Article: Analysis of Likely 3G iPhone Components & Consequences

Sunday 08th June 2008, 01:35:00 PM, written by Arun

There has been an incredible number of rumours on the upcoming 3G iPhone, but little proper analysis of the likely component choices, their technical specifications, and their consequences on the end-product. We hope to fill in that gap with this article, and deliver some useful information to gadget enthusiasts, hardcore techies, financial analysts and investors by doing so.

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Tagging

internallink ± apple, 3g, iphone


Latest Thread Comments (44 total)
Posted by AlphaWolf on Friday, 11-Jul-08 20:09:09 UTC
iPhone in belgium is $679 (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/10/tech-iphoneindex.html?ref=rss)

Rogers deal in Canada is still pathetic (over $2100 over 3 years minimum) even with their promotion that will expire in August. Rogers has been feeding lines about how the large infrastructure required in Canada with relatively small population requires them to charge more. That would be more believable if Rogers service actually worked more than 2 miles out of a major center.

Posted by eastmen on Saturday, 12-Jul-08 21:00:12 UTC
My buddy has the first one and is waiting on getting the second one.
Personaly I got in on the sprint sero plan for $30 a month (500 minutes , unlimted data , texting and what not ) So i'm waiting on the diamond from htc (have the mogul now)

The iphone is really cool but its lacking hte ability to have 3rd party apps and home brew (without hacking it )

Posted by Entropy on Sunday, 13-Jul-08 10:02:15 UTC
Quoting eastmen
iphone is really cool but its lacking hte ability to have 3rd party apps and home brew (without hacking it )
The app store which opened up alongside the iPhone3G is a huge development. It already offers 600+ apps from freeware to $69, and that's after the SDK has been available for a few months.
Extremely easy purchasing interface, and the store is right there, on your phone, all the time. Distribution, marketing, money flow - all taken care of. Developers are jumping on it, and if I was looking to change careers, so would I.

Posted by silent_guy on Monday, 14-Jul-08 00:00:13 UTC
Quoting Entropy
Extremely easy purchasing interface, and the store is right there, on your phone, all the time. Distribution, marketing, money flow - all taken care of. Developers are jumping on it, and if I was looking to change careers, so would I.
I don't disagree that it's a big deal: it is, and I love it. The experience is so much different compared to the hassle of buying apps for, e.g., Palm.

I'm just not sure if it's something you'd want to pursue as a career. A lot of apps are being dissed in the individual reviews because the company dares to ask $10 for it. Even at that low (IMHO) price, you'd have to sell thousands of copies to earn a decent living. And, as you said, there's a lot of developers jumping on it so you better be really good at it.

Posted by wco81 on Monday, 14-Jul-08 01:23:02 UTC
Yeah it'll probably shake out.But a lot of developers seem to be doing side projects, just to play around with the tools, possibly put together something they'd want to use on their phones, etc.

Posted by Entropy on Tuesday, 15-Jul-08 10:16:20 UTC
Quoting wco81
Yeah it'll probably shake out.

But a lot of developers seem to be doing side projects, just to play around with the tools, possibly put together something they'd want to use on their phones, etc.
Of course. This, by the way, is good.
Then again, the downloads are definitely there as well, iPhone users are checking the store out. I'll quote Steve Jobs
"The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days,"

Speaking of developers and side projects:
Quote
In an interview with Shacknews conducted earlier today, legendary Doom developer and id Software co-founder John Carmack expressed regret that his company could not put together an iPhone game in time for today's launch of the iPhone application store.

"I'm really kind of sad about... how things played out outside of our real control on that," said Carmack when asked about id iPhone development. "I'm really bullish on the iPhone market. I think that what they're doing with iTunes, cutting the carriers out of there... it's a great hardware platform.

"It's a market I really want to be in, we just didn't have the resources to go do something for the initial launch."

Posted by rendezvous on Wednesday, 16-Jul-08 07:35:04 UTC
iSupply have made estimates of the cost based on a teardown.
Here is a small report with lists of components.

http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=9072

Posted by wco81 on Tuesday, 22-Jul-08 00:27:42 UTC
Games are the top-sellers on the App. store.sfgate.com/chronicle has an article interviewing publishers who are bullish on the prospects.Perhaps if it becomes a big games platform, future designs will make more accommodations for games performance.

Posted by wco81 on Tuesday, 29-Jul-08 05:29:49 UTC
Carmack on iPhone development.http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/07/24/doom-iphone-morris-tech-personal-cx_cm_0725doom.html
Quote
"The iPhone, as a device, is in the same generation power-wise as the PS2 or Xbox," he says. "The graphics are a little lower but the RAM is a lot higher. … You could easily spend $10 million on an iPhone game, but the market just can't support that yet."
Other key thing compared to other cell phones is storage.

Posted by RudeCurve on Friday, 05-Sep-08 16:35:17 UTC
ATT/Cingular has had 3G video streaming for 3G phones for awhile now. I don't see why it would be different for iPhone 3G...


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