@Adam

For my needs the fact that this seems ONLY to be 3G is a negative rather than a positive. I'd rather have straight edge.

I keep my iphone on edge at all times except when I use the web out of the home, (And always use wi-fi at home) So for me 3G is not a plus.

However the 3G capability of this unit would be a plus for people who want to leave their phone in 3G mode (so they never have to bother switching back and forth in settings), and whose homes are in a marginal 3G coverage area. Such marginal coverage has a lot of dropped calls when in left in 3G mode.

The real test is an actual bandwidth speed test. Using testmyiphone.com, testing in the same location both right before and right after the upgrade, and with many tests averaged in each case, my phone has gone from 360 kbps to 890 kbps. I'm seeing the difference in web access, and pandora radio is showing great improvement, its been flawless without pause every where I go.

Most reports of actual bandwidth tests I've seen (there are many such reports on macrumors) show similar results. Of course it's hard to find those numbers with so many people reporting only numbers of bars and fields test signal strength. Neither of those are as meaningful as bandwidth testing.

There are many wrong comments regarding A-GPS. A-gps CAN be better
than plain GPS when there IS a GPS chip within. AND it can be WORSE
when there's NO gps chip within.

According to this apple page:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/gps.html

Apple DOES have a GPS chip within. Here's the critical passage:

"In addition to A-GPS, iPhone 3G uses signals from GPS satellites,
Wi-Fi hot spots, and cellular towers to get the most accurate
location fast. If GPS is available, iPhone displays a blue GPS
indicator. But if you’re inside — without a clear line of sight
to a GPS satellite — iPhone finds you via Wi-Fi. If you’re not in
range of a Wi-Fi hot spot, iPhone finds you using cellular towers. "

My take on this passage is that there IS a gps chip within and this really IS better than GPS only.

Pete

- E-Reader : The popular book reader with access to its huge library of digital books, and dictionaries

- A great Chess app : with PGN support (iow, multi game file format support)

- A true Outliner : with drag and drop, in place editing, and intelligent check boxes (check a parent - checks all below, and vice versa)

- True GPS (or A-GPS app). such as garmin's mobile 10

- App to Edit word and excel files.

- True Voice dialing

- Copy and paste, Horizontal keyboard, and stylus support (I know this is really an OS upgrade)

Not so.

The idea is (1)you can park real close to the next guy if he's got an easy exit because there's a driveway on his other end, and (2) it helps to get real close to reduce the number of back and forths, even when you want a little more distance when your done.

Most comments are completely missing the point, although carguy84 gets it. When parallel parking, it's impossible to see your bumpers at the point of closest contact, front and back at both sides.

With the rear view camera on my infiniti m45 I can park within 1 inch of the guy behind, and be certain I won't touch him. I can comfortably and quickly back down a steep twisty blind driveway in the dead of night, where I'd otherwise have zero visibility.

Now with these additional cameras you'll be able to see the tolerances at rear and sides in every situation. Whether you have tight spots or roomy spots these cameras will make parking an absolute breeze.

I guarantee that if you try it you'll love it.

Thanks for the great belly belly laugh on "patient morale".

I'm sure third party apps will be available. When apple introduced games on the iPod it was reported that only apple games could be added. Now we see games from other companies such as EA. It will
happen, but not necessarily as openly as we'd like.

I think the phone will be a big hit and looks beautiful, but am I the only one who feels that apple claiming OS X is a complete misnomer?

IMO as a software developer, OS X SHOULD mean "it runs all OS X apps". Otherwise it's not OS X right? Would it be a Win XP device if they called it that but it didn't run win XP apps? Perhaps, as another poster said it CAN run them but, they're restricting their installation.

Pete

Your comment about "palm's buggy OS" is way, way off.

I'm no palm fanboy, since I've been using a Samsung i730 with windows mobile for over a year, and am sufficiently satisfied to stay put until EV-DO Rev A comes along. Given the likely release dates for Rev A devices, I'll probably get a windows mobile Rev A device as well. I've had a Treo 650 before that, and still support them now.

In my personal experience, the Treos were MUCH, MUCH more stable than my i730 with Win Mobile 3, and poles on pdaPhoneHome says the i730 is even LESS stable (much, much less stable) with win mobile 5.

Pete

(((((((((
Still can't get over that bezel surrounding the screen and pod wheel looking thingy.... Why? Does not make a design sense to me... It is visually intrusive, and not what I think they were trying for,,,,,, (visual unity?)
)))))))))

My thoughts on style precisely. FMPOV, esthetically, that border does a great job of highlighting the visually incorrect location of the wheel. It looks completely out of balance touching the screen rather than centered in the space below the screen.

IMO no apple designer would ever have considered that to be an acceptable design.

Bigger device size and no scroll wheel are two killer issues, and the trade offs seem like very little in return. A bigger screen has little benefit with hardly any video content available, and the wi-fi download restrictions are such that I'd never bother to use it, even if there WERE someone to do it with.

IMO it's a non-starter

Pete