Apple today announced that iPhone will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback. In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.
“With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other ‘Smartphone’ and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity. There has never been a phone like iPhone, and we can’t wait to get this truly magical product into the hands of customers starting just 11 days from today.”
iPhone introduces an entirely new user interface based on a revolutionary multi-touch display and pioneering new software that allows users to control iPhone with just a tap, flick or pinch of their fingers. iPhone combines three products into one small and lightweight handheld device—a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod, and the Internet in your pocket with best-ever applications on a mobile phone for email, web browsing and maps. iPhone ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, which completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones.
iPhone will be available in the US on June 29, 2007 in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work with either a PC or Mac. iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores, and through AT&T’s select retail stores.
The iPhone is very pretty, but as a mobile phone it is way behind other phones in Europe (the US market is, for some reason, always behind the curve with cell phones). Take the Nokia N95, Apple cite above, for instance. This supports 3G (as does pretty much every phone in Europe now – even the budget ones), multimedia messaging service (MMS), 5Mpixel camera, voice dialling, FM radio, etc – as well as WiFi and the other older standards the iPhone uses. Why on earth Apple are marketing a phone that is so Internet-centric, but doesn’t support the current data standards is beyond me.
My second comment is that, welcome as those battery improvements are, the iPhone remains a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Those battery times have “or” between them, not “and”. ie. You can have 250hrs of standby, or 5 hours of talk or 16 hours of music. Listen to your iTunes for 8 hours, and you’re down to 2.5 hours of talk. It’s the same for other phones, I know – but for me, it’s the main reason I want a separate phone and iPod.
> Total publicity stunt…. A smart one, but still a publicity stunt.
Of course it is… That’s the genius of Steve Jobs. Everything Apple does and the timing (such as the release of Safari for Windows and the delay of Leopard) is done for a purpose.
uh..glass CRACKS! I wonder how re-inforced this will be because ever since cell phones were small enough to fit in a pocket they’ve lived in my BACK pocket and I sit on them constantly with no ill effects. be a bummer if iPhone was too fragile for my ass!
I KNOW!! I’ve always strapped my phones to the bottom of my golf shoes and they’ve always been fine, so I expect no less from the iPhone. If I can’t park my SUV on it, then it’s of NO use to me.
Look back at my posts (and I mean months ago)…. I said these were the two changes they were going to have to make for iPhone 2.0. An iPod scratchy screen wouldn’t cut it, nor would the battery time. BTW, this upgrade means that this will probably be the basis for future iPods. As an engineer I am so proud of Apple for catching this stuff and changing it even before they went to market. These guys rock!
Just my $0.02
> Those battery times have “or” between them, not “and”. ie. You can have 250hrs of standby, or 5 hours of talk or 16 hours of music…
Of course… No one expects that iPhone has a separate battery for each function. I don’t think you need to state the obvious as an iPhone criticism. That’s stupid…
> This supports 3G (as does pretty much every phone in Europe now – even the budget ones), multimedia messaging service (MMS), 5Mpixel camera, voice dialling, FM radio
Apple chose its feature set for iPhone based on what it thinks will be attractive to customers. Of the points you mentioned, “MMS” can be added through a software upgrade, if that’s a desired function. So can voice dialing (probably). Apple designed the iPhone so that upgrades in features is expected after the initial release. The 3G, camera, and FM radio (no thanks) are design choices by Apple, based on cost and market for the product. Based on public reaction to the iPhone, it seems Apple made the right choices for its first phone.
M only concern is how much the month plan will cost. I’m willing to pay than I do now because I don’t use ANY of the add-on features of my phone, but I want what the iPhone has to offer.
My fear is that pricing hasn’t been announced yet because they’ve jacked the cost up at the last minute because of all the excitement.
Stock tip: buy stock in Bausch & Lomb for all the eyeglass-cleaning wipes they’re going to sell to folks cleaning their iPods 10 times a day… LOL
I promised the spouse I’d wait two weeks till we had a bit more disposable income, now not sure I can…
@Reality Check,
are you based in Europe? I am, and from my perspective is what you write only half correct.
You wrote:
“The iPhone is very pretty, but as a mobile phone it is way behind other phones in Europe (the US market is, for some reason, always behind the curve with cell phones). Take the Nokia N95, Apple cite above, for instance. This supports 3G (as does pretty much every phone in Europe now – even the budget ones), multimedia messaging service (MMS), 5Mpixel camera, voice dialling, FM radio, etc – as well as WiFi and the other older standards the iPhone uses. Why on earth Apple are marketing a phone that is so Internet-centric, but doesn’t support the current data standards is beyond me.”<i>
– The iPhone isn’t “way behind” other phones available in Europe, as you claim. The Nokia N95 is indeed a feature rich phone, but is well known to have horrible battery life, as well as serious quality issues. And it still is based on Symbian OS, which is good, but can’t really compete with OSX in my opinion.
– 3G (a.k.a. UMTS) is available here, but nowhere near being standard. In fact, only a few European countries (the Scandinavian countries in particular) have widespread 3G coverage, and the plans are quite expensive, although some providers like Vodafone and T-Mobile (at least here in Germany) are starting to offer flatrate plans for their 3G networks. Very few people actually use MMS, because it’s so expensive. 5MP cameras on a cell phone is perhaps good marketing, but not very useful. Some of these budget phones with cameras with higher than 3MP resolution also have very small memory capacities, negating any advantages a hi res camera lens would have.
<i>”My second comment is that, welcome as those battery improvements are, the iPhone remains a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Those battery times have “or” between them, not “and”. ie. You can have 250hrs of standby, or 5 hours of talk or 16 hours of music. Listen to your iTunes for 8 hours, and you’re down to 2.5 hours of talk. It’s the same for other phones, I know – but for me, it’s the main reason I want a separate phone and iPod.”
In that case, what makes the N95 that you heap so much praise on so much better than the iPhone? It basically suffers from the same issues regarding battery life that every other smartphone on the planet suffers from. If you’ve ever actually used a Nokia N95 (as I have), you’d probably recognize that it’s not as cool in person as it is on paper.
I posted this in another thread, but some people on this one might be interested…
IF YOU WANT TO BLOCK 95% OF WEB ADVERTISING, DO THE FOLLOWING:
How to Edit the Hosts file
1. Open the /etc folder in the Finder (Choose ‘Go’ from Finder, then ‘Go to Folder’, and type in ‘/etc’).
2. Copy the ‘hosts’ file onto your desktop (for backup incase it goes tits up), then rename it ‘hosts.original’ and place it back into the /etc folder (you will be asked for your password when you do this).
3. Next, login using an admin account and (if you are already in an admin account you can -) launch Terminal.
4. Type (or copy/paste from below) the following:
sudo pico /etc/hosts
and this will open the hosts file in pico (the text editor in Terminal)
5. Press the down arrow key till you get to the bottom of the text already in the file (do not, under any circumstances alter or delete the text already there).
6. Copy ALL the text from this link
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt
and then paste it beneath the last line in the hosts (please note pasting the information will take a while, maybe up to 10 minutes)
7. Press ‘Ctrl x’ to exit pico, and press y followed by Enter to save changes to the hosts file you have just edited.
8. Next, update Netinfo Database by typing the following into Terminal:
sudo niload -v -m hosts . < /etc/hosts
9. Restart your Mac, and you will see a massive reduction in adverts when you browse the web.
WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DONE
Basically, you are telling your Mac that all the advert servers in the world (eg: ad.adserver.com) are on your Mac (127.0.0.1 is a local address), so it will attempt to look for them locally and fail. Because this is all done on your machine it happens instantly and the image of the advert is not downloaded. You will notice a small speed improvement as well, because your Mac is not constantly contacting the (slow) ad servers all the time, and you will also not be ‘tracked’ by the servers because they will not be sending cookies to you.
But best of all, you will not have hundreds of adverts all over your web pages, just nice empty white spaces that aren’t distracting and do not pop-up or track your movements on the web.
You must keep the hosts details updated, last update to the .txt file was 14th June 07.
Regards,
Jamie
MW: peace!
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that Steve Jobs experienced some scratches on his iPhone and that’s why we’re getting this improvement. Thanks a lot Steve.
Thanks Jamie!
ChrissyOne –
500 feet (or even 150 for that matter) wouldn’t be precise enough for a city block in Manhattan.
WOW! Talk time 8 hours. That would be first phone ever that lasts one day in my use without help.
@ PC Apologist
True enough, I suppose. But it seems the primary uses Apple is touting hinge on things like “I’ma git me some seafood” and that assumes one can walk +/- 500 feet. GPS will be required for an exaclt “You Are Here” function, but that will no doubt come with time.
Or use Firefox and block ads with a single click each — all of them, including Flash ads, not some of them after jumping through a dozen hoops.
Do you plan to turn your PSA into spam?
Who wants a cell phone that you can’t drop?
I’ve dropped my cell phone many, many times. I’ve dropped my iPod twice (with no damage).
But back when I had a Palm Pilot (with a glass screen) I dropped it once and the screen cracked in half.
In those days, Palm was so resigned to the problem that they even had an “Express Screen Replacement Program” or some such.
What if you’re aggressively thumbing in some text and you put your thumb through the screen? (Can’t be done with a stylus, but I bet you could easily put a finger through the thing.) Or if you sit on it?
I’ve got to be wrong, because “Steve is always right,” but this seems like a big problem.
Fred, if you plan to fire bullets at your iPhone and set it on fire, maybe the folks at Victor Systems (who sell military ruggedized Macs can help?)
http://www.victorsystems.biz/id2.html
MDN “care” as in hopefully most of us will care for our iPhones more gently than Fred!
What a joke this site has turned into! Deleting comments that don’t praise or comments that raise legitimate concerns? So is this a news site or a propaganda site?
I work in the service and construction industry. I can not have a phone made with glass no matter what kind of glass it is. I have a slvr that has taken a beating but the protector on it has kept the plastic from getting scratched. I’m sure that if it were glass it would have cracked by now.
Putting glass on a phone is just plain dumb. I love my Apple products but I won’t be buying an iPhone now.
Hopefully Apple will eventually offer trimmed down versions of the iPhone in the future. All I really want is the phone, ipod and contact info in one device with a plastic screen. This sounds like a reasonable less expensive future option.
rahrens:
OK, I stand corrected, and I’m happy to say I was mistaken. Apparently, I was thinking about “crown” glass(?) In any event, if this phone can’t take being dropped, it will be a marketing and public relations disaster of major, major proportions.
Well, they’re right about scratch resistance, but I wouldn’t bet on the screen’s resistance to breakage. Whatever you do, DON”T drop the iPhone!
I plan on waiting on line for my iPhone on the 29th no doubt… But glass has to be heavier… :think:
Apparently Apple engineers are worried about the durability of the new glass screens too…
There is a registered user over at AppleInsider who posted back in April that Apple would be using glass on the iPhone.. He says he has a reliable source at Apple.. Seems pretty legit. I mean, people don’t go around starting rumors about using glass instead of plastic if they’re looking for attention. Read his April post about his conversations with an Apple source which expresses the engineers concerns about the glass and more here:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1068936&postcount=175
You’re all right about the glass, it was a dumb idea that no one questioned. We didn’t even test it. Just threw it in on a lark without even thinking. You know how kooky we are!!!
-ai
WHY IS THIS NEWS ITEM STILL AT THE TOP