In the Jobseekers queue today, several people had iPhones.

they’re hardly cutting edge tech these days though are they?? they loose their value faster than cars.

All I’m saying is that they are affordable depending on spending priorities. No judgement intended.

@Smiley Yeah ok maybe so. Personally I think €600 euro for an IPhone 5 is just not something I could ever justify spending out.

I had the curve and I was very disappointed with it, after 6 months it started glitching then at the end of it’s life it desided to chose when it would detect sim cards. I cant afford an iphone and to be honest I’m not enough of a techie for the features it offers to be essential to me so I settled for an entry level HTC. It does the job and lets me keep track of emails so I’m happy with my decisions.

HTC make some lovely phones.

You shouldnt have bothered to dignify him with an answer Jez

If it’s a business can’t you claim as expense? Helps soften the a little

Journal why can’t we edit????????- ” soften the blow a little”

BandaraBoy, you are probably right….sometimes it’s difficult to resist being “pulled in” :-)

Anthony, yes, it is a legitimate business expense (capital expenditure) which is used to reduce my overall tax liability through depreciation. It definitely makes it easier.

Anthony, I actually read your original comment as “soften the blow a little”…tricks of the mind I guess ;-)

Christopher is just jealous that your working at a job that requires you to buy the shiny things you enjoy!
I’m jealous too!
hopefully this time next year I’ll be in a similar position! :-D

OK, but don’t expect blazing performance of ios6 on 3gs to be honest.

I still have my first iPhone, the 3GS. It’s working perfect still, apart from the mute button which completely stopped serving any purpose. So I got it Jailbroken, and installed a touch screen mute button, perfect job and free to do.

I won’t be changing phone until this one packs in. (of course if someone donates, or sells cheaply 2nd hand, a iPhone 4 or 4s my way I might reconsider)

yeah, where’s the “yes but I’ve no intention of buying one” option?

The first iPhone was not the 3GS! It was the third one. The 2G was the first, then the 3G then ye 3GS.

If you lose your phone and it’s not insured, do you still have to pay the contract? This happened to an unfortunate friend if mine…

Depending on which network ur with you can upgrade after 18 months

@dave,
it’s not the phone that is under contract, it’s the phone number, so you may be in a 2 yr contract and because of that you were given a free phone. you were given a free phone on the basis that you agree to pay your provider a minimum set fee for a minimum period. the cost of the phone is factored into the monthly agreement. so unfortunately, your friend still has to pay the remainder of his contract. he just has to get a new phone and keep his number. most providers will allow you to buy out of a contract. it’s generally the amount of your monthly subscription minus the VAT multiplied by the amount of months left on the contract. as far as I know (I could be wrong on this) but you are not obliged to pay the VAT on the service if you are not using it. hope this helps.

I agree John. But they can fancy it up with their marketing as usual. Make it seem like the features and key selling points are innovative and life changing such as Siri, Facetime etc… They’re usually trailing but still manage to get the red thumbers to wet their pants over it. I have an iphone myself and am eligible for upgrade but veering to the S3 at the mo unless there is something groundbreaking on the iphone

Agreed Brian. It’s big news as Apple has a big impact on the market whether we like it our not.

On the crapness of the poll, I have it on good authority that the Journalistas are allowed one badly worded poll a week. They then do a €5 each pool on predicting the number of negative comments re the poll. Closest prediction takes all the money.

:)

;:-)

:-P

Excellent, very clever!

coz it’s much easier to send an email walking down the street with a laptop?? :-D

Oh, but Siri is so quirky, you can ask her silly things and she’ll give you funny answers. You can ask her on a date and she’ll say something amusing – then you can write a fawning blog update about it, better yet, TWEET about it, show it to everyone onFacebook! OMG. Apple are TO. DIE.FOR.

I’m actually heading down to Carphone Warehouse, right after work, and I’m going to start queueing.

I mean it doesn’t make a damned difference if the new phone won’t be launched for another week or so. My picture will be in the paper. Can you IMAGINE! I’m so going to be first in line and it’s going to be SOOOOO worth it. I’ll be there at one bazillionth of a second past midnight, with my Apple bag, with an Apple phone in it. Everything will be white and grey and sans-serify.

I’ll *so* be part of that lifestyle! My trousers will be so tight, I’ll wear extra long leather shoes and I’ll listen to bands you’d never have heard of.

Those qr codes are going to be scanned like never before. I’m going to take the most sepia-toned pictures in IRELAND, they will look like an ocean of courdroy.

OH JESEUS CHRIST i THINK I’M GOING TO DIE. APPLE YOU AREAMAZINEG. I’M SOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!! CHRISTCHRISTCHRIST

Not sure about programming but apple pc’s are still the way forward when it comes to web building and design. That quality can not be matched with other brands. It’s what every design company would use.

Just way to expensive for my liking.

Mark your statements are false. There was a time when Macs were machines of choice for DTP but it’s long gone. Web building/design software is platform independent, well maybe with Linux falling behind as it’s not supported by Adobe.

Take a look at: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html which is an (arguably poor) attempt at indexing programming language popularity. Objective-C (the language most common in the apple world) is in 3rd place and rising. Devs like apple products because of the unix underpinnings, and the iOS SDK is widely admitted as being of a very high standard.

I’m aware that it’s software based but graphic wise it doesn’t get better than apple. It’s false that most design companies use apple?? Seriously??

What do you mean by “graphic wise”? Graphic or video chips? Good hi def screens? None of this is unique to Apple products, actually you get much less bang for yourbuck when it comes to internals and power.
If design studios like Apple, and they do, it’s for how it looks because it really doesn’t matter where you fire up your Photoshop or good web editor.

As in professional graphic and web designers. They all still use apple.

No, they don’t.

Rob, that statistic is useless unless we know what languages are available and in use for Apple v PCs. It could be that there are many times more PC languages and therefore their popularity is spread among many languages. I doubt VB runs on Apples for example. Objective-C is not only on Apples apparently and if that’s the case your statistic is weakened further. Macs have less than 4% of the market. That 4% might even be inflated by people making the mistake of buying an Apple (a friend of mine did and against my advice which she later said she regretted) and not realising that most software will not even run on them. I’m sure there are even wirdos (aka humans) who buy Apples because they are pretty. :)

Ok then 90 odd percent do!

Mark I’m in the industry and no, they don’t.

Mark, it could be because web designers aren’t programmers and buy Apples because they have an eye for the pretty design of Apples. I do admit it’s a niche market that Apple have but the whole idea of PCs is that they are multi purpose. If a Web Design business used Apples for design it would need to buy PCs for their accounts :)

As someone who has worked professionally in the industry every single designer I have ever came across has used apple.

Magazines, web designer, graphic designers all used apple!

Ring 10 design companies there and ask what computers they are using.

@william yes i wouldn’t know much about programming and for that I wouldn’t have a notion what would be best.

I’ve worked in the industry too and every company I’ve worked for all used apple for design.

Rob, I’ve pointed out the flaw in your use of that statistic. You only made a generalised point in rebuttal.

Most software written is written for Windows and therefore it’s only logical that the programmers writing that software are using Windows PCs to write it.

Programmers and PC manufacturers moved away from Apples because Apple wanted to control everything the same as they are trying with iPhones. The same will happen again.

Apple’s share of the smartphone market is going down dramatically.

Mark, you’re wrong. I’ve been designing for the web for well over a decade now and for only three years of that I’ve worked on Macs, there is zero advantage to using a Mac now and it’s been that way for quite a while.

William, why would an Apple user need to buy a PC to do their accounts? Or anything else for that matter.

Not only can I run mac versions of the pc software that I used before becoming a mac user, but I can also install Windows on my mac and have the best of both worlds. i.e. I can use OS X for most things that I do, and when I need to develop Windows software with Visual Studio or use any other PC only software , I can launch my Boot Camp Windows 7.

Macs are pretty too ;-)

Don’t know where you used to operate and when but it’s simply not true nowadays for web and design. They are surveys online if you don’t believe me. It was true when I was starting out in 2001, especially in print. Apple is now further reducing its pro-geared software (look what happened to Aperture) and turning toward consumers even more, plus welding their machines shut so that you need to replace the whole shebang if you crack something, so I expect the process to accelerate. We have both types of machines at work and there is no advantage to using Apple at all, and when you add value factor it gets even worse. Marketing guys use them now.

Ive worked for one of the top magazines and websites in the country and it was all apple, granted it was 18months ago but still. Worked for some other small designers and was still apple. Things changed that much in 18 months?

Totally agree with cost compared to other high spec DT, I think it’s extortion for apple products. Personally I’ve never bought one and probably never will. I do love my iPod touch though.

Can you post that link if you have it handy please?

Kieran, there’s no live video stream as far as I know, but you can watch the live blogs of the event. the Gizmodo blog is usually a very good one.

There is live stream on engadget afaik.

Fizi, Engadget will be broadcasting live from OUTSIDE the event, and live blogging from inside. Apple don’t allow anyone to video stream the event.

The Engadget live blog is still a very good live blog.

Live stream once it starts here:
http://absinthejailbreak.org/iphone-5-media-live-event-2012/

i agree bob this is not exactly changing the world is it its a fu**in phone people

Nope.

YES!!!!! I thought it was just a prob with my wifi antennae!!

I did a screen replace on mine and debated replacing it but didn’t. I habe cracked my screen again so will be replacing it again once i get the parts. I might chance replacing the antennae – it couldn’t get any worse!

I am SO glad you posted this :)

update to 5.1.1, its been available for months

Lol cos most here are fruit cakes. Saying no for the hell of it and still will buy it.

Neicy, you could always go with 3′s sim only 30 day contract, that way you aren’t tied into a lengthy contract.

As for price, it is likely to replace the current 4s pricing structure (My guess is that the 3gs will finally be dropped completely).

I am bill pay with 3 on a 4. The contract expires in feb and i have no intention of extending it. When i bought it in feb 11 they said the 3gs would be gone in months, probably just to gets to get a 4 but I would think they will be phased out too

why not store music on the iPhone , makes perfect sense and dont say not enough memory because everything can be stored in the cloud and just download a certain amount as per required

I know I know!

I just like to keep them separated, its just a personal choice even if it doesn’t make much sense!

well for one thing it stops you loosing everything in one go, and flying through your battery.

Yeah that’s what I was going to say. It boggles the mind. Sure having a smart phone can be handy at times but I don’t really see much difference between the new phones that come out each year to warrant all the excitement. Buy one if you can afford one if that’s what you’re into but don’t make a song and dance about it or queue through the night to get one first (silly hipsters).

In order to gain market share new phones hopefully mean new technology.
Which means greater functionality.
Which leads to increases in sales.
Which leads to prices coming down.
Which leads to increased research to improve technology…. etc.

just look at what you can do with smart phones, they’re amazing!

that doesn’t mean I buy one every time.

You “have” to buy them. great that you have the money for this excess. Others in this day and age barely have enough to eat not to mind “playing” with phones and “shiny things”.

Shut the f up about “aren’t you great being able to afford it, others are struggling” bullshit Christopher. Nobody cares.

If he is working and earning his own money let him spend it on what he likes Comrade Christopher! I for one am well jealous – how would one get a job like that ? :)

I can see it now…
Just as coffin closes, wife comes in, puts all his life savings into it, turns to undertaker, “now you can close it”.
Let the man spend his money ya jealous peeps.

I can see it now…
Just as coffin closes, wife comes in, puts all his life savings into it, turns to undertaker, “now you can close it”.
Let the man spend his money ya jealous peeps, isn’t that what we need these days?!?!

If its essential to his job Christopher its hardly debauched excess now is it? More like a genuine business expense?

@christopher, what about the man who sells the phone and his family? who is feeding them?

If u are running out of space send some of the shine stuff my way

How do those sour grapes taste?

Oh so u have an IPhone5 already Ruairi?

Yes, hence my statement “Galaxy S3 all the way”. Irony obviously IS your strong point, moe…

Baahaaahaaahaaaaaaa!!!!

Reading between the lines clearly isn’t yours Ruairi, given that he asked if you already had an iPhone 5 (which isn’t out yet).

Hey. Its the new iphone. That it will be technically inferior to Samsung and HTC is a foregone conclusion.

And now, moe, you have personally attacked me for having an opinion. Shame on you.

@Tom, why would I have an iphone 5, or any iphone, when I have a far superior phone to anything Apple will ever bring out. The uptake obviously isn’t your strong point…

It’s ok Ruairi don’t cry your a big boy, Jennifer will censor the comments just for u.

Well, all the fanboys are out today… I bet you were all up at 3am this morning… @moe, maybe if you weren’t so quick to insult, your comments wouldn’t need to be censored. Now run along and don’t do it again.

My goodness Ruairi u certainly are a sensitive soul. Best of luck in the real world. Now good day sir, I can’t be wasting my day with u.

SENT FROM MY IPHONE 5.

Ok moe, fair enough.. I agree that this squabbling has become ridiculous. And I forgive you. You don’t deserve it, but that’s just the kind of person I am.

Well that was fun to read, on an debate level i would say Moe won.

Lads,

This is more important than a Samsung release becuse Samsung have just followed Apple for the last few years. Samsung have very little innovation compared to Apple… So the Samsung lads are better watching today as this will be in there phone in a years time…
Apple have set the lead in the innovation race with the first personal computer, ipod, iphone, ipad… There stuff while being more expensive (real innovation cost money) it generally works better than everyone else…

Apple have proven marketplaces where everyone said none exist (look at the ipad first lanch)…

Yes there will be detractors, but what major piece of ground breaking technology have Samsung come up with? Might get a few pixels more on a screen, but nothing as ground breaking as apple.

DK: Apple don’t innovate, they refine. But to answer your question, Samsung’s feature where the screen stay lit until you look away is a fantastic original innovation.

@Paddy
Are you comparing a piece of technology ripped off Microsoft Kinetic as innovation…

By the way you may use refine but have you seen the first computer they built… It was made of wood!… You might use refine but who developed product and proved the marketplace for the Galaxy S seris….
The iphone was out 3 years previous…

The iPhone was out three years previous, and it was an amazing innovation as was the design of the macbook pro’s – stunning hardware. But, looking at the spec’s they’ve released for the iPhone 5 so far it looks miles behind the GS3 and HTC ONE X. I’m hoping they’ll have some massive show stopper, but I doubt it.

Also, the new design of the macbook pro’s is a step backwards for the line. Can’t upgrade the ram, change the hard drives, change the battery, WTF are they thinking??? I won’t be buying one of those that’s for sure!
You know Apple are loosing their edge when they’re patenting “rounded edged” and “slide to unlock”.
It’s even more fcuked up that the system lets them!

Must be a record ruairi 1300 red thumbs in 8 comments.

Yes, I’m gonna go hang with Cher Lloyd now for a bit. Note to self: Don’t annoy the ifans on their big day. :)

3 is a number

That’s a letter and a number ;)

oh Felix, you Weaver of words!!

Face palm so hard it reaches the back of my skull!

Last release of a Sony Playstation was in 2011, PlayStation Vita, before that it was 2009 PS3 redesign. So every 2 years.

I get you Kieran but in fairness its still a scam.

As far as I see if people have excess money to keep upgrading phones every year then they have more money than sense. People struggling to pay bills do not partake of senseless consumerism like this.

Kieran: and vita is not even tv console so shouldn’t be even considered as standard playstation (tv connected) line product. vita is step up from psp. ps3 is step up from ps2. Then any of them always had couple variations and faceliftings while keeping core functionality to their base version. therefore you should only compare these products line separately to get fair product release pattern.

But it’s fun!!!

Christopher: but some people love gadgets and what is wrong with that I know people who pour down their throats one new iphone not yearly but monthly in local pubs. Also if youre into gadgets and keep your stuff spotless then iphones have great resale value. You can upgrade to new one each year by just throwing in extra 150 quid or so not a full price necessary. And if you dont need them smartphones then fine, but youre in minority dude :)

@fizi_water Its called Playstation Vita, Chris said Sony Playstation, so that’s why I included it. But yes I know the difference between them…

@Christopher I know what your saying, It’s like the premier league teams releasing 3 new kits every season.
Nnow that’s a scam.

Is anyone else really annoyed at this misuse of the word “scam”?

It would be a scam if the old iPhone stopped working when a new one is released. You are under no obligation to change your iPhone to a new one!

I’ve heard this comment many times, though, which makes me think that iPhone buying has a lot of components of peer pressure – that people just HAVE to have the latest.

“World’s most valuable company” is they key here. They make a lot more money out of the sale of an iPhone than Samsung make from the sale of a Galaxy S3. What does that say about what you’re getting for you money?

I just got a 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and I love it. The main advantage for me over the Nexus is that it has expandable memory. It has the Kindle app already installed too. When I bought it I got a keyboard docking station with it and a USB adapter with it too.

It baffles me as to how smartphones are a scam!
Really though?? How???

High end technology.
Similar power to a laptop but in a much much smaller case.
They even have reasonable battery life now, I don’t get it.

Yes an adapter is avail.

That 3GS is gonna explode…upgrade!!
Seriously the diff in the screen even to the 4 or 4GS is night and day from 3GS….unless u have bad eyes ;-)

Really?
I mean, really?!

Aldi do a doorstop which would be much cheaper than either the iphone or the blackberry… If you need a smart phone then get a real one like an S3 or HTC…. To be fair though the iphones are the most beautifully formed doorstops but they need to be thicker on one end…

Bad idea I thought blackberry was great at first then it got slow and feck all apps that are worthwhile..

From personal experience, I wouldn’t. The internet is slow and can be unreliable on them, my one started glitching after 6 months and I’ve heard similar stories from others.