... there's also a similar autopsy on Cult of Mac.

Nothing particularly revolutionary so far as I could tell, apart from the fact that some muppet has decreed that the battery be glued into place, effectively making it non-replaceable to the average user.

Good design, my arse ...

How long do you reckon before some saddo forces a Linux kernel to boot on it? No more than a week I'll bet! As someone once said, if they could boot a kernel on a dead-badger they would try it!

Why this constant obsession with non-replaceable batteries? I'll bet that Apple has analysed how people ACTUALLY use their phones and come up with the shock finding that 99% of them never replace the battery. The Nokia in my pocket is still on its original battery after nearly for years and still gives me 4-5 days of standby.

There is a SIm card after all, I hope these can sell SIM free in the UK at somepoint.

As for the battery being fixed in place, this is the same as an iPod and people don't seem bothered about that. So long as it lasts the lifespan of the device then it will be fine. If you need more than one battery then this isn't the device for you.

Why do people criticise a device for not being how they want it? if it's not suitable for you then don't get one, simple as that.

I thought iPhone was unix based.....

Or are they just going to tell customers to buy a new iPhone when the battery dies?

They might as well, it IS based on the iPod, anyway...

Its a very revolutionary design. Its one of the few phones ever made that maximizes the producers profit margins by making the battery almost impossible to change so therefor the average apple zealot will toss it once its battery craps out and buy another overpriced phone to stay in fashion and repeat the cycle.

Hell the incapability to swap anything out for the average apple zealot has done wonders for the mac. Seeing the average person has to go toss the old one in the bin and buy a whole new one to do a upgrade.

I had heard they were using Qualcomm. Now it seems that they aren't. I have no idea, now, why they don't have 3G. Not the foggiest. Unless they designed it originally for a carrier who doesn't have 3G and they backed out/refused.

You asked for...you got it.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml

From the headline, I was expecting this to be an interesting story about remote teaching methods for doctors and consultants, and other people who need to know how to dissect a cadaver. The iPhone does, after all, have a little built-in camera, and the touchpad wipes clean.

Not a Mac fanboy (no, really), but I also wonder why the fuss. I tend to buy Macs for the family, including a couple laptops, and other than that whole flaming-lap-o-death episode, the batteries have not been a problem. Quite a contrast to my own Toshiba laptop, whose designers apparently had not accounted for the notion that some people leave their laptop plugged in when sitting at a desk. The resulting "overcharge" killed the first battery in under 60 days, and the second (even though I was being fairly careful) in under a year. I suppose that many cell-phones and laptops suffer the same lack of engineering, leading their users to believe this is a deal breaker. (The deal-breakers are the inept/evil exclusive carrier, the price, and the geek-fanboy impression using one of these would leave :-)

Apple, for all their faults, apparently hires actual engineers to design battery-power gear.

Most peoples concerns probably harken back to the old ipods which had garbage batteries in them that crapped out constantly. Its a PITA with a music player but imagine being stuck with a PHONE that has a bum battery in it and you cant just have them ship you a new one (or go into the store and get it swapped out).

Also, you are asking a single battery to power a phone, an ipod, a video player, and somethig to browse the internet. That will kill the battery quickly. They say it gets 7 hours on video? So I use it to watch a video on a flight and then I cant use it as a phone the rest of the day?

This thing will seriously need some software updates to make it viable for anyone but the fanboys because its just too limited in its capabilities. Web 2.0 is horrible on it, it cant communicate with any other bluetooth devices besides phone headsets (that means no stereo bluetooth headphones, something many other phones can do), and lacks support of messaging outside of traditional SMS. Not to mention the fact that the camera is the most basic of cameras, no zoom or video functionality.

Using the multi-touch interface is the only real leap foward on this phone.

How long will it be before we get the first report of the battery catching fire?

Why do people care about watching video/listening to music on a phone? I want a phone to work when needed - as a phone. If I want a media player then I will carry one as well.

As has been pointed out, cellphone batteries need changing a lot less than people think. Given that most people upgrade every 12-24 months then it is rare that the battery will ever give out. Also, why would the fact that the 1st gen iPod had a dud battery be of any significance? Particularly when they have produced a further 4 generations without the same problem...

Incidentally, I won't be buying one. Too expensive and I'm not a beta tester.

@Jim:

"Why do people care about watching video/listening to music on a phone? I want a phone to work when needed - as a phone. If I want a media player then I will carry one as well."

It appears that the marketing departments of these various hardware manufacturers haven't considered you and I. I too couldn't give a cr@p about all this convergence stuff either, but that isn't going to stop this insanity -- or the world from moving forward. Simple fact is, the more 'junk' sucking power, the less you have for the phone part when you need it. Period. I hear this thing gets quite hot in use as well which suggests to me that there could be some serious power draw.

Regardless, I also won't be buying one as well, for these and overall outrageous usage costs.

>Also, why would the fact that the 1st gen iPod had a dud battery be of any significance? Particularly when they have produced a further 4 generations without the same problem...

Well i bought a 2nd generation mini-Ipod a year and half ago and it also had a bad battery(and there are other people I know who had battery trouble with that particular generation). After about 3 months with me it became almost unusable(it would die after about 30min of playback).

Right now, I still have that Ipod but I only use it in the car with a power adapter(it can hold way more music than a CD and my player has an auxiliary input) so it is still useful in a way but it is definitly not flexible in how I can use it. If the battery had been replaceable(even though I had a guarentee they refused to replace it for me) I would still be able to use my Ipod normally. Although this was quite annoying it would be way worse to buy an IPhone only to find that the battery has died on you after 3 months of usage.

>Apple has analysed how people ACTUALLY use their phones and come up with the shock finding that 99% of them never replace the battery

Apple stated that they expected as much as 10 million people to buy they IPhone so thats 1% => 100 000 people who will pay 500+$ for a phone with a bad battery they can't replace?

>>Apple has analysed how people ACTUALLY use their phones and come up with the shock finding that 99% of them never replace the battery

>Apple stated that they expected as much as 10 million people to buy they IPhone so thats 1% => 100 000 people who will pay 500+$ for a phone with a bad battery they can't replace?

Why would those 100 000 people actually buy the iPhone in the first place if they are in that 1% who do replace cell phone batteries?

The iPhone can't ...

Communicate with extra terrestrials (yet)

Make one more attractive to the opposite/same/trans sex

Increase the length of any appendages you may value

Invade Poland

Make phone calls under water without protection

Introduce a force field around the owner

Protect the owner from biting insects ...

So, having got rid of those misapprehensions, can we just acknowledge that it is an object which, hype aside, moves on the mobile phone quite dramatically. We'll soon see that, despite the naysayers, other manufacturers will attempt to copy and may even surpass the iPhone's capabilities.

For me, a mere aspirant to ownership, it was summed up by a reporter who said something like, "Well, this XXX phone has a similar feature where you swipe across the screen ... only it doesn't work!"

The iPhone does!

Your assertion that those 100,000 people would pick a different phone assumes those people know that they will want to replace the battery at the point when they purchase the phone.

A more interesting statistic to know would be what percentage of people whose phone battery fails go on to replace the battery (rather than buying a new phone). I suspect that this number would be a lot higher than 1%.

I haven't replaced the battery in my current phone yet since it works fine, but would do so if it fails/degrades. Does that put me in the "99% who never replace the battery" or the 1% who do?

I have a pretty bog standard nokia. It has a music player. It has a camera. I can smurf the internet. I can make phone calls. I can check my gmail.

The iphone may be able to do some of these things better, but there is nothing new apart from a snazzy touch screen interface.

If I'd wanted a touch screen interface, I'd have bought a pocket pc or similar. I want a phone I can make a call with one handed with no problems.

With this phone, could I chuck it in my bag and not worry? Stuff it in my back pocket and forget it? I tried those things with my ipod and now I'm stuck with an ipod whose wheel works about 1% of the time. I did all that with my phone and it is as good as new.

(I actually like convergence - I use my phone camera quite a lot, and if the picture was better I'd be happy - I'd use my phone as an mp3 player if only the pop-port headphone connector worked better - I use it more than I ever imagined as an mp3 player through the speakers - and I do use it as a video player quite a bit.

I want is a nokia 6233 that takes an 8gig SDHC card, has a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, and a better headphone connection [possibly a better music player interface], runs the new opera mini and looks like the new 6500 classic - that's a better phone than the iPhone right there!)