Greetings All, Just a few clarifications regarding the iPhone.
It makes sense that Apple chose Cingular. The GSM market share in the U.S has exceeded 50%, and Cingular is the largest GSM provider in America. In 2004 Deutche Telecom (parent of T-mobile, another GSM carrier) reported having a subscriber base of 99 million, making it only the sixth largest mobile phone carrier in the world, this is to say nothing of Vodaphone and other formidable GSM providers. Relative to Nokia or even Motarola, Apple is a small firm, that needs to carefully target it's resources for areas of greater opportunity. In the mobile phone market, CDMA is not it. Bottom line, the world has gone GSM and so should the U.S. By the way, T-mobile users, don't dispare. As Cingular and T-mobile often share the same towers (ergo the same technology), it's likely that the iPhone can be made to function with your service. The benefits of Apple's choice, are not only economical, but also personal. I've recently moved to the UK and I'm quite pleased that I did not have to replace my Quad-band GSM phone from Samsung. All I had to do was pop in a pay-as-you-go SIM and just like that... Were I to own an iPhone the same would hold true, and given how expensive mobile phones can be, it's a good thing that I don't have to own a phone for the U.S and another for when I travel. So, to those complaining that iPhone is not appealing to the majority of the U.S market, I say that first, it's not the majority. And second, rather than complaining about Apple, complain about your carrier's unwillingness to adhere to a defacto world standard. Or, if having an iPhone is simply not important to you, don't complain at all. Better still, if we are going to complain, it should perhaps be over THE issue. Some of you have been asking whether mobile speak can be made to function on the phone. It's been said while also aknowledging that iPhone will be running Mac OSX, and not Simbean or other derivatives therein. Wouldn't a safer bet be that the phone might run VO and/or Zoom? Rather, wouldn't it be nicer if it actually was a safe bet? In any event I'm curious as to why any blind person would want to have this phone. Notwithstanding any possible accessible software running on it, it is a touch screen device. The physical interface is by all accounts, not blind friendly. Yet while the click wheel on the previous generation iPods are bad enough, they are still manageable. Abdul
