Slashdot Mirror

Apple that everyone loved. Today they're the company that many love to hate.

Except people aren't that emotional. Apple simply produced compelling products the iPod, iPhone and iPad and many here enjoyed their computers before Apple became an electronics company. They market well, and are popular in the media (and shareholders), They are out of favour as their product lines look tired compared to the competition, and the chance of repeated success in new markets looks increasingly unlikely (iwatch, itv, iconsole), and well the share price, profits, revenues, market share, technical edge, brand value are all down.

Pretending that people are randomly emotional about mega corporations is simply weird. People on the whole buy(and respond well to companies) of products which have reasonable value and quality...marketed well, and those products are coming from Google(and their OEMs) not Apple(or Microsoft) who foolishly think their users are cattle.

For most people this is the rational way of looking at it, yes. But Apple most certainly have managed to produce a more.. fervent.. kind of supporters. That far transcends the usual fan-boys many tech companies have. If you have managed to avoid them, good for you, a few years back I found that voicing any criticism of Apple brought them out in force (and I knew a couple of them real life too). And you can often see today when the shine has come off Apple somewhat that they now think that everybody loves to hate Apple, and voice this frequently.

BBC made a very interesting documentary that among other things included researching the emotions Apple evokes in some of their supporters (including using MRI scanners!): According to a BBC documentary, Apple stimulates the same part of the brain as religious imagery does in believing people. The program is recommended viewing for anyone interested in this topic.

How non-technical, and after how thorough of a look?

I'll just leave these here...

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-297432.html
http://gigaom.com/2008/08/31/dont-like-the-iphone-check-out-these-touchscreen-phones/
http://www.gsmarena.com/newscomm-769.php
http://www.telecomasia.net/node/5199
http://www.google.com/search?q=SPH-1300&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jjfATeTDOIL30gHT_tXuBA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1680&bih=947
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=ET&p_theme=et&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EEF6B3EB0A8C768&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
http://cgi.ebay.com/SPRINT-PCS-PALM-OS-WIRELESS-PHONE-SPH-1300-DUAL-BAND-/180613037497
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-09-25/news/18143226_1_cell-phone-palm-os
http://www.geardiary.com/2006/11/30/the-palm-treo-700p-palm-os-smartphone-review/
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=1690
http://www.gizmag.com/go/2306/
http://www.google.com/search?q=sony+p900
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/10/13/lg.debuts.new.prada.phone/
http://www.esato.com/phones/compare.php?phone=433&cp=439
http://gizmodo.com/#!190670/cect-a1000-touchscreen-phone-with-1000-hours-standby
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32133413.html?tag=lia;rcol

these aren't phones, but what the hell... they could still be mistaken for an iPhone at a glance...

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/prodserv/handheld.html
http://www.suddenlink.net/pages/curtismc/palms.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_III

So if they hold true to what Bill Gates said (http://www.esato.com/archive/t.php/t-54833,1.html) back when they were just a software company, this device should cost us nothing.

The other thing is Microsoft's last announcement of something like this (the tablet PC, wasn't it?), turned out to be something you couldn't buy. It was a reference platform and a set of specifications that others could build to.

So I'm not holding my breath that we'll be able to buy one of these.

You can find several inexpensive unlocked GSM phones at http://myworldphone.com/

They are a reputable dealer as per a couple of well-known cellphone forums (you might want to poke around the forums a little, and maybe even ask the question there):

http://esato.com/
http://howardforums.com/

As stated in the title, I have no affiliation with any of these sites.

I bought one of these, and my god, it's the best phone I've ever owned, having also owned a Motorola Slvr L6 and a V330. It actually has everything you wanted but the extended antenna, but it has great reception. It also has the message indicator light and bluetooth. The address book might not be up to snuff for you though, it was released pre-OS X and I imaging it doesn't support OS X, and putting in address are a bit of a pain. Also, it's GMS, but only a tri-band phone, but won't work some places (like my home in Alaska, damn it, so I can only use it while at college).

It was the phone Ericsson released just before merging with Sony, and there is also a model relased by SonyEricsson, which I believe is pretty much the same phone with slightly updated software and different branding. The phone is light, pretty, sturdy, and useful. It even comes with POP3 email software! My one complaint is that the software sometimes responds a bit slowly compared to modern phones (it was released 5 years ago), and sometimes requires more clicks than seems necessary to perform something. But look into it, you can still find it brand new on ebay for around $50 with shipping, unlocked and everything. Oh, and I only charge it every three or so days, as compared to every night with my other phones. That right there is reason enough to get it for me.

Here's a link to an ebay auction for it, do a little searching and you can probably find it brand new for about the same price (that's what I did).

1) Expectations too high?

It seems like a lot of people now seem to have rather low expectations of the device feature wise, with not many other specific details ironed out. And so what people are really looking forward to with the Apple iPhone is a well designed product with intuitive gestures, which they will probably deliver on from hands-on accounts. Does no-one think what expectations would have been like with only FCC leaked rumors abounding?

All of the points he raised are valid (as far as well know) in terms of other smart phone features the iPhone does not seem to have (ignoring what the iPhone does have the others do not) but refute the point that announcing the iphone at the keynote raised expectations too high; instead it seems it set them to a reasonable level instead of stratospheric guesses.

2) Sales expectations too high?

Possibly, but perhaps the real internal projections are higher and Apple is giving a conservative estimate, just as they do with iPods every quarter. In fact ten million units sold in a year and a half does not seem like an overly unrealistic goal given than the iPhone can create "cross-switchers" - people who are tired of a phone and an iPod being seperate, and want both in one. Or people who want a smart phone and dislike the current selection. People keep harping on the price yet Apple sells way more iPods than that at pretty high prices every quarter, so even with a service plan you know a lot of people are going to go for it.

3) Jobs gave competitors a head start. Yes, the same head start they would have had anyway from FCC leaks. A non-issue, and a negative spin on the impact unveiling the phone has on other people in the phone space - consider a recent concept video from Nokia that was recently floating around Digg that showed a dual-screen smart phone that they said was a "idea, an example of a phone that might be three or four years off". How is Nokia supposed to compress four years of development into five months and get it FCC approved? The keynote only served as a swift kick in the ass to phone companies that really needed one (Treo, I'm looking at you!!!). As a consumer, I am more than happy at any "head start" that leads to good products sooner rather than later!

4) Jobs undermined Apple TV hype?

This one I kind of agree with, but it was sort of unavoidable really. They had to announce the iPhone to build it, and the iTV release coincided... it won't matter much though if it has good marketing behind it to let people know why they would want or need one. This is where Apple stores are going to have to play a key role I think because people are going to have to see it in action.

5) Jobs put iPod sales at risk?

So which is it man, unrealistic expecations of ten million units sold by the end of 2008, or that it will cannibalize existing iPod sales? That the device is so different means it more expands the realm of iPod buyers rather than clearcuts any particular category of existing iPods. People buying the 30/80GB iPods won't care - the storage is too smal. People buying Nanos and Minis for the gymn or purse will not care, as they are a lot cheaper. It's really for people that want a PDA with an innovative interface that also happens to be really good at playing music.

6) Jobs wrecked Cisco talks

Perhaps - but perhaps Apple lawyers came to the realization the night before that Cisco doesn't really have a valid claim on the name after all! Why pay now if there's a chance you don't have to pay at all? That may be a correct observation - but deliberate.

Sony Ericson makes hideous phones, in my opinion. They may have nice hardware, but the software is simply terrible.

Does anyone have a clue about the dimensions of the thing? I currently own an old Sony-Ericsson T100 and most modern phones are way bigger and heavier. If it isn't, it might actually be an interesting gadget, since I've been annoyed by a couple of design choices made for my phone - a non-issue for an open-source phone...

Your wish is the market's command: http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=753 95

"A demonstration has been made that using specialized hardware, the signal can be intercepted from up to 69 feet."

Is this anything like the BlueSniper?

My quite old Nokia 8310 is smaller, and the Nokia 8210 I had five years ago is lighter - and you can get smaller yet these days, such as this little 44g thing.

By the way, this site has a pretty nifty 'compare size' function (on top of the images:) http://www.esato.com/phones/index.php/phone=23,cp= 141

"Look, I love Nintendo (and I mean *love*) as much the next /.er, but did i miss the joke? Or is this TV remote thing actually intentional? In that case, I prefer Sony's version. http://www.esato.com/board/img.php?id=35821"

You wouldn't prefer playing the next Metroid game with Sony's 'version'.

Btw, just in case it isn't clear enough, yes you did miss something. Comparing this to the CDi, Sony, or Intellivision controller is like comparing an iPod to a mini-disc player. I'd recommend going to cube.ign.com and checking out the demo video Nintendo put together.

Look, I love Nintendo (and I mean *love*) as much the next /.er, but did i miss the joke? Or is this TV remote thing actually intentional? In that case, I prefer Sony's version. http://www.esato.com/board/img.php?id=35821

There are some JAVA MIDP web browsers avaialable, that work ok on the SonyEricsson. You may have to google around for it (or look at the Esato Forum which is a good starting point for all things SonyEricsson http://esato.com/board/

The thing is MIDP ver 1.0 is not very capable, the SE V800 is a MIDP 2.0 compatible phone, which is far more capable, but I dont know if any web browsers are available for MIDP 2.0.

I was going to suggest using the inbuilt browser (I have a SE S700i), which is usually quite good at rendering most web pages, but looking at the fact that you own a V800, it woudl be a Vodafone "bastardised" phone, right? which means its probably been restricted in what it can/cant do.

yeah... but sometimes you get lucky, and get in on a product before they lock out some cool explotable feature, or you get one of the early sony camcorders with supposed X-ray abilities!

You mean to say my Sony Ericsson Flight mode no longer makes sense ??.I want my money back.

And a bigger one here

You know, some of us Americans are using P900's as well. I sure love mine. ;-) The mobile phone sophistication gap that used to exist between Europe and the US has largely been removed in the past couple of years, since GSM has become very wide spread standard on this side of the Atlantic. This has been driven largely by the fact that mobile providers who used to be TDMA based have switched over to GSM.

That is expensive. Well, I was under the impression that cell phone rates were cheap in the US. I remember watching ads for "4000 minutes for 40 USD". Rates in Mexico are just crazy. You get 75 minutes for around 35 USD with no SMS. You need to pay 8 dollars more for that, plus 10 USD for 1MB of GPRS.

There is an old discussion about gprs rates in esato

I got one of these models (actually a previous one the HBH-30) so it's good to see it got highest marks. Actually I don't have a bluetooth phone, I have a mac and I wanted to use it with the voice chat programs like ohphoneX or I guess iChat now.

Anyway, bad luck, OS X doesn't support the right connection mode yet (SCO synchronous connection-oriented) although at the WWDC they hinted that it would be in the next revision IIRC. Until then I'm SOL or looking for other options, I don't really feel like learning how to write an IOKit driver at the moment. So finally I hear about this nifty gadget here and reviewed here which will basically let you connect a bluetooth headset to any kind of 2.5mm jack equipped cell phone / portable phone.

Not quite good enough I'm afraid but actually I figure it will be easy enough to convert the 2.5mm headset jack into two separate plugs (one for mic other for headphones) and plug them into the right jacks in my TiBook. Some instructions are on this discussion board, but actually I think that I might just buy one of the older "hands free car kits" that work through the cassette deck (such as this one or this other one since they're dirt cheap. I'll just splice the casette cable into a regular 3.5mm (aka 1/8") jack. Or whatever. I'm sure radio shack can supply the necessary parts.

Then I'll be able to use my headset with anything! My computer, my camcorder :) hell, maybe I'll dig up a 2.5mm adapter for my ancient but still cool StarTac :-) Why limit yourself to cell phones? ;-)

simon

It looks like it's actually the T600 replacement.

See screenshots here:

http://www.esato.com/reviews/opera.php

There are lots of people using it with Linux already. Just check out the Sony Ericsson forum on Esato. All of Ericsson's mobile phone products that talk the bluetooth protocol work pretty well with Linux. I've got mine to talk to the BlueZ Linux drivers on the first try... I can upload ringer tones, pictures, or sync my address book/calendar without much trouble.

Actually for a more in-depth review check out http://www.esato.com/reviews/opera.php

This page has a bunch of Sony Ericsson forums and review links. Pretty good info about this.

If you're interested in bone ressonance headsets for your mobile phone, be sure to check out the Nextlink Bluespoon. Current product is not yet with bone resssonce technology (yet still the most lightweight bluetooth headset ever), but they will come out with a bone ressonance headset this fall.

And image using Nextlink Bluespoon wireless headsets to listen to your mp3s - each headset weights only 10 grams, yet runs for 8 hours - crazy!

Btw: If you have questions about this headset, head over to this forum, where one of the creators regularly answers questions.