Who wants an Apple iPhone minus the phone?

“The iPhone is everything I have been waiting for in a portable device (email, chat, internet, photos, music, camera); however, the thing I am least excited about is the cell phone feature,” Adam blogs via .Mac.

Adam writes, “Here is what troubles me. I find myself using a traditional phone less and less. All I really need is an internet connection, and I can communicate just fine with the entire world. I basically use Skype for calls, iChat for IMs, email for everything else. Who really needs a separate ‘phone line’ any more…just get me on the internet.”

“I would be happy having an iPhone without any cellular service. I do not want to pay $100/month (who knows how much it will really cost) to use this great new device,” Adam writes.

Full article here.
Okay, who else wants an “iPhone sans phone” and doesn’t want to wait until fall or whenever Apple decides to release it as the new iPod?

82 Comments

  1. “I basically use Skype for calls, iChat for IMs, email for everything else.”

    Of course, consider that (a) there’s no Skype for iPhone (no third-party support) and (b) no iChat for iPhone (remember that the demo used SMS-messaging). So you’d be stuck with e-mail.

    That said, I do like the concept for the next iPod. Leave out the phone and just have music/movie player and Internet connectivity.

  2. This guy should get a life. Or does he never leave his desk? Try using Skype in a park or a taxi or at a client site, or on vacation, or at your Mum’s place, or in your garden or…

    And I don’t know about you, but the voice quality on ANY of the IP telephony services that I have used (including Skype and Jajah) is so poor that i usually can’t wait to terminate the call. It reminds me of long distance calls before fibre optics. I spend half my call saying “sorry what was that?”. I prefer to pay for my calls…

    I am using a Motorolla Razr, which has a user interface designed by a drunk chimpanzee. To say I hate it is an understatement. It never ceases to annoy. And on more than one occasion I have wanted to hurl it into the traffic.

  3. Apple could make a killing with the same unit less the phone. Take out the phone and the price should drop. That way you have a choice iPhone or iPod. Many cell phone users have a contract that may lock them in for sometime before they can get the iPhone. But that will not stop them from getting the new iPod.

  4. Me I want a widescreen iDevice.
    8 gigs in the phone please…. I have a 60 gig and that is not big enough.
    I don’t know what I would do if I only had 8 gigs.
    Steve hear my prayer and give be 100 gig widescreen, email, chat, picture and video capture iDevice………please

  5. ME!!!
    I thought I was the only one thinking this way. I see the iPhone as a way to finally not have to carry my PowerBook around with me. The feature I like the most is the portable web browser. The phone and iPod parts of it are ok if that is the only way it comes. But I would be perfectly happy with a $299 ultra Mac portable.

  6. The possibilities for future configurations of the iPhone are nearly endless. The point is that the iPhone is a PLATFORM, capable of going where technology allows.

    The same cannot be said of devices powered by WinCE, Palm or Symbian. They are mired in, and limited by, technology that is 20 years old. Linux has a better chance of keeping up with OSX (mobile) than these three do.

    I think the future of cellular carriers, telecoms and cable providers is as internet access portals. All other value added features of these current business models, will transition to access devices and the internet.

    With so much competition for internet users, the price of access (high speed) is going to drop like a rock.

  7. If anything I am using a traditional phone more. Having to limit myself to a conversation via email, chat or somewhere where I had to be connected to the internet (to use skype) would properly suck. Trying to explain stuff over email or IM is just plain frustrating – the phone is much better.

    What would be the point of having an iPhone without the phone, and without any of the services that you have to pay a subscription fee to use?

    All you would have is an iPod, a camera (which wouldnt be as good as your average digicam) and a few apps, which would have such limited use because of the lack of internet.

    I’ll have the iPhone, with everything included, thank you very much.

  8. That is EXACTLY what I want. The iPhone will do me absolutely no good as long as it’s locked into Cingular since their great network doesn’t service my area. If it has WiFi and Apple certifies a VOIP client for it I’m good to go.

  9. Well, I think it would be great, but I just bought a new MacBook on Sunday, so I won’t have any cash available for an iPod for a few months. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”red face” style=”border:0;” />

  10. I too have been waiting for a mobile internet connection. I have a Palm but have chosen not to get the wireless feature due to the price.

    I hate using a cell phone and can’t wait to end each call.

    While I’d love the internet connection I can’t imagine it’s going to be cheap and without the phone part. They’re too integrated.

  11. Perhaps a new product, called the iComm? Or just the new generation of iPod? After all it’s an iPOD, not an iJUKEBOX. You can put whatever you want on an iPod.

    Like the iPhone without the iPhone?

    Like the most revolutionary PDA in the industry?

    Yeah, I’ll go for that! And people from outside the USA will go for it, I’m sure. My dad (who lives overseas) saw the iPhone, and the first thing he said is “too bad it’s only for the US market. I could do with one of those without the phone”.

    That’s a pretty big statement, I’d say.

  12. Yeah Skype!!! bla bla bla…

    …please people Skype SUCKS!… that is unless you like shitty static ridden calls with a 2 second delay, I wont even get into the Skype Video experience!…. using Skype makes a walkie talkies sound like a real face to face conversation…

    Get s clue Skype fanboys just cuz its free does NOT make is good!

  13. I’d love an iPhone without the cellular radio. But as other’s have said, the iPhone is a closed system and it would need to be opened up.

    Personally, the fact that Apple won’t allow third-party software is what may hold me back from purchasing one.

  14. The iPhone doesn’t suit me as a phone – who wants to take a £350 phone out on the piss on a friday night? But an iPhone without the phone but with WiFi internet connection and a HDD would be brilliant. As a photographer I could transfer files to it and even view them – OSX has inbuilt support for RAW. This device then becomes more of a laptop replacement than an iPod. I’d then also have a shitty phone with a crap UI for actually making phone calls. An iPhone Nano with better UI but minus video iPod features could also find its way into my pocket…

  15. Count me in !

    This whole haggle about 2 year contracts and provider binding pissed me off since the slide showed up on the keynote.

    I would be very happy with a solution that acts like the PSP (being able to connect to a WAP), like an iPod (play music and video) and a Newton or Palm (do all the rest.)

    $ 399… sold ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />

  16. “Yes but iChat will arrive for it, maybe even on launch and Skype is a matter of Apple enabling it.”

    And we’ve been waiting how long for a spreadsheet in iWork?

    I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for software from Apple.

  17. Clearwire will not take over because they don’t want you using Internet communications (other than thiers I guess) on your Internet connection. Clearwire “manages” their network and specifically blocks ports needed to iniate AV chats with iChat. I had to threaten cancellation before they finally decide to allow acces to those ports on my connection. They said they block 5060 and 5061, and apprently call them the “VoIP” ports. So, my iChat AV did not work out-of-the-box, becasue of Clearwire.

  18. Keep the phone. Cingular’s reception isn’t any more reliable than Verizon’s, which sucks.

    What I really want is the ability to use the iPhone as a cellular modem anywhere there’s a signal. When the iPhone can do that, I’ll take one.

  19. The cell phone could remain as an option, but I think we’re all pretty much hip, by now, to the fact that the real functionality of the iPhone in now way emphasizes the phone part – its just kind of there. But hey, some people need a cell phone too, so leave it in there, just don’t make me have to get into this cell phone war, and mostly because I only have one choice whether I like it or not, and its not Cingular/ATT.

    Personally I don’t give two monkey tits about the phone – leave it in there and if I can ever use it great, but I don’t want to have to get new cell service at this point (even if I did have a choice) just to get the iPhone. A much better name for the iPhone would have been, of all the ironic things, iLife. Oh well, leave it to cellular service providers to screw up a good thing.

  20. I seldom answer calls when listening to my iPod, anyway. But, hey, I’ll take an iPhone without the cell phone feature but with multi-protocol wireless access instead, so I can also stream Internet radio on the go. For calls, I’d just use SkypeIn/SkypeOut as needed.

    Who needs Cingular?

  21. dogfriend: I used to work for AT&T (later Lucifer, er Lucent technologies)

    What a sucky company all around. The management was completely redneck, white trash. It sounded so prestigious when I told people I worked for AT&T. But, everyone was miserable and at least mildly retarded. I must have been too, because I stayed there way too long before I said, “screw this!”

    I, too, don’t want to pay for cellular service when I can use Skype on my computer. I hope there’s a phoneless option. It would suck to have to pay monthly to have the newest iPod/mobile Mac. BTW, I say it’s a mobile Mac because it is the future of computing, along with laptops and/or tablets.

    I want it for email, surfing, watching videos, playing music, viewing pictures, iCal, and hopefully for IM, but not for making calls.

  22. While I eagerly await both the iPhone and a new iPod with these features, one might as well get a phone tossed in the deal, as some kind of wireless connection service is going to be needed to provide internet access when one is out of range of 802.11x services.

    I have long wanted a convergence device of this type, but I will probably wait for a second generation product with better performance/capacity before jumping on board. I am much more likely to buy the iPod version first.

  23. The answer is a pay-as-you-go phone option. Voice calls charged at a premium but no fixed-term contract. Along with the device being enabled for wireless internet connection whenever its in range of a hotspot. That way anyone can own an iPhone and enjoy all its features without having the burden of an unwanted and largely unused expensive monthly contract.

    This must be an issue for Apple as they’ll count themselves out of a massive market-sector for the iPhone with this contract attached to it as a condition of hardware ownership – and I expect Cingular will be very twitchy about allowing Skype-type services.

  24. I would really like Apple to release a mobile version of OSX that can be installed on any current “Smartphone”. While I like my Blackjack, it runs Windows Mobile, and it shows. Occasional freezes, alarm clock is unreliable…etc.

  25. removing the phone from the iPhone will make it cheaper to make.

    @emax etc, removing the iPod from the iPhone will not make it cheaper at all. (unless u remove some of the ram, but that will only result in a marginal difference in price)

  26. Count me in…

    I want one sans phone.

    in fact I will buy one without activation if they would let me.
    (or even buy it, then cancel the service and pay the 200$ penalty)

    Finally people have figured out why ‘some’ analysts have said that Apple has put the writing on the wall for the phone companies.

    MW= ‘shall’…as a great American leader said, “WE SHALL OVERCOME”.
    (even though he didn’t mean the damn phone companies)

  27. Oh hell, when will people get it through their thick heads that Steve Jobs showed us the iPhone because he wanted to be the one to tell us about it, not have it leaked all over the place when they submitted it for licensing etc?

    Steve Jobs showed us an INCOMPLETE product, STILL IN DEVELOPMENT for cryin out loud!
    Here’s some hints. The iPhone runs OS X. Get it? It runs friggin OS X. Does it have iChat? Duh!
    Does it have every single program and feature expected from a device running OS X? Duh!

    Hang on, you saw half the finished product – so if you said wow! When it actually comes out you gonna shit your pants. That’s the truth!

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