$2000 iPhone (was Re: iPhone Rate Plans are up)

[Glenn Carnagey]

On Jun 28, 2007, at 7:30 PM, Scott Lewis wrote:

>> yes, some days I spend 174 minutes just calling into  
>> meetings. ;-)   But for the last few years my minutes have come  
>> out of a Sprint pool of minutes the whole company draws out of, so  
>> I'm not sure how many minutes I use.  It must be well over 1000/mo  
>> during business hours, much less during the typically free night/ 
>> weekend.  We're going back to each person expensing their own  
>> phone in the Fall, so in theory I could switch to Cingular/iPhone,  
>> but I can't until they support at least ActiveSync or GoodLink.   
>> My Treo has 3 primary non-phone purposes:  mobile calendar/email,  
>> smart pager, emergency modem and ssh.  Not uncommon business  
>> usage, really, apart from ssh.  Apart from the ssh, any of those  
>> is a dealbreaker, and I would want to hear from people that used  
>> it for a while before I bought it , anyway.   Then there's that  
>> pesky 2-yr contract, which is $200 buyout at least from Sprint, so  
>> if they take too long for Outlook compatibility, I'll be stuck  
>> with that as well.   However, I have two talkative college-aged  
>> kids and am constantly researching plans -- the $60/mo seems  
>> totally reasonable.
>
> I'm in a somewhat similar boat as you. I have a Motorola Q through  
> the office, and I haven't found a Cisco concentrator compatible VPN  
> client, so the iPhone's VPN choices are no better/worse (reports  
> read it has built in support for PPTP and IPSEC, but I'm sure it's  
> like the Mac in that it won't connect to a VPN 3000 concentrator).  
> Since I can't find a client for the Q either (only the full PDA/ 
> touch screen WIndows Mobile phones seem to have available clients),  
> I therefore don't care about VPN - it's a wash!

We use Cisco VPN concentrator as well, and you're right, it's a  
wash.  There is no decent solution.  There is not even a crappy  
solution, only sub-sub-crappy.  However, GoodLink resources do work  
in a lot of contexts where you reach for VPN.


> SSH would be KEY. This at least would mirror my capabilities now  
> with the Q - I would be able to get into my firewall and VPN  
> concentrator for terminal configurations, plus pop into my various  
> routers.

if there is a ssh gateway for the black magicians, and you are one  
(i.e. sysadmins ;-)... just think what you could by exporting your  
display over a tunnel... one can dream... ;-)   the SSH clients for  
PalmOS are not good, but they do at least exist.   and when you  
really need it, you got it.

> Regarding the traditional use, while it won't be good enough to  
> deploy a legion of iPhones to my employees, it'd be fine for me.
>
> 1) IMAP for email. Ok, so it's not push - but if I can set the  
> client to check every 3 or 5 minutes it's just the same. Who cares  
> if it's push or pull, as long as I get email QUICKLY.

Exchange administrators are severely allergic to allowing IMAP, I  
have found.  IMAP is not even remotely a solution in the Exchange  
world anyway, Microsoft has crippled it.  Apple should've bought Good  
before Motorola snapped it up, maybe will bite the bullet and get  
ActiveSync compatible.

> 2) Outlook Web Access for the rest. :)

our OWA now requires VPN.   But they get away with that because  
GoodLink fills that niche, plus you can browse internal URLs as if  
you were on VPN.  Assuming you had a decent browser, which you don't  
pre-iPhone.

> Seriously, I like the sync client for my Q, but don't like the  
> expensive server software we had to pay for to get it. But I can  
> sync once a day at work to get local contacts / calendar items into  
> the phone, and use Safari to get the rest. NOBODY has mentioned  
> this. The media just talks about turning on IMAP (like that  
> replaces Outlook Syncing for people in Exchange environments).

s'what I'm saying.  you never have to ask Goodlink to sync anything,  
it just does it.

> But thanks to OWA you can get access to everything else in real  
> time, including public folders, group calendaring, contacts, tasks,  
> etc. This solution stinks on other phones because of the weak web  
> client. That leaves Outlook Mobile Access, which is a WAP disaster  
> of an interface.

OWA is still kind of a pain.  Mostly in contexts where you'd like to  
select a bunch of stuff at once and instead have to click a zillion  
times, I find the interface pretty painful.  But... better than  
nothing.   I'm not really familiar with OMA, if you feel like sending  
your feedback off-list, I'd be very interested in hearing it.

> My proposal at work:
>
> 1) I'll buy the iPhone.
> 2) You'll cancel my phone.
> 3) I'll expense $90 a month until the iPhone is paid back to me.
> 4) You'll then save $90 a month that they pay for my phone service  
> now.
>
> I already have Cingular, and thanks to an aggressive family plan  
> have plenty of minutes to spare, plus so many rollover minutes that  
> each month some expire (after 12 months the rollover minutes  
> disappear). I think at least count I had 3500.

there you go.

g./




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