Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't agree on the tethering - you shouldn't need much on the phone at all to let a third party device effectively use the phone as a modem, which is all you're doing.

Well I could be wrong.

My[1] one was better.

I think I covered that pretty extensively earlier in the thread. Numbnuts.


[1] as explained on the flickr page, the actual 'shop was done by DBSnappa.

No you didn't, you made up some bollocks about how that would need really complicated software on the phone, and said the tomtom should just have a SIM in instead.

The high end ones have this, but it's 7 fucking bastard 99 cunting pounds a bastard month for something MY EXISTING PHONE DOES FOR FREE.

Spoilered for repetition:

Because it's the N95, with a lot of stuff removed and nothing terribly interesting added.

For instance, a crapper battery, slower processor, no 3d for user apps...

If it's because of the carriers, then how come I can tether my 02 blackberry, but you can't tether your 02 iPhone?

I knew someone would come in and backup my wild accusations. Cheers, Duds.

Hmm, that is annoying then.

I will probably make a similar thread to this when my contract expires (I think in March)

Er, this.
Or get an N95 8GB, swap the batteries over (newer == better, right?), unlock it and throw it on eBay for some easy cash (current going rate is about £150).

The wiki article on the N96 does have a comparison so it may be worth a look.

The 8GB has a better battery than the N95 anyway, the 95 uses the same batt as the 96.

I have an LG KU990 Veiwty, and can't wait to change it in March!!

See, usually I'm counting down to my upgrade date from about two months into my new contract. This time around I hadn't given it a second thought, until now.

I'm just using the work Blackberry. I no longer have my own phone, as I can't be arsed to carry two.

I liek some of the viewty features, but I prefered my nokia, but the wife likes the Sony ones.

Me neither. The only thing I'm wondering is whether or not in 14 months' time (I think that's how long I have left) I can get a better service plan, or money off.

I'll probably upgrade to the 3rd generation iPhone when this contract runs out.

Or that.

Sigh. Too much macbook-specific derailment, this it getting harder to follow in terms of phone advice. Still a useful thread though because finding coverage of a phone which defines limitations is a problem.

Last night I went on the website (and I know I need to get onto retention at O2 really). I can get, if I go onto the lowest £30-ish iphone tariff, on an eighteen month contract (how am I supposed to know if I'll even be living in the uk in a year and a half, ffs?) a RECONDITIONED (so, second hand, or 'preowned' then?) 8gb iphone 3G. For fifty quid. So that's fifty quid to get a decent web experience and fast UI, at the cost of MMS (which, if that's what texting pictures is, is effectively how I communicate with my father), a decent camera, some form of protection for lens of said camera, a proper keyboard, not having to have malware on my machine and so on. This is quite depressing because I might make the swap for a year and try living differently but I'll be cunted if I'm going to up my tariff and pay for a second hand unit in order to do so. I can't even try the thing for a few days without committing to eighteen months (or, ok, having to jump through hoops to say no to that contract). Still, I'm as yet not fully decided.

I like the look of the G1, but switching to T-Mobile and their shit network tog et a phone which will be surpassed quicker than most and probably on my current provider is a major deterrent, though the thing looks fucking lush.

So iphone questions then -

1: why does it need iTunes? It says for activation - activation how? What does it do that proper phones do not?
2: Can I not use it with windows media player, amarok or songbird, the three platforms I use for audio? After all, these talk to ipods all the time...
3: Can I get iplayer on an iphone, in really decent unstuttery quality?
4: My Ubuntu Eee901 has no means of internetting away from a wifi signal. Could/would/should an iphone be able to give me the internets up a hill? And by internets I mean Beex and bbc news, not torrents or usenet.
5: Does it not send MMS, or also not receive it? What happens when my dad ends me an mms and I've got an iphone?
6: Anyone happoen to know whether if I got the bolt-ons internet free thing from O2 for my N95, whether I'd get similar internet speeds to iphone with it?
7: Can I not expand the memory of my iphone with microSD like proper phones?

It's tough - any other phone I want to try, I can just get and use and I don't need to spend a hundred quid on Windows/OSX, and all the rest. But the ihone is the most interesting thing out there right now. But it's the girl who looks prettier than the rest of the bar (indeed, the whole city) combined who asks you if you want to come back to hers and fuck her in the arse. And then she explains that her house is in Australia, next door to Paul Daniels and she only gets horny when listening to X-Factor compilation albums.

/edit I think I might get to retentions and ask if they'll do me an iphone (any spec) for free wiht my current package, plus an extra fiver a month for data or something, so long as I can sell the iphone to CEX and use my N95 instead if I hate it after a month or two. I also think they might tell me to go and fuck myself with a rusty scimitar.

/edit the second: That N97 looks fucking sechseh.

Do you want me to split the thread? I think it would be useful.

OK, and delethe this post if you like - the macbook stuff is a valid discussion n its own right.

And go on, fucking show off and do it from yer iphone

Every single one of these is just a single Google search away, y'know!

When the launched the iPhone they were sold still sealed in the box. The bit in the shop where the salesguy takes it out and fiddles and puts the SIM in and rings the operator were skipped. Instead, you took it home, got to unbox it yourself[1], plugged it into iTunes, and the phone was linked to your O2 account through that.

This is why people could jailbreak the 2.5G iPhones -- instead of activating through iTunes, they hacked it and installed a different SIM, so never took out the O2 contract. You can't do that any more (they'll activate the SIM in-store) but the phone is still activated at home. In theory you could uninstall iTunes at this point, but read on.

[1] This is very clever, not because it's important that people get to unbox the phone themselves, but because people believe it's important.

No, it's really arsey about it. I think it can be coerced to work but it's very painful and won't update the iPhone's software version afterwards. Using the iPhone without iTunes is like trying to ice skate uphill; I would suggest you compromise on one or the other.

It exists but I've never used it so I wouldn't want to comment. I'll try it if you like.

Yes, within the limits of the O2 network signal, you will get a very usable web browser everywhere. If you're really in the wilds it might drop to very-slow 9.8k GSM.

You get an SMS that says "go to http://www.o2.co.uk/something" and has a five letter code. You tap on the URL and it loads it in Safari. You type in the code and it shows the picture. The MMS app myp is talking about earlier in the thread automates this by storing the five letter code (which doesn't change from one MMS to the other, it's your code) so you just load it and the pictures are right there.

Yes, it would be the same.

No. Like the N95 8Gb, there is no external memory slot; you are stuck with what the phone has.

Absolutely no way. It's painful enough doing it through a full sized screen (there is loads of scrolling around to do), let alone a 480x320 one.

NOTE TO ALL THREAD READERS: some posts from this thread are now here instead.

Sir, that's bloody useful indeed, all my questions answered. I think I've made up my mind. I'll keep my N95 on a cheaper and better tariff with data, as my mobile internet desires are more for passive use than active, so lack of a touchscreen qwerty is no big problem if I've never had one to miss, plus I'm not giving up anything I would miss. In 12 months every provider should have Google Phones so I can get one of those or an N97 whch should be affordable by then.

I think overall I'm unenthused by the series of compromises and second guesses that is the mobile phone market today. Everything about the sale of them is misdirection, with the purchase decision seemingly inevitably coming from people latching onto the first shiny factor they feel comfortable about.

There's a change coming to the market, as happens every couple of years. Last year the N95 (and,m so I thought, the neaerst Sony equivalent) offered me a huge leap in quality and function over my previous handset. This year the waters are muddier, so I'll have a cheap year and wait for something special in 12 months.

True, shall try this shortly.

Actually there is now a decent music player thing on Cydia (for jailbroken phones) which plays most things you can throw at it, and then it's just a matter of dragging and dropping to the mounted phone filesystem over wifi (the built in ipod software won't play those). Not actually tried it but the reports are good.

So, you wouldn't have to use iTunes day to day if you just want to stuff your mp3s on there. You would still want to have it installed somewhere to do the occasional updating business of course, as you say. And iTunes is not that bad or evil if you give it a chance anyway, honestly.


Absolutely does work and it's brilliant, especially now it's got the listen again (radio) feature as well. iPlayer actually works better than it does on my mac, because the flash player version doesn't cache very much. So even if your broadband is a bit crappy the iPhone version works well if you allow it a few minutes to cache at the start.

Another thing you can do with this is to drag downloaded programmes from iPlayer (that you got with the iplayer-dl tool) directly onto iTunes and sync them, and then you've got them portable for when you have time to watch.

ive got a google phone and like that more than my iphone. the iphone sucks as a phone IMO, the google one is going to kick with the joystick and keyboard for games

After 2 days of searching, I still can't find a phone I like the look of. Perhaps I should go to a shop and speak to one of the smug cunts sales assistents to pretend I am interested in one of their phones so I can try some?

The only problem with the shops is that most of the time the display models are either missing, or are a damaged representation that isn't even the right weight, and you can't test the keys and menus and that out.

So you have to get the assistant to open a box for you. And another. And another.

I used to do mystery shopping for mobile phone shops, and can't stand the bloody places.

Gah, my plan is foiled.

Well, not necessarily. It depends whether you plan on doing it a lot, or just going in one afternoon, and picking one of the first three phones you try.

Works fine for me. No dropped calls. Decent contacts list and easy favourites assignment. Large button pad for old-school dialling.


Assuming it gets the support, which I guess it probably will eventually. iPhone's already there, though, and while I'm not ready to retract my article on Cult of Mac about iPhone never being a major player, it's quite clear it can be a minor one, even without any tactile controls. It just needs some imagination (as shown in the likes of the utterly excellent Dropship.

oooh, that's just fucking marvellous. O2 have stopped doing 12 month contracts, so now I have to leave them, whether I'm happy with their service or not. Besides which, i'm not going to get another 18 months from my current phone, I was willing to risk it lasting another 12 but they, as all phones, are so bloody plasticky

My O2 contract runs for 18 months but they'll renew the phone (and the contract_ after 12.

Just get a SIM only tariff, GovernmentYard.

PAYG innit pal

Orange have done the same,

3 still do.

Sorry I am wrong, you can get 12 months with Orange, but you get more for your buck on an 18 month contract

Great, now my N95 is starting to be a bit wonky. In particular it was not running at a normal Symbian OS speed when I was trying to dial a number this morning. I'd not normally let it worry me but I did happen to be standing in the middle lane of the M4 westbound just outside Bridgend surrounded by pieces of VW Passat and Daewoo Matiz, sobbing women and honking lorry drivers. It was rather important that I got through.

No one died, and I managed to both avoid the cars spinning across the lanes in front of me and the lorry that was right up my fucking arsehole at 60 in perilously low visibllity. Still, I'm beginning to consider an iphone now, as a call to O2 has reassured me they've only got the shitty 8GB N95 and N96 - no proper N95s anywhere in any shop or anywhere in their depots. Phone monkey seemd very confident about this without even checking. Other than a Samsung Pixar or whatever it is called, there's not much else on the menu.

Did see the sim only deals, but then I get no £150 or new hardware to replace my ailing 95 - and this is the thing, they sell you a phone which begins to fail after 12 months and you've no option to cancel the contract then, you have to renew to get a new phone. It's a trap!

Next question - if the iphone offers me some advantages and the N95 others, would O2 offer me an iphone package, and then I can just swap my sim between the two phones as I need to, i.e. when I need to use my phone as a modem for my Ubuntu Eee901, or can I get two sims from O2 and just pick up and use either phone as necessary?

Does the IPhone have a Sim lock in it?

I did consider this but it sounds like arse ache frankly.

I'm sorry - what? The 8GB is shity? In what way except replaceable memory card (and doesn't the 95 only support 8gb anyway?). It's got a better battery and a better screen....

The iPhone sim works in all the phones I've tried it in. You just need a paperclip to push in the hole and make the caddy pop out (much in the same way as a CD-ROM drive).

Screen flat to surface - prefer the sunken proper N95 one. Face keys smaller, lower pixel density, slower interface in my experience, the camera lens has no cover on it, every 8bg model I have been shown has a scratched lens. I'll not have a phone I'm intending to use the camera on if it doesn't have a lens cover. Really can't take a phone seriously as a camera without one. Also, is black. Also, I like to take my memory out and stick it straight into my laptop or mainbox, fuck syncing. And it's black so doesn't look as good.

Hah, every single one of these criticisms applies to the iPhone as well you know!