My brother Hani called this afternoon and before his customary “Hi” he posed the rather confusing question:
“Did you see it?”
I thought he finally flipped and the British weather has addled his brains…
“See WHAT?” I replied,
“the iPhone!” he said, exasperated.
“The iWhat? No way, they didn’t did they?”
“Oh yes they did.. go to apple.com right now and have a look, then call me back.”
and the line went dead.
Fortunately I was at a computer at the time and iChecked 😉 and was very pleasantly surprised, realised that I was in love yet again, and then the rest of the “i‘s” came marching into my brain: iLike iPhone iWant iNeed!
Fate would have it that I had a meeting in town at iMachines and I asked my friend Sofyan, the owner, if he heard of it (yes, he did look insulted, as he is plugged in to only two sites on the internet 24×7, this one – of course! – and apple.com!) Then we went into a iSomething fest between me, Sofyan and his brother Abdulrahman with each of us talking at each other in our excitement!
Anyway, not to take too long with this, I verbally placed an order with Sofyan for 5 iPhones whenever they arrive in Bahrain. Why 5? Because I will not be able to enter the house if I don’t buy one each to the wife and kids too!
Yes, it’s that good. Check it out yourself and then if you don’t come out with a “why didn’t I (or Nokia or Ericsson or whatever) think of this before”, I’ll give you the admin password to this blog!
Comments
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well, i was expecting an apple phone,a cell phone and an ipod in one gadget!
btw I use i-mate :whistle:
now gimme ur password :devil:
I also like, want, and need 🙂
I’m calling Abdulrahman tomorrow!!
Did they give you a price on it?
I am a broker, got attracted by this article to let everybody watch the company’s stock, yesterday it jumped 7 dollars due to this announcement 😉
Apple has been always my favorite stock and always will be. Soon, price will be above $ 100. I am not trying to advertise or anything hehe but sharing my point of view. :face:
by the way, this product will be available in the US, June 2007, with an expected price of $ 499
At $500.00 bucks a pop it seems a little pricey to moi. I think I will wait until the price drops a bit and to see if any “kinks” need to be worked out as well.
BTW Does it have a camera as well?
CW yep, but unfortunately only 2MP. I was discussing this with Hani and both of us are hoping that will be upgraded to 3.2 or better before release.
iHave!
no just kidding. iWish!
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I should’ve bought the Apple-share back in 1994 🙂
While the price is $499 and $599 depending on storage, that’s for the US release with a 2 year Cingular contract.
That means it’ll be locked and cannot be used with a Bahraini chip. The prices for phone without a contract/lock can be a lot higher. I estimate $800 to $1200 for the iPhone based on Cingular pricing.
The international releases are Q4 Europe, and in 2008 for Asia and Australia. That obviously doesn’t include the Middle East because we don’t have carrier locked devices, and selling an unlocked devices will spread all over the world like a bad rash for Apple and partners.
So… please tell me I’m wrong and Sofyan has info to refute the above. I just can’t wait more than 2 years for this thing. (/me crosses fingers)
I don’t see hoards of people flocking to Singular just for this phone. Not at least at the 500 to 600 dollar mark. At least where I live Singular has a less than stellar reputation for service and I think in the end it boils down to what you want in a cellular company is service and reliability. What good is a $500 phone if the service isn’t there? Makes for one pricey MP3 player and so so camera.
Another incredibly cool feature is that it switches to WiFi whenever it detects the SSID’s you set it up with. Aside from fasted browsing/email it could be used as a Sykpe phone, theoretically of course!
Oops.. I meant faster not fasted of course.
Hani
You might find the interesting…
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/10/145052.php
The ‘sphere is humming with speculation, info, lust, hate and everything else in between. It made every news program last night and every paper this morning.
When you look at what it can do you realise how crap your mobile is. I tried to do some of the things on my Sony Ericsson K800i and it was nowhere near as satisfying and immediate compared to the iPhone.
Take 3-way calling (or conference). I know I have the feature on my phone but I just cannot be bothered to find out how. And I’m a guy who can strip SGI systems down to their nuts and bolts and put them back together again.
I just might write a little dashboard countdown widget from now to October.
jeez man, i almost fainted when i heard. i was at fudz having dinner when it came up on cnn… i ditched my friends and got my computer out of the car, logged on to apple.com and started drooling!! :w00t:
Ehsan, i REALLY hope you’re wrong!!! u just depressed me so much i swear!! :dizzy:
i watched the keynote just now and steve jobs said that internationally its gonna be available in 2008..
ireally don’t think ican wait that long!!!!!
everyone who hasn’t watched the keynote, WATCH IT!! it makes all the difference,, u’ll love it.
I hear what you are saying Hani. Lots of speculation and very few details out of Apple. The price is the biggest obstacle along with the partnership (in the US) with Cingular that I see. I just don’t see the hoards jumping ship just for a phone. Apple has great products but as far as I can see Apple lacks good marketing, couple that with the obsessive desire to lock things up in a proprietary loop and I think they could do so much more and broaden their base if they would just open things up a bit.
It’s going to retail between $450-$550, so put your hand on a $3000 for the 5 iphones.
where does apple have these geniuses working on stuff like this? in a nuclear bunker? you can see the reactions of the chinese looking guys in the presentation when he mentions some of the new features this phone incorporate; like damn it why didn’t we think of that.
just wondering if a mini iphone is being developed as we speak for those who want a smaller phone maybe a 2.5 inch screen??
Cisco Files Suit Against Apple over iPhone
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/10/D8MIN3LO0.html
My whole family want one each It’s completely and utterly gorgeous and I need to own one now. 😀
well hopefully by 2008 they’ll introduce HDSPA or at least 3G.. then I would consider getting it.
just a reminder;
you all have the consumers mentality, and consumers will never be producers!
Wow… amazing… I watched the entire presentation on the link… Now I gotta have one too. And it’s not that expensive when you calculate in all the features you’re getting for the money. The IPod improvements are worth half the price; and Jobs is right: the phone features are five years ahead on the technology curve.
i have a feeling that this phone is going to be a complete pile of useless waste of money. first of all apple have no experience in telephone and second the telephone is supppose to use a special system that is only works in america so it is useless here. and third of all it is not 3g compatible so there is pretty much not ready for the future. if you want a phone really badly just by a nokia it looks almost as good and it actually works as a telephone.
jayjerome… you’ve experienced the RDF!
There are loads of preorders for sale on ebay!!!
Mahmood, since your getting 5…
Make one a prize for the guys at your blog.
Let us win one! best comment or something.
(of course, this means I want one, but I’m not willing to pay for it). :biggrin:
or something! :cheerful:
Well — there may be ‘a fly in the ointment.’
The Battery life is going to be 5 hours talk-time/video/browsing, or 16 hours audio — and then you have to recharge it.
That might still be ok if you can easily insert a back-up battery — but if you have to recharge it to use it again… that’s going to be problematic…
Say, for instance, you’re watching a movie and the battery goes out … and you have to recharge it for two hours before you see the end (plus you miss phone calls while you’re recharging).
Hopefully they remedy this before the release —
The Steve has finally blessed us with this magnificint gift. I offer my (as yet non-existant) third born for this device. Let us rejoice and eat minstrils.
Re Carrier lock-in. This is not a problem. If an unlocked version of the phone is not available in the region there is a simple work around. You move your family (or leave them behind) and live in a country where a local telco has an agreement with Apple.
Dude, dont bother getting one thru an apple distributor in Bahrain, it will just be toooo crazy expensive ! If they could sell it under 200BD then I might be in and buy a pack of 5. but I have this feeling it would sell double that price thanks to 100% profits attitudes we see here .. and forget getting this on time (if it’s coming out in June then the distributors will probably see a real in their shops 6 months later!) aren’t we all accustomed to the net now? ordering online has become second nature to me 🙂 (some of my groceries are from some a supermarket in NY through Amazon, beats the hell out of the stores we see here in Bahrain..Jawad wake upp!!!!)
besides, MTC or Batelco might capture the rights of selling it in Bahrain before any distributor could blink! Aren’t Apple aiming in selling 10 Mllion units in 1 year?? and what, you wanna try giving it to these distributors?? that’s just suicide! before u know it MTC probably will buy batches of 10,000 of these units and provide it dirt cheap thru an annual contract (I dont mind!)
I love Apple and I just ordered 6 more iTunes prepaid cards, and the new Apple Extreme Base station (based on the 802.11n standard) but it aggravates me that the distributors in Bahrain are not as loyal or passionate as we r!
i just hope to God that this latest keynote from Steve switches a bulb in the distributors heads and they start becoming a bit more innovative and fair with us all 🙂
how do you buy those iTunes cards? I set up a PayPal account and an iTumes account but the buggers sent me to the UK site which doesn’t have what I want… I didn’t bother reading any more about how to and whatnot, just got bored after being thrown in so many useless loops.
… and I’m not going to defend the local Apple resellers, they both visit quite frequently and they can defend themselves well enough.
Gentlemen, the podium is yours and I’m not charging.
20 Things We Don’t Know About the iPhone
See this link.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128511-c,cellphones/article.html
>>Aside from fasted browsing/email it could be used as a Sykpe phone, theoretically of course!
Please take your finger out of your a**. The iPhone won’t allow 3rd party apps to run on it.
iTunes Cards? easy, here are the steps:
1. goto apple.com and click on the ‘store’ button
at the top. (make sure its the US store.)
2. create an account (it may have to be a .Mac email? not sure, I use my .mac email anytime i use Apple whether it’s the iTunes store or the Apple store)
3. Have your shipping address as the Aramex Address (I assume you got one of those US Aramex boxes, its cool having a physical address in the US 🙂
4. add ‘iTunes Gift Card’ to your cart, whatever denomination you want ($15 $25 or $50)
4. When you’re about to ‘checkout’ , use your normal Bahrain Credit Card number, BUT the billing address has to be a US one and all have to be right. for example: P.O. Box 5674, Boston, MA, 02109 (notice the city, state and zip are connected, P.O. Box could be whatever). Your mobile number could also be the Bahraini one too if you need, i actually put my Skype number (US Number)
5. the order should go ahead and process and before you know it (within the hour) your order is ready for shipping 🙂
..I order usually 50 to 75 dollars worth of iTunes prepaid cards every 2 months mostly for the unbelievable amount of great TV shows you get. So when you order the cards and they arrive in the Aramex mail, simply go to iTunes, signup or login to your account in there (I use my .Mac email, you may have to set one up I think, havent tried other email addresses before) and click on the ‘redeem’ button on the right side of the main page. put the code and voila 🙂 I canceled my Showtime package recently thanks to this and might consider the same to Orbit too.
Think about it, if this works for you, the whole of the Apple store stuff is within your reach! Order today, 5-6 days later your order arrives (faster than local distributors for sure and you can custom make your order (i.e. mac configurations or iPod laser engravings)
I just ordered (actually moments after the keynote address by Steve) the new Apple TV too 🙂 bought one for me and 1 for my brother and it’s going to arrive next month. the idea of downloading the latest episode of Heroes or Lost and streaming it to a Plasma screen (using the Apple TV box which connects to your plasma or LCD screen through HDMI ) is out of this world! checkout it out before you buy it, but trust me you will be glued to the screens when you get it that’s for sure 🙂
let me know if you have any queries about this and I would be glad to help.. Good Luck!
PS: I do the same thing with Xbox 360 LIVE account to, yeah it’s video game system but they recently added HD-Quality TV show content on their LIVE XBox Portal! shows like CSI and Jericho are in HD quality and boy is it worth it watching Hi-Def shows as if you were there in the US 🙂 I think Apple will surely do this too next month when the Apple TV thing gets released.
So dad how many plants are we going to sell? :devil:
NONE! What we are going to do though is sell our youngest child to finance this new, and very necessary purchase! :devil: :w00t:
Mahmood
I need some summer help in the greenhouse. How much for Arif from say the end of school to the next term? Room and board included of course! :whistle:
Mahmood,
As tempting as it is, I really think you ought to wait until all the iPhone’s bugs get filtered out, and new and improved features get added to later editions for a cheaper price!! 😎
-Ibn
iPhone sounds good to me and it costs just as much as my N80. Yes everything has its good and bad. I think the concept is great. I hate the N80 cos of i need the huge manual everytime i wana configure my email or some thing. Apple make things simple. I love the simple concept…
about the itv, i was for it until i found out that Sling media just announced a new product called the slingcatcher. Same concept as the itv but of course way better just like the ipod and the competition.
I dont understand how ppl pay for tv shows.
Hi all, its my first time to join .. I was looking for iphon and wanted to know the agent and if it is available in Bahrain and got this site on the search resault..
anyone can help on this.. can I find one in Bahrain or Dubai..
Many thanks
hey everyone … oh my god i loved this phone so much can anyone know when it’s arrive to bahrain and how much it will be ??
thanx all
pls i need to if i can be one of ur friend to the business
Hi all,
Finally FEDEX arrived with my iPhone today and I have it all activated (minus the ability to use the phone of course). It is by far THE BEST iPod that Apple has come out with yet; and the wifi works wonders to 🙂
Now if I could only get it unlocked to work with my BATELCO sim????
YOU GOT WHAT? ❗
Listen, would you like to be our honoured guest tonight at the Bloggers’ Gathering and bring that there thing with you so we can all drool on it (I promise to wipe it with Sadeq Shihabi’s ghutra – considering its fine linen, nothing else would touch it and I shall also supply the cotton gloves for gentle caressing.)
Mahmood,
That sounds fair enough
Count me in and I will see you all tonight, on time even if I don’t get lost.
Yyyaaaay! I’m going to announce it right now so you can’t back down from this. I’ll email you my number so you can call me (from your regular phone!) if you do get lost!
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