Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xenok]

one of the biggest reason why i don't think the iPhone will be that big in this part of the world (most of Asia to be specific) is the lack of a traditional keypad? why is that important? because more than anything else, text messaging is critical in countries like Korea, Japan, S'pore and other parts of Asia. will the iPhone does have a touchscreen pad, it's not as convenient as a traditional keypad for text msging and that should hurt them quite a bit over in this part of the world.

in the US, i wonder if the wireless internet infrastructure is developed enough to really warrant having all that features. when i used a first gen Sidekick in the States, the features and software was nice but the connection was crap, which was a huge turn-off.

[demaratus]

Apple just released a new video about the iphone at www.apple.com it goes over the features and interface of the phone. It looks beautiful like all apple designed products. The battery life at 7-8 hours refers to Music and Video playback not telephone talk time. The battery in this phone is well better than the industry standard for both mp3 players and telephones. There is a chart about his onthe apple site and cnet has looked at this as well. While the phone appears to be expensive it should be an awesome device.

[rocklee]

I love the hype surrounding the iPhone when people haven't even tried it yet. Oh if you guys noticed in the video, the time is always 9:42AM. I wonder why?

Anyway the concept of mobile phones with PDA features is nothing new, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone for more info. It started way back with an IBM concept, popularised by Nokia with its innovative Nokia 9000 Communicator (a brick of a phone if anyone could remember it) way back in 2000-2001. However, it was in 2002 when the first real innovative phone was created :





Looks familiar?

I remember trying to buy this for $600 back in China (was called Dopod) but decided to wait out on version II since it was the first of its kind. Since then the company (O2) has pretty much become the pioneers of smartphones :









Now what is it that these phones have that the yet to be release iPhone doesn't have?

- They support more networks (Quad and GSM Tri-band & UMTS single band)

- The later models support a QWERTY keyboard, strange since they started out using a touch screen interface. Regardless, they have both keyboards and touch screen applications to support messaging and notetaking.

- Note taking. Anyone who has tried to use their fingers to write or draw on miniture screens will know that it doesn't work as well as a touch pen. Include voice recognition and management, you could dictate messages to the phone without ever having to press any keys.

- 4-6 hours talk time and 200 hours standby. Considering the extensive features available on these smartphones, that's pretty amazing. Think about this, you don't need to carry an mp3 or pmp around with you if you could only have one device.

- Uses Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 of which users can upgrade to version 6 for free. The OS has been in development for a long time now, I don't know any PIM that's comparable to Microsoft outlook/Calendar/multimedia applications on these smartphones. There are also plenty of 3rd party software out there (games anyone?).

- In addition, your files won't be tied down by some prioprietory software like iTunes. you can hook up these smartphones to any computer just like an mp3 player. Equally amazing is the fact that this can be done via wireless.

- Supports GPRS, BLUETOOTH, Infrared and WIFI 802.11b/g. Use GPRS as a navigator to find your way around town, or use a bluetooth headset and remote or even use the phone for internet access at any coffee shop supporting wireless (update stocks, mails even bittorent). This is basically the most wired phone ever.

- Supports miniSD cards for external storage. With the ability to play any music and most video formats, this is basically a PMP with unlimited disk space.

Other features such as USB-on-the-go (allows you to connect usb devices such as keyboards or hard drives), TV out, 2.0 megapixel camera, and even a VGA screen is available on these smartphones.

If you consider the fact that the first O2 XDA is still extremely popular today with its upgradable OS and expandable external storage space using SD cards, it makes you wonder about the redundant iPhone.

[demaratus]

Dopod products are good. Very popular in Taiwan, and some places in Europe. Their phone or pda phone is really nothing like the iphone at all. They are different in a number of ways. There is a linux based phone that is much more like the iphone in terms of design and functionality it is called the open moko phone http://www.openmoko.org/ . The moko looks sweet!

[DCJames]

Those Dopod phones look nice.

What options are available in Kore if we want a phone with all these functions??

Korean phones are SO LAME compared to what's out there.

[rocklee]

[Wangja]

And that is

[Wangja]

[unplugged_boy]

meh...
i`d rather pick up the nokia n95. it might not look as sexy as the iphone. but it uses quad gsm, has a zeiss 5mp camera, GPS, a full fledged multimedia player and you can pick one up today!
apple and its proprietary software like itunes is reason enough NOT to buy the iphone.

[thekingofdisco]

A friend of mine has a prada lg phone, and it is horrible to use. It takes a few years to send a txt message, the touch (finger/pen) screen does not work very well as one has to write very slowly for it to recognise what one is attempting to write. If the apple phone is in fact anything close to the prada phone - I will be staying far, far away.

[rocklee]

That is what I would expect of a device not geared for writing on. If the Prada phone isn't good at it then I don't expect the iPhone to be as well.

[seoulman1]

[cangel]

The newer Sofbank phones have been designed NOT to be used for global roaming (a step backwards) because of people attempting to unlock the phones. The 904SH, my old phone, does have global roaming and works just fine here in Korea (roaming). Unless you can unlock the phone, you're out of luck. They're tough nuts to crack.

[pkang0202]

One phone to rule them all. Bigger is better.



GSM, color screen, predictive text input. What else could you want?

[cmr]