Filed under: iPod Family, Rumors, Wireless, Apple
iPhone details 'confirmed' by Kevin Rose
As our "geeky sister" blog Engadget is reporting, Digg founder Kevin Rose (no relation) has announced iPhone specs on his podcast. While you might take most iPhone rumors with the customary grain of salt, this is the guy who called the ball on the iPod Nano prior to His Steveness' introduction of same. We'll reserve judgment for now, save to note that this wee Frankenphone, yet to ship or be announced, has Bear Stearns anticipating six billion bucks of revenue for AAPL in '07. Such is the power of this fully operational iPod battlestati-- I mean, ecosystem.The nitty-gritty from the podcast, via Engadget:
- Extremely small form factor
- Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions
- Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
- "Slide-out keyboard"
- Possibly touchscreen
- Likely launch with a 'singular GSM carrier' with CDMA and other GSM to follow
[Thanks Javi, Andrew G. and David C.!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TUAWAUT said 5:30PM on 12-03-2006
Don't get your hopes up, folks. Everything is a rumor until Apple actually announces such a product.
* Extremely small form factor
* Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions
* Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
* "Slide-out keyboard"
* Possibly touchscreen
* Likely launch with a 'singular GSM carrier' with CDMA and other GSM to follow
These are all predictable details. I mean come on, are you expecting some kind of "out of this world" feature in an iPhone? It will look and function like a cellphone!!!!
And this guy isn't certain about the touchscreen and 'singular GSM carrier'. Sounds like someone’s been having way too many fantasies about the “iPhone.”
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Andrew Grin said 5:34PM on 12-03-2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBfLjqfYKM0
Here the video part
-Andrew G.
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Jon said 5:50PM on 12-03-2006
"Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions"
That's an interesting idea, and hopefully you'd be able to switch to the music battery when your phone dies (I'd imagine this is the case).
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Leonard Nimrod said 5:50PM on 12-03-2006
The dual battery is a cool idea, but I don't see how it can cost an extra $200 for an extra 4GB NAND, unless there are other features for the 8GB iPhone that aren't being stated, like a QWERTY keyboard.
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G said 6:00PM on 12-03-2006
The Star Wars reference made me lol. Nice one.
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Alex said 6:33PM on 12-03-2006
I posted this on Digg but thought I would post it here too, just my thoughts on this story.
Unfortunately I too just got a new phone, but I will just have to live with that.
Also I am going to take this with a very large grain of salt. Sure I believe that the chance of it showing up in january is more than 50%. A couple reasons for that
1) All of apple's advertising has already been done, if you have been on any tech or apple blog lately has it not been posted about at least once?
2)The FCC, some people say that it is not coming out because it has not shown up at the FCC. I think this is a good thing. The Fcc and the company both agree on a date to release records. If the date was early I would say it was going to be unlocked, if it is late (like it is) then it will be sold with a carrier. This is because the cell companies don't want people to stop buying phones to wait for this phone, then they would never sell out of older phones. and too the poeple who thing that it should be unlocked, I would say (this is a guess) that a majority of people who buy cellphones are not buying them unlocked, so for it to be a success it must be on a carrier.
3) I have never watched diggnation but today I did, why you ask? Because of this. How many more people do you think went to digg/watched diggnation today? This could be true info, but I have no doubt that at least some of that hesitation was for suspense purposes.
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MySchizoBuddy said 7:16PM on 12-03-2006
how can u have 2 batteries and a small form factor
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Leonard Nimrod said 7:25PM on 12-03-2006
"how can u have 2 batteries and a small form factor"
You have two batteries equal the size of what one battery would take up.
Moving to something more technical:
Lithium Ion Polymer batteries --what Apple uses in it's iPods and MacBook (Pros)-- have an advantage over Litium Ion batteries in that they can be molded into any form factor while increasing the energy to size by 20% and often producing more energy per weight.
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Jeffbbs said 8:38PM on 12-03-2006
Seriously though, while i trust apple to be up on the latest technology in their computers and Ipods, I hope they aren't merely viewing the American cell phone market as thier competition. Korean and Japanese cell phones are light years ahead of most american and european designs. My phone, which is 3 or 4 years old and I got for free, blows the pants off even some very expensive current american phones. Here it's no big deal, or in fact, a little bit crappy. I'm sure apple is aware of the world (although its asian marketing is ridiculous in a market that would readily accept them and profit them in a huge way), So I hope they don't merely go with something great in america but mediocre in the world. still something of apple stability in the world of shoddy cell phones would be great. That is, if all of this is even true.
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Leonard Nimrod said 10:23PM on 12-03-2006
I don't think you have anything to worry about, Jeffbbs. With LG's (and other companies) coming out with phone/music playes I expect to see some really nice things with Apple's vision. Expecially if they allow you to remotely connect your phone to your home Mac setup for multimedia viewing/lsitening (similiar to what the Slingbox does). The biggest issue with the American phone market will be connecting to our inferior network system, which can partly be reduced if Apple decides to be it's own carrier network. I REALLY hope this is the case as it will force other carriers to increase their crappy networks and, as we all know, subscriptions services are typically more profitable than the hardware sales.
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hdstudio said 4:17PM on 12-04-2006
With two batteries on board, could Apple at least offer us a way to replace the batteries ourselves. Why couldn't that be designed into an iPod?
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Michael Bennett said 11:53PM on 12-03-2006
The second I read this at engadget, I ran over here to see who would be the poster of this news... It would be you; new guy.
I suppose we can let it slide if you could pull some strings to get me one shipped in a competition we KNOW Weblogs, Inc will have.... I mean... you love your family right?
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DCGrendel said 12:13AM on 12-04-2006
This is just kevin trying to make himself famous. A blindfolded drunk throwing darts across a crowded bar would still be more popular than kevin.
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shrimp said 12:28AM on 12-04-2006
DCGrendel:
Kevin is already famous, he doesn't need to try to be famous. Sounds like you're either 1. making fun of him because you're jealous, or 2. you don't know who he is or what he's done.
Anyways, he has a good track record when it comes to Apple rumors. He predicted the Apple nano before it was released last year. And he sucessfully predicted the announcements at MWSF in 06 as well, even if it was the night before.
I'm inclined to believe him, but I'm not betting on it. Apple has an uncanny knack to surprise everyone.
MWSF is going to be interesting this year, what with the iTV, Leopard, the iPhone, iLife 07, iWork 07 ... maybe it'll be 3 hours long.
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Jon said 12:37AM on 12-04-2006
I think that with the popularity of the iPhone rumors, if Apple was not making a phone before, they must be definitely making one now.
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Andrew Burke said 3:15AM on 12-04-2006
How's this for a TUAW competition?
Readers submit bogus Walt Mossberg-style reviews of the phone. Whoever comes closest to the feature set, and Walt's opinion, wins the phone (my assistant Katie and I...).
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Brendon Carr said 9:24AM on 12-04-2006
But Walt Mossberg would buy Steve Jobs' Fart in a Can and proclaim it the Richest, Meatiest, Taste-Dogs-Lovingest canned fart yet. He's hardly a credible voice anymore.
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Brendon Carr said 9:24AM on 12-04-2006
That said, I'm still going to be first in line to get one of these iPhones. Mmm, canned farts...
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Matthew said 10:45AM on 12-04-2006
Those price points seem awfully low to me. Not that I care either way. I'll buy one and see how it stacks up against my W810i.
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quandmeme said 7:52PM on 12-04-2006
Sounds like it will be a zune of an ipod phone :(
Needs push email to be compelling imho, otherwise it is just chasing Chocolate et al and will just dilute Apple's reputation. And I like ipods and want them to stay at the front of the market so I can always get great accessories etc.
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