“Speaking to analysts for RBC Capital Markets this week, Apple’s Vice President of iPod Product Marketing, Greg Joswiak, said the first software update for his company’s iPhone handset is due to arrive shortly,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“‘Management expressed excitement at plans to increase iPhone value over time via new software features, citing ‘the sky is the limit’ for iPhone software,’ analyst Mike Abramsky told clients in a research note Tuesday,” McLean reports. “‘An iPhone update patch is expected shortly.'”
“Abramsky speculated that upcoming iPhone software updates would include new widgets, peer-to-peer applications (chat, picture messaging, social networking), location-based services, MMS support, home networking, and possibly some integration with Mac OS X Leopard,” McLean reports.
McLean reports, “After speaking with Joswiak, the analyst also made changes to his predictions for future iPhone models… Abramsky now says he expects Apple to differentiate its iPhone lineup not by features, but by price and memory capacity.”
More info in the full article here.
@ My Partial List
Hi Steve Ballmer how are ya? Sweat much?
“Partial List” is full of crap.
He does not have an iPhone, and he did not buy one.
He is one of these trollish FUD meisters that will ALWAYS find something to hate about the iPhone.
No one in their right ming is going to prefer a Windows Mobile piece of crap to the iPhone.
This time next year he’ll be complaining that the iPhone doesn’t suck his pole, but of course, his Windows Mobile device smokes his pole just fine.
Move on, “Partial List”. No one’s buying your act.
“Partial List” I totally agree with the points that you made… The iPhone is indeed very far from prime time, but it is only the beginning of the device… It hasn’t had an update yet, so let’s see what is going on with the future updates that we will get. I think it’ll be interesting…
Partial List said:
“1. An simple way to manage ringtones provided and supported by Apple, allowing me to use my ALREADY PURCHASED iTunes music to create freaking ringtones. The mere fact that anyone expects your to pay for a ringtone is beyond insulting.
13. A speaker phone I don’t need a hearing aid to hear. A crappy little razr can sit on a table in a conference room and everyone can hear it and participate in the conversation. The speaker phone on the iPhone might as well not be there.”
OMFG!! Why do you hate your iPhone! Stop Whining!! blah blah blah blah blah…. obviously just kidding
I hear you on the songs for rings. However, I suspect this ommission was due to what Peter mentioned earlier – the carrier wants to charge an exorbidant price for a snippet. Apple providing a way to access any song on iTunes would kill that potential revenue stream for the iPhone. That means that AT&T would want $ for songs used on the iPhone as ringtones. This is just about money.
On this subject, I wish that you could at download other ringtones (not songs, tones) than the ones provided via iTunes or at least to organize them via iTunes. I only like 3 or 4 of them.
I also agree about the speaker. With my RAZR, I could walk across the room and hear the speaker. The iPhone is decent in some circumstances, but awful in others. Though I will say the sound quality is better than that from the RAZR, which could get distorted.
to Partial List and others:
It seems that you fall into the category of those users who had incorrect expectations for iPhone. Clearly, your mobile phone is an (extremely) smart PDA phone and you tend to use all of its features (tethering, FM radio, speakerphone, BlueTooth networking, USB storage, etc, etc, etc.). IPhone was NEVER supposed to be that. Much like all of Apple hardware – it was to provide minimum features for the maximum audience. People complain how iMac doesn’t have: TV tuner, memory card reader, fingerprint scanner, expandability, etc. They complain how iPod doesn’t have FM tuner, voice recorder, built-in speaker(s)… To anyone following Apple, it is clear that their Steve Jobs’s strategy is elliminating feature bload RADICALLY, in order to provide the ideal feature set that will satisfy the vast majority of the market. There will always be people like yourself, who will miss functionality. I have to say, I sometimes like the ability to take a short video with my Sony-Ericsson. I’ll probably miss that feature when I get my iPhone. The point is, most of us guys coming to these forums here are very much tech people. We know how to set things up, figure things out and take advantage of all the features of our gadgets. For some of us, it is very obvious that iPhone will be a step back (with respect to the feature set). However, I have no problem recommending it to every person who asks for my opinion.
My wife and I currently have Sony-Ericsson walkman phone. It has: FM radio; MP3 player; 256MB; 1.2 megapixel camera; speakerphone; plays videos; has voice dialing; works as USB memory; runs Java apps (I have Gmail, Google Maps and few others), and has the usual WEP browser. I use most of the features. My wife makes calls and occasionally takes pictures. I know that when she gets her iPhone (probably for Christmas), in addition to making calls and taking pictures she will be:
listening to music;
managing her music in iTunes;
managing her e-mail on her phone;
surfing the web on the phone;
checking out YouTube videos;
looking up maps on Google maps;
all that without asking me for help. This is why iPhone blows everything else out of the water. Feature set is IRRELEVANT. Practically NOBODY (myself notwithstanding) really needs Filemaker; or to make calles through a docked iMac (???).
While many of the points about the shortcomings of the iPhone remain valid, they are really beside the point. This can be clearly seen by the popularity of the device, the hard proof of which will most likely come in three months when Apple reports Q4 earnings for July-September.
Apologies to the Spelling- and Grammar Nazis for a few poorly spelt words (rushing through my thoughts, I didn’t re-read to correct)
“Minimum features for the maximum audience.”
Can I use that?
Maybe Apple should also.
Yes, for $600 we give you minimum features.
But they are for the maximum audience.