Any geek who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last 2 days would have heard about Apple’s announcement about the iPhone, a complete touch-driven convergent device combining a phone, iPod, and internet communications device.
First impressions from the usually online sources: Without a doubt, it looks sweet (multi-touch… ooh). It appears slim enough, but could be a tad big for my girly hands. I especially like that fact that it has a host of sensors (accelerometer, proximity, and ambient light sensors) which would usually spell hack-ity goodness if not for the fact that the iPhone is a closed platform. Still, I can imagine the fun that the Apple designers must have had working with the inputs from the various sensors to create a kick-ass user experience.
No reviews yet of course (the iPhone launches June 2007 in the US), but I wonder how the iPhone will hold up to multitasking especially when all that MacOS UI goodness is bound to take a significant chunk of processing power. I can forgive the lack of 3G support (3G hasn’t really arrived in the North American markets yet) but no removeable battery? No way.
I’m also a little paranoid about how the iPhone will stand up to long term use. I’m known to give my gadgets a pretty rough ride, and I wonder how drops, knocks, and dirt will affect the sensors. As for my stand on protective cases, why buy a gorgeous iPhone only to hide it in a case?
The iPhone is scheduled to launch in Asia in 2008, but given the pace at which mobile devices are released in Asia, a year is plenty of time for the incumbents to match/trump the iPhone with new rollouts (then again I could be wrong; look at how long it took for Nokia to come up with their Motorola Razr clone). I do expect that it will be iPhone v2 by the time it hits our shores or it’s current set of features will be looking decidedly dated by then.
The iPhone will retail at US$499 and US$599 for the 4GB and 8GB models respectively, and is tied to a 2-year contract with Circular. Converted to local terms, the 8GB will be going for approximately S$1,000 with a 2-year contract. The contract price usually represents about a $200-250 discount, so a new contract-free phone will go for about S$1,250.
There’s alot of clam shells.
So will I shell out 1250 clams for the iPhone v2? Stranger things have been known to happen. 