iPhone4

[Feek]

Originally Posted by Garp

For those that are interested in the iPhone 4, rumours at the moment are that there will be a larger capacity device later this year, probably around November time. That would fit in with Apple's usual release habits too.

No it wouldn't. One iPhone release per year with no memory bumps in-between.

I'm going to 'recycle' my 3GS to o2 which will go a way towards funding an iPhone 4. I'm on the rolling £20/month Simplicity deal now so I'll get the phone on PAYG and throw away the SIM that comes with it.

No sign of UK pricing at all yet though and I suspect that the prices mentioned in the keynote yesterday were for contract devices. I'd hazard a guess that the PAYG prices will be around the same as they were for the 3GS.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Feek

I'll get the phone on PAYG and throw away the SIM that comes with it.

Handy with a pair of scissors I presume? O2 should be able to transfer between SIMs though (they did for me).

I've still got £47 on my PAYG SIM so there's no way I'll be throwing that away.

[Blighter]

Remember the i4 is microsim Feek - but you can cut a normal sim down to size.

ANYONE GETTING AN O2 v4 that is in the middle of a iPhone contract at the moment should enter their details here: https://iphonelatest.o2.co.uk
There is a special deal for current iPhone contract people being announced soon apparently...

[Will]

If you're on a contract, can you recycle your 3G (not s) to O2? Mine hasn't got so much as a scratch on it. Worse comes to worse I can just ebay it or envirophone (et al.) it.

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Feek

No it wouldn't. One iPhone release per year with no memory bumps in-between.

Sorry Feek but that's not true. The original iPhone (September 2007) came in two flavours, 8Gb and 16Gb. Then in February 2008 the 32Gb capacity model was released and the 8Gb retired. Virtually all other iDevices have seen similar tricks. Release in two lower capacity models, then release a larger capacity device later. We're now talking about a device that has gone nearly 3 years without seeing a capacity boost, meanwhile they're adding capacity hungry additions like HD video Cameras.

[Mark]

True. Didn't happen with the 3G or 3GS though. It's probably not in their interests to do it either (the 'mid-term' upgrade to the 2G was to give sales a kick - something that is of less use now due to market penetration and the newer contracts).

I'm guessing there won't be any upgrade offers for PAYG owners then.

[Feek]

That's not how I remember it.

The original iPhone was 4Gb and 8Gb, the 3G bumped it up to 8Gb and 16Gb and then the 3GS bumped that further to 16Gb and 32Gb with about a year between them all.

iPhone was released in September 2007 (later in the UK)
3G came out in July 2008
3GS came out in June 2009

Thinking about it, the original device did get a memory boost a while after but that's the only time that happened, the 3G and the 3GS memory sizes were never changed (although technically the 3GS will only be available in 8Gb once the iPhone 4 is released) once released.

Regarding the SIM, I'm happy to cut to size! Alternatively o2 are shipping SIMs out in advance so I'd hope that it's a simple matter to get the number transferred over. It's something I have to ask Vodafone to do with our company phones at least once a week so I know it's not difficult for the providers to do.

[Chuckles]

The version of iOS4 which is GM and floating round the net works fine on my 3GS by the way.

Folders are fantastic

[divine]

Originally Posted by Garp

My gut is telling me it's AT&T that's screwing Apple with the wifi only restriction.

What's screwing them is the fact it takes a huge amount of bandwidth so you can either have 3G enabled but ultimately poor quality video or you can have nice high quality awesome video but only via WiFi.

Until mobile networks can effectively carry that much video, it's a problem that can't be got round effectively.

[Garp]

Originally Posted by divine

What's screwing them is the fact it takes a huge amount of bandwidth so you can either have 3G enabled but ultimately poor quality video or you can have nice high quality awesome video but only via WiFi.

Until mobile networks can effectively carry that much video, it's a problem that can't be got round effectively.

Sure, but there is nothing to stop Apple / AT&T offering it in both modes, with the caveat that 3G won't compete with wireless for video quality.

AT&T consistently blocks any technology that might result in increased data load. Whilst most of the rest of the world got tethering, it's still not available here, and evidence has come up which suggests AT&T delayed it ever reaching end users. It should be finally hitting the US market at the end of the month when OS4.0 comes out. Oh, and it'll set you back an additional $20 a month too (on top of your data plan without increasing your limits.. but surely data is data regardless of how it's downloaded?)
AT&T is still only slowly realising that they're a data provider, not a voice communication provider, hence VOIP apps were blocked, only allowing them late last year. In the UK "3" were fairly pioneering in their view of themselves a data provider, and it added pressure to the other providers to begin to alter their approach to their networks. That's just not happened here, until fairly recently. (Verizon's recent adverts have helped hammer home the point)

MMS is another prime example, arriving late last year rather than with the OS3.0 upgrade, and evidence points to it being AT&T that caused it to be delayed until OS3.0.

It continues to baffle pundits why Apple remains with AT&T when they have to make so many compromises for abilities. The main conclusion most have is that AT&T give Apple a very nice amount of cash for each new subscriber who has an iPhone.

AT&T also just completely overhauled their data plans, ditching "unlimited" and dropping most people onto a 2Gb plan. That's not bad, but when a number of the new advertised are high bandwidth things, like Netflix, and with an increase in streaming apps, it's almost entirely shackling it here. At least in the UK you have a choice of providers!