I'm waiting until the rumoured new one in June. My contract with Ripoffafone ends in May, so it should hopefully be perfectly timed. Even if the new one doesn't come out I'll probably get one at that point. I played on one extensively in the Apple store the other week having long had an interest and it's a majestic piece of kit.

Vario 2 contract is up in June, can't decide whether to go iphone or wait for the Xperia 1 from Sony which also looks tasty. Vario has been a whole lot better since Opera Mini 4 came out and am waiting patiently for Opera Mobile 9.5 which will hopefully be as good as Safari mobile.

thanks for the response, i suppose at the end of the day it is an mp3 player first and foremost so the email/online functions are just extras. will be good in london though, for sure, where there are wireless spots all over the place.

The Smartphone market is going to expand this year whilst the traditional Cell phone market will contract (IMHO) There will be a wide choice available by Q3 from multiple suppliers and I am sure the BB will have a say in this.

The iphone isn't a smartphone

On no here we go again ;)

what is your definition of a smartphone Dave? I am not a tech guy and am interested in knowing your thoughts. Some say it is purely about functionality and others say it is about the OS

for me a smartphone says push email and office integration - the iPhone does niether right now. The iPhone has different features and a different focus. Its a covergence device that actually works. Crackberry are great but its apples and oranges comparing it with the iPhone

Apple are just about to move into the office apps and email market for business though.

I have a question... I currentlt have all my music on Itunes which feeds my 60gig ipod (its about 75% full.) If I were to get an Iphone how would it interact with my current installation of itunes? Will it try and sync all 45gig to the phone, or does each device have its own seperate interface?

I love the ipod and iphone but I hate Itunes!!

Either stop using iTunes, there are other music syncing/playing solutions. If you are using iTunes, turn off the autosync feature and manually select what you want to import.

We run four iPods off the same iTunes installation. Have over 40Gb of music and service an iPod 20Gb, 2 Nanos and a shuffle. Easiest way I have found is to create playlists for each machine and then select the option to just sync the playlist, that way you can have a separate list for the iPod to the iPhone.

you can sync a subset of your tunes by creating playlists abd only syncing those - I agree though, Itunes stinks. I have actually stopped uploading music to my iPhone - I just subscribe to oodles of podcasts and use those instead

Cheers chaps

Do these sync all the other crap that Itunes does on the phone? Contacts, calendar, photos etc? How do you do iphone updates?

Itunes only flaw is having to manually add links to where music is all the time on your drives, instead of being able to monitor folders where you put the things. Other than that it's fine as a program.

Apple announced this week support for Microsoft Exchange, and push e-mail, calendars, contacts etc, so I'd expect many people will switch their business phones to an Iphone as soon as their company will allow, and the public becomes aware of it.

Blackberry's are horribly clumsy devices, no good for anything apart from receiving work mail.

.

Sorry Dave, I meant just for music, don't think there is a way of doing the other stuff afaik.

in laymans terms, does this mean if I get an Iphone now it will sync automatically with outlook email, contacts & calendar? Do I need to wait for the next version?

Well it depends what you want/mean?

Will it sync outlook from you PC to you Iphone - yes I believe so

Will it push your exchange email to your phone over the internet and sync your contacts calendars without being physically connected to your pc - not yet

In the terms and conditions of an Iphone from O2 it says you cannot stream audio or visual, so how does that sit with the Iplayer?

Do O2 really cancel peoples contracts if they find they are streaming?

I have most of my music on a website that I can stream from any machine with an internet connection, so if I were to get an Iphone this would be a great way to have all my music available instead of a subset.

Streaming music over GPRS isn't fun, doable but not fun.

If you are connected to wifi then 02 won't care as you aren't traversing their network.

If they bring in 3G then who knows what happens.

I haven't heard of anyone getting their contracts cancelled

Tried to get mine connected with work e-mail but was told...

"the only way you can set up your exchange email account is if it is configured for IMAP (which is a standard set of rules for accessing email from local server). Unfortunately our system doesn't support that so you wont be able to use the iPhone as an e-mail client (specific to our system)."

Are they being lazy and there is a way to do this, or are they ... :sob: right?

They are correct although all Exchange servers can have Imap enabled very easily.

Cheers Dave. I'll have a dig around and see what I can suss out.

If all Exchange servers can be enabled easily a PM on how this works would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

Mark

ive got one and i love it. Took me a few days to get used to the keyboard but after then its easy and much prefer it!!!

can get them unlocked now to take any sim card,(not read oither posts sorry)

Not sure what you mean by that, that's been the case since soon after they were released. They'll run any sim card apart from one on 3.

It's just a configuration setting in exchange server

after being unlocked or anyway?

After being unlocked. The uk versions are locked to O2 but this is easily remedied.

And thanks for you answer Dave. I will try again with our IT bods.

Apparently the next update will include the app store icon,so we wont need an unlocked phone to be able to access the third party applications.

Bought an Apple TV from the London store today and was amazed at how many iPhones they're selling every minute. They really are just walking out the door.

What made you get an AppleTv?

I only live in a small gaff so want to rip my DVD's (I have room for a server) and stick them all in the loft. The quality is really good.

I'm also waiting for the HD rentals to come to the UK.

What format are you ripping the dvd's to?

The HD rentals will be sweet for sure.

h.264 (m4v). New DVD's are a bastard (DRM) but the older stuff is a stroll in the park. Mac the Ripper to extract the VOB's and then I'm using Handbrake to encode (usually, I rip a few DVD's and queue them in Handbrake to encode overnight).

It's a shame you can't play the dvds natively in iso format or similar.

It may come, you never know.

I may rip some small stuff for the iPhone when I get it.

PS - if anyone knows a better DVD extraction utility than Mac the Ripper, please let me know. MtR v3 is really flakey and no version can handle the newer DVD's with the deliberate bad sectors.

So the Iphone rumour of the day is that the pro will have 3g and a second camera for 3g video calling.

I thought you had a mini Brett? Can the AppleTV handle streaming HD?

yes

I do have a G4 Mini but it cannot handle the HD content. It suffers from integrated graphics; it doesn't seem to matter if files are encoded or not, it judders away and looks shite.

I've also got a US iTunes account so I'm renting heaps of HD movies on the aTV at rock bottom prices.

It's a shame that Apple want to persist with two distinct products in the Mini and aTV with neither fully capable of being a true media hub. If they really want to insist on having two products, the aTV should at least be a convergance device. Stripped down OS X a la iPhone to run Safari together with a BD drive, the current aTV firmware and hardware. It would blow everything else out of the water.

On a different note, isn't it amazing that when you upgrade to an infinitely more powerful machine than your last, the jump doesn't seem that huge. Then, a few months later, you switch on the older girl and the chasm in spec seems even wider than you thought. It's an interesting mind trick.

Just got myself an iphone a couple of days ago. Fantastic bit of kit. Probably a new one out in the summer, but I couldnt wait! :D

Great using BBC iplayer on it!

Anyone got any favourite apps for it?

How does it do that then? I assume the fact that my Mini (Solo) suffers due to either the GFX Card, Memory or the Centrino processor. How has the AppleTV got more mustard for these things for such a low price? I was considering this earlier on when paf threw in the Popcorn device but hadn't thought about it that much, instead I thought I'd ask the uber masters on the bbs.

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/O2_to_c...%C2%A3100.html

O2 and Carphone to cut £100 from price of the iPhone

The iPhone is set to be cut to £169 as part of a limited offer from O2.

The £100 reduction, which will apply to the 8GB device on any O2 tariff, will take place tomorrow (Wednesday) and will run until 1 June.

It follows T-Mobile's decision to reduce the price of the handset from £315 to £78 in Germany.

With price cuts and iPhone stock reportedly running low and not being replenished in the US, France and UK, speculation is mounting about the release date of the 3G version of the device.

The price reduction follows O2's decision to increase the minutes and texts included in its £35 a month tariffs to 600 minutes and 500 texts in, up from 200 minutes and 200 texts.

The 16GB iPhone will not be included in the offer, and will remain £329.

Does the H264 in hardware

Amazing deal.

Im think i'm still going to wait for a 32gig 3g version.

It's going to cost...

I wouldn't pass this up

I agree that this is a real bargain, but 3g, a 5mb camera and 32gig would all be worth the extra cost to me.

So tempted but i just got given a 16GB touch for my brithday a few weeks back.

Although its currently with Apple being repaired as it donsent even work properly!

ho hum!

I'm not. I was waiting for 3G but this is too good to refuse.

Enjoy

o2 not taking online orders due to demand and I work in the only major town centre without either an o2 shop or Carphone Warehouse :(

Can't you get someone to but it for you? They don't need to sign contracts etc, just buy the phone

Now reduced and available on the CPW website.

Read somewhere that if you take a contract (can't remember what type, sorry) as well and use Quidco, the phone would essentially only cost £68.

It was somewhere on the hotukdeals site.

I've got it! Gotta love flexi hours ;)

Nice one, try and activate asap - loads of people will be activating phones today - could be a very long wait

Wish I could; I'm now stuck at work with my spanking new iPhone in my drawer whilst I field stupid systems enquiries.

Dave, do you use your dock much or do you just plug the USB cable straight in? I assume data transfer speeds are not affected by having an extra passthrough?

I don't have a dock.

Transfer speeds are not an issue, plug it in via usb last thing at night, get todays podcasts - done!

I failed the online credit check. WTF? I have an unblemished credit history over the past 18 months.

Edit - passed now. I remember now why I left o2 before! ;)

o2 are awful when it comes to credit ratings. Blacklisted me as they reckoned I owed then 12p (one days line rental), I wish they were available with a decent carrier rather than those idiots.

The hassle was worth it - this is a really cool device.

I'm a bit stunned why so many people are queueing up (well, on the Beeb) to knock it. People should remember that this is the first true phone Apple have created. Comparing it to phones from Nokia and their 25+ years experience in the field, the iPhone holds up amazingly well and can't be denied the fact that it's shaken long-time cell phone manufacturers in their boots, all in less than a year.

If it's a shit device, why is everyone now copying it? :)

Anyone know how watchable is BBC iplayer via EDGE internet??

It won't let you

hmmm. Thanks for letting me know. :p

I'm having to take this puppy back.

The sound is horrific on speaker and via the earbuds. Distortion, scratching and buzzing on anything above +1 volume on speaker and 50% on earbuds.

I don't have any of this on my iPod Nano so I'm a bit shocked and disappointed that the self-styled world's best iPod is so shite.

Is anybody else having or had problems with the sound?

Sounds like a fault

I can't listen watch YouTube at all as any sound on it is distorted totally; really horrible noise from it.

Are you not meant to watch YouTube without having the earbuds in? I can't believe that is the intention.

You have a fault

I know - I'm just trying to eek out of having to go back to CPW. Shopping holocaust.

Sucks, bad luck :(

Hmm - I tweaked a bass setting in the iPod settings and the problem has gone away.

Going to monitor it a bit before the returns period expires but seems promising.

I tweaked nada

Safer taking it back..don't want the proble return the day after the return period!

Hot off the press...

Foxconn, who manufacture the iphone for Apple, has reportedly been given an order for 3m units of the next gen 3G iphone with production set to start in May. Probable announcement at the World Wide Developers Conference keynote on June 9th. The interesting part is that the total order is for 24-25 million units over the life-cycle of the product.

Sounds like Apple think this is a killer device...

well 3G solves the most apparent problem with the iphone, that of limited data streaming over GPRS (/whatever it uses?). the internet function of the phone, plus the nice little bits like Google Maps, youtube, really rely heavily on solid consistent data streaming. Once they alleviate that problem, tweak the software a little bit, minor things here and there, they will indeed have a killer device. i really feel it will do for the mobile telecommunications industry what the ipod did for the mp3 playing industry. (well what i mean is it will have a similar impact in terms of growth in market share, phones are already ready big business and there are a number of respected players, unlike the pre-ipod mp3 days).

interesting times indeed.

One thing i would like them to tweak is that when you are writing emails, notes, using the applications on the home page, you cant turn the screen thus lengthening the keyboard. i dont know why this is but its pretty annoying.

3G presents it's own problems/ How likely are 02 to ship unlimited data, not very. 3G will murder battery life and generate more heat.

I'll still be getting one when they eventually get released here although I expect that will be a bit away.

fixed in next release iirc

What are peoples opinions with the Iphone 2 then? Overall, im pleased it has 3g though we will still have to see what data restrictions O2 put in place, and GPS is good. Disapointed not to get a 32gig one, only 8 and 16gig available at the moment.

The biggest headline though is the price, with it looking to be just over £100 for the 8gig and £150 for the 16gig.

They come out on the 11th July, and I will be getting one then.

Much discussion on the mac thread.

I think it's an amazing deal, will be interested to see the details on the upgrade and as you say the data restrictions by 02

o2 need a fundamental overhaul of their 3g coverage or it will remain just an expensive gimmick that fails to justify the hype (3g not the iPhone).

Is 02's 3G poor?

Shite is a better word to use.

What is the relevance of a blog written before the iPhone was released (especially all these months down the line)?

Little bit out of date Stav.... keep up.

I-Phone help question: How do i use the songs on my ipod as ringtones on convert them for use as a ringtone?

Does anyone know?

yes - convert the files to M4R - add to itunes is supposed to be the way

Cut the file down to less than 40 seconds via Windows Movie Maker.
Import file into Itunes
Itunes will then convert the song into a different format.
Find the newly connverted file, and change the file extention to m4r.
Drag and drop the m4r file into Itunes.

Finished.
Not too difficult

Now it will sync with exchange I am thnking of getting one..

It always let you pull down mail and send email via exchange

push is all that is new

Does the Iphone have a voice recorder on it?

No,

Yes but it is a big plus for me, and other blackberry users as well.

Um why?

Downloading over IMAP is pretty much the same, although having your IMAP server accssible on the internet might scare some people.

Cheers guys. Managed to get movies on it so even though im an IT ****** i should be able to get there from that. :p

I found it tricky

Shame about the 2mb camera, but I am counting down the days. My life is about to change :)

yes, yes it will