Google’s plans are pretty damned vague though. Are they planning to be a handheld platform provider, a handheld manufacturer, a wireless carrier, or all of the above? If they go the wireless carrier route, I just don’t see other carriers offering Google phones. End of threat.

Cheers. It would have to have been two bad units as I did try a replacement.

I thought about unlocking and might see how the Orange FR thing pans out (I expect you’ll need a French iTunes account). Probably just wait for the 3G version though.

I won’t say that Safari is unimportant by any means, it’s probably my favorite thing about the iPhone along with the screen real estate and form factor. But I think putting Safari in front of the iPod is putting the cart before the horse.

There’s much less purpose to an iPhone that isn’t also firing on all cylinders as an iPod — what else would the 8GB of storage be used for? You can’t (yet?) use it in USB disk mode, and you can’t (yet?) download files with safari… all I can think of that would use up that space is mail attachments.

It’s a converged device. Apple wants people to look at their old ipod nano or zune or creative mp3 player and their featurephone and/or smartphone and think “I could replace both of these with an iPhone.”

And then they’re using iTunes and installing Safari on their PC and buying a mac and etc. etc… It’s their whole “digital hub” strategy.

If you wanted to pin me down to the one killer app, I think I’d say it was the iPhone’s usability. I think that’s what brings the wow factor.

Different folks, different killer apps I’d guess. Anecdote. During my brief time as an iPhone owner I gave the phone to my 18-year-old daughter. First thing she did was start listening to songs (ones that fall into the very the limited overlap between our musical tastes). She then spent spent the next hour on Facebook. I’d say for her both iPod and Safari were the killer apps. Me too really. Incidentally, she seriously wanted an iPhone, a debate that ended with “HOW MUCH?”

Sorry to read that your trial didn’t work out, btw. I’ve had suspicions about the iPhone’s reception, but the smartphone round robin has taught me that AT&T’s coverage at my house just simply blows no matter which phone I use; it could be that you got a bad unit.

I’ve been thinking about unlocking mine and heading back to T-Mobile. Visual voicemail doesn’t do me any good when EDGE coverage isn’t enough for me to download voicemails at home. Maybe I’d be happier with simulscribe anyway.

Different folks, different killer apps I’d guess.

Anecdote. During my brief time as an iPhone owner I gave the phone to my 18-year-old daughter. First thing she did was start listening to songs (ones that fall into the very the limited overlap between our musical tastes). She then spent spent the next hour on Facebook. I’d say for her both iPod and Safari were the killer apps. Me too really.

Incidentally, she seriously wanted an iPhone, a debate that ended with “HOW MUCH?”

How’s that working out for Palm again?

The fact is that the web browser, not the Ipod, is the iPhone’s killer app. Providing a similar experience for cheaper will take away a lot of the wow factor from the iPhone, especially if branded by a trusted and hip brand like Google.

Surur

I think this is designed to sell featurephone users on proto-smartphones that will put eyeballs on google ads and have google be the default search and have google be the default map and gmail be the default mail client. That and the whole “expanding the pie” talk that Palm is so fond of.

Apple gets a partner to reinforce the web aspect of their platform while not having to pander to the low end of smartphone customers, which they historically don’t want to do.

Do you think that android will hurt the iPhone?

Surur