Am I the only person on the face of the earth who doesn't understand all the iPhone hype, and has no particular desire for one?

Surely there have to be others. Unite, my brethren!

yes.

No, you are not

I admit that I wanted to buy the new 3G, but the SAR value is extremely high (round 1.3). So I decided not to buy the iPhone.

I think I'll buy the new Samsung Omnia (i900 / http://samsungomnia.org) that has nearly the same features as the iPhone, also looks very nice and has only half the SAR value. Unfortunately it's not available yet

Greez, Jonathan

No.

I don't understand the hype either. That said, I do hope that all the hype will force companies like Microsoft to fix their stuff. WinMo is in desperate need of a major overhaul.

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty phone, and it has a nice interface, but it's by no means perfect.

SAR didn't even enter my mind. Normally I'm the first person on the block to get any new gadget. I usually have it hacked to do stuff the manufacturer only half-intended by the time that my neighbors have one. But for some reason, the iPhone (and the original one) haven't done anything for me. I mean, I play with friends' and think "well, this is kinda fun", but the lack of real buttons for the keyboard is annoying. People tell me that you get used to it. But I can touch type on my Blackberry. They can't do that on their iPhones.

The rest of the features are nice, I suppose, but I just don't care about YouTube at all, and I like Blackberry push email. The Safari web browser is cool, but if I want serious web browsing I'll just use my computer. It has a bigger screen anyway. As for Google Maps with GPS - I can do that on my Blackberry.

I dunno. If I could get the iPhone for its current price with a 1 year contract, I might consider it. But the iPhone service plans are also overpriced.

Also, I've become kind of an open-source snob of late. I run Linux everywhere I can. Apple is the antithesis of open source...

Maybe I'm just getting old - I turned 30 last week.

As far as I can tell the $30/month iPhone data plan is identical to other ATT 3G plans. Am I missing something?

I don't see it happening. As long as they are just an OS OEM to the hardware manufacturers it isn't going to get measurably better. And they are unlikely to go into the hardware market. The time lag they have in developing the software, getting it to the vendors for driver development and then getting it back for certification is just too long of a cycle, meaning that any features they try to add are always 6-9 months away. WinMo 7 has supposedly been "out" for the hardware manufacturers for a little while now, but it still isn't on any hardware platforms and won't be for a little while yet. They'll continue to improve the product, but it'll continue to struggle catching up in terms of features/functionality.

And I'm not all that excited by the iPhone either, though I will readily admit that I haven't used one.

Its certainly not perfect, eg the texting is nowhere near as good as a plain old phone with T9. The battery life is poor and will result in a lot of charging on the fly.

But purely for the reason it will stop me travelling with an ipod, PDA and mobile phone and has a simple user interface it meets my needs.

I think sometimes people start believing the Apple hype and expect too much.

Oddly enough, the best blog post I found about all this came from.. um, Nokia.

I was tempted. I really was. But I will probably just get a Touch. And keep hoping Blackberry Connect is released for the E71.

The iPhone doesn't work below 0 C? What exactly happens?

Sorta.

I've been finding used iPhones online which keeps me from having to buy the data plan on a 2-year deal.

The 3G speed is very attractive. But I really don't want to do business with The Death Star, and T-Mobile's 3G isn't compatible.

Is/are Google Mobile Maps supported yet? I use it all over Europe on T-Mobileweb GPRS connection. A-GPS makes iPhone marginally more useful than my iPAQ 6510, but I don't need $200 worth.

"Yet"? Not sure I understand. It always did even on the 2G.

And from the iPhone site: http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/maps.html

No idea, I guess it stops working or something until it warms up again.

In typical Nokia fashion, they are making a fool of themeselves.

The N95 (the current Nokia flasgship phone) ALSO has a listed operating temperature of 0c - 35c, just like the iPhone.

Same goes for their newest one, the N96.

They'd better do their homework before trying to find stupid things that make Apple look bad.

And FWIW, the problem is mainly with Li-Ion cells at that temperature. Plus, the LCD slows down a lot at sub-zero temperatures.