatly with cell tower distance and how people are around you. For 3G it needs a separate frequency just for data. This makes it faster, but then the tower needs to support both. I think AT&T uses the 850Mhz band for their 3G coverage...

So yes CDMA has more coverage with what they call 3G which technically can be faster. However in real world examples EDGE coverage by ATT is generally the same. 3G is in all areas where you would use it most though. For instance in all my travels I have not been to a metro area where I do not have 3G with AT&T. And by metro I mean by an interstate with more than 3 or 4 exits. So for ordinary living, chances are you are in one of these places where you will get 3G all the time. Drive cross country and you will bounce in and out of 2G/3G with GSM but generally keep your 3G with CDMA.

 

And if the question was phrased whether the respondent would buy an iPhone vs. the EVO if the iPhone were available on Verizon, the numbers would probably be reversed. One article that I read in print shortly after the 3G iPhone was released claimed that there are something like 40% of Verizon customers who would buy an iPhone if it were available on their network. 40% of 80 million customers is a lot of coin that Apple is missing out on. Even if you cut the 40% number in half, that is still a non-trivial sales number that Apple is not going to get. At some point (sooner rather than later, IMO) those customers are going to buy an Android handset.

Jobs has been a genius at resurrecting Apple. Until now.

 

I have one of the 3G iPads and have noticed a similar situation - mornings before 10:00 a.m. or so, and evenings after 4:00 p.m., the 3G data connection download speed drops to something like 500 - 600 kb/s (using speedtest.net). Late mornings until early evenings (10:00 a.m. to around 4:00 p.m.) I have seen the download speed averaging 2.5 mb/s (!).

 

It depends on what your receiver is capable of in addition to the bandwidth of the cellular towers. If the cellular modem is only capable of EVDO, the realistic download speed will be somewhere in the 600 kb/s range. EVDO Rev. A gets you close to 1.3 or 1.4 mb/s. Cellular phones that are tethered generally are EVDO. The dedicated cellular data modems are EVDO Rev. A. 4G is an entirely different beast (but suffers from extremely limited availability).

 

its all a question of signal. EVDO has max bandwidth of 2Mbs. AT&T is like 2.4 Mbs. so not a lot of difference. i have seen and tested my phone a bit. i have seen 1.4 Mbs on a regular basis but have also seen it at 4-500 Kbs and sporadically at that. either way, there is little reason for it. with think 4G is nice?? in Asia, it would be laughed at

 

And how is that? I agree if there is no capacity of transmission, you won't get throughput speed. But if your receiver is constrained, you also won't get throughput speed. Another way to think about it is you may have a gigabit capable network, but if the network card in your PC is only capable of 10 mb/s, the maximum speed your PC will achieve is the 10 mb/s.

 

Don't be so quick to turn against him. True, if the iPhone were made available on Verizon today they would get a huge sales boost... but without the AT&T deal he set up years ago, the iPhone wouldn't have done nearly as well. That deal essentially had AT&T subsidizing the cost of the iPhone, which was crucial at that stage to keep the price in a reasonable range. Verizon wasn't willing to do that.

Based on the rumors, AT&T's exclusivity deal was extended as part of their iPad deal - AT&T is offering better data rates for the iPad than they otherwise would in order to be the exclusive carrier for both it and the iPhone for a little while longer.

In essence, Job's is sacrificing some iPhone sales on Verizon in order to see a successful launch of a whole new product line. Coupled with the fact that people tend to buy new phones every two years or so (something the carriers have gotten people into with their contracts), waiting on Verizon won't necessarily mean lost customers in the long run. You might go buy an Android today because the iPhone isn't available, but if you really wanted an iPhone then a few years from now you might make the switch. Granted, there are other factors involved (like purchased apps) that make that less likely... but there will still be a large number of people who decide to make that switch when the iPhone is available on Verizon.

 

Remember the percentage that say they will versus the percent that actually will are very different.

I very highly doubt 40% of Verizon customers will buy an iphone. More like single digit percents. One day people will open their eyes and demand a better product from Mr. Jobs.

 

A better product than one that revolutionized a well established industry?

 

Notwithstanding my earlier posts, I am more frustrated with the iPhone being 'stuck' on AT&T. With AT&T changing the terms of their data plan, I would have thought that Apple would have a way to re-visit whatever agreement they had with AT&T. Also, the deplorable way that AT&T neglected to improve their data network would seem to some form of constructive breach of the original agreement. I have not seen the agreement between the two companies, so this is pure speculation on my part.

AT&T was offering better data rates for the iPad. Now, they are offering arguably worse data rates.

I suspect that the people who migrate to Android handsets will by-and-large stay on the Android handsets. I doubt that Google is going to be sitting on their hands as it were; the features of the Android environment will only grow. Look at the difference in functionality between Android v. 2.1 and 2.2, and that is just a point release.

Other handset vendors only commit to 1 or 2 year exclusives (look at Palm - the Pre was something like 6 months on Sprint before moving to Verizon with the Pre Plus); why did Apple have to give AT&T a longer one? Apple certainly was in a stronger negotiating position than Palm was.

I realize this is all 20-20 hindsight, but still....