

iPhone 5 and iPad 3, both with 4G LTE, reportedly due next year - gadgetgurudude
http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/30/iphone-5-and-ipad-3-both-with-4g-lte-reportedly-due-next-year/

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hkmurakami
NTT Docomo getting the iPhone would be industry-changing in Japan.

Docomo has _by far_ the best voice and data network in the country, and the
users in Japan have been clamoring for it for as long as I can remember. In
fact, many of my friends there carry a voice phone on Docomo and an iPhone on
Softbank (the 3rd largest carrier which until late this year, was the sole
carrier offering the iPhone. They have since been joined by KDDI, the second
largest carrier, with the launch of iPhone4S. When this was announced,
Softbank's stock price plummeted).

From what I understand, NTT used to be a state-owned entity, and thus their
capital infrastructure is seemingly oblivious to the limitations of investment
returns. Docomo phones work perfectly fine in the middle of the mountain when
all other carriers' phones cease to function.

This being said, I'm skeptical whether they will even choose to carry the
iPhone5 (the article only mentions the iPad3), because their iMode service is
a massive cash cow. It's been said that the reason they didn't get the iPhone
in the first place was because the two sides couldn't come to terms on
iPhone's possible iMode support.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-mode>

Call me an interested observer.

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MikeCapone
As long as the iPad 3 includes a higher-resolution screen, I'll be buying it,
even if nothing else is changed from the 2.

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PLejeck
I honestly don't believe this would be a smart move. 4G LTE is still young and
the iPhone has bad enough battery life already.

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jinushaun
That's true now, but I think by mid-2012, the "noise" of 4G would be too loud
for Apple to ignore. Android has already captured the hearts and wallets of
most consumers out there--no need to add "lacks 4G" to the list of iPhone
minuses when it comes to purchasing a new phone.

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PLejeck
It's not a really that big a minus when you think about how common WiFi
hotspots are, plus Android only really captures two audiences: those without
money (cheaper phones), and those who want "openness" - let's face it, nobody
actually would prefer an Android over an iPhone if they could pick either and
both were equally open-architecture.

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fossuser
The prevalence of WiFi is largely dependent on where you live. Even mildly
outside of large cities it's difficult to find open networks. I think a lot of
people prefer Android not just because of its openness, but because they're
much more customizable (although I suppose you could argue this is the same
thing). Some of the android hardware is pretty competitive, if not better, as
well and with LTE bringing in 20+mbps speeds it's a pretty nice feature.

~~~
PLejeck
With customizability comes god-awful user interfaces.

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thetrendycyborg
But also "why the hell haven't I always been using this" interfaces.

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Pewpewarrows
At this point they should really consider dropping the "suffix" to the iPhone
model name. They've kind of dug themselves into a hole, name wise, since this
upcoming one will be the 6th version of the model. They could name it 5, which
would probably only upset us geeks that actually know how many models there
have been. They could name it 6, but then the general population would start
wondering where 5 went. They could even just name it 4G and procrastinate
solving the problem for another 12-18 months.

Or they could just go the way of a lot of their other products and just
advertise it as the new iPhone (like the new MacBook Air, etc).

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tvon
The suffix was never meant to indicate that it was the Nth model, the only
time that happened to line up was with the iPhone 4.

edit: I'm not talking about the iPad, of course.

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lyso
What did the "4" mean in the iPhone 4, then?

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ceejayoz
It means "Our last major phone model had 3 in its name". Apple isn't going to
go from iPhone 4S to iPhone 6, it'd just look like they can't count to most of
the public.

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jordan3caron
Hoping Apple will include some NFC stuff on the next version :)

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thetrendycyborg
I've never understood the appeal of this. Why not just tape a debit card to
the back of your phone? I've got a VISA with "Blink". It hasn't exactly
revolutionized paying for things.

It's not really a technological advance for me to have to take my phone out to
pay for something.

~~~
InclinedPlane
NFC is useful for more than just payments. Need to exchange contact info? Or
files? Or URLs? NFC works excellently for that. I predict it will end up being
pretty popular.

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thetrendycyborg
WiFi Direct or Bluetooth seem to work well for that. Or a camera and a QRCode.
Or infrared was the cool way to do that back in the day; I remember that my
Palm Pilot could do that. We have a billion ways to do these things that
people don't seem to really need to do. I think it's just a gimmick.

~~~
InclinedPlane
None of those technologies worked very well though. WiFi direct and bluetooth
have the problem of being too long range. How does the transmitter determine
who the receiver is, for example? This is why they made "bump" apps, because
it was a useful kludge to solve the hand-shake / setup problem. And IR never
worked very well and was far from ubiquitous, and hasn't been present on
modern smartphones regardless.

NFC's advantage is that it just plain works. We'll see if it catches on, but
it does cover a set of use cases that is fairly meaningful and has yet to be
served by a truly robust and seamless technology.

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ctdonath
Any rumors of data caps?

There's a qualitative difference between unlimited vs. capped plans, even
given equivalent usages.

