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iPhone = beauty

Not travel related, but by golly I want this!

10.01.2007 semi-overcast 3 °C

So, some of you might know we TP-ers have a bit of a love for the mac and all things Apple. It must come from that love of seeing computers work how they should and be as intuitive and easy to use as they should. So, although this post is totally unrelated to travel, it is totally related to Apple. In particular, Apple's newest creation, the absolutely stunning iPhone!

Revealed a few hours ago, this thing just makes me drool. A few things make it stand out for me in that 'Apple' way.

  • tilt function (yes, all phones can be tilted, but how many actually adjust the screen format from landscape to portrait and vice versa based on the tilt angle?!)
  • integration with google maps & google earth. It looks great in the demo - hopefully it will live too.
  • the touch screen and the scroll effects when using it
  • the way to scroll through album artwork a la itunes (check it out there if you've never seen this before!)
  • zooming function, using either a pinch type movement with the fingers or double tap
  • last, but certainly not least for any web developer out there, the way the browser looks. Things like the tilt function come back here, actually making mobile web browsing look good in landscape mode for example. Or zoom in using the same pinch/double tap technique in case you can't read something.

Of course it's got a great big screen, doubles as an ipod, has great email/sms and calling extras too.

The downside. Two that I can see on the face of it:
1. storage: 4gb or 8gb could run out pretty quickly if you try and sync all your photos across.
2. availability: even in the US it's not available until June at the earliest. I'm not sure what that means for us non US folk, all 5 billion of us, but I doubt we'll be seeing this thing in stores for a while. Not only that, but a real downside in the States is that you can only use it with Cingular. I hope Apple don't pursue a similar policy in Norway!

Now, I just have to wait a while, or maybe I can pick one up in the States and just plug in my Norwegian sim card....

Posted by Sam I Am 04:54

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Comments

It won't be in Europe until end of 2007.. and it won't be in Australia till 2008 :(

I suspect there will be a lot of these floating around on the black market.

10.01.2007 by Peter

For once we North Americans will have a cool phone before the rest of you! Mwaaahahahahah! Although I just got my poor phone and it doesn't look like I'll be trading up anytime soon. Still - it's the principle of the thing. :)

10.01.2007 by tway

Tina, I don't think Canada is actually getting it when it comes out in the US... noticed some comments from Canadian users on other blogs who were really hoping it wouldn't be an exclusive deal with Rogers when it did make it over :)

Not so sure about the black market Peter. You can't buy the phone without becoming a cingular customer and presumably that means locking yourself in for a while. Even with the cingular lock in, it's still going to be expensive at USD 499 (that's on top of the cost of being locked in for I'd guess a year). Factor the cost of the two together and it'd be a very expensive thing to try getting on the black market.

Will be interesting to see how it develops, but it might very well be an unaffordable phone without the provider tie-in...

10.01.2007 by Sam I Am

Considering the prices people were willing to pay for Xbox 360s when they weren't yet launched everywhere, I still think there will be quite a few floating around.

11.01.2007 by Peter

Dang. Foiled again. :(

11.01.2007 by tway

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