Samsung sneaks out snazzy 3G iPhone rival

[Hands0n]

MMS is not on every phone, not the more basic, and certainly not always in other countries where MMS is a "value added" extra. Whereas eMail is all over the planet, and increasingly on mobile devices. MMS will one day be an aberration of history.

[miffed]

see , this is where the iPhone "experience' kicks in !

I simply plugged it in to charge , my mail accounts , contacts and calender and address book synced pretty much on their own

My entire email address book was all there by itself

I do agree though , waiting for the likes of Nokia etc to catch up on such functionality may take forever ! so converting 'the world' to mobile email may not be straightforward , but at some point the novelty of paying 25p (or whatever) everytime you want to send a crap quality pic WILL wear off eventually , mark my words.

[Ben]

Hehe, I've done the whole MMS-to-email thing as well.

I'm looking forward to using my .Mac/MobileMe for something useful!

[Hands0n]

Yea, how about that? .Mac never interested me. MobileMe has me thinking seriously about that membership. With the number of Macs that I've got

Back to the iPhone and MMS - There is a 3rd party app that supposedly delivers that functionality, if you really must. But I do think that the public, not the networks, will be the first to realise the benefits of eMail over MMS.

BTW, is it only me who uses MMS for long text messages? Much cheaper than long-SMS by a long shot.

[Ben]

Yes, just you I suppose it depends on your tariff, though. Depending on the number of free texts you get, it'll either be worthwhile or not.

[getti]

See i use a lot of multimedia features on phones such as video calling and MMS. MMS i use because on Flext it comes out of your allowance and you can also MMS when you go abroad for 20p compared to attaching a photo to an email and sending it that way costing you anything between £1 and £3 on data charges.

Video calling im also an advocate of in certain situations is can be a great thing but is a shame networks apart from 3 dont push it more. 1 example is when i went to Vegas with Nokia last year i met some great people from around the world, 1 of which i speak to all the time from Austria.

We re going to try a international video call to see how it works but its great the feature is there to be able to catch up with people in a different way.

You guys all know me well by now and if i say im not getting an iPhone 3G that is not a 100% decision as maybe once it comes out or i get to have a go on 1 i might like it. I did like the original iPhone but missed features and lack of 3G.

Problem for me is 1 year on from the original iPhone and with an industry that moves so fast they have not done much with a new iPhone spec wise, just add HSDPA and a plastic back cover. Everything else is software based

I use my phone for everything from modem, camera, phone, email which is why i look for 5 megapixel camera phones or higher when they eventually come out. Having a brand new phone just launched only offering a 2mp camera with no video recording support out of the box is not really an option.

I have to say i think many questions about 3G on an iPhone were not answered at the Keynote with the big ones being can you bluetooth files over from 1 phone to another and can you also use this HSDPA iPhone as a modem?

Time will tell i guess

[miffed]

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/in...4cfc81f9f7a828

[getti]

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/in...969d0deaeef62b

[Ben]

Take this with a pinch of salt, but there are reports that modem use will be available on O2 UK with the new iPhone... http://9to5mac.com/o2-iphone

Useful if you need it, I guess.

[Hands0n]

That is certainly an exciting prospect I like the idea of Bluetooth tethering for 3G - in one fell swoop they almost negate the market for Mobile Broadband USB dongles and sticks. If its true!