iPhone - so...what's the deal? (1 Viewer)

[Michael_K_Sr]

Resistance is futile...

No sense in buying a 24-inch iMac now with an all new design right around the corner...if you believe the buzz.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Ken,

Congrats on your new iPhone

I'm having problems moving pictures off my phone to my Mac.
I keep getting the same incompatibility message as you. I am
sure there is a solution, but I just haven't done enough reading
to find out what it is.

 

[Craig S]

Amen. Plus, the MBP has one feature I haven't yet seen in a Windows laptop - the backlit keyboard. This is a HUGE feature for me as I often have to use my lappie in a darkened theater (during rehearsals only!). Just having it is fantastic, but the way Apple has programmed it to work with the ambient light sensor (lights up, backlight off - lights down, backlight on) is brilliant.

This may not be a feature everyone needs, but if you do, it's a lifesaver.

 

[Mike Heenan]

This is what I'll be doing soon now that the MBP's have finally been updated. Although in my own case, the "comparable" laptop I bought was an HP one bought at Costco, $1499 for 2.33ghz core 2 duo, 240gb harddrives, 2gb memory and 17" screen. Compare that to the now out of date 2.33ghz MBP which was $2799, and that's almost double the cost. But, that laptop is going back to Costco soon as the 6 month warranty is going to expire, plus I've had a few blue screen crashes anyways. Sorry to get this off topic

 

[DaveF]

The resident Mac guy at work bought an iPhone, so I chatted with him and got a demo: excellent!

What struck me was how, with the jet black screen, the icons seemed to be integrated hardware. I didn't feel that I was looking at a computer screen with graphics, but dynamically changing hardware configurations. It was a subtle, almost eerie, sensation.

 

[Carlo_M]

I've seen that one Mike. I'm sorry, I can't agree that it's comparable. Yes it has the same/similar CPU, RAM and HD, but that's like saying a turbocharged 6-cylinder Nissan Altima which has the same horsepower as a Benz or BMW makes it comparable.

The HP I saw [9000t or something like that] was over a 1/2" thicker, about a pound or so heavier, yet still mostly made of plastic, cheap build quality, no firewire connectivity, didn't have wireless n, no backlit keyboard, no DVI output, no magsafe type connector (a lifesaver for me many times over), lesser video card (nVidia 8600 vs. 7600), camera was not close to the 2MP quality of the iSight, no remote, etc. And that's not even getting to the debate between the benefit of the OS...

If you can honestly call the HP and the Mac comparable, we will just agree to disagree. I'm okay with that.

It's just for me, and for some people, build quality does mean something. Heck I could buy those parts and a shell and build a "comparable" laptop for you for less than the HP. But trust me, you wouldn't want that To be truly comparable, you need to get something of similar build quality and features, as well as CPU/RAM/HD, like a high end line from Lenovo, Sony, or Dell, all of which will get you very close to the retail of a MBP.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

It is pretty cool when I hand my iPhone to someone with the screen locked and let them unlock it and watch their eyes when those icons fluidly float onto the screen.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Not that I did in-depth analysis, but I vaguely recall when the MacBooks first came out (never mind the MBPs), when I compared specs with Acers, Toshibas etc (which were available at the local electronics store), the MacBooks compared well price-wise. Sure, there were lots of much cheaper PC laptops available, but inevitably the processors were much slower (e.g. 1.33 or 1.5GHz v. 1.83), and/or less RAM and/or smaller HDD. Once you got past the entry-level PC laptops and compared like for like, the price difference was negligible, and indeed often in favour of the MacBooks.

 

[DaveF]

The issue has been flogged well in other threads (I've been a flogger myself), but what I came away with is that high-end Macs MBP and Mac Pro compare well on price, feature for feature. Mid- and low-end macs Mac Book, iMac and Mac Mini, do not. But you cannot get their design aesthetics in a PC. Nor can you get OS X in a PC, so what's the value of that.

The big weakness, as I noted to a friend yesterday, is that there's no mid-range laptop model, in my opinion. Nothing to compare to a $1500 Dell Inspiron, for someone who wants a middling laptop with a 15" screen without breaking the bank.


iPhone: looking to the future, there will be some remarkable systems when 300+ dpi screens and haptic (providing texture to touch) interfaces converge in consumer products. While the iPhone does a much better job of integrating an iPod and a Phone together, I still believe that the iPod is still a better iPod player. And a phone with # buttons is easier for dialing numbers. So the iPhone does its core functionality worse than dedicated devices. Haptic interface technology will (should) close that gap further.

I was also struck by how compact it was. It seemed more svelte than a Treo, though I think it's about the same size. Like the nano, it suggests great efficiency in packaging.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

It's true, although I cannot afford it, and I'd really want to wait until they put a removable battery on it, a Phone must have a removable battery, dropping the whole thing in the mail for a 3 week turnaround is simply not practical on a phone as it might be for an Ipod. But back to knashes, Apple makes some very nice products. I love my Mac Mini, I have a 30gb Ipod video, and 2 Apple TV's. The Apple TV's have become the devices I use the most on a daily basis. It's become my DVD player for TV Content DVD's, my DVR for Current stuff. It can know stream Photos with background music with the current version of Itunes, I simply love it. My Next Laptop will be a Macbook, and I'm looking forward to Leopard in October !

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

ARS Technica with one of their typically kickass in depth reviews.

 

[Mike_G]

Ron,
Use iPhoto to get the pics off your phone.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Mike,

Tried that. Didn't work. Got an "incompatible" message. Strange.

 

[Mike_G]

Maybe your version is out of date? When I pop my iPhone on the cradle, iPhoto comes up and asks me if I want to copy the pics over. I say yes and they copy fine.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Mike, I have had mixed results with iPhoto. Sometimes it recognizes the iPhone, sometimes it does not...reboot fixed it, but that makes me think of Windows...

- Steve

 

[Ken CM]

Got my first voicemail last night and it sounded very "robotic". Anyone else notice this?

 

[Oren]

I just played back some of my older messages, and now that you mention it, it does. It seems to have a vibrating tone mixed in with the recording. Of course, there's no way to tell if it's the phone or ATT. Messages are downloaded, not played over the airwaves (as a phone call) as they usually are with other phones. So, it could be that the recording quality is poor for the files that are transmitted to the phone.

 

[Craig S]

I imagine they're encoded at a very low bit rate to facilitate a reasonable download speed over EDGE.

 

[Ken CM]

got a couple more voicemails today and they were a little better, but not what I am used to.
Was browsing around a minute ago and went to leaky cauldron website to find interviews etc about order of the phoenix. They had an interview file in both windows media and "ipod" format. The ipod format file was 22mb. Clicked on it and safari said it was too big??? Geesh i (why won't it capitalize my " i"?) am on wifi right now an don't think that should be a big deal.

Not complaining, but maybe not understanding.

 

[TonyD]

ok i finally picked one up.

still in the cello.

what is the real pda ability of this phone.

is there any word or excel like funtions.
can i type up a word or word like doc on the phone or computer and get it on the phone?