{"id":140,"date":"2007-01-11T23:11:30","date_gmt":"2007-01-12T09:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/11\/i-really-want-an-apple-iphone-but\/"},"modified":"2007-01-11T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2007-01-12T09:11:30","slug":"i-really-want-an-apple-iphone-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/11\/i-really-want-an-apple-iphone-but\/","title":{"rendered":"I Really Want an Apple iPhone, but…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a user and fan of Microsoft Windows Mobile (aka Windows CE) Handheld PCs, Pocket PCs, and Smartphones since 1996. I’ve used either a Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition or a Smartphone as my phone for nearly five years now. However, I really really want an Apple iPhone. Take a look at Apple’s Phil Schiller demonstrating it for CBS News if you wonder why.
\nCBS News: Apple’s Phil Schiller demonstrates the iPhone<\/a><\/p>\n

That said, there is a “But…” in this train of thought. There are a couple of big issues for me and, I suspect, for others too.<\/p>\n

First, the Apple iPhone will be available exclusively through Cingular in the US (soon to be merged into the AT&T Wireless brand). They are the largest mobile phone carrier in the US. But, they aren’t my carrier. And, neither Cingular nor AT&T Wireless have had great acclaim from their customers in the recent past. Take a look at RCRWireless’ discussion of Consumer Reports’ survey of 18,000 mobile phone customers. The title of the article is: Consumer Reports\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 subscribers give Cingular, Sprint Nextel coal for the holidays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Second, there is an issue about the dreaded MRC (Monthly Recurring Cost). The way it looks to me is that I would want their lowest cost voice plan with their unlimted data plan. I’m guessing this will be $40 + $40 = $80. My current plan is $30 for voice and $30 for unlimited data (also EDGE) plus unlimited WiFi at Starbucks, Borders Books, and Kinko\/FedEx locations. That’s $60\/month. That means that annual service cost would jump from $720\/year to $960\/year. Over the course of a two-year contract, this comes out to $1,440 vs. $1,920.<\/p>\n

Third, Apple has verified that they will not allow 3rd party applications to be installed. Since they use the Safari browser, I guess you could argue that you can use web apps (maybe even AJAX-ified web apps). But, there are still plenty of times I know I will be out of EDGE or WiFi signal range and be app-less. Of course, the built-in apps look nice. I don’t install many apps on my Pocket PC or Smartphone. But, the ones I do have installed have become invaluable to me. I would need them or something like them on my iPhone.<\/p>\n

My guess at the moment is that I’m going to have to pass on the Apple iPhone for 2007. I hope one of the other carriers picks up the iPhone in 2008\/2009 and has a reasonable voice+data plan for me to consider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a user and fan of Microsoft Windows Mobile (aka Windows CE) Handheld PCs, Pocket PCs, and Smartphones since 1996. I’ve used either a Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition or a Smartphone as my phone for nearly five years now. However, I really really want an Apple iPhone. Take a look at Apple’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-mobile-devices","category-mobile-phones"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ppKRG-2g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}