Good ideah including two batteries. Although, that may make the phone a bit bulky. I wonder if it'll work with current Ipod accessories, that would be cool.

How will this affect everybody's betting strategy on Bodog?

kevin rose....*swoon*

Wow, a phone with 8g of memory? That would actually hold a hefty amount of music.

And a touchscreen? Wouldn't that indicate that they've figured out how to make a touchscreen work- ie, touchscreen iPod? Because I want a touchscreen iPod way more than I want a iPhone.

I don't really need an iPod on my cell phone. I'd love phone that handles email and texting easily and synchs painlessly and seamlessly with my Mac. Another key feature is a rock solid voice connection. I hope this thing ends up with a QWERTY keyboard and more business features.

I think Apple figured out the touchscreen thing back when they made the Newton.

Of course a decent iCamera would be appreciated, but then we can't get everything we want in life. Can we?

Okay this design does not make sense. I am not going to use a scroll whell to navigate the phone menu. Maybe if they made the next/previous and menu/play the left, right, up and down. I will not buy it if it has this "Blackberry" scrolling.

could be 2 joinable independing devices the player and the phone :)

the main screen shoud be in the phone side (to attract some phone segment)

if it would be a 2Mpix camera, a swf player, in the phone and a radio transmiter in the player I would pay $449 :D

This sounds like a Super Nano. If the thing can work with Nike+ kit or other Nano add-ons, I may seriously consider getting it.

I dunno, why would the prices be so far apart... $200 difference for 4gb's of flash memory, that's a little sketchy. The 2 batteries thing seems like a pretty good idea... but then there's the whole, 2 chargers instead of one thing that kinda sucks. Unless they make like a double pronged connector that charges both things... And a phone that does all carriers... that'd surprise me too, I assumed it would be GSM to take advantage of places outside the U.S. If it's true, cool.

Why in the world would there be two chargers?

It would be awesome to have, 5MP cam, video action and bluetooth. IM and RSS feeds would be nice too.

Rumor has it that it *might* have a touch screen and it uses one charger not two for the batterys... Oh, and they say that the form factor will be really small(nano like).

Ok, Core 2 Duo Macbooks were expected.

And how can 4GB of Memory cause a 200$ price jump?
It's only a 50$ difference on the Nanos.

And will I get rebates with a 2 year plan?

Ugh, this sounds weak.

It already is starting to look like a flop me too phone.

And the price is way too high.

From what Im reading, this is looking like a weak me too phone. Two batteries? This thing is going to weigh a ton!

And the price is way too high.

Sorry Apple, this is looking like a total flop.

The price increase could also be a features boost beyond the memory, which could manifest any number of ways...standard slide-down numpad vs. slide to the side qwertyboard; bluetooth integration; longer battery life; etc.

two batteries resolves my biggest concern with a music player / phone. GENIUS (most ideas that make a ton of sense after the fact usually are)

Yes, anybody could have predicted Core 2 Duos. But Kevin is plugged-in on the tech scene, and I'd be surprised if he weren't right on the major points.

It would be nice if the phone were offered for direct purchase from Apple, especially if it really worked with all the networks. As anti-Apple as I am, we need a cell phone manufacturer to stand up to this crazy locked-in cell phone with plan stuff, and the recent court ruling about unlocking phones would seem to work in their favor (which may just be coincidence). And Apple has a good record (npi) standing up to the music labels, even if they do impose their silly restrictive DRM.

If Apple does release direct to the public, $450 doesn't sound crazy -- well it does, but it's only a premium of $200 for the included phone over the 8GB Nano, and that sounds about right to me, given what a Treo or something similar costs off-plan. $250 just sounds wrong. That sounds like a price that would you could get it for if you got it with a plan. So maybe there's some confusion in the pricing related to whether it's with a plan or without.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with.

prices are way too low. an unlocked krzr costs $459.99 on newegg. tocuchscreen=expensive, 4/8gb=expensive, apple name=expensive, extra batt=expensive.

All providers and 8gig I will buy it for my sprint account. PLEASE EXIST

does all providers mean verizon/sprint as well? or is that me dreaming fo the day that something cool will come out on time for CDMA? (chocolate excluded of course)

"texting easily and synchs painlessly and seamlessly with my Mac."

aside from email, every phone i've owned since OSX came out has texted easily, and synched painlessly and seamlessly with my imac using isync, the razr, a few sony products, even my euro only 7370 nokia all sync painlessly and easily.

Only thing I'm interested here is the OS, I've suffered enough of Symbian and Windows Mobile for one life. If they really have touchscreen OS there I wouldn't wonder if they release more devices that use it.

'Texting easily' Yeah, I tried with my RAZR for about a month before selling it, and buying myself a Moto V325, with actual keys...

My guess, one battery is non-user replaceable for the ipod half, the other battery is and is for the phone half. One charger for both which either charges the phone first then ipod, or charges both equally at the same time.

Why would someone want a touch screen phone, for one the screen is way too small, if I put three fingers on top of the screen its covered, also what about dirt and grease.

I'm constantly cleaning my blackberry screen because if it, imaging the amount of gunk that will build up overtime.

Sync with os x entourage ? and verizon I AM SOLD

Texting easily? Actually that's probably one of the most important features I need in a cellphone, how comfortable / easy the buttons are to press. I dunno about overseas, but here in New Zealand everyone is addicted to txting.

All on prepay, about US$ 6 buys you 2,000 txt's, all txts only cost to send and never to receive, and weekends used to be free txting.

The keypad on my old Nokia phone is so worn down from txting.

now it will come down to who can offer the best plan to accompany the phone

oh and also if you watch the youtube video of it you will see that he says this after a few swigs of beer

I don't care about the two batteries--I try to charge my phone every day. My RAZR V3i is borked and I want something with better functionality. Not sure how many versions they will have to have for it to work with "all" providers, since there are various standards...

Wait, did Kevin Rose really make $60 million in 18 months?

If he did, I wanna know how!!

"Wait, did Kevin Rose really make $60 million in 18 months?"

No, that is the estimated value of Digg. It seems that Kevin doesn't have too much money. After that article came out, he was complaining about not having enough money to buy a couch.

My guess is that the battery looks like one battery and is sub-divided internally. An iPod with a replacable battery would be awesome.

Other MP3 players have always come out before the iPod with better features. Apple won with the click-wheel and music management software. I can't imagine what is so desparately missing from phone functionality that the same impact will be seen. Apple just can't take on all the phone giants without leaning on the iPod functionality. Samsung can turn around a prototype->production in months. Apple needs to lean on its intellectual property if it wants to make an entrance into this market.

@StudioCity The iPhone without an iPod and more business features already exists. It is called a blackberry.

To everyone who is asking about the huge price difference between the 4 and 8GB models, I think its because the 4GB one is just a phone and music player, whereas the 8GB model is a smartphone. Any bets?

Wow...$249 and $449? The razr was like $500 when it came out and it doesn't really do anything other than "look cool". I hope Apple knocks it out of the park with this one because I'll be back in the states soon, and haven't really been satisfied with American phones.

I have been waiting for 4 and a half years for this.

I'm actually more excited about what the OS will feel like than what any of the features are. Only cause I know that whatever features aren't there at first, Apple should continue to add them over subsequent releases. However slowly that might happen.

But, at the risk of sounding like too much of a fanboy, can I say that it would be nice if we could get 802.11, BT, QWERTY, USB charging, IR (for some Apple Remote action), and 3MP (or bigger) camera.

Or at the very least not just a Nano that you can make calls with.

According to US Patent Application No 20060268528 and Serial No 501184 filed by two of Apple's innovators Stephen Zadesky and Stephen Lynch, the patent is for "a portable computing device capable of wireless communications, comprising: an enclosure that surrounds and protects the internal operational components of the portable gadget, the enclosure including a structural wall formed from a ceramic material that permits wireless communication".

Ceramic? Oh this will be good.

There is the new N91 coming in 8Gb

The Sony Ericcson W950i comes in 4GB with a touchscreen

hello guys he new N91 has 8GB so no need to get that excited. Also an Mp3 player, a cellphone and touchscreen already exsist in the W950i.

I don't want iPod in my phone - all my phones from last 3 years can play mp3 and I never used it. I want good phone, that has solid e-mail client, good texting, simple menu, and you know, can handle calls. What I'd love is a call recording capability. That's where I can see a good use of the 4GB flash memory.

with so much competition out there in an already established market, i was seriously doubting how in the world apple could really make a dent in the cell phone market... but if all these rumors are true, then perhaps apple really can do to the cell phone market what it did to mp3 players (albeit to a lesser degree)

My prediction of what the iPhone will look like:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6196/untitleddz9.png

Wow, that was hilarious... ^^^

You should help me spread it around the internet.

"Coming in January to all providers"

I call bull$%&#.
Nothing this cool ever comes to Sprint.

Or Nextel.

Still sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.

It still sounds like bullshit to m e.

Only one word can describe my tears of joy, sweet!

What the fuck does "coming to all providers" mean? Helio? Ampt? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

Two batteries. Genius. You don't have to worry that you're eating into your talk time playing MP3s, yet you're still only carrying one device, with one screen and one interface.