Thousands of people are eagerly waiting in line to get their hands on the iPhone. However, for those of us tied into long term contracts or who just find the high price tag too much cash to part with, we’ve compiled a list of how to emulate iPhone’s features on your everyday handset.
Visual Voice Mail
Perhaps the most talked about feature, visual voice mail easily lets you play your messages out of order with more detail about who called and when. There are a couple of startups who offer this feature, Callwave and Gotvoice. Both of these programs also have other features like voice-to-text, or voicemail-to-email.
Browser
People have been gushing over iPhone’s browser, which lets you surf the “real” internet through a zoom and scan interface. Opera has recently come out with Opera Mini 4 Beta that has the same zoom navigation feature controlled by your number pad. Microsoft has their own version for Windows Mobile called Deepfish in limited beta.
iPhone offers a rich HTML email interface including attachment support. Microsoft Exchange support stirred up quite a bit of controversy, but that may be resolved. Email has been offered on cell phones for a while now. Either Gmail, Yahoo, and Windows Live mail will work on your phone. Of course, Blackberry users need not apply.
Maps
iPhone is featuring a version of Google Maps that takes advantage of the touchscreen interface. A simpler Google Maps version is available for the rest of us and Yahoo is expected to release a mobile maps product on its Go platform soon. For voice and maps integration, readers should check out TellMe as well.
Music
Apple is claiming the iPhone is the best iPod to date. We’ve covered several other mobile solutions for playing music on your phone. The most recent player has been MusicStation, which mimics iTunes and plays songs with accompanying album art. If you’re only interested in playing the music you already own, you should also check out MyStrands, Avvenu, and Pandora.
Widgets
iPhone also lets you get information like weather and stock quotes through widgets. There are several companies already offering content widgets on a variety of phones. You should check out Bluepulse, Widsets, and GetMobio for ways of getting the content you crave to your phone.
Of course, if you’re willing to spend a couple days installing all this software, you might as well wait in line.
I’m sensing some hostility here. Poor techcrunch didn’t receive an iPhone. Because the business world and consumers in general don’t flock here to hear the almighty word and base their decisions on it. come on, get over it! this post is DUMB!
That reminds me, James, I need to go get in line before 6pm.
Haha, I got mine and LOVE IT =).
Totally disagree and believe me, I am a passive observer when it comes to reading comments…I thought this was a totally relevant and timely post as it 1) gives good advice on how to get “like features” if you don’t have the means to get the latest gadget, 2) highlights those 2.0 companies that are trying to make life easier, in this instance with usable add-ons to a mobile device, that made this blog what it is today, 3) has concise content that is straightforward and informative and 4) does not in any way try to be cute or snarky about whether they got a first look at the iPhone or not…it was simply an informative post.
I’ll add that the iPhone doesn’t have GPS. I’m hanging out in Istanbul and one of the VCs here has a blackberry with GPS and its is fricking awesome with Google Maps. The iPhone really needs to add that on the next rev.
That seems like a lot of work when you can just get an iPhone.
Mike – believe me, they didn’t leave it out. They left it out so that the techies will have a reason to purchase the 2g iphone next year.
I wonder what else was left out so as to sell the next gen and the next and the next.
Yes, GPS combined with Google Maps is great. Now if Google would only enable this feature for all phones that support it. I have an 8703e on Sprint, it is GPS enabled (I’ve used other apps that take advantage of it), but Google Maps still doesn’t! Yet I see them release new versions for other phones with this feature turned on. Really annoying.
I took a bet on a helio and am loving it so far. Hey Michael! How about you light a flame under Helio’s ass so we can get some OTA updates so my ocean isn’t so buggy? lol
Hey guys! Mike/Nick, Microsoft has a similar web browser dubbed Deepfish, u can zoom and pan real web pages on Pocket PCs http://labs.live.com/deepfish/
I don’t know why everyone is going nuts for the iPhone, its lacking basic features that use to be available years ago, unnaceptable for Apple to leave their customers hanging like this, like no GPS, I would never trade in my Windows Mobile pocket pc for an iphone! Don’t get me wrong, the pocket pc designs could be substantially improved….
When we finally managed to build really light and slim cell phones, now we have to go back and carry a brick in our pockets?
Been a long time in coming … the iPhone was predicted back in 1979…
Thanks Peter
Michael:
Would you be in line if you were around?
Why did they leave GPS out of the iPhone … I don’t get it. My garbage razr just died but I just can’t pay $500/$600 for a phone.
I want an iPhone but I gotta say I don’t think the pan and zoom browser is going to be all that. On the one hand it will probably let you read content lite design heavy sites well. On the other hand pan and zoom sucks for reading text like say slashdot or techcrunch. For that, either you need a large screen (ie, a monitor) or you need the browser to reformat like the Opera browser does for normal cell phones.
you should have mentioned microsoft live local. Its just as good, if not better than google maps.
I still haven’t moved into using my cell for much beyond cell phones (and text messages). The laptop is always by my side, so why bother?
Just get a Nokia N95!
– 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash, and you can send them by MMS. Oh yes, and the videos shot on the phone look awesome too!
– Full-featured real web browser built-in (or you can run Opera) built on the same code base as Apple’s. It even has thumbnail history (which my PC browser doesn’t).
– GPS built-in
– User-replaceable battery and memory (4GB micro SDHC)
– Runs Rhapsody-to-Go (if you like to rent your music) and supports wide variety of formats and players if you prefer to own your music. Oh yes, and it has both external stereo speakers and a standard headphone jack.
– Runs in portrait or landscape.
– 3G already (runs great in Japan!), Wi-Fi, Quad-band GSM, and it’s not locked to AT&T (you can cut your own deal with any wireless carrier or change SIMs when you go abroad).
– Lots of 3rd party S60 applications to let you customize your phone — not just limited to web apps.
For that matter, the N80ie (3.2 megapixel phone) is also a better phone than the iPhone if you don’t want to spend the money for an N95.
Thank you Nick.
Didn’t know about Deepfish before I read your post.
It is a sign that Microsoft might be interested in developping a phone like iPhone?
I was against the iPhone’s browser capability as it’s going against our application being released Monday, but it really is pretty impressive now that I’ve seen it. The pages look small at first, but the pan and zoom work really well. The screen is a little too skinny to read wide paragraphs though, so you have to pan each line when it’s zoomed in large enough to read.
We were running it off a WiFi connection so I don’t know if the slow load time rumors are true.
Yahoo Go already has maps and even uses the GPS on my N95.
Just a question, what is the big deal with visual voice mail? Who uses voice mail anyways? I guess the US market is a lot different than the European equivalent, but still…
But, I still must say, when iPhone comes with a 3G version, I will also stand in line setting up a web cam wondering which blogs I should post the feed to so that my viewers rise from 150 to “the 500 we had a couple of minutes ago”
Ok ok, I am a little bit envious since I was watching the feed a little bit.
blah, the whole email / exchange ‘controversy’ is a storm in a teacup! *hello* – Exchange can do pop3. The iphone, like nearly all new mobile phones can connect to pop3! The fact that blackberry chose to canabalise exchange by putting their BES peice of garbage on top of it appears to have performed some kind of mind trick on the tech/business community and made people think that blackberrys are in some kind of special “mobile phone that can do email” category of their own.
Marcus
(++aapl)
Plusmo.com provides lots of widgets from blogs, youtube to search. Give them a try at http://plusmo.com
How do I get OSX on my treo?
N95 rocks..
Main differentiating factor for iPhone (compared to other popular phones) is touch screen and voicemail inbox. Other then that it does not have anything special.
It uses the same browser engine as in Nokia N95.
As everyone know with 2G support (only) browser that Mr.Jobs have been
talking about is of little use. It will take more then 2 minutes to load a real world webpage (like http://www.yahoo.com). Will you wait 2 minutes for the page to be loaded?? I won’t.
Music and Video are very common on all the phones now. Nokia, Samsung, Sony have several phones with music and video support.
For text I would prefer QWERTY keypad (like in blackberry or Nokia phones) rather then touch screen. I don’t want to hold phone in one hand and use other hand for typing. It is like those early 19th century phones which require you to hold the microphone in one hand and speaker in other hand to listen.
I plan to go to AT&T store today to checkout iPhone (if they have one on display??)
If you have already spent lot of money on iTunes then it might be worth buying iPhone. But other then that it is probably not worth spending time and money on iPhone. Wait for a month, checkout the reviews and then decide if you want to buy iPhone or not. First generation products are always buggy. So better wait or try out N95 (GPS, music, video, maps, 5 MP camera and lot more).
I saw this site, and in fact this very post on CNN this afternoon. There were only 23 comments at the time.
I HAVE an Iphone, unlike all you speculators out there.
Everything works exactly as advertised and works great.
It’s the most well integrated piece of consumer electronics I’ve ever seen!
I had an N80ie, and it’s a piece of junk compared to an iphone. Can’t believe an N95 is all that much better, other than the camera, which I know is outstanding.
Until you TRY one, i suggest you better be more humble about how all these other crap phones on the market do this and do that better than an Iphone.
Just my two cents!
I have a Nokia 2125. It works as the telephone I wanted. The rest is done on the laptop.
Who the F wants an IPhone….
Hey, how do I put a touchscreen on my phone? Please get back to me, smartass article-writer.
Thanks.
You can’t, smartass comment leaver. How many blogs do you have on CNN? That’s what I thought…
Although I rebel against the mainstream (as Apple used to do), and although I think they went against their core values by joining forces with the new telephone monopoly (AT&T), I do have some iPhone envy.
But, I went with the Archos 604 wifi. This gives me full “Play for Sure” capability for my 1200+ tracks on Ruckus (basically free music, and ability to quickly download an album to check it out instead of trying to decide off 20 second previews).
Archos also is a DVR for DVD quality TV program/movie storage, and my version has 30GB storage.
With all that said, I am looking for small format (iPhone-like) web pages. I have a moble weather site as my home page, but not as pretty as iPhone’s. but if something similar is out there, I can bookmark it with my Archos…also looking for same for calendar and contact storage.
Any ideas?
Great, Thanks
http://www.tut-pedia.com
google maps lol! how about Tom Tom GPS.
EDGE how about EVDO.
I tunes.. LMAO try TCPMP
Pocket tunes, Kinoma ect…………
Email? oooh lol try Push e mail.
Widgets? come on the Razr has that along with Google maps
Instant messaging, 3G & VNC.
I was very disappointed to hear that the iPhone didn’t come with voice noting (along with a video recorder and handsfree dialing), but I’m a Jott.com user, so I guess that would suffice for now, or for anyone else using the iPhone. Jott actually works very very well with the iphone…being you can receiving your jott right as you send it via the Mail app on the phone. Now as for the video recorder and all…..we’ll just have to wait to see what Job’s has up his sleeve.