Only a few more days to enter the "Top Ten Reasons to Buy iPhone Contest". Don’t forget to add your comment!
REASON #3: GREAT iPHONE ACCESSORIES ARE POURING IN
Other mobile phones have accessories as well. But they are usually limited to a few brands and models. With iPod, Apple gave birth to an extremely huge and lucrative third party product industry. And as we speak, iPhone and iPod accessory makers are giving everything they’ve got to live up to Apple’s design quality reputation, and it shows (from the goodies we’ve seen so far). The market potential is so big, that it’s worth for them to invest money massively to come up with innovative products.
All companies currently doing business in the iPod accessory market have to jump on the iPhone bandwagon. This is a no brainer. If they don’t, they’re facing a certain death. Tons of extremely attractive and well designed iPhone cases are already available. And I don’t think they are betting on the come. If you take a look at the new Belkin iPhone cases for example (image above), asides from being a very kind sponsor of this contest…, they offer great new iPhone products and the device is not even released yet.
Just imagine all the great stuff we will have for iPhone a year from now. That alone is an excellent reason to buy iPhone, and to spend even more money on the gadgets we love so much!
REASON #4: IT’S OS X BASED
iPhone uses OS X,
the world’s most advanced operating system according to Apple. Having
so much power under the hood is great news for application development.
OS X brings you features and applications like rich HTML email, full-featured web browsing, and applications such as Safari,
calendar, text messaging, Address Book, Weather, Stocks, Maps, Notes,
and YouTube. Having OS X built-in also makes iPhone “future proof”. New
applications will be easily develop by Apple or eventually third party
developers.
iPhone is also fully multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while
downloading your email in the background. This alone is a reason why
you should buy iPhone!
REASON #5: MULTI-TOUCH SCREEN
Apple says iPhone features
the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse. Well, that may
be over exaggeration, but the screen is a major breakthrough for
portable devices.
It’s an entirely new interface based on a large multi-touch display
and innovative new software that lets you control everything - using
only your fingers.
So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flip through photos
and email them with a touch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web
page — all by simply using iPhone’s multi-touch display.
In a few years from now, this won’t even be considered a feature,
but a bare minimum any mobile phone user interface should have.
However, for now, it’s part of the Top 5 Reasons to buy iPhone. How do
you feel about that?
REASON #6: COOL SENSORS ON BOARD
Accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor…
When we read these words, it’s far from obvious that we are talking
about a mobile phone here. But we do - and they make iPhone an
extremely innovative product!
Here’s what they are used for:
The accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait
to landscape. It automatically changes the contents of the display, so
you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its
proper landscape aspect ratio. Great? No, amazing!
While talking on the phone, iPhone screen
will be in contact with your ear and cheek, to avoid inadvertent
touches until iPhone is moved away, a proximity sensor detects when
you lift iPhone to your ear and immediately turns off the display. This
will also save power.
The ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s
brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light,
thereby enhancing the user experience and saving power at the same time.
REASON #7: INTERNET OVER WI-FI
Internet over Wi-Fi on a cellphone is a major breakthrough. Until now, network operators have done everything they could to avoid public Wi-Fi networks to work with mobile phones. The reason is simple; when you use a public Wi-Fi network
you are not using the operator’s bandwidth. Increasing the use of their
network is of course key for network operators. Their future depends on
it.
AT&T and Apple are opening a can of worms with this feature and
we are so happy about it. Besides the (eventual) lower costs for data,
the increase of performance will be a knockoff! But don’t get to
excited here, an unlimited data plan will certainly be mandatory for
the iPhone. Everything has a price!
REASON #8: SAFARI AND THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS
With a full scale Safari browser built-in, Apple says iPhone let
us see any web page the way it was designed to be seen, then easily
zoom in by simply tapping on the multi-touch display with a finger.
Ok, a few things like Flash and JavaScript are still missing. But this is a lot better than what we had until now.
After the initial announcement disappointment, the enthusiasm created by the abundance of third party applications made for the iPhone is now a total blast. In six months to a year from now, hundreds of well designed applications will complement iPhone.
Being limited to the browser has its downsides. Like not being able
to fully use iPhone resources, having to reload the application
from the internet and not being able to store anything on iPhone,
to name a few. But it also makes good applications easier and faster to
write. This also opens the market for a broader group of programmers
since html and Ajax already enjoy great communities compared to what a
proprietary SDK could have had.
REASON #9: YOUTUBE PLAYER AVAILABLE ON THE HOME SCREEN
iPhone has a special YouTube player that you can launch right from
the home screen. So now you can access and browse YouTube videos
wherever you go. And when you find a video you want to send your
friends, iPhone can even create an email with the link in it for you.
Some of you think this is useless and others think it’s amazing but
it sure is something we never had before on our cell phone or portable
device. That’s why the Youtube player makes the Top Ten.
REASON #10: VISUAL VOICE MAIL
You should buy iPhone because of the Visual Voice Mail feature.
With iPhone, Apple brings many new concepts to the mobile phone
world, but the "Visual Voice Mail" will sure make Apple’s iPhone the
leader in innovation from day one.
According to Apple, iPhone Visual Voice Mail is an industry
first! The feature allows you to go directly to any of your messages,
without listening to the prior messages. So you can quickly select the
messages that are most important to you. Isn’t that great? You won’t
have to listen to "You have 5 new messages"
June 27th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Does anyone know what accessories are going to be offered in the Apple store on the day of the launch?
June 28th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Reason #2: Speed of Service
In-store activation is entirely optional! As soon as Apple iPhones hit stores this friday, consumers will have the option to avoid the potentially long lines by ordering the iPhone online, directly from Apple’s website
http://www.apple.com/store.
Alternatively, consumers may avoid the potentially large shipping costs by visiting their local AT&T Wireless store
http://www.wireless.att.com/find-a-store/iphone
Once they have their new iPhone, activation will be available using Apple’s popular iTunes software running on a PC or Mac computer in the comfort and privacy of one’s own home or office.
Activating iPhone takes only minutes as iTunes guides the user through simple steps to choose their service plan, authorize their credit and activate their iPhone. The activation process is exactly the same, whether you own a PC or a Mac.
Once iPhone is activated, users can then easily sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts, TV shows and movies just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Number of accessories wouldn’t be as high on my list as on yours. I think they are cool, and great add-ons to devices, but I wouldn’t base my decision on whether to buy on iPhone on it very much. They will be great to have in the future, but I don’t think they are selling points.