CNET Live: iPhone 3G special edition Video

CNET Live: iPhone 3G special edition Video Transcript

[ Background Music ] ^M00:00:11

>> iPhone day, buddy.

>> Yeah. What time is it?

>> How many of these we've been through? Okay. It's iPhone 3G all day today here at CNET TV and in this very special edition of CNET Live, we're taking your calls at 888-900-CNET. The number you'll always call for Tom and myself here on CNET Live for a special day and a very special hour.

>> If you wanna know how we feel, go to xkcd.com. I don't know if we take my screen shot yet but there's a cartoon up there right now perfectly described. I've got the Apple software. There it is. Yeah.

>> You got the new software?

>> Yeah. Yawn. Good morning from Taipei. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Yeah, that's how we feel, yeah.

>> Yeah. We're in Taipei.

>> But you've got the new software.

>> Yeah.

>> We've got Kent German coming up shortly. He's also got the new software. So, everybody jumped on that early. So, one of the interesting stories is what's the experience like on the old iPhone not just a new hardware.

>> And why haven't they released it? It's still not officially out.

>> Oh, really?

>> You have to go poke around to find it. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. We're taking your calls about that and anything else on your mind iPhone 3G related at 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. We've got a couple of lines open right now so jam on there and get in there while we still have some room for you 'cause we expect it to be a very busy morning here on CNET TV. When you do call--who do we have on the phones there? We've got Suzy, I think, waiting for us. So, you'll be saying hi to Suzy and she'll get you through to us and ready to talk iPhone 3G. So, let's get right to that. But before that, the first iPhone 3G didn't just go on sale in New York, went on sale in Australia because of the time zone. Here's a look at how things went down under there.

>> Hi everyone, Joel Hammond [phonetic] here for cnet.com.au. We're in the heart of Sydney City tonight and it's blisteringly cold winter's evening but we're not alone. Apparently, there's about 200 promising queue and they're all here for one thing, Apple's iPhone 3G. ^M00:02:06 [ Music ] ^M00:02:12

>> So, how long have you been in the queue for tonight?

>> Well, I'm supposed to say since about 3 o'clock but I got here at about 10. I just--I cut the line.

>> How far back down the line do you think you should be?

>> Over around the corner but you can't tell anyone and I probably get killed for telling you about this.

>> Yeah. Look, these guys are ravenous for iPhone. I think they're gonna kill you.

>> Well, the secret is to tell the people you that you are not actually pre-registered and move forward, when you're actually pre-registered, but don't tell anyone.

>> So, what's the first thing you're gonna do with your iPhone after you charge it?

>> I'm going to spin my iPhone. I'm gonna stroke it a lot and yeah then I'm gonna check out if the Apple store is online.

>> Would you say that you're an Apple person? A Mac fan?

>> Since a bit in 1995.

>> And then I'm gonna try and create my own Apps. So yeah.

>> So, what sort of Apps that you're gonna create.

>> I don't know. I don't know but I'm gonna develop it. So, I'm trying to think of something and yeah, create something cool.

>> And are you a little totally bit torn that there's a guy in New Zealand right now warming his bed, playing with his new iPhone?

>> Yeah. Just a little bit.

>> Why don't you just go down the [unintelligible] tomorrow morning and buy one then?

>> Because then, I'll be one of the last people to buy one.

>> We have been looked after well. We got pizza, coffee, lollies. That's seems pretty cool, so yeah.

>> About 2 minutes now, who will be the first Australian to have his hands on an Apple iPhone 3G.

>> One minute. [ Applause ]

>> 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. ^M00:03:57 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:33

>> The number one.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. [ Cheering ] ^M00:04:55 [ Music ] ^M00:05:06

>> So, we've just finished up witnessing the first iPhone sale up at the Apple Store in George Street. We're now down at the Apple Store on George Street with some of the iPhone's forgotten people. With me is Nick. Nick, why are you waiting out at the Apple Store instead of going up to buy your iPhone?

>> Just seeing how many people were outside the store, I really just don't think they can enough iPhones for everyone. So a prepaid handset, you have to pay large amount of severance so that you're not on a like plan with them and they charge you about 850 bucks for the 16 gig and it's bit of a rip off considering it costs Apple 150 dollars to manufacture at one.

>> Can you tell me why you've decided to go with Telstra rather than have to cross the street or to go up to App Stores to get your iPhones at midnight?

>> Well, yeah you go.

>> I'm already with Telstra. So, I was having a look and just going with Telstra mostly for that reason.

>> So, it's 6 AM when you go into the store and you ask them about their data charges. If you're unhappy with that, will you decide not to buy from Telstra in the morning?

>> It's possible, yeah.

>> So, we'll Brit pal, the Australian's first iPhone customer is warming his bed suckling his iPhone. This [unintelligible] is right in front of the Apple Store and it's still about 8 hours before they can go inside and buy their iPhones. The same, of course, to be said at the people outside the Telstra store across the street. I'm Joel Hammond for cnet.com.au.

>> All right. Good stuff. Thanks a lot Joel. The excitement there starting in Australia, New Zealand, now working to New York, Manhattan as we saw just minutes ago in our live partnership with CBS News and CNET TV's own Natali Del Conte and now, we bring on Mr. Phone--not you Tom.

>> No, not me.

>> Kent German. Hello, Kent. Good morning.

>> Hey, Brian. Hey, Tom.

>> Welcome Kent. Thanks for rolling out of bed with us.

>> Sure. No problem.

>> Good to have you here. Now, I have a--at least half of faith we're gonna assign intelligent.

>> Well, a third.

>> A third, right. A third [unintelligible].

>> Yeah, a quarter.

>> Okay. We've got a ton of phone scans so I wanna get on to these and just start taking the calls here and I think between the 3 of us, hopefully we can nail all of these and get the CNET users and the CNET TV viewers as informed as possible. Let's start right at the top here at Jacksonville, Florida. We've got Tomi. Tomi, welcome to CNET Live, our special iPhone edition. What can we answer for you?

>> Hey, I was wondering if you guys are actually gonna buy the new iPhone?

>> Oh.

>> Yes.

>> Let's poll ourselves. Who's gonna actually buy an iPhone 3G? Tom?

>> Yeah. Well, actually it's my work assignment to run over there.

>> Okay. So you have to.

>> But we'll probably gonna get it anyway.

>> Yeah.

>> Now, in [unintelligible] position, you have to get one for work. But if it wasn't something that you were gonna get for review purposes, would you buy one yourself?

>> Probably not. I just don't want something that expensive and have something in my pocket. I tend to lose my phone a lot and believe it or not, I do. So, I like something that just makes some calls-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Yeah. [Unintelligible] send you review phones. You're like, "Oh, oops!"

>> Now, they always get theirs back.

>> Yeah. You're responsible that way.

>> Hey, Tom--

>> I think I wanna grab one, Tomi. I think that kinda makes it 2 out of 3. I'm actually gonna spend personal bucks. I think I'm ready to pull the trigger.

>> Yeah, Tomi.

>> Hey, are you actually interested in selling your old iPhone?

>> I get this question a lot recently. I--

>> It's a celebrity iPhone.

>> I have to get first devs to my sister-in-law. But I'll let everybody know what becomes of it once I get the new one in my hands.

>> See, Tomi wants to get manual system on eBay like the Lyrics 2 what was a gift peace a chance for 800 grand.

>> Yeah.

>> So, you think of your iPhone.

>> I don't know. Eight extra dollars for this.

>> Let's go to Connecticut. We got Andrew standing by. He's got a question about Apps. Hello Andrew. Welcome to CNET Live. What we can answer for you?

>> Hi. I actually have a new question that I haven't thought of when I had called in to the operator.

>> Okay. Go ahead.

>> And that is I know that tethering wasn't really a big deal when they had launched the original iPhone because it was only on edge and, you know, it's already really slow on the iPhone so you want to take that slow connection and bring it to their computer. But now that it's 3G, do you think tethering will be a bigger deal? I know that there's no official way to do it through Apple or AT&T but do you think third parties will get in and make that possible?

>> I'd say yeah.

>> Yeah, I could.

>> iPhone dev team has already said they've unlocked or they jail broken it.

>> Yeah.

>> So, we're still waiting for them to make that jail break available to everybody but they've got screens shots and they finally have done it. So, tethering, is that gonna be a third party App in the jail broken version of the iPhone 3G?

>> You know, I suppose it could be. There are so many--Apple does have some rules as far as, you know, what can me MA Apps and what can't, you know. There's some discussion of whether we'll see turn by turn directions, of course, and so I think it kinda remains to be seen at this point but I haven't seen one.

>> Yeah. I don't think they're gonna have an official App [unintelligible].

>> Yeah.

>> But if somebody jail breaks it, they'll figure out how to tether it then you start a war.

>> Yeah.

>> Because AT&T is not gonna like that.

>> Right.

>> And [inaudible] not gonna like that. Nobody's gonna like that, you know.

>> Now, Kent you've mentioned GPS real briefly. In one of the--one of the early reviews I saw on the iPhone is that it has GPS, of course, but not quite of the right precision or responsiveness to power at turn by turn application. Do we know anything about that yet?

>> Well, of course if you do get to Google Maps, you can go on to Google Maps and say, "Well, direct me from this place, to this place."

>> Right.

>> You'll get--you'll get the directions, but as far as tracking you, your current location and saying, okay, you're coming out to that turn, 300 feet, turn left or turn right or whatever, that's not possible right now.

>> Oh, really.

>> Yeah, and even if it was, there's no audible directions. So, if you have the Google Maps you're gonna have to pay attention to the phone.

>> Yeah.

>> It is a problem like--it is a problem with the precision of the GPS chip? I mean I've hear that too--

>> Yeah.

>> --that didn't make sense to me.

>> I know in David Pogue's review in the New York Times he said that Apple had told him that the GPS receiver wasn't big enough. And I'm not really sure what that means. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Yeah, I read that. I was confused by that and he said that the antenna wasn't big enough and able to pick it up but--

>> Okay, that makes more sense

>> So, I guess it's sensitivity.

>> Yeah.

>> I asked Bonnie about--Bonnie Cha about that, you know, and GPS misdirection and she said, well, it could be that they don't have enough channels. But still, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So, I think we might see that, see it. There are some discussions and Apple is working with TomTom to provide that.

>> Oh.

>> So, we haven't heard anything official on that.

>> Okay, possible future innovations. Let's go to Alex. He's in Pennsylvania. He has a question about iPhone, but unnecessarily about the 3G. Hello! Alex, welcome to CNET Live. What's on your mind?

>> Hey, I was just wondering, I want an iPhone 3G, but I don't have 3G coverage in my area--

>> Yeah

>>--so, do you think they're still gonna be selling the old one?

>> Oh, interesting question. Does the old iPhone go off the market today, do we know Kent?

>> Pretty much it's off the market. AT&T and Apple has some-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> You'll be able to buy it places, you know. Third party cellular stores, wireless world and things like that.

>> Me and Kent. [ Laughter ]

>> eBay

>> You know the Tom Merritt's special edition.

>> eBay your friends, things like that.

>> Yeah.

>> I think if you don't get 3G, probably the old one will serve you pretty well. Because with the software update, the old one does now have a lot of the features that the new one will have except of course 3G and real GPS that works with satellites.

>> Well, I have to say I've been using you know the 2.0 on the old one since yesterday, and I was pretty impressed with it's ability to navigate a location just based on that triangulation that's built-in to here.

>> Yes, the old triangulation.

>> That was following me along in Berkeley yesterday just fine street by street, as if I had the GPS chip in here.

>> Yeah.

>> So in the right place, it works very well.

>> Yeah--

>> With enough--

>>--it's gonna vary from place to place-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Hotspots and towers.

>> I noticed that as well, especially on the way here this morning.

>> And if you've got access, I think we'll almost for a drive here. If you've got access to Wi-Fi for most of your data, yeah the old iPhone is just as good.

>> That's a thing. Wi-Fi can make a big difference though.

>> Let's go to New Jersey and talk to Steve. He has a question about MobileMe. Hello! Steve welcome to CNET Live. What's on your mind?

>> Hey, I talked to 2 Apple stores yesterday and one happened to be in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. They had no idea what was going on with the MobileMe. The second one was the 5th Avenue store in New York, and they also had no idea what was going on with MobileMe. So, do you guys have any idea when it's gonna be up?

>> It's up. I'm in it right now. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> It's up right now.

>> It's me.com?

>> It went up last night and then it went back down again. And now, I'm back up. Yeah, me.com and it takes you to me.com/idisk. I'm in my Dot Mac back up. I could look at my documents. I haven't tried to do anything with it. I haven't tried to sync. And I know when I went to the Apple store, actually then it pulled that up. When I went to the Apple store to buy it, it said, "We'll let you know when you could buy it."

>> Well, actually no. Right now it's gonna-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> [Unintelligible] the software for the--or the iTunes--the software for the phone is not officially out yet.

>> Yeah.

>> I did notice though on the iTunes--the software update that I downloaded yesterday for the old iPhone--

>>No, I can buy it.

>> --is when you add an email account now you will see MobileMe right behind the--

>> Oh, there it is. Okay.

>> --right above email and below the enterprise. So, it's there. I haven't--I did hook up the enterprise on this phone for my CNET email. I haven't hooked up MobileMe 'cause I just don't have a Dot Mac--Dot Mac account.

>> Alright, so it's peeping out there. Now, you've got a call with Apple a little later on this morning?

>> Yeah. And Elsa [unintelligible] who you know--Well, she'll be--She'll be covering that later today.

>> Okay. So, Steve, stay on top of our coverage on CNET.

>> You can buy it.

>> Okay, so it's live now to buy online.

>> I can buy it right now.

>> Okay, so stay on top, because Elsa and Kent as you mentioned are gonna have all the details. We're literally talking to Apple a little bit later on 2 hours hence. Then we'll have the latest details on MobileMe and the roll out plan there. So, you have all the answers. So, stay on our site to get that. Let's get one more in here before we take a short break. We've got Tye in Lexington, Kentucky. He's got a question about locking and unlocking. Hi Tye, welcome to this special edition of CNET Live. What can we do for you?

>> Yes, I just have a question. I'm currently with Sprint and I've always wanted to get the iPhone, but I don't wanna make a transition to AT&T. At what point will they be available to possibly use on the Sprint service or will they ever?

>> I think that's highly unlikely actually that Apple will make a CDMA version of the phone. I don't think there's a lot of really reason for them to do so. And in terms of the market share and the amount of the people that CDMA would bring.

>> What's Sprint 3G?

>> EVDO.

>> It's EVDO, so you're not gonna you know, you got to have a separate radio. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Eventually--You remember eventually that the GSM and 3G and--sorry, CDMA 3G products are working toward a unified thing. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> That's the dream, but that's not tomorrow.

>> Yeah. You might see it on T-Mobile. There's a lot of speculation on whether it's AT&T's hold till 2010 or 2012. So, a little unsure, we might see it on T-Mobile but--

>> Because we heard that AT&T had a 5-year lock from the initial launch.

>> Yeah, which should be 2012 and then we heard, "Well, maybe it's 2010". So, we don't really know exactly.

>> Okay.

>> But CDMA unfortunately, I highly doubt it.

>> Alright, so--

>> That you unlock the phone, the iPhone 3G, T-Mobile would be your only option, right?

>> Oh, sure. Yeah. You will lose--

>> --in the US

>> --the 3G actually 'cause T-Mobile doesn't use the same kind of 3G that AT&T is using

>> Oh, interesting. Oh, good point.

>> So if you're gonna do that, I would just stay with the original version.

>> Now, it isn't it crazy the edge version of the iPhone was actually easier to unlock because you could go into the store and buy it and activate it at home. They're being so careful with like, "we don't want unlocked versions of the iPhone 3G" when it's available worldwide and you can't really use it on any other network anyway. They don't need to be as vicious about that.

>> And I tell you losing that in-home activation, that's a real loss for me 'cause I think that was the greatest thing that [unintelligible].

>> That sounded so cool, man. I didn't buy the first iPhone, but just reading about it and seeing how it went for everybody else, it was like, that is the way phones ought to be activated. And now, we're going back. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> I really thought that that was the way Apple is gonna change the market.

>> Yeah.

>> You go in, just take it home and activate it and if I know waiting for a long time--

>> So civilized-- [ Simultaneous Talking]

>> A little cognac. [ Laughter ]

>> Alright, we have some great calls. Keep on coming folks 888-900-CNET. The phones are red hot, but we got a couple of lines free 888-900-2638. You can actually get in right now if you call at this moment. Now, stick around. Of course, we have a lot more iPhone 3G answers for you. And as a counter point, the top 5 reasons to hate the iPhone, back with all that right after this. [ Music ]

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>> Special edition of CNET Live. It's all iPhone 3G. Well, it's all iPhone. Whether you want the old one or the new one, we're all about it right here 888-900-CNET. Phones are open, call right now.

>> Yeah, Actually we've got Andrew on the line calling in from Connecticut. Is that correct, Andrew?

>> Yeah, back on the line.

>> Hey, thanks for calling back. What can we do for you today?

>> So, another question about how exactly the App Store works? Obviously there are tons and tons of developers out there. So, I'm [unintelligible] third party apps with the iPhone. And I'm kind of curious as to, you know, Apple has all these restrictions as to what they don't want in the App Store. Are they looking at all the source code and making sure that those bad apps don't get in or what's they're quality control?

>> They have full control over the App Store. If you--if they don't let you in, you're not in. In fact, it's kinds of weird who's in and who's not. There are some real odd obscure companies that we've never heard of. They've got prominent placement in the App Store and there are big companies that you would expect to see in there like Last.fm is one of my favorite jail-broken apps not in the App Store. So, can you shed any more light on how they're picking the stuff, Ken?

>> Not, exactly. I know that they--the SDK. I did go through that when it first came out and I remember their restrictions about--the turn-by-turn GPS as I said. But, they have a lot in there. As far as exactly their criteria, that's I actually don't know. That seems--but they are exerting a lot of controlling. You know, everyone saying, "No, Apple is opening up the iPhone and you know, they're cracking the door open." [ Laughter ]

>> Maybe not that much, right? And then they're saying--

>> It's certainly not as open as a Mac, where any body could develop an application.

>> Right.

>> Yeah, there's no free approval to write software for the Mac, it's a very different thing on the iPhone.

>> One of the things about this is it doesn't allow background processes. Which if you don't know what that means, you know if you've got a--Last.fm is a great example, right? So the audioscrabbler, what it does is as I'm playing music, it runs in the background and it sense a note to Last.fm, CBS property by the way, just the exposure.

>> And it automatically updates the list of what I'm listening to. So, as I'm walking around, people could go on the web and see like, "Oh, that's what Tom listening too, right now." And there, you know, if you're into last FM and social networkings, it's kind of a cool thing. That is not allowed in the App Store, no background processes. It only operates by push.

>> So, it won't interrupt the basic function of the phone as phone, I imagine.

>> The apps running or the apps not running? You know, with the jail broken version I had background apps running all the time, no interruption of the phone.

>> Oh, that's another set back then with the official.

>> Do you think it will lead to it becoming more open though next time, because the first around they introduce, I think some SDK's for you to make your own web apps and then this time around they, of course, made basically executable apps, makes the next time around, they'll allow [unintelligible] making app or do you think they'll allow background services next time?

>> I suppose they could but you have to remember that Apple of course, these guys know they like their control and they like to control the market, play the game, and have people follow their rules. So, it's a little --

>> This is very hard for us, of course, with all these company.

>> Yeah. I mean we don't really know until they let us know.

>> It does seem to fit the pattern, though, you know like since baby steps nothing happens fast --

>> Yeah.

>> But they do marginally improve things bit by bit. Look at Apple TV. I mean that's a good example of where they revved it.

>> Yeah.

>> So that it's now much more attractive as an option than it was when it first came out.

>> Yeah, let's go to line 1. We've got Zack in Massachusetts. He kind of has the question that I have. Hello Zack! Welcome to CNET Live, the iPhone edition. What's on your mind?

>> Hi! I was wondering how fast you think the iPhone will sold out because I won't able to get to the store until around 5, and I was wondering my chances of actually picking one up will be.

>> That's what I was thinking. So, you know, when we all came in this morning I drop by the Apple Store on the way in here. People are waiting about 40-50 people there and I sneered at them, you know. Tara! I'm going to go down there and just buy one later and then I'm sitting and they -- I better ask Kent, either is going to be one available when I get to the store later?

>> Well, if I remember right they did pretty well last year. I know that they sold out, you know, when they went on sale on Friday, it was June 27 last year. And I think they sold out a little of the week and especially around right around 4th of July, remember? One thing that will play differences here is you do have to go and you have to get that activation. So that's kind of take longer for customers. So, theoretically that will slow it down and if it's going to take 15 to 20 minutes for each person to get in and for them to buy that.

>> That's a big difference! I mean 'cause you can buy a phone in just for few minutes, all things working well, activation, I mean that could be a 45X reduction in turn of getting those things out the door. That's a big slow down, right?

>> I think I've said a couples times that they'll will have enough and I think I mean as far I know they've done pretty well with that in the past.

>> Even last year when they sold out, it was like for an afternoon.

>> Yeah.

>> And then you walk the next day to get it again.

>> Yeah. Which makes the line so simple.

>> Yeah. This isn't going to a be a week. It's not going to be -- you find it anywhere [simultaneously talking].

>> You're right. Exactly for a year later, you still can get it.

>> So, Zack, you should be fine. That's our hunches that you're going to be able to find an iPhone later the day, and if does sale out in a given store, it shouldn't be for very long, maybe for a day or two. Okay, let's get one more here real quick before we take a break. I want to talk about what's happening, you know, with the audio quality on this phone because that's an interesting angle. I was one of the one of the kind of the quieter pervasive gripes in the original iPhone. Will it be the phone quality was not so great, so we've got Chad here from St. Paul. Hi Chad! What are you thinking about the audio quality on this phone?

>> I'm thinking I hope it much improves. I know during these keynotes he basically said we've got really improve audio quality and then he moved on to something else.

>> Do you have the original iPhone now?

>> I do.

>> And do you have a problem with the audio?

>> I really do, I don't think the -- that your piece is really loud enough, when I'm going to call, I got it all the way up. And if there is just a little bit of ambient noise in the room, I finding out a hard time hearing the call.

>> All right. So you guys both have lots of time on the iPhone original. What's the verdict, good audio quality with your experience?

>> It was fine but I wouldn't say it was the best I've seen, and I was actually -- you're right, it wasn't granted a lot of reviewers and a lot of people out there said, and just what the caller said, the noise or was-- or the volume. It was just a little bit too low. When I was in a noisy place, airport, I'm on a street or something, I just had, you know, "ha"?

>> You gag with this deal real right..

>> And the phone had a really sensitive -- I've noticed that the mics are very sensitive, so if you move it just a tiny little bit and the sound quality will cut -- well a lot of the phones and then you can hold it maybe here, down here.

>> Yeah.

>> You can still hear fine.

>> Yeah, it's so unremarkable what you can do with flexibility on other phone.

>> And in some cases there was just a little bit of a buzz. It's called the GSM buzz, you hear in a lot of GSM phones. And I did hear that a little bit. It's wasn't quite as good as I hopes and originally that's why we, you know, that's why when we finally get to down to -- we couldn't get the original iPhone [unintelligible] choice because it's just the call quality which just not what they really wanted.

>> Yeah. That was kind of the breaking point right there. Dr. Merritt, your experience with the call quality?

>> Well, I get a thin ear. I don't have this sensitive cellphone ear that Kent has. And also my previous phone was an original Motorola RAZR, so I thought --

>> Hello!

>> So, I thought will all quality [laughter] it rocked when I first got it. But I know what's you're talking about. You're in a loud room, loud situation, you got to have the headset on because it's really hard to like make sense. So, I've heard from the reviews that we've seen that are out there, the people who are blessed with an early version that the call quality is better and the music playback is significantly better, well, it remains to be the same.

>> And you made a good point. I'm not going to relish going back to this as I go to get this iPhone, this GSM noise, you know, going to a bar or a restaurant and the TVs all start to buzz 'cause your getting an e-mail update in the background. Boy, I hate that. I've been enjoying the CDMA quiet.

>> Speaking of hate--

>> Hey.

>> It's actually not all love when it comes to the iPhone and we're going to play for you some of my top 5 reasons to hate the iPhone. ^M00:25:39 [ Music ] ^M00:25:44

>> Welcome to CNET Top 5, where each time we meet, we count down another hot CNET List. I'm Tom Merritt. Everybody's making a big stink about the iPhone 3G. It's going to save us all. It's the best thing since--I don't know, the last iPhone. Is this all making you sick? We have the palliative to settle your stomach. Let's count down the top 5 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G. At number 5, no voice dialing. My Samsung phone in 2000 had voice dialing. This thing can supposedly play you Beetles music, track your stocks, navigate you to Pittsburgh, and play Super Monkey Ball, but it can't voice dial? Fail. Coming in at number 4, no cut and paste. The Blackberry lets you cut and paste. The Treo lets you cut and paste text but if I want to take a bit of text from a web browser and paste it into an e-mail, I have to memorize it on the iPhone 3G. No other option. Up to number 3, you can't use it as a modem. It's 3G, for heaven sakes. It has bluetooth. Now, a lot of phones shut you out on this but often, you can pay a little protection money to totter your phone to your laptop. Others just let you do it. iPhone, no way. Not even if you have all the money in the world. Sliding in at number 2, no multimedia messaging. So, I take a photo with that decent 2 mega pixel camera, but how do I shoot it off to my dear Aunt Betty? By e-mail because you can't attach pictures to a text message because the iPhone think its 1999 apparently. Before we get to number 1, let's check in on a few downers about the new iPhone that didn't make the top list. Those coverage gaps are bad for traveling or living in them. All right. The hating is almost done. Let's get to our number 1 and then we can all love again. The biggest reason to hate the iPhone 3G is it's all locked up baby, unless you're in Italy or a country that requires unlocked phones by law, you cannot use the iPhone on anything but approved 3G networks such as AT&T in the US or O2 in the UK. So, get to jail breaking my hackery friends if you want to choose your cellphone provider. Well, that's it for this edition of CNET Top 5. If the negativities get you down, be sure to check out our Top 5 Reasons to Love the iPhone 3G. It's much happier. I'm Tom Merritt. See you next time. [ Background Music ]

>> Love that. Anyway, side bar. Okay. So, it's not all love. We can always find things in it. Then, we found a lot of things [unintelligible] with the iPhone 3G but it's still the topic of the hour, and that's what we're talking about here on the special edition of CNET Live all iPhone this morning. Call now. We can answer your question or take a really good stab at doing so, 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. We have two lines--no, make that one line open now so jump on it right now. Let's get to some of those calls.

>> Yup.

>> Let's go down here to Dan in Indiana. He's got a question about not the iPhone but it's a sister product. Hello, Dan. Welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hey. I was just wondering if because of the recent price drop for the iPhone, the iPod Touch will follow suit.

>> Yeah. What is--the iPod Touch is still the same price? Never got a cut?

>> I'm pretty sure, yeah.

>> I'm looking at the web site right now and it says that it's still 299.90.

>> Yeah. I mean I would love them to do that. Just, you know, and it seems like the right thing for them to do but they haven't, and I don't think they're going to.

>> Yeah. The only thing I remember at the Touch is it isn't subsidized by carrier so that's --

>> Right. Different model entitlement.

>> One reason we're getting that AT&T price drop. So--

>> Yeah, I think it is, good point now.

>> Yeah.

>> Think about if you go into an Apple Store and you want to buy without a contract. What is it? 599 dollars for the 8 gigs and it's 699 dollars for the 16.

>> Yeah.

>> So then, you compare that price. That's the full price of the iPhone 3G. Compare that to the iPod Touch. You can kind of see why they haven't knocked the price down.

>> Yeah. There's no wiggle room in Apple's rich profit schemes.

>> Yeah. There's no--not a whole lot of incentive for them to do that right now anyway.

>> Right. Almost none.

>> I think worst than that is that crazy Sarbanes-Oxley justification for charging you--what is it? 10 or 20 dollars to upgrade your existing iPod Touch--

>> The accounting rules.

>> To the new firmware.

>> Yeah.

>> Because there's no subscription.

>> 9.95, right?

>> Is it 10?

>> I think so.

>> 9.95.

>> Yes. Driven by regulations not by them really wanting to charge, but they have to do so to not look like they were trying to scam anybody. So anyway Dan, unlikely there's an iPod Touch price cut coming because of the whole different price model. We're just getting this in from Kelly McCarthy in the line at the New York store where they've been buying iPod 3Gs for about a half an hour now and she says 3 to 1 16 gig versus 8 giger going out the door. So, I guess there's no surprise.

>> Makes sense. [ Simultaneous talking ]

>> That's what I'm wanting to say.

>> Oh yeah. Color of the phone. Yeah. Who's buying black or white ones 'cause you get the choice with the 16.

>> Yeah. The white was a little random to me. I kind of looked at them, I said white? I was thinking red, blue, or something--

>> Well, it matches the rest of the line. It matches the computers, you know. I thought that was kind of cool. All right. Let's get up to--let's take Michael here in Saint Louise. He's got a question here about interesting angle on MobileMe. Hello, Michael. Welcome to CNET Live. What can we do for you?

>> Yeah. I know this is like a really focused iPhone show this morning but obviously, they've been rolling out MobileMe. It came out like a day late and they haven't really even said sorry or anything. Do you think they're going to offer any discounts or anything like that?

>> It's actually, we heard that Steve Jobs is going send flowers to everybody who tried to sign up early. So, I think it'd be good. No I mean for a day, they're not going to do a credit on that, right? I mean--

>> Probably not.

>> No. I'd see, if it was, you know, once it's up and running, if it had a major outage maybe but--

>> Well, yeah, I mean, you think about it. It was up and running. It was Dot Mac.

>> Yeah.

>> All the Dot Mac subscribers lost access to their iDisks during that outage. So--

>> Yeah. This was how long?

>> It was most of the day yesterday.

>> I think so, yeah.

>> With that as planned on like what? 6 p.m. of the day before and then it didn't come back up when it was supposed to come back up.

>> It is a continuity in this service issue. I haven't thought of it that way.

>> It's a day out of the subscription issue but--

>> Yeah, seems unlikely.

>> I wasn't able to back up my settings yesterday in [unintelligible].

>> Oh, that's--that's awful.

>> Yeah Michael. I don't know. A day of--really, I know it's annoying but I don't know. We haven't heard anything along those lines. So, if we do, of course, we'll get it up on CNET right off the bat. Let's do one here about iTunes and this is interesting about iTunes and Podcast going forward. I'm not sure it's actually iPhone specific. Mike Sinsicoma [phonetics] . Hello, Mike. Welcome to CNET Live.

>> Okay. Thank you. Now, this isn't iPhone specifics--

>> That's all right.

>> [Unintelligible]

>> In iTunes when you have it only keep the unlistened to Podcast, you know. After you sync your iPod or iPhone, it removes them from iTunes but it doesn't delete the Podcast off the hard drive. Is there any way to tell iTunes to delete them also?

>> What do we know on that?

>> Yeah, and I have that same problem actually where it's kind of random how it deletes those. It does go and delete then every once in a while but--

>> But not uniformly in listening order.

>> But not always. So, I'm poking--

>> I have those problems as well, you know.

>> Yeah. So, have you found any work around to that other than just going in and deleting them?

>> No, I actually tried.

>> I think it's just a bug in the way iTunes works. Maybe they'll be better with 7.7.

>> Is there a place you can set a disk allocation or it just maintains a certain amount of space and does its own, it just--

>> No.

>> Really?

>> Hit you, not the app. No disk allocation and, you know, I'm looking through the preferences here and it's pretty much what you said. You said it, you know, it'll only keep the unlistened to episodes. It'll only keep the last 5 episodes and you can tell it delete, you know, delete it afterwards but it just doesn't sometimes. So, it's just a bug in a system.

>> Good housekeeping there. All right. Hey, Mike, sorry we didn't waver a work around for you on that but that's just a little bit of a sloppiness. Maybe--who knows? Maybe 7.7 is a little bit better on that. Okay. Great calls folks. Keep them coming at 888-900-CNET.

>> We'll be right back. Stay with us for more of your calls right after this. ^M00:34:00 [ Music ] ^M00:34:04

>> Hey, Nigel, are you okay?

>> [ Foreign Language ]

>> Hey, it's Kelsey, are you ready Kelsey?

>> Yeah, I'm here. I love what you're doing with my cookies.

>> I like to discuss some of my new ideas with you.

>> What about jelly bean cookies?

>> Natali del Conte talks tech. Natali del Conte understands tech but Natali del Conte is very small. How do such big ideas come from such a small person? Performance enhancers. You might want to watch out who you hang out with, Kurt Schilling.

>> Paid for by tall tech journalists who dropped out of high school. ^M00:34:40 [ Music ] ^M00:34:50

>> Catch the best, expo tech views at CNETTV.com. ^M00:34:55 [ Music ]

>> Okay folks. Back at you, 888-900-CNET is the magic number. It's the special edition of CNET Live. Our special guest is Kent German. I'm here with Tom Merritt. It's like the CNET Live, but it's a whole different day, it's a whole different time.

>> Problem with this show is I can't actually play with the new firmware because we're so busy actually talking about the--

>> Of the firmware.

>> Yeah.

>> You just wanna sit down on your little cubby and just start making something wrong. Something wasn't supposed to run off. I know how you are.

>> I wanna play with the phone saver. You're gonna love this one.

>> Phone saver?

>> Yeah, phone saver. It's the light saver. [ Laughter ]

>> And it makes the sound effects when you [simultaneous talking].

>> And does it--Oh, it uses the [unintelligible].

>> Yeah.

>> --to pick up.

>> What color is a light saver?

>> You could choose.

>> Oh, okay.

>> There's yellow, purple, green. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Yes. So, you can choose. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> I'm right now very Sith colored red here, but as you can see along this side, you can choose different colors.

>> Yeah.

>> Free app, by the way. You don't have to pay for that.

>> What were you thinking my iPhone 3G purchase?

>> However, you do have to--you don't have to pay for flashlight. [ Laughter ]

>> 99 cents, if you want flashlight. You know what it does?

>> Turns on the screen, right?

>> Turns the screen white. Great.

>> 99 cents for that. [ Laughter ]

>> It's ridi--You can call us at 888-900-CNET. Ephemeral like that and important questions as well. Let's get to some of those goals. Where do you wanna go, Dr. Merritt?

>> Go to line 1 and talk to Mark. Hey Mark, thanks for calling in. What can we do for you today?

>> Yeah, I was calling to see what would be the worst--best way. I would like to buy a first gen iPhone and use it on T-Mobile.

>> Oh, okay. You wanna buy the old iPhone that you like either use there from eBay or something like that. And then I would go to the iPhone Dev folks.

>> Yeah.

>> Or you can go to ZiPhone. There's actually some warring camps. Each one doesn't really like the other, so you know, it's a religious war. You can choose which way you wanna go. iPhone Dev is very good at keeping you up to date on things. ZiPhone is very good at keeping you up to date on things as new firmware rolls out, but either one of those will work and unlock that phone. A questionable legality I guess. I mean, you do have a DMCA exemption for unlocking a phone, so I don't think you're in trouble, but those are the 2 places I would look to unlock it.

>> And I have seen a couple of places that actually will sell it to you unlocked. I was just walking around here in San Francisco the other week and passed one of those third party cellular stores and they had--You could buy an unlocked iPhone, get a new T-Mobile account for 299. There was a sign in the window.

>> Oh really.

>> It was closed, it was 4th of July.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I had no idea how it worked, but I craved it. Actually, it's on the Crave blog and they had all these signs in the window that we can unlock iPhones or sell you an unlocked one all for T-Mobile. So, there might be stores around that will allow you to do that.

>> Yeah. Pretty cottage industry out there folks that wanna go with the old one unlocked.

>> Yeah, I was surprised 'cause I've never seen a store just display that prominently and say--

>> Yeah, very blatant.

>> we are breaking the law, you know.

>> Yeah, that [simultaneous talking]

>> Not breaking the law, but--

>> Breaking the [unintelligible]

>> Yeah.

>> You know, breaking AT&T's heart.

>> Yes.

>> To put it that way.

>> iphwn.org

>> Yeah.

>> or ziphone.org or .com [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Those are your 2 sites to get your breaking done. I wanna go to Willy, first of all, 'cause he's in Honduras.

>> Alright.

>> And that might be our first call from Honduras. And also, I think he is touching on one of the key stories that's lesser known about the iPhone 3G. Hello, Willy. Welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hello?

>> Yes. Hello, Willy. Welcome to the show. What's on your mind today about the iPhone?

>> I am from Hungary, not Honduras.

>> Oh, Hungary. Okay, even better.

>> Yeah. [ Laughter ]

>> Better food, worse weather, but we can deal with that.

>> Okay. I'm thinking it's really worthy that the subscription on all the other things about the iPhone--

>> We're losing your void connection there. I think your question was about the plan cost.

>> Yes.

>> Now, Kent, this is a cheaper phone, but over the long haul it's gonna cost you more, right?

>> Yes. Yeah. I can always speak for AT&T's plans. I don't know much about plans outside of the US--

>> Right.

>> except for Rogers in Canada in which--

>> Whole other catalog.

>> Yeah, whole other thing. But anyway, for the cheapest AT&T plan that is comparable to what you can get with the current iPhone, it will be about--It's 74.99. Well actually, 74.99 a month. That means 69.99 with your unlimited day at 450 any time minutes, then unlimited nights on weekends and then add in 200 text messages which you know--remember aren't getting included this time as they were last time.

>> That's one of the big changes.

>> And that's 5 dollars per month. So, you're looking at 74.99 which is 15 dollars more than the comparable plan for the original iPhone.

>> And I had a question about those text messages. You can add groups of 205 dollars at a time. That's not just a single bucket of 200.

>> Yeah, I think--I think 15, you can get unlimited text messaging as I remember correctly. But--

>> So, 5 bucks for 200 a month or 15 for unlimited text--

>> Yes.

>> --we think is what it is.

>> But, you have to pay extra for that.

>> You do?

>> But you didn't have to pay.

>> You do.

>> Yeah.

>> And before you got the 200 included. So, that's another thing that the people are a little upset about and I can understand is--is the text messages isn't been thrown in there.

>> Yeah. And I'll go through 200 text messages in no time. I will have to be an unlimited text guy, so I'm adding 15 bucks.

>> And when I went to the GSMA show in Barcelona this year, Bonnie Cha and I were talking on iPhone just 'cause it's cheaper to text than it is to call.

>> Right.

>> And that threaded text conversation that the iPhone does, of course, you know, that made you wanna text more because you can just see it. You can say, "Let's go to dinner." "Okay." [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Well, that's a good question now. We've got AIM on here with a Firmware 2.0 so you can just instant message with people over the network.

>> On your unlimited data.

>> Do you need the text messaging?

>> Interesting point, yeah. Interesting point.

>> Yeah.

>> If you can get around that way, that's a good way to get around that whole nonsense of adding on the text.

>> Everybody's got AIM everybody's got text.

>> And speaking of--oh yeah, universalities are much different. Speaking of the fees, you're on Exchange. Are yours on Exchange?

>> Yup.

>> Okay. So you guys are both on Exchange. I've heard that you are supposed to do it right, get the corporate data plan if you're gonna use Exchange but not necessary?

>> Well, we have the old iPhones so--

>> Yeah, subject to the 30 dollar personal data plan or the 45-dollar.

>> Oh, okay.

>> So different structure.

>> So, you bring up a good point and if you go on AT&T site, that does say that if you wanna use Outlook Exchange or the Exchange, you will have to get the corporate, you know, or the business data plan which is again 45 dollars a month.

>> That's 15 more.

>> 15 more than the personal. The only thing is I don't know is how is Apple--or I'm sorry, AT&T really gonna enforce that 'cause you don't need your IT's help to do this. Once you have the settings, you go in, you enter all your stuff, and I was getting my e-mail within seconds. So, it worked really well.

>> It worked with the [unintelligible] system, you just have to be honest or they look at your at data usage and when--if it's way up there, they question you.

>> They might do that but I can't imagine AT&T is gonna put the manpower into going through people--

>> Can they see some of the packet that's only in Exchange server--

>> Apparently not.

>> I suppose they could. I just don't know how they're gonna enforce that.

>> Yeah.

>> Because it does, you know, it might possibly be that they're talking to businesses that are buying the iPhone in bulk and then saying, "Well, if you're gonna sign up all your"--

>> Absolutely.

>> Certainly if they do, yeah.

>> Here's what you need to get, but for users that can, 'cause you know, in CNET here, we have Outlook without--we have web access I wanna say, without access all the time and once you have that, you can set up and it's very simple and there was no sort of any kind of prompt that said to you, "How do I do the plan?" And I mean we wouldn't get that anyway on this one.

>> All right. So we think it's on our system right now. Let's jump--

>> There are anecdotes of people on Blackberry that has the same restriction where they have been contacted and said, "Hey. You're using Exchange, aren't you? We need to bump you up to a new plan".

>> Oh, interesting.

>> Okay.

>> So, there's some way--

>> They got in the industry but we don't know what's happening here. Let's get one more in before we take a turn on the break. Let's talk to Robert in New York where they already have the iPhone. Hello, Robert. Welcome to CNET Live. What's on your mind?

>> Okay. Before I get to my question, I just wanted a little tip about the texting. If you take a number and you put that in front of @teleflip.com, then you could e-mail them and sends them a text message.

>> TeleFlip.com?

>> Yeah.

>> Didn't know about that.

>> Good tip.

>> Good way around the old text message limitation.

>> You schooled us and that's interesting. Thanks for the tip. We'll try that out. Now, what's the question we can answer for you?

>> I heard like a little news that, a couple of months ago that you were not going to be able to buy iTune songs over 3G so what's the deal with that?

>> That's a very good question and I actually don't know 'cause I haven't--we're getting into 3G iPhone in a couple of hours so I'll have to see.

>> Yes. We're still sandy cap.

>> Yeah. As everyone knows right now, you can only buy iTune songs over WiFi but what I was able to do, which is interesting yesterday is after I downloaded the software update, I was able to go in the App Store and buy apps over EDGE.

>> So, that feels like a digital purchase download?

>> Yeah.

>> Does the iTunes server distinguish between that and music is the question.

>> Oh actually, we still can't go in and purchase songs over EDGE but I could go in and get an app so I just thought that was an interesting distinction.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. It works a little slower--

>> And it's really painful to buy an app over the EDGE network.

>> Yeah.

>> I started one in Oakland and it didn't finish downloading by the time we got across the bridge to San Francisco.

>> That's no way to measure a download, by zip code. Not good.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> That's a long download. Now--

>> Fortunately, we'll have to see.

>> Do we have any idea what a typical Apps K Size [phonetic] is turning out to be? Is that revealed? Is it hundreds? Is it megs? Do we know?

>> Yeah. I can only speak from the jail break. I haven't actually looked on here.

>> Yeah.

>> But they were usually in the kilobytes.

>> Yeah.

>> Alright. So, much more than the song?

>> The big ones were up in the megabytes.

>> Alright. So, they can be as big as a song.

>> I had a ton of jail break Apps on this thing and it really the other section on my little bar was not that big.

>> All right. So, AT&T is assuming that you're gonna buy a lot more songs than apps. It's not a matter of the size per unit. It's the matter of volume of units you're gonna buy.

>> Yeah, the songs and the videos especially.

>> Yeah. Oh, the videos, yeah.

>> And remember that movies are gonna take up most amount of anything.

>> That's the scariest among the 3G side. All right. Good stuff. All right. We'll be back for some more of your calls. We do have one line open right now if you wanna get on at 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. It's all iPhone, special edition of CNET Live right here at CNETTV.com, myself, Tom Merritt, and Kent German back with more of your calls right after this. ^M00:44:50 [ Commercial Break ] ^M00:45:43

>> Welcome back folks. It's the iPhone special on CNET Live. We're here taking your calls about iPhone, iPhone 3G, the new App Store, the new software, whatever your question is. We're all focused to iPhone right now as we have the New York availability. It was about 48 minutes ago. We're gonna get it out here in the West Coast at 8 AM. Until then, we have commandeered Kent German, since he's got no where else to go until the phone becomes available and he's here helping out Dr. Merritt and myself answer your question at 888--

>> We're getting questions too about the iPhone.

>> Tom?

>> You know, we do the holiday desk help every year at November and well, I got issue. This hour, we're gonna be talking about TVs and then we get maybe two calls about TV wide open. No big deal. We have the same attitude today but really, everybody's talking about it. So, those people who were like, "Oh I don't know. All this iPhone hype, who's interested? That's media's causing the hype." Well, it's a back and forth. Media's causing the hype but the people are causing the hype too.

>> Absolutely and we're getting to those back. We got so many and this one's good from--we got from Stephen here in New Mexico with an interesting question 'cause, of course, the iPhone 3G is the one that's going global. Stephen, welcome to CNET Live. What can we answer for you?

>> Well, I wanna be able to use this in Europe so I'm wondering, number 1, is it--does it use HSDPA?

>> Dr. German?

>> Yes. It does.

>> The question goes to you.

>> You'll be able to use the phone very well in Europe and most places in the world that has core GMS bands, which, of course, used for talking so that's the best arrangement you can have and it has enough of the HSDPA bands, the 3G bands for you to be able to use it in a lot of countries. So--

>> So, it's a world phone.

>> So, very, very built for traveling.

>> Yes.

>> Okay. If you look at the countries that are rolling it out in and it's an exhaustive list. So yeah, you're gonna be good in Europe.

>> But you won't be good on T-Mobile in the United States.

>> No.

>> With the 3G. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Just be really careful when you travel to watch that bill and AT&T has--

>> Call your carrier.

>> AT&T has international packages. I don't know if they're changing for the new phone but they do so, they do so a bunch of mega bytes for traveling for a month for overseas, that you can use when you're not on any WiFi.

>> Okay.

>> Now what I did when I was in Europe was I activated roaming but didn't sign up for a plan for minutes, signed up a plan for data and that just did most of text messaging and that seemed to be the most economical way to do it.

>> So the data can just rob you blind if you're not careful. So, just be really careful.

>> So Stephen, you're going to Europe for an extended trip, or a short thing, or what are you thinking?

>> Well, I'll just go there like sometimes [inaudible] so I need that I'll be able to take and so, will I also put in a card that I bought.

>> So would you do a sim card locally?

>> A sim card?

>> You could but, of course, remember the phone has to be unlocked if you wanna do that.

>> Yeah, if you can, you can unlock it.

>> That's right. That's right. Otherwise, you gotta just massage the plan you've got with AT&T and most importantly, get real used to texting.

>> But, of course, if you use WiFi when you're overseas, then you're not gonna be using any data minutes. So--

>> Here's a dumb question I'm gonna ask. Is there a VoIP Program out yet to use the WiFi and get around using a carrier at all, or is that gonna be something that Apple says no way?

>> I haven't seen it but think AT&T is gonna be saying that actually.

>> Yeah, AT&T certainly isn't gonna like that.

>> AT&T?

>> VoIP--again, jail broken? Sure. App Store? I don't think so.

>> Is there already a VoIP thing with a few jail break?

>> Yeah. What was it called? We did a video on it.

>> I don't know. So, there is one out all right?

>> Oh. Now, I can't remember what is the one.

>> But there is one?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. So, you can already-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> See that at CNETTV.com.

>> So there's another way. If you can find lots of WiFi, we've got the video on over CNET TV on how to use weight.

>> I don't know what it's called.

>> But that's okay. You did it but you don't remember what it's called. Okay. Let's get into talking here about the Interface on the iPhone. I wanna go to Dorris, I think, it is in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What's on your mind today? What can we answer for you here on CNET Live?

>> Okay. Thank you for having me.

>> Thank you for calling. What are you thinking?

>> There's a blogger following someone's work. Thing is that my boss have the trouble with phones. He used an iPhone. I mean I'm like taking this opportunity to speak to Kent. He had an iPhone but it didn't work out very well because it seemed to stop I think a long time [unintelligible] like 14 minutes on the Yahoo widget. [Unintelligible] all of with other different phones. He is always at trouble getting the right one. So, he did want to have a touch screen, he hates the referral for some reason. I think the iPhone needs to be, you know, he used to be having like most of different phones, a lot of Motorola. The last one he had was Express Music from Nokia because he thought that it was small like it was really neat because it was small but then the reception was really bad.

>> Uhmm. Okay.

>> He likes a phone that does a work on the other smart band GSM, a touch screen, can't get his stocks way because this is a 15 minutes is too much and that is not referral.

>> Okay. Just want a referral and he is big on checking stocks and web browsing. Does any of that add up to anything that's top at your head there Kent that listed attributes? I'm sorry, by that GSM?

>> Looking for a 3G GSM world phone--looking for a world phone, touch screen with good web access which is part of what he uses to check up on a lot of stocks online which is getting bigger.

>>Obviously, iPhone can do all that.

>>Yeah.

>> Better option?

>> Difficult to say 'cause it's such a personal thing. I would say that I've really wanna direct him to the Samsung Instinct, but that's a CDMA phone so I can't do that but I was, but I would say that Nokia 95, a lot of people like that but of course it isn't touch screens. So, that's why I know. I think so, that is a factor he was looking for. But it has a lot of those features and I might wanna look at some of HTC models out there with HTC Touch, things like that. Maybe some of the newer Samsung ones like the Armani or the, I cannot remember the name of the other one; the design and model too. [Laugh]

>>They're all up at the review.

>> We actually have Maggie Reardon of cnetnews.com to the great blog on Tuesday where she compared a lot of comparable models for the iPhone and exactly how they stock up.

>> Oh great.

>>So, we, you might wanna check that out. I think it's on Tuesday. It's on Tuesday, should be On Crave.

>>Only On Crave. So, go to crave.net.com and just look for Maggie Reardon's piece comparing a lot of alternatives, very fresh up to date, head to head, with a good head to head there. That might be the best way to sort that out. Like Kent says, there are so many factors and so much of it is personal and how you weight, how important all those given features are. So, good luck with that Doris.

>> There is a VoIP already on the iPhone in the App Store. There is a VoIP application.

>>There is? Now, how does that work against AT&T's interests.

>> I don't know but it's pay-for service and it routes your calls to Wi-Fi. So, if you're not--

>> Yeah.

>> If you're just on 3G, it's not gonna work.

>>Right.

>> But if you're on Wi-Fi, you can make VoIP call over the Wi-Fi so, that's how it's getting around it. It's saying, "Yeah, AT&T were not eating your lunch 'cause we're not using your network for it".

>>So, it says, we're not sniffing 3G right now. It will work if we have Wi-Fi. It must be some kind of lock out in there, I would imagine. It won't work if it detects 3G.

>>It won't work if there is no Wi-Fi and the way and the iPhone works if the Wi-Fi says that's what it uses for the data. So, it's just going over--

>> So it is there.

>> The Wi-Fi and freeing was the one that was on jail. Fring.

>> Fring.

>> Who wants to call?

>> Well, my iPhone just rebooted. [Laugh] I found it by going into the--

>>Aha! You and your smart ass jail breaking. See, it's not so perfect.

>> It's not jail broken anymore. No!

>> It was fine, when I was jail broken. [Laugh]

>>If you just searched VoIP in the App Store, that's okay.

>>Let's go to Evan in Maine. He's got a question about availability on the new iPhone 3G. Hello Evan, welcome to CNET Live, the iPhone edition. What do you nervous about?

>>Well, I'm planning on getting an iPhone tomorrow but probably, it was, just wondering they, the time have and it might sell out. So, I'm thinking, are they gonna be still out tomorrow like AT&T Stores?

>> Now, our guess was, because of this kind of similar way earlier in the hour that if it does sell out, it shouldn't be for long and obviously gonna be on a store by store sporadic basis, not nationwide. We got a pretty good feeling as the consensus that you're gonna be able to get one. Where exactly in Maine are you? Are you near an Apple Store or an AT&T store?

>> My nearest AT&T Store is in Saco, the nearest Apple one is in Rockingham Park, I guess.

>>So, which is closer? I mean, which one do you gonna go [unintelligible] Which one?

>>AT&T.

>>Okay. Do you need a difference in availability from AT&T to Apple Store Kent, any idea?

>>It seems like there was last year and I guess it's possible but I think, I like to think that they have about the same. I think, Apple is probably just got have a little more 'cause I think lot, a lot of people may go there if they are near an Apple Store.

>>Yeah.

>>Just cause, I think it is pressure in their minds and it's a little bit more glamorous going to the Apple Store.

>>Exactly! It's very different experience.

>>Yeah. It's gonna like, it's an event. You go this beautiful temple of Apple and go get your phone. So, we think you're gonna be okay. It's had to tell but, you know, we just getting them national roll out. It just started but we think you're gonna be okay there, Evan. Let's check up here. It's a plan question. Lola is calling from Jacksonville, Florida about the plans and how to get a family plan or some kind. Hi Lola, welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hi, how are you all doing?

>> Doing good.

>> Very good.

>> Okay, well this is my question, my contract was up years ago. So that's not an issue my mom is on my plan with me.

>> Uhm.

>> And you know, I pay 19.99 for her she doesn't know what a text message is. She doesn't know what a smart phone is. She doesn't even know what Apple is probably.

>> And you know I look at the plans and the family plan is 130 dollars. I am like, no. Is there anyway I can get the iPhone plan for myself and then tag on my mom for the 19.99 that I have been paying for her?

>> Yeah, I asked Mark Seigle who is AT&T's Media Relations Director the other day this question. Can you combine the iPhone with other phones in a family plan, and he said yes. I don't know the specifics as far as if there's any restrictions but as far as I know yes you can buy an iPhone as the primary phone in the plan and then tack on another AT&T phone. [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Simple plan.

>> Yeah, if that's gonna change that 19.99 rate which she is currently getting? I'm not quite sure but you can combine different kinds of phones together.

>> Okay, so Lola you should be okay on that? Go forth and tell him Kent told you.

>> Alright, thank you very much.

>> Actually, tell 'em to call Mark Seigle actually.

>> Or Mark Seigle yeah, oh yeah.

>> Tell them we told you. Tell them CNET says I can do this. Cause they can do a lot of stuff that they may not think they can do. Okay, let's talk here about--

>> Let see-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> An alternative to the iPhone 3G this is going cut the other way but you know the only thing on our mind right now is iPhone not really because there's some other interesting semi iPhone. Let's talk to Andrew in Connecticut about one of those. Hey, Andrew welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hi, so I was reading Engadget the other day and I saw that HTC Touch is bringing, excuse me HTC is bringing their Touch Diamond to the CDMA network to Verizon and Sprint and I know that CNET reviewed international GSM version and I was wondering, if Kent saw any differences between the international version and the one that was going to the CDMA networks.

>> Yeah. Unfortunately I haven't seen the CDMA phone yet, I know that Bonnie Cha was saying that she actually reviewed that international version of the Touch Diamond. She says that it's supposed to come we don't know specifics. I know using the Touch Diamond very pretty--a little bit of a frustrating experience in a lot of ways with that touch screen.

>> What made it frustrating?

>> Well, the touch screen first of all felt a little cheap, you know this touch screen feels really nice--

>>Uh-hmm.

>> Glass, it feels solid.

>> Really solid.

>> Yeah, it has a really nice feeling to it. The Touch Diamond I felt that it just didn't feel very nice it was almost a plastic feel and so it was sliding across my fingers I didn't feel that it was already registering and then also there is a little bit of a lag when you were touching things so I touched something, I go like, it's not working so I touch it again.

>> Sure it is, yeah, I know.

>> And I've done like 2 things.

>> Yeah.

>> Very pretty phone though. It does a lot. Bonnie said actually one of her callers said the colors is the old one when in the broadcast she said, they said pretty phone you wanna look at it but then you wanna smash it against the wall sometimes. ^M00:58:02 [ Laughter ] ^M00:58:03

>> So presumably all that would be the same for a CDMA version.

>> Yeah, it's just the carrier that would become--

>> That the thing if you saw the CDMA version what would happen is they change the interface, they change the Menu structure probably. The actual hardware would more or less stay the same. That's pretty much the case in all these things.

>> Okay. Okay. It's just the radio inside that they changed.

>> I've seen that all these carriers, they're calling all their data plans unlimited plans but they all seem to have this 5 gigabyte limits on them. And a lot of them charge pretty steep overages if you go over that 5 gigabyte limit, you know, I know that Verizon will charge you I think 25 cents a megabyte over 5 gigabyte.

>> On your unlimited plan

>> So what's the story are--

>> Unlimited plans, unlimited like?

>> No, no it was never.

>> Not really.

>> There is a fine print [unintelligible]?

>> Yeah. It's a reasonable limitation, right, yeah and I'm sure-- [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> And after this, Sprint brought out it's Samsung Instinct which requires the Sprint everything plan which has the unlimited data. There was a lot of outcry about the fact it really was unlimited and then the Sprint came back and said, well, here is all of our sort of restriction, what our restrictions mean and then they're not gonna cut you off right away. And actually I did a blog about this but I can't remember all these explaining of the top of my head that Sprint did but I can forward it to Tom or it was about a month ago. So we can somehow get it on the side again.

>> Okay.

>> But that is the little blog's a little old but I did go through and they did say all those kind of criteria about that but no unfortunately it's not unlimited.

>> I just don't think you should be allowed to call it unlimited when it's limited.

>> and not be unlimited

>> I mean what they mean is well, we're not paying that close attention but if we notice you going crazy over 5 megab-- till the time.

>> Or gigabytes.

>> Then were gonna come and talk to you and we might have to cut you off. So it's not a hard limit but it's still a limit

>> This isn't just the phone biz, the ISPs are doing these too. They go after the 2% who use the 80% of whatever that.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> same sort of idea.

>> That all nonsense.

>> So, alright.

>> So it's nothing new and--

>> Yeah.

>> 5 gigabyte is a lot of data when you think about it.

>> It's lot of data so Andrew, you know, there is a question for you that's for the HTC Diamond and also interesting side angle you wanna keep in mind because you get your new iPhone , you go nuts on hitting the web all the time and Truphone is the app?

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

>> Truphone is the VoIP app. >. That's the VoIP app. Legit through the App store.

>> Yup, free too. I mean it's free to download the app. It actually costs--what do they say here

>> USA, Canada and China costs just 6 cents, 3 pence per minute from any where in the world.

>> Okay, so there it is. Alright, we're gonna go another hour folks we are making the decision on the fly to go to a whole second hour of CNET Live.

>> Hey, well I knew we were gonna keep going.

>> A whole hour?

>> Well, we're going into the second hour, you tell us how long to stay by calling at 888-900 CNET, 888-900-2638. It's Kent German, Tom Merritt, myself Brian Cooley a special iPhone edition of CNET Live. More right after this. ^M01:00:50 [ Commercial Break ] ^M01:01:53

>> Back to CNET Live, it's the iPhone edition. All iPhone 3G, first iPhone, App store, new iTunes. It's all fair game as we are rolling across the country live with iPhone availability. Remember it's 8 am local wherever you happen to be across the US--

>> Across the world.

>> The Apple store and the AT&T store just started selling it in Illinois.

>> Illinois.

>> Great

>> Anywhere, ask anyone at the central time zone.

>> Hometowns got it.

>> Yeah.

>> What do you think the nearest places to get one in your hometown?

>> There's probably an AT&T store.

>> Is there an AT&T dealer in Greenville?

>> In Greenville?

>> They probably have to go to Highland.

>> Oh, Highland, Okay so we want a call from Highland.

>> Highland's a big city, huh?

>> [laughter]

>> No, highland is not a big city, but if the AT&T store at Greenville didn't have it Highland probably has

>> It's the big or small town.

>> And an Apple store you got to go to St. Louis.

>> Saint Louis is the big city

>> Oh!

>> The Saint Louis area.

>> Yes, but I don't think it extend up to Bond County

>> Okay.

>> From what I could tell on the map.

>> As soon as you get, I70 pass mile marker 40

>> You lose the 3G

>> Ladies and gentlemen Kent is learning the hard way what I learned a long time ago on CNET Live, Don't talk rural Illinois with Tom Merritt. He's an encyclopedia, okay. Can we just say that.

>> Let's get into a keyboard question. Here we have one of this yet this morning, we got Jim in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hello! Jim, welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hi, guys. Thanks. I was just wondering if the if there might be any apps that would change the keyboard from vertical to horizontal?

>> Have we spotted one yet?

>> I have specifically looked for one but I haven't seen it.

>> I have a question about this, 'cause I'm--when you rotate the iPhone on its side, you get the wide QWERTY keyboard, right?

>> Just for the web browser.

>> That's it.

>> Yes.

>> That's what people are looking for. Okay, so I knew there was that QWERTY keyboard wide landscape and I heard gripes about there's no landscape QWERTY but yeah well there is but except for the web. >.Yeah, but one thing you can't see on the new software update is when you start installing the international keyboards. You will see a little globe icon that's between the space bar and--

>> lower left down there

>> and the numeric key and you press that. And then you can cycle through all your keys I just have a Spanish keyboard so

>> It looks the same, but you can get Japanese characters[simultaneous talking]

>> and then you can get the simplified or traditional Chinese or you can draw your own characters as well. Yeah,

>> Okay.

>>So, that's the only really keyboard thing we'll see.

>> Alright so that's' the keyboard innovation. But, no not that we know of yet is there an app or a new feature on the phone the will let you [whistles] go landscape for all application, that seems a little odd

>> Yeah.

>> So, [unintelligible] frustration I've got 'cause, as you know I think I'm gonna get one of this guys. But I'm a Trio guy so I'm used to one handed keyboard.

>> Yeah.

>> And, I do one handed on this

>> One handed touch works pretty well

>> Yeah.

>> 'Cause that's one of the things I'm gonna try at the store.

>> If you can do the touch, you can do it one hand.

>> I think I'm okay with Touch. Whenever I've done, whenever you know I've evaluated an iPhone, the touch screen is really good. It just seems so tall, like it's gonna tip out of my hand all the time.

>>After a year I think I finally gotten comfortable with the touch screen. But it took about a year for me to really get where I could type fast

>> Yeah.

>> The [unintelligible] keyboard is unfortunate though 'cause it works in one way, so you just kinda ask yourself, "Why not?'

>> Why can't it work any other way?

>> You don't want it to--you don't want that. Apple has told you, you don't want that anywhere else but the web browser.

>> Don't you know?

>> Yes.

>> Phone lines are open 888-900-2638 - 888-900-CNET that is a free call by the way. So keep them coming, we now have two lines open, a rare moment on the show. So jump in there and grab a gap, let's go to the pricing question we have from Sonora calling from Connecticut. Hi Sonora, welcome to the iPhone edition of CNET Live.

>> Thank you good morning. I was wondering what the price of the 16 gigabyte, uhm, iPhone is?

>> Simple question right.

>> Yup. That's 299 if you are a new AT&T subscriber, if you're a current AT&T subscriber eligible for an upgrade. Exactly what that eligibility is, AT&T doesn't lay it out, you know point by point in their website so check on your - check on your AT&T account to make sure.

>> Or your account.

>> If you do not qualify for that, then you'll pay 499.

>> And then if you want it without a contract it's 699 for a 16gig.

>> Yeah, I remember right, yes.

>> So, there are three tiers of price you pay for a [unintelligible].

>> In the US.

>> What's the scenario, Kent for someone who doesn't qualify for the best price, for those who pay 499 that would be like what situation?

>> Oh, you mean the person?

>> What AT&T looks at for that for eligibility is how long you've been a subscriber, if you pay on time, if, you know, you're good, if you have a good payment schedule.

>> Yeah.

>> Also how many times you've upgraded your phone, 'cause if you take and bought a new phone every two months or so...

>> Oh, you've taken advantage of the system.

>> And you got, and you gotten that and you've received the rebate in the price reduction that you get, you sign up a new contract they get a little annoyed by that. So, if you've been buying phones a lot they put a little bit restriction on that. I don't really know the math--

>> So, that's why it's a, an unknowable...

>> Yeah.

>> Except for your - individual situation.

>> So, you maybe you just bought a phone around December, right?

>> Yeah.

>> And now you want to go the iPhone, they'll probably not let you upgrade.

>> Ah, if that's - if that's in December the first one you bought in a while, they probably will.

>> Okay.

>> I would really just a lot of readers have asked me this and I hate to say "I don't know" but I really have to say go to your AT&T account online and check.

>> Cause there's [unintelligible] it's not hard and the best ever.

>> Cause that's the best way, cause they haven't put out a real set criteria on side.

>> And if you can get a [unintelligible] of that way, does that mean that you can go to the store or go to several store and try social engineer it. They have leeway with it?

>> [unintelligible] you know, and-so much when you go to this carrier stores, it depends on who you talked to. If whether reps having a good day, whether your friendly with them, whether, just kind of [unintelligible]

>> It's...

>> You can - I had a AT&T person right - employee right me and say that I just approve everyone I don't care. So, its just kinda of depends.

>> We need that employee's store location.

>> Okay, so now that's the lay of the land there, it's - it depends on your account there on your account, there's no hardened fast answer. So, go into your account on the web interface at your AT&T wireless account, see what it says there about your status for upgrade.

>> What about prepaid, do we know anything about the GoPhone 'cause you use to be able to do it if you failed a credit check. But now the that your activating in store.

>> Oh, yeah and find a way out what AT&T has said they will not allow to use the iPhone on a Gold Plan.

>> So, if you fail credit check for real, your real iPhone?

>> I haven't asked that specific question that brings it really [unintelligible]

>> Yeah.

>> But right now their saying no GoPhone for the [unintelligible]

>> And just to look is there a change there. Let's get one more before we take a turn here. Let's go to uhm, items question, here from Brazil. So, this is gonna be interesting with Chris. Hi, Chris welcome to CNET Live the iPhone show. What can we do for you?

>> Hi, guys good morning.

>> Good morning.

>> Guys, I'm wondering we don't have the iTunes music store here in Brazil but since yesterday we have access to X store. So, my question is about, do you know, you guys know something about the countries that's going to be - to have the the 3G iPhone, if the iTunes Music store will be available to?

>> So, there's a music store coming to Brazil and countries that haven't had it.

>> What do we know about this?

>> Yeah, I'm not sure. I know that iTunes availability depends on so much on countries DRM laws and things like that and how much.

>> The music store is a totally separate deal.

>> The labels are [unintelligible] to work stuff available.

>> So, just cause just 'cause you get the App store means nothing. I mean the AP store Apple can [unintelligible] it's one of the benefits of them running it is, they get to decide who and where, cause they strike those deals with the software. But they're at the mercy of the music industry as far as where they can open a music store. The music industry and Apple are now playing nice right now.

>> Right.

>> Their in a little bit of a face off over pricing and strategy and what not so, I wouldn't take getting the App store as any kind of hope that you're gonna get a music store. It's a totally separate thing.

>> Yeah, good point, with totally separate issues, you know, the so you can't tie 'em together. So, don't buy the iPhone because you think you're about to get the iTunes music store across over there. Okay, Chris thanks for that question from Brazil. There's goes our first Brazilian question, so we've had a lot of international first, okay. If you're watching us right, obviously chances are you're already an iPhone fan. Let's take a moment and let Tom count down the top five reasons to love your iPhone. ^M01:10:00 [ Music ] ^M01:10:06

>> Welcome to CNET Top Five, where each time we meet we count down another hot CNET list, I'm Tom Merritt the iPhone 3G. Has Apple fanatics rolling on the floor and speaking in tongues, almost but if you still need to reason to fall for the latest version of the iPhone, we can help you out. Let's count down the top five reasons to love the iPhone 3G. And, number five it's cheaper, Apples line is that you get twice the speed at half the price and granted you still need a contract with the service provider and those cost can mount up but that's for tomorrow. Today you're saving money. Coming in at number four support for Microsoft exchange which means millions of workers can get their work email easily on their cellphone and if you don't use Exchange probably not a big deal but those who do are riding high. Up to number 3 applications especially the games. No more jail breaking necessary. The App store will let you go legit and play games like Spore and Monkey Ball 2. Sliding at number two is in the name 3G no more painfully slow edge network [unintelligible] if you're in the city with 3G coverage you'll get the real deal high speed 3G surfing experience, wow! It won't take me 10 minutes to load Twitter anymore, except when it's down but oh no my friends, 3G is not the number one reason before we get to number one. Let's check in on the good reasons to love the iPhone 3G, it didn't quite make the top. Good reasons though. Alright, let's get to our number one, if it's not fast speed or low cost, what could it be? The number one reason to love the iPhone is GPS, and we don't mean that silly cellular triangulation stuff. We mean a real honest to geo-positioning satellite GPS chip that could tract your position on the map and give you direction from exactly where you are. Now, the iPhone can legitimately replace an iPod, a phone, a mobile browser, and navigation device admit it, you're in love. Well that's it for this edition of CNET Top Five all this love makes you a little sick. Be sure to catch out top five reasons to hate the iPhone 3G just to balance things up. I'm Tom Merritt see you next time.

>> Alright and if you didn't catch the reasons to hate the iPhone review if you were on earlier in the show

>>that's over at cnettv.com.

>> Which was your favorite?

>> You can find this. I like it when you hate it. I like your hat better when you are hating too

>> I know. There you go.

>> He's a cool fedora

>> [unintelligible]

>> instead of that sloppy hoodie, whatever.

>> Alright let's get us some calls.

>> let's get some calls yeah.

>> We actually have ticket for MobileMe calls today and that's--lets go to line 4 and pick up John, hey John how are you doing today?

>> Doing good.

>> Thanks for the call. What can we do for you?

>> Yeah I heard a rumor that MobileMe will - you can get a discount when you buy a 3G? Uhm, like 30 bucks off?

>> Yeah, I believe that is the case or if you buy a new Mac. They will give you a 30 dollar discount on your first year of MobileMe, it's regularly 99 dollars I think it goes down to 69.99 at least that's what I saw on the site yesterday, right now I'm looking at the pricing and they don't mention that discount suddenly. So, it gives me some possibility, it's all weird being able to try to track down all. It also says available soon, MobileMe and I know its working cause I'm in it right now on my Mac, so, but yes that was what I read on the site yesterday, 69.99 when you purchase a Mac product.

>> Cause the discounts there.

>> On Apple product, yeah.

>> Okay, thanks for the call there, thanks John I appreciate the call let's get on to question here, another MobileMe me question, lets knock these out back to back because it's the same mindset. Max in Fairfield Connecticut. Hi, Max you got a MobileMe question too but different?

>> Ah, yes. I was wondering is there any setup that you have to do. I used to have a dot Mac account or is there something I have to do to go to the MobleMe and have it set up on my laptop with my PC and [unintelligible].

>> Yeah, so you don't have the dot Mac account anymore?

>> Oh, no I think they upgraded me.

>> Okay, so you are a current subscriber to dot Mac right?

>> Yes.

>> Now there's some setup you have to do. You have tell it, you have to set up the syncing because there's added features so if you want to sync to your iPhone or to separate computers from that account you can do that you can setup that syncing. Otherwise, you don't have to do anything just to access it and if you want to setup the new features you got to set them up but if you don't you just log in to your dot Mac account@me.com instead of that the old address and then it'll get you into your iDisc and it will show you your calendar and your mail and all that stuff and then you can start to setup extra devices from there.

>> Okay.

>> Speaking of, thanks for the call on that, speaking of that let's just go around on right on through with a question about syncing from an old iPhone to a new which is kind of related to that. Rudvic [assumed spelling] joining us from Boston. Hi Rudvic what's your question today?

>> How's it going guys?

>> Good, thank you for calling.

>> I have a quick question. I'm thinking about getting a new 3G iPhone, but I just wanna make sure that all my contacts from the old iPhone, they get sync on to the new one. I just wanna make sure how would I make sure that it happens.

>> Any tricks to that?

>> I think you just can go through iTunes and do that and make sure you have all, excuse me, have everything in there, have all the media and everything you want

>> Yeah.

>> And put the new one in should sync. Apple does has some documentation on their side, I don't know if you're doing that. One thing you would want to remember though is that if you are, hooking up your Enterprise Support. Once you load that or once you start syncing your Enterprise Calendar and Contacts that will wipe your Contacts and Calendar that you named personal. So you can only have one on at a time.

>> Oh interesting, okay.

>> Yeah, so you wanna make sure, just remember if you're doing [unintelligible], so that you can only use one or the other. You can choose to not sync your enterprise contacts and calendars

>> Yeah.

>> You can keep the personal ones, but just keep that on mind you do that.

>> You can't like merge two bases together with a sync.

>> Yeah when I activated the exchange it said, do you wanna use your exchange contacts and I just like Yeah. And it said this is gonna wipe out everything, and I said No.

>> It does prompt you. Luckily I had all my contacts in my work E-mail, so I was able to just, it wasn't a problem but actually.

>> When I sync, what's so hilarious is I sync Outlook and Entourage to my iPhone Contacts on the computer. So I don't need to sync it.

>> Yeah that way, especially if I got MobileMe, and just sync it become the whole sync merry-go-round or at least

>> Yeah.

>> it's all the same. It's just how you wanna go about doing it.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay, good stuff. Thanks for the call Rudvic, appreciate the call on that.

>> Alright we're gonna take a quick break, but we still got a couple more calls to get 888-900-2638. We'll be right back with more of them, right after this. ^M01:16:56 [ Commercial Break ] ^M01:17:56

>> Welcome back to CNET Live. It's a special iPhone edition. iPhone 3G rolling out of course across the country. It hit New York. We just gathered in the Central Time Zone.

>> In the Central Time Zone, but half hour away from Utah in the mountain time zone.

>> That's right, and then we finally get it. And finally Kent can get one.

>> Coming up in about an hour and a half, yeah yeah.

>> [Laughter] We're joining you for the mania of iPhone 3G roll out with a special edition of CNET Live right now. Got a little more time to take a couple more calls at 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. Let's jump on a question here about iPhone contracts. We've got Sonue in Toronto. Hi Sonue, welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hi, how are you?

>> We're doing good, what's on your mind?

>> I wanted to get an iPhone, but I was wondering if there was any way to break the contract without paying the penalty.

>> What's your contract right now? That's the main detail we need to know.

>> Well I was signed up for the 3 year with the iPhone but I wanted to break that, and then maybe hope for unlock and go [unintelligible].

>> Oh okay, so you don't have a current contract. You're saying you just wanna sign up and break the contract. Is that cheaper than buying a phone without a contract?

>> Probably not, but if you

>> Is it like a 179 dollars to break it?

>> Would you end up cancelling that carrier service then.

>> But the thing is, I'm in Toronto they don't sell them unlocked. It's Rogers

>> Yeah

>> Yeah

>> I would say that if you bought it, if you paid the price for it and then you went with the service and you cancel it after months. You'd end up paying for that month, and then you pay the early termination fee. That would add up to be quite a lot.

>> Could he go across the border, buy it in the US but without a contract? Take it back and activate it on Rogers somehow?

>> That would depend on just one, whether Rogers would wanna do that. And if it was unlocked and you've got a SIM card, it shouldn't be a problem.

>> [Simultaneous talking] but that does depend on the carriers. Carries in the regional country sync. Cause AT&T won't support on unlocked iPhone. They won't give you a Sim card for it.

>> Get a Belgian to buy one for you and send it to you at Toronto [laughter], cause they're all unlocked in Belgium.

>> It would just depend on the economics if you found, you can by an iPhone, an unlocked iPhone for a certain amount. You just gonna wanna add up how much you're gonna pay to unlock yours and dump the contract and then see which is cheaper, that's probably what I can say.

>> Yeah, you just pencil out the numbers on that one based on the carrier that you're gonna go with and what the cost is there, in your market, and so thanks for the question.

>> There's something behind you Brian, I think it's the sun.

>> Yes, it's finally [laughter]

>> Its finally come up, yeah.

>> Hey the sun is coming up to bless the iPhone 3G launch date.

>> Steve engineered that actually.

>> We'll get a question here in actually. It's a question we're gonna have to answer with a question. Andrew in Connecticut about the wait time for an iPhone 3G, hey Andrew.

>> Hey, thanks for taking my calls over and over again.

>> Yeah.

>> I was wondering if could cut over to Nalie Del Conte in New York and see how long it's actually taking them to activate this 3G iPhone.

>> We'll check on that, I don't think we have a video link up anymore out to New York. We had that at the top of the show, I'm gonna

>> She's back asleep by now.

>> [Laughter] She's taking a little nappy right now. We're gonna have the control room call her up and we'll get you an update in just a few minutes here on the show. We'll find out what she knows about the activation time. It's a good question. Give us some barometer of what's it like in the busiest markets. I mean, obviously New York, Manhattan, LA, San Francisco those are gonna be the real busy stores. And like I said, here in San Francisco, we've got about 50 people lined up this morning before the show started here. Some places you're gonna walk up and there's gonna be no line and it is the matter of how long it takes them to fill up the form and run your credit.

>> They were estimating what 10 minutes they thought

>> 10 to 15.

>> if everything went well, yeah.

>> Yeah, so we'll see what's happening, so yeah. We'll give Natalie a call. We'll find out for you, let's you know a little bit later on under the show here. Let's head up to Alex in Romania. Another interesting question about these new global markets for the iPhone. Hi Alex, welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hello guys, I want to know if it will be the same price cut in all the countries where all in DSL carrier.

>> You say it'll be the same price cut in all the countries [unintelligible] set $199 we're around the world, right.

>> Yeah, but as we discovered that has this a little bit of gray area there. I think you were saying that the $199, what is it in New Zealand it's only available in Australia.

>> In Australia it's a $199 for the most expensive plan and then it goes up, if you want one of the cheaper plans.

>> Yeah

>> Same here.

>> Apple did say that it should be at $199 all around the world, but there are gonna be restrictions like we talk about here. It's only $199 if you qualify at AT&T and if you can get the and, if, or if you're a new customer. So I think each carriers' gonna have their own restrictions.

>> Oh, those restrictions can vary obviously.

>> Yeah, and even a carrier like I'm sorry, I think you said OO2 what's it carrier?

>> Yeah.

>> [Simultaneous talking], but you have to remember that at each, a carrier the has a coverage in a lot of countries. Each individual country is gonna have its own rules as well. Just like Team Mobile has U.S but Team Mobile Germany is a whole different thing. Team Mobile U.K so

>> Yeah.

>> so.

>> And how does it work, well they say $199 anywhere in the world then you convert the currency

>> Oh yeah

>> That could be as low as 199 Australian dollars which is

>> Oh is that the [simultaneous talking] local currency. ^M01:22:51 [ Simultaneous talking ] ^M01:22:57

>> 199 pesos.

>> 199 is gonna be like 50 pounds [laughter]

>> Apparently the [simultaneous talking]

>> You wanna convert it.

>> You wanna get deal on the iPhone, go to Mexico. We had a caller on Buzz Out Loud yesterday said, that when you convert the pesos and ends up being like 79 bucks,

>> Really.

>> to get the iPhone [simultaneous talking]

>> to bring that back over.

>> of course that's what the contract and all the normal stuff.

>> Yes AT&T support [simultaneous talking] but still. Alright, let's do a syncing question, here we've got what Steven, New Jersey.

>> I've got a sinking feeling about that.

>> [Laughter] Oh, I feel like I had to put up with Steve. Steve welcome to CNET Live, what's on your mind?

>> Hey, I'm using an iPod Touch and I'm tying to sync contacts from Microsoft Outlook 2007 on a PC to my iPod Touch. What happens is I sync the contacts and it says that they sync successfully but the addresses are not moved it's just names and phone numbers. No address numbers. No addresses.

>> That's interesting. Have we heard of that?

>> I have not heard of that.

>> No, I never heard of that either.

>> I mean, I don't heard of that particular problem were your addresses isn't moving just what mails in E-mail you said?

>> Just names, E-mails,

>> Phone numbers.

>> and phone numbers.

>> Huh, that's a new one

>> So it's from Outlook 2007 you said.

>> Yeah, correct.

>> Yes, here it is, Apple support discussion. iPod nano does not sync address, well it's the nano that's not the iPod Touch. Wonder if

>> Yeah, as we like to say on the Thursday show

>> Check the forums.

>> Yeah, let's throw this one out to the audience to say, it's a little specific. I hadn't run in to it at all, and I don't even know what an iPod Touch. So we don't' run to them like daily like, really. Why wouldn't the address such as some match of those two is not happening. Are you on Mac or a Windows?

>> I'm on Windows XP Professional.

>> he is on XPs

>> it's not like a Vista issue.

>> No.

>> Yeah.

>> and it's Outlook 2007, so not an old version [simultaneous talking]

>> but sometimes that might be the problem, I mean, 2007 is so weird.

>> To put it bluntly.

>> Alright. Yeah, yeah.

>> We'll continue over to the CNET forums go to forums.cnet.com and put that one out to the right group or groups and create some help there or if we get a call on it from any of our viewers right now let us know if you've had that problem, where you sync your Touch but it doesn't all sync. You don't get the address as it sounds like he is getting name, email and phone. Let's talk about another unlock question, a lot of unlock questions, that's continuing on with a really major appetite.

>> Wait a minute.

>> Hang on. This is just in, you can try this if you're still listening somebody had a problem with the iPhone and Outlook 2003.

>> Good.

>> A little different but similar and they did a reinstallation of iTunes, repaired the installation of iTunes and that fixed the syncing problem for them.

>> Okay, let them go already I will--

>> Shot in the dark.

>> We didn't check on that, but yeah try reinstalling iTunes. I imagine you've done that but if not then fix at least a similar situation, Vanida in Kansas City you unlocker you, what's on your mind?

>> Well, first of all I'd like to say hi and thanks for doing the show you guys are great.

>> Oh thanks our pleasure thanks for being here.

>> I have a question about whether I can bring an iPhone from another country another [unintelligible] phone, pop in a SIM card and get the same features that a US customer would have.

>> So the Belgian equation as we call it?

>> Yes.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Could she do this?

>> What do you think?

>> Buy an unlock iPhone next time you're in Belgium [unintelligible] SIM card in

>> Does it work you get all the features you need everything work?

>> It should be but as AT&T is trying instead that they will not allow, they will not give out SIM cards for iPhones if you don't buy the plan if you don't have a Gold Plan, I'm sorry.

>> So--

>> Let me get a sense. They will not allow you to use iPhone on the Gold Plan.

>> Yeah, visual voice mail could that be available.

>> You should get that, I mean technically you should get everything.

>> So Vanida where would you get the SIM card for this plan in this scenario?

>> There are plenty of foreign grocery stores that sell these things.

>> Right.

>> So does it necessarily have to be a Gold Phone SIM card?

>> No, it just needs to be 3G?

>> Yeah. I can-- you will need a 3G SIM card definitely.

>> If you wanna get the 3G.

>> Whoa, I can imagine you'll be able to make calls but it's hard to say there might be some things you won't be able to get.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Alright. So we have nothing real good about that.

>> But in terms of full functionality.

>> And the SIM cards do have a little flame that says the AT&T it says 3G on it--

>>Yeah.

>> A little flame logo.

>> Flame symbol.

>> That's when you got a 3G SIM.

>> I've heard that the unlocked first generation iPhones on T-Mobile didn't have the visual voice mail did have some of the features--

>> Well, that's because you're on a different network.

>> A different carrier.

>> So you can get it working on the network should get everything.

>> I think that you would, yes. But there might be some things you'd lose that way.

>> Here's the ultimate question for our--

>> Here's the ultimate question for our 4 dollar a gallon forclosure times from Bryan in New York. Hello, Bryan welcome to CNET Live you have a very interesting take on all these?

>> Yeah, I was just, you know, I see all these lines and all these places and my question really is the price point for the iPhone for me is pretty high. And you know I'm a middle class person under--

>> Alright.

>> I'm sure most people online are and you know with the price of gas and all that stuff. How are these people financing are they cred-- you know I think people paying straight up cash are they putting on their credit card and they're paying of overtime. I'm just curious on you know how everybody is getting cash?

>> Yeah, it is expensive involving in most difficult economic times you seen a lot years.

>> Over the years. People are putting on the credit card.

>> Yeah, it really--

>> I think--

>> It's all that desire with this thing. It's not a rational decision.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, everybody is talking about there is an economic recession and, however, you know that anytime Apple put up a product they just--

>> Yeah.

>> They just I mean it just shoot into the roof.

>> Well.

>> Well, obviously not everyone is buying an iPhone, right? I mean--

>> Six million has been sold so far--

>> It's a tiny amount of the cellphone industry of the cellphone market.

>> Then you get your economic stimulus check in the mail. There is a left side--

>> There is right--

>> Possibly I don't know--

>> Stop driving.

>> Yeah, that's a good point, I mean--

>> No.

>> I think the real answer is not as huge of a percentage is buying the iPhone as maybe you would think given the fact that places like CNET are doing hour and a half program.

>> Yeah.

>> What about the launch of the stupid things?

>> But you know you're up all night.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> We do a 24 hours do it live.

>> Yeah.

>> So, the attention given is out of proportion of the number of people that are actually getting it.

>> Yeah, I think it's probably part of it. Also 199 dollars SIMs so much cheaper.

>> And it fools a lot of people.

>> Good point.

>> And well it is expensive when you compare with a lot of other phones, it is about the same for a comparative phone as far as another smart phone--what has the same features the 3G and the e-mail.

>> Doesn't everybody got the 200 dollars.

>> No so--

>> If the price is expensive if you compare it with you know just a flip phone that makes calls but it's about the same when you compare with other smart phones.

>> I wonder how many folks are realizing they're buying into a 2000 dollar commitment at the very least when they buy one of these?

>> This will be the same thing.

>> Yeah, 1975 over 2 years.

>> What's really gonna get people overtime is the price of the plan?

>> Yeah.

>> And as it keeps going.

>> The phone is a great value for 199 dollars but it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

>> It's not a 200 dollar purchase.

>> Yes, a good point Bryan thanks for that good interesting discussion there for these times. Oh, app question here for developers. Robert in New York. Hi Robert, welcome to CNET live. You thinking about developers and what incense of them?

>> Why are developers keep creating WebKits? Well, developers keep creating WebKits?

>> Is that you say WebKits do you mean the Web Apps?

>> Web Apps.

>> For this--

>> Yes, Web Apps.

>> Yeah, what is the intention when they could just create our regular application that's downloadable?

>> Great.

>> Good question, I mean obviously, you don't need to get approval from Apple. So you can create any kind of Web App as long as it works within the SDK Apples--

>> Okay.

>> You don't have to sign off. That would be one. If your service does you know, does just as well, you know, like maybe obviously there is a Twitter client but if you wanted to do some sort of other web-based posting or paying FM sort of thing, you could do it easier in a web without making it a downloadable application. If you wanna sell advertising out of it?

>> Yeah.

>> I don't think you're really selling advertising through the Apps and a few reasons but you're right. A lot of these things that were Web Apps not so much going to be Web Apps anymore unless you just can get into Apple program. I mean that would be the other thing.

>> Yeah, if you get turn down, you go to the poor man's outlet which is do a Web App, right, that's always you're outlet. So the current Apple fun although this one.

>> Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

>> Okay. Alright. We're gonna take more your calls folks 888-900-CNET this train just keeps on rolling as the Apple iPhone 3G release does as well 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638 more of your calls all about iPhone right after this. ^M01:31:47 [ Commercial Break ] ^M01:32:42

>> Oh, look at that.

>> How can do it folks, look a little beautiful--

>> Sunset or sunrise? [ Simultaneous Talking ]

>> Sunrise over the bay bridge.

>> the sunrise over Tom Merits head.

>> We're getting close to mountain time? Being close to cocktail time.

>> Suns over the art on somewhere.

>> Gentlemen who's in.

>> Let's go.

>> Oh, we got some calls.

>> Can you give a shout out to Dean and forward he couldn't hang on the line but he had a possible solution for the Outlook iPod Touch syncing issue.

>> Oh.

>> He said that home and address tags are different in Outlook you can have either one I guess and iPod touch only recognizes one of them. So you might wanna--

>> Oh.

>> Play around with that? He also asked when will iPod Touch firmware be available apparently the link is up but it doesn't work. We don't know when you will be able to to purchase the firmware.

>> Yeah.

>> The firm ware although there are a little part was able to get a hold of the iPod touch for more last night.

>> Yeah.

>> So there are reports of it being out in a while I have been able to find a direct link and Leo will give it to me. [ Laughter ]

>> But it's out there. So you be able to find it now.

>>Yeah.

>> You are not paying for at that case.

>> Yeah.

>> So there is a little you know, um.

>> Yeah, you are right.

>> Under the table sort of thing.

>> Yeah.

>> Otherwise you just gonna have to wait until that link you are works. We don't hear anything about that.

>> Okay, let's go back to the calls, we will gonna talk here about a data usage question because we talked a lot about the true cause and the true unlimited nature of the data today. So John Dallying today is calling in from Adelaide, Australia. So I guess John you already on your iPhone 3G, aren't you?

>> Calling the whole.

>> We're actually having some problems with my account actually, so I found out partly I got it but I haven't bought it as it is.

>> Interesting, okay, what you gonna question here about data usage? It's late there--

>> Yeah.

>> So look at him.

>> And that is oh again.

>> It's 11 PM are you alright?

>> It is, it is.

>> Since--

>> My question is for you guys is about how much that you get when dollar is in danger I mean with the all main [Unintelligible].

>> So it's a background.

>>Right, so email is just a couple of kilobytes, you know?

>> Per message?

>> Right.

>> Yeah, it depends on how much email you get in.

>> You've got a lot of emails?

>> If it is very, very costly. I imagine the big savings you've got

>> Yeah, we notice when we were to talking to our at the top of the show. We heard our report from our colleagues there at CNET Australia and they were, you know when we talked to them a couple of days ago about the amazing difference in plans and how you pay trough the nose to get a lot of data and there's no unlimited, although as we were discussing there really isn't here either but it depends how much email you get first of all are you a heavy email recipient?

>> Not really, I get maybe [unintelligible] of there you die?

>> Now that's trivial.

>> That fan that I can sort of get rid of.

>> There are also the settings just so you know, their settings in the new firmware where you can tell the push how often to check because that's using data, even if it doesn't necessarily download.

>> Right.

>> Every time it pings the server and says hey, is there anything there, you can make it check every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, every hour, or manually you tell it when to check that'll save you a lot of data. Cause email messages themselves are only a few kilobytes unless they have an attachments or something like that and so if you don't get that much email the email itself shouldn't use up a ton of data.

>> And there's also a setting were you can say don't download attachments until I request them, per message

>> I don't know, let me look [unintelligible]

>> So, that's another way you might save but yeah, Tom's has a very good point there. There overhead, there's transaction overhead in every email check, even if you have no new email. So, that's a good way to cut down on your and those are needless bits when that happens. So, if you can go with only having your email updated every hour and we only getting 20, 30 message a day you're not getting vitals every minute. So, why don't you crank back to an hour or maybe just manual.

>> Because it's every five minutes overtime that will add up.

>> That will and that [unintelligible] additional email.

>> So, when I was traveling in Spain I had, I just check manually. So, every couple hours that go in and have a thing.

>> Yeah.

>> [unintelligible] was gonna Yahoo! Mail at that point but and it brought in only when I needed it. So, that will save you a lot of and especially wasteful bits you don't really want to pay for when you check [unintelligible] who want to pay for that. Let's talk here about a 32 gigabytes, iPhone 3G, what! Where talking Rosa in New York, hi Rosa welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hi, I was just wondering cause I want to go buy the iPhones today for the 16gig but then I heard like there might be 32gig coming out. So, I was wondering if that's true rumor?

>> Any rumors along those lines gentlemen?

>> Oh, I've heard rumors all the time.

>> Yeah, that's right.

>> Any truth to those [unintelligible]

>> Nothing substantial outside of the gossip now.

>> Okay.

>> I suppose it's possible...

>> Your not getting any fee about it.

>> I don't see why it wouldn't be but I haven't heard anything about that yet.

>> Obviously the price drop on the first generation, iPhone took a lot of people by surprise including me. But so anything is possible we haven't heard anything incredible.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah nothing credible Rosa, so you might just want to ahead and pull the trigger if you're waiting for that you might be waiting awhile. We got no credible leads on that one. Uhm, let me talk to you about the what Brian's got from Tennessee. He is interesting sort of a [unintelligible] opinion of iPhone and up. Hi, Brian welcome to CNET Live.

>> Hey, guys how are you doing.

>> We're doing alright.

>> Good.

>> I was just wondering, not everyone has the 3G. I mean that really only [unintelligible] Phone.

>> Not the GPS.

>> Yeah.

>> Well I mean the GPS is still limited by Google.

>> There you go.

>> And I mean whe