[RickR]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9008439

[Dakar²]

Somebody's jaded.

[Dark Helmet]

"Steve Jobs' blockbuster keynote at last week's Macworld was brilliantly and powerfully delivered -- one of his best ever. It was also a colossal mistake."

He lost me after the first sentence with that.

"But you probably couldn't squeeze even the Matrix trilogy on the 8GB iPhone and no more than one Matrix movie on the 4GB iPhone."

Is guy totally brain dead?

"It's easy to speculate about why Apple announced the iPhone so early, so here goes."

Or how about the very valid and true reason Steve himself mentioned... once it goes to the FCC for approval it gets leaked.

[OldManMac]

The author has some valid points; whether they're right or not remains to be seen. I am no doubt going to get one, but if it weren't for the fact that my Sony Clie died recently, and my current phone is 4 years old, and I don't carry my three year old iPod around with me, as the battery is getting weak, I wouldn't be in the market for one. I'm sure it's going to sell fairly well, but I'm not so sure it's going to be a blockbuster.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

"But you probably couldn't squeeze even the Matrix trilogy on the 8GB iPhone and no more than one Matrix movie on the 4GB iPhone."

Handbrake can easily give you an mp4 file of a DVD for under a gig. And if he doesn't think that 3 movies will fit in 8 gigs, how can he say that the 50-60 movies listed on IMDB under Keanu Reeves would fit on an 80 gig iPod?

Or how about the very valid and true reason Steve himself mentioned... once it goes to the FCC for approval it gets leaked.

Exactly. If they gave it to the FCC, bits of it would become public at a time, and confusion about the whole thing would be huge. This was the best way to show off all of its features and everything at once in an ideal environment.

[Salty]

I think this author's a little wrong. The problem is that people were expecting an iPhone and they had to announce it a bit earlier. That said Apple's left products unshipping for many months before. I think it was over 2-3 months after 17 inch PowerBooks were announced that we had them in our hands. And the Intel transition was announced pretty early which had a lot of people waiting to buy new Macs.

[shifuimam]

---

[Gossamer]

Fortunately, Apple has patents on the most important aspects of the iPhone, so there are no worries there.

Oh, and

[Kerrigan]

Sounds to me like the usual whining.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The previous paragraph explains his statement:

<snip>

Now, I don't use iTunes to buy anything, but if most videos are around 1-2GB, then 4GB is small potatoes for watching movies on an iPhone.

How does he know the OS is going to be 500MB? And how does he know that it isn't going to be on its own storage space, totally separate from the 4GB or 8GB flash? Oh thats right, he doesn't. And if I'm not mistaken (and I very well may be), the movies sold on iTunes are a bit of overkill for the size of the screen on an iPod Video, and possibly the iPhone. I've heard people say they could reduce the quality some, saving space, and not notice any difference.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

One other interesting note:


An entirely valid point. We've seen how the iPod revolutionized the portable digital audio player market. BUT, Apple didn't announce the iPod to the general public until it was available for sale at the Apple stores. Who knows what's going to happen between today and six months from now in the rest of the cell phone market.

Again, did this guy even see the keynote? Apple has over 200 patents on this phone. There is no way there is going to be ANYONE who can copy the iPhone's technologies, even if they broke patent law. There just isn't enough time to develop something like that. 6 months is not enough time.

And how long has the iPod been on the market? And how many poeple have tried to copy it? And how many of those people failed. All of them. I have no reason to believe the iPhone will be any different. I'm sure Apple thought about copy cats.

It just baffles me. Apple is much much smarter than most people give them credit for.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by ::maroma:: 

How does he know the OS is going to be 500MB? And how does he know that it isn't going to be on its own storage space, totally separate from the 4GB or 8GB flash? Oh thats right, he doesn't.

Apple said it was under 500MB and will use the FLASH storage to hold it in an interview recently.

On top of that remember that an 8 gig drive with NOTHING On it still won't be 8 Gigs.

[ort888]

[CharlesS]

He's got a good point about one thing, though - if it can't run third-party apps, that's a big problem. PDAs are like little computers, and that's what people expect - to be able to add little things like a stopwatch or metronome, or a few games. Even my RAZR can add Java apps, so if the iPhone can't, that seems like a big weakness.

I wonder if all of you who were bashing the RAZR because the original V3 model couldn't run Salling Clicker will now bash the iPhone for the same reason? Or will third-party app support become one of those "bah, who needs it" things now that Apple has far less of it than the original RAZR, or even the BREW-only phones on CDMA carriers?

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

He's got a good point about one thing, though - if it can't run third-party apps, that's a big problem. PDAs are like little computers, and that's what people expect - to be able to add little things like a stopwatch or metronome, or a few games. Even my RAZR can add Java apps, so if the iPhone can't, that seems like a big weakness.

It may not run "Apps" but apple suggested a couple of things.

1) It may run simple 3rd party widgets.
2) Apps can be made it just has to be approved by apple as safe.

I think both is good.

Honestly though everyone I know that has smartphones the only thing they download is Google Maps and a game. iPhone has google maps and apple will offer games for sure one day.

[Atomic Rooster]

I predict the iPhone will be a dud.

[Dakar²]

Originally Posted by Gossamer 

Fortunately, Apple has patents on the most important aspects of the iPhone, so there are no worries there.

Oh, and

Hey, hypocrite, you can't post that after replying to a legitimate post in this thread!

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The previous paragraph explains his statement:



Now, I don't use iTunes to buy anything, but if most videos are around 1-2GB, then 4GB is small potatoes for watching movies on an iPhone.

The applications and operating system for the phone are not on the hard drive, they're in flash memory in the device.

User data and media goes on the drive.

An entirely valid point. We've seen how the iPod revolutionized the portable digital audio player market. BUT, Apple didn't announce the iPod to the general public until it was available for sale at the Apple stores. Who knows what's going to happen between today and six months from now in the rest of the cell phone market.

Many things can happen in the cell phone market in that time, but I am easily willing to bet that no one else brings to market a multi-touch screen device with the 'pinch', flick to scroll, conferencing, or visual voicemail features.

Nokia couldn't do it on symbian. Motorola could do it on the a1200 style devices (linux), as could FIC on their openmoko. now that they've seen what they're up against, expect six months of trying to do it right.

Apple is already most of the way there. The others all have to play catch up. What else could become mainstream in six months? 3mp camera and HSPDA. Since Cingular's network hasn't got HSPDA rolled out really, I don't see the second as possible, and they've got four months to get it all finalized before hardware production, so the camera could change by then.

[legacyb4]

What's going to be fun to see is 5 years or so after the introduction of the iPhone, you'll look at the archive.org page and be amazed at how clunky it looked...

Case in point:

original iPod splash page

[TailsToo]

The iPhone won't do 10 million this year, but it will be a good longer term product. I think the stock will suffer this year, though, as whiny investors don't see the huge iPod-like numbers coming from the product. I just hope that Apple doesn't forget the Mac and the iPod as it trys to focus on its new toys. That could be a big long-term problem.

[TailsToo]

original iPod splash page[/QUOTE]

Ohh.... where can I get me a copy of this 10.1 I'm reading about??

[Atomic Rooster]

Apple swipes Visual Voicemail from Citrix

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01...sualvoicemail/

[Kerrigan]

I love my old 1st gen iPod. Granted I now have a nano, but that old one is very sturdy, and I put a new battery in it just so I can keep it around a few more years (for old times sake).

[Eriamjh]

Does anyone have a pic of that wst generation iPod with the rotary dial on it from the keynote?

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by TailsToo 

The iPhone won't do 10 million this year, but it will be a good longer term product. ...

Hate to nitpick, but that 10-million-unit sales projection was for this year and next: "through 2008", not "by 2008."

Come to think of it, I love to nitpick.

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

Hate to nitpick, but that sales projection of 10 million units was for this year and next; "through 2008", not "by 2008".

Come to think of it, I love to nitpick.

Me too!

[macfantn]

my friend shrinks movies for his 30gb ipod video down to about 250 - 300 mb, they look fine. he uses a pc not sure what program. so you could easily fit 15 - 20 movies on the phone.

[Buckaroo]

Yup, Apple screwed up. There's nothing like One Billion Dollars profit in one quarter to make it clear that Apple is screwed up.

Damn, I wish I was that screwed up.

[macintologist]

He's wrong about everything except one thing - third party apps. Apple is really blowing it if they don't open the iPhone up to 3rd party development. It's not the same as the iPod. People are going to want to do all sorts of different things with the iPhone that fits their need. Could you imagine buying a Mac and not being able to use any 3rd party apps? I wouldn't buy one!

[His Dudeness]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan 

Sounds to me like the usual whining.

I've said it before, the people here are impossible to please. I find it hard to believe that people are bitching because you can't put movies on the iPhone??? People, it's a ****ing PHONE.

[His Dudeness]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

He's wrong about everything except one thing - third party apps. Apple is really blowing it if they don't open the iPhone up to 3rd party development. It's not the same as the iPod. People are going to want to do all sorts of different things with the iPhone that fits their need. Could you imagine buying a Mac and not being able to use any 3rd party apps? I wouldn't buy one!

No, Apple should have made this a GSM and a CDMA phone. I refuse to deal with Cingular anymore.

[centerchannel68]

Cingular is fine here in the midwest. >shrug<

[k2director]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

He's wrong about everything except one thing - third party apps. Apple is really blowing it if they don't open the iPhone up to 3rd party development. It's not the same as the iPod. People are going to want to do all sorts of different things with the iPhone that fits their need. Could you imagine buying a Mac and not being able to use any 3rd party apps? I wouldn't buy one!

Funny, I think your average Mac user (and none of us are average, since we're hanging out on a Mac forum) only use a couple of third-party apps, if that. If not for Office and maybe Quicken, how many additional third party apps would your average user really need, that Apple doesn't already provide? Email client? Check. Browser? Check. Calendar? Check. Address book? Check. Photo app? Check. Music player? Check. And so on, and so on. For "regular people", I think Apple has the bases covered really well, all by itself.

And the iPhone is aimed at a "regular people", not at business users and tech-heads who want every feature crammed into their little gadgets. (Yes, its current launch price isn't exactly "regular people" friendly, but it will be in a couple of years, and we all know Apple is thinking long-term about this product line.)

Given the iPhone's "regular people" focus, do you really think third party apps are a priority? They're not. It's better to focus on some innovations on the phone front, which everybody can appreciate (like random access voice mail), and make major leaps in delivering things like music, movies, photos, and basic (and easy) internet communications, which is again something that everybody can appreciate. But third party apps are definitely not something that everybody will appreciate. Only a fraction of people will appreciate them, and they can threaten to destabelize the phone, make the experience less consistent, and overwhelm regular users with too many choices.

In the end, this isn't supposed to be a computer, and it's not supposed to be a Treo or some Windows monstrosity. The idea is to keep things simple. Keep things controlled, tightly integrated and super consistent. Keep quality very high at all costs. Apple can do that a lot more easily if it makes its own apps, and doesn't open things up to everybody and his brother. At some point, loosening the reins might make sense, but not initially...

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

He's wrong about everything except one thing - third party apps. Apple is really blowing it if they don't open the iPhone up to 3rd party development. It's not the same as the iPod. People are going to want to do all sorts of different things with the iPhone that fits their need. Could you imagine buying a Mac and not being able to use any 3rd party apps? I wouldn't buy one!

I think allowing no 3rd party joe schmoe apps is a big problem, but I see this as an even bigger one:

"Unlike most smart phones, the iPhone doesn't have voice dialing, voice memos, 3G Internet access, Word or Excel support, one-handed operation or video recording. It can't be used as a laptop modem. The battery can't be replaced. It doesn't support removable storage. The calendar, task list and e-mail won't sync with Microsoft Outlook."

They're missing quite a few common features, and if they are shooting for a large audience with any sort of business user base they need to support excel, word, and outlook. It's that simple. I'm sure a lot of businesses are going to love getting a yahoo mail account

Originally Posted by k2director 

Only a fraction of people will appreciate them, and they can threaten to destabelize the phone, make the experience less consistent, and overwhelm regular users with too many choices.

Woah... someone has been brainwashed by Steve Jobs I think. So let me get this straight, OS X on the desktop can handle 3rd party apps without becoming "unstable", but OS X on the iPhone cannot? Sounds like a stretch to me. And I don't think you anyone should be happy with Safari being the web browser of choice. It sux on the desktop and now they ported it to a phone and expect people to be happy about it?

[smacintush]

It's a revision "A" people.

[Peter]

I expect they'll have 3rd party widgets at least.
But then, its a phone -- you make calls, check email, surf web -- what more do you want?

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

I think allowing no 3rd party joe schmoe apps is a big problem, but I see this as an even bigger one:

Not so. You don't want third party stuff that doesn't conform to the device's interface, or is such a resource hog that it prevents the rest of the device from working properly.

I've got a bunch of third party apps I've downloaded onto Nokia Symbian phones, and they bring the phone to a halt. It took me a while before I realized I was cursing Nokia, and not the third party devs. Why? Nokia told the devs to develop, invited them to the party, made it easy to put them on the phone, and didn't provide enough resources to do it all.

It's about managing expectations.

"Unlike most smart phones, the iPhone doesn't have voice dialing

Um, that's not only a phone service, it can also be implemented as a network service, server side.

, voice memos,

How do you know?

3G Internet access,

Covered. Cingular hasn't got HSPDA rolled out, when they do, Jobs said they'll add it. Why add a feature no one can use? To charge (even) more?

Word or Excel support,

You've got to be kidding me.
Windows mobile has it, sure. Treo has it. Blackberry, you have to add it yourself. Nokia? Never seen it on one.

one-handed operation or video recording.

The blackberry is a two handed device. You try and sure-type one handed. How do you know the iPhone can't do video recording?

It can't be used as a laptop modem.

How do you know? Bluetooth tether mode should work just fine.

The battery can't be replaced.

True. First thing you've said that was correct.

It doesn't support removable storage.

unimportant, with four to eight GB.[quote
The calendar, task list and e-mail won't sync with Microsoft Outlook."[/quote]Lies. It will sync with MS Outlook via iTunes.

They're missing quite a few common features, and if they are shooting for a large audience with any sort of business user base they need to support excel, word, and outlook. It's that simple. I'm sure a lot of businesses are going to love getting a yahoo mail account



Woah... someone has been brainwashed by Steve Jobs I think. So let me get this straight, OS X on the desktop can handle 3rd party apps without becoming "unstable", but OS X on the iPhone cannot? Sounds like a stretch to me.

Try and run a bunch of apps on a slower Mac with low ram. Performance drops dramatically. The iPhone as a platform has decent storage, but it is a mobile device. If you want to ensure the good user experience where the phone is always responsive, you limit what other people can bring to the party, so that you don't have to predict what they could or might do.

And I don't think you anyone should be happy with Safari being the web browser of choice. It sux on the desktop and now they ported it to a phone and expect people to be happy about it?

Sux? Nokia is using it for their e61 / e62 business phones. That's right, Nokia had Safari on a phone before Apple.

[slugslugslug]

Isn't Nokia requiring that devs get their applications signed for newer Series 60 phones? I'm sure I've read that many times already. Of course, I think they're just doing that to try and screen out straight-up malware, not to do any rigorous quality control w/r/t stability, since that kind of vetting would be a big resource drain on Nokia.

Anyway, I hope Apple can find some kind of middle ground for 3rd-party development. Yes, the iPhone will come with most of the stuff that most people need, but if you look at what Steve repeatedly claimed was their competition (in terms of price, size, and hardware UI), they were all smartphones, which many people buy because of their functional flexibility...

[centerchannel68]

I think you're missing the point. Right now, smart phones are owned by two types of people: Hardcore business people who need to be connected ALL the time, and dorks/nerds/techies, etc.

This phone is for neither of those target audiences. It is for the masses. For normal people, who want an all in one device. Who want to be able to share photos with friends, watch movies on teh go, listen to their music, stuff like that. Most people really won't give a rats ass about any of that extra crap you mentioned. My mom, a schoolteacher, thinks this phone is great. She used her imac for 2 years and you know what the only third party apps she downloaded were? Solitaire and other card games. That's it.

[Goldfinger]

AFAIK all Nokia N series phones have Office viewers, vmarks. My N72 sure has them.

[Troll]

YouTube - CNN Report: According to Asia, the iPhone Sucks.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by vmarks 

The blackberry is a two handed device. You try and sure-type one handed. How do you know the iPhone can't do video recording?

Actually the Pearl is very very easy to use one handed. My previous Sony with Symbian OS was 100% impossible do to the software.

Apple has said no video right now but it can change.

[legacyb4]

I believe this is probably the same rationale behind the Apple TV as well...

Originally Posted by k2director 

And the iPhone is aimed at a "regular people", not at business users and tech-heads who want every feature crammed into their little gadgets. (Yes, its current launch price isn't exactly "regular people" friendly, but it will be in a couple of years, and we all know Apple is thinking long-term about this product line.)

[lpkmckenna]

I think arguing about missing features is kinda pointless since Apple hasn't finalized the feature list.

I think we'll see downloadable software for the iPhone just like the downloadable games for the iPod. Apple will control the distribution through iTunes.

Expect a flood of "made for iPhone" websites. No, the current feature list of the iPhone doesn't include M$ Office, but Google could create a Docs and Spreadsheets portal designed with the iPhone in mind.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

It's a revision "A" people.

How can it be a revision 'x' phone? This is the *original*. The next version will be revision A.

The original hasn't been revised.

V

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

How can it be a revision 'x' phone? This is the *original*. The next version will be revision A.

The original hasn't been revised.

V

OH YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

OH YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

YES I DO

Just felt like picking nits. My contribution to this otherwise fascinating thread.

V

[centerchannel68]

Originally Posted by Troll 

YouTube - CNN Report: According to Asia, the iPhone Sucks.

No workie.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Troll 

YouTube - CNN Report: According to Asia, the iPhone Sucks.

Workie for me.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

I think you're missing the point. Right now, smart phones are owned by two types of people: Hardcore business people who need to be connected ALL the time, and dorks/nerds/techies, etc.

This phone is for neither of those target audiences. It is for the masses. For normal people, who want an all in one device...

Actually, you're missing my point: those phones for business types and techies are the exact ones that Apple used for comparison, so you would think they're targeting the same audience.

And the masses might think the iPhone is really cool, but I can imagine some of them would see it as overpriced. Yeah, it's about the same price as a Nano and a smartphone, but according to you, these folks haven't seen the appeal of smartphones. So they can just go get a nano and a phone that's ≤$100 w/contract.

I still think it'll do fairly well. Some techies will love the UI too much to care about shortcomings as a new platform, and some of the masses are style conscious and have lots of money.

[l008com]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

Actually, you're missing my point: those phones for business types and techies are the exact ones that Apple used for comparison, so you would think they're targeting the same audience.

I think you're missing the point. The comparison as I saw it was that most people don't use those phones because they are hard to use, but the iPhone is easy to use and so it is good for the common folk.