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It's pretty comical that CNET was outraged that Apple--an electronic device designer that develops integrated software--would attempt to deliver a phone, while it thinks it is mission critical for Nintendo--which has only made game consoles--to deliver one.

Perhaps the real business model in danger is that of CNET offering manufacturers advice. CNET doesn't seem to be doing very well at that at all.

UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview

-- If I want to "juggle"

No, the problem is that you have no choice but to juggle because there is no RAM installed in the phones Windows Enthusiasts claim cost so much less than the iPhone. Add in a couple hundred bucks for SD cards (hopefully your phone supports greater than 2GB cards) and you end up with expensive hardware with segmented memory. How ironic! It's like the 80s playing over again, with people defending DOS and the 8086 and a 640K memory map and deriding the Mac because it was a "graphical toy." Who needs a 16 bit processor, 640k should be enough for anybody, etc.

--I can and do wirelessly stream mp3s

Well the iPhone can and does access the intarweb, and can stream anything you can play or watch on an iPod.

-- slide-out keyboard (which, bulk aside, is significantly faster and more accurate...

How is a keyboard "accurate"? Do you really think the iPhone keyboard introduces errors just because you've read the latest talking points? You should pick one up and actually play with it, not just hate it from a distance like Rob Enderle. It smartly figures out what keys you're most likely to hit next and enlarges their virtual targets. And when you spell something wrong, it automatically corrects in a way that isn't in the way. It's pretty smart. It's not a full sized laptop keyboard (which is why I'd like a Bluetooth keyboard for touch typing), but to suggest a thumb keyboard is better is just plain bologna.

I'm not saying you can't like WM, I'm just pained by people announcing that POS HTC-like phones "do everything the iPhone does, plus use an amazing software library!!" when no, they don't do the important things the iPhone does (if they did, we wouldn't be so impressed with the iPhone) and Windows Mobile software is all crap#. Sure its a platform with potential, but it's a crap platform with crap potential. The iPhone is trying to be something great, not just trying to monopolize a new market and make lots of money. WinCE has never aspired to do anything but kill Palm.

# I went over the top most popular Windows Mobile downloads from major sites, and quickly added up $115 of Windows Mobile software that solves problems that shouldn't exist, and another $334 worth of third party software that is bundled for free in the iPhone. That's $449 of popular crapware you don't need to buy on the iPhone: Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software

And really, Microsoft has never really aspired to do anything but kill competitors. What truly great products has it ever delivered that weren't merely imitative? The company has a lock on the majority of the tech world, and what has it contributed? It hates the idea of contributing back, it has no respect for users or their rights (PlaysForSure DRM), it has been horrific to nearly every partner the company has worked with*, and... shoot, how much evidence does it take to point out this company shouldn't have fans?

I'm just blown away that people--who aren't getting paid to prattle about the company--have anything good to say about it. That's an irrational religion. People liking Apple's products because they're easy to use, functional, and fashionable is one thing, and people liking the freedom of GNU is another, but what's the attraction to serving as perpetual beta testers for Microsoft, a company that takes so much and gives so little?

*How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly

-- If I want to "juggle"

No, the problem is that you have no choice but to juggle because there is no RAM installed in the phones Windows Enthusiasts claim cost so much less than the iPhone. Add in a couple hundred bucks for SD cards (hopefully your phone supports greater than 2GB cards) and you end up with expensive hardware with segmented memory. How ironic! It's like the 80s playing over again, with people defending DOS and the 8086 and a 640K memory map and deriding the Mac because it was a "graphical toy." Who needs a 16 bit processor, 640k should be enough for anybody, etc.

--I can and do wirelessly stream mp3s

Well the iPhone can and does access the intarweb, and can stream anything you can play or watch on an iPod.

-- slide-out keyboard (which, bulk aside, is significantly faster and more accurate...

How is a keyboard "accurate"? Do you really think the iPhone keyboard introduces errors just because you've read the latest talking points? You should pick one up and actually play with it, not just hate it from a distance like Rob Enderle. It smartly figures out what keys you're most likely to hit next and enlarges their virtual targets. And when you spell something wrong, it automatically corrects in a way that isn't in the way. It's pretty smart. It's not a full sized laptop keyboard (which is why I'd like a Bluetooth keyboard for touch typing), but to suggest a thumb keyboard is better is just plain bologna.

I'm not saying you can't like WM, I'm just pained by people announcing that POS HTC-like phones "do everything the iPhone does, plus use an amazing software library!!" when no, they don't do the important things the iPhone does (if they did, we wouldn't be so impressed with the iPhone) and Windows Mobile software is all crap#. Sure its a platform with potential, but it's a crap platform with crap potential. The iPhone is trying to be something great, not just trying to monopolize a new market and make lots of money. WinCE has never aspired to do anything but kill Palm.

# I went over the top most popular Windows Mobile downloads from major sites, and quickly added up $115 of Windows Mobile software that solves problems that shouldn't exist, and another $334 worth of third party software that is bundled for free in the iPhone. That's $449 of popular crapware you don't need to buy on the iPhone: Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software

And really, Microsoft has never really aspired to do anything but kill competitors. What truly great products has it ever delivered that weren't merely imitative? The company has a lock on the majority of the tech world, and what has it contributed? It hates the idea of contributing back, it has no respect for users or their rights (PlaysForSure DRM), it has been horrific to nearly every partner the company has worked with*, and... shoot, how much evidence does it take to point out this company shouldn't have fans?

I'm just blown away that people--who aren't getting paid to prattle about the company--have anything good to say about it. That's an irrational religion. People liking Apple's products because they're easy to use, functional, and fashionable is one thing, and people liking the freedom of GNU is another, but what's the attraction to serving as perpetual beta testers for Microsoft, a company that takes so much and gives so little?

*How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly

The iPod handles proprietary free formats (MP3, AAC)
The iPhone handles the same proprietary free formats.

The only insidious proprietary formats on recent music players have been Sony's ATRAC and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and thank god both have been neutralized by the iPod

Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth

You argue many points, but I don't see where you are trying to go with it.

As I noted, Apple had never competed in audio books against Audible, so it partnered with it to use its DRM in that field. Similarly, it would make sense for Apple to partner with an established ebook vendor if it chose to enter that market with the iPod/iPhone. It's not yet obvious that Apple is even interested though.

In contrast, Real and Windows Media are direct competitors to Apple's QuickTime, and so Apple can't be expected to help them out. In particular, Apple has always been against DRM, as it doesn't serve Apple's interests. Steve Jobs' 2003 Rollingstone interview* conveyed the same ideas on DRM as his more recent "Thoughts on Music" that everyone lapped up as if it were some new change in position.

"When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago," Jobs said, "It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."

Apple didn't want Microsoft's DRM infecting the planet, and its a damn good thing Apple had the balls to take on Goliath and cut its head off, or Microsoft would now own media in the same way it owns PC operating systems, PC productivity applications, and PC gaming. Why you are so quick to offer up your media playback freedoms to PlaysForSure just because Microsoft make it "easy to implement" is a puzzle.

Why should Microsoft, a company that has done more to restrict user freedom and hold back the progress of technology than any other in recent history, be given additional control of markets, particularly our culture? Apple's FairPlay established an alternative for commercial music to Windows Media, and has resulted in a real market opening for DRM-free music. Did you imagine that Microsoft was going to open up PlaysForSure after it reached 80% market share?

That's something for "Apple is the new Microsoft!!" Windows Enthusiasts to mull over: would the world be better off with a more cruel, criminal master without any taste, class, or real vision for good products? Because I'd say no.

*Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth

Apple partnered with Audible, which uses its own DRM for audio books. What Apple hasn't done is licensed Real Media or Windows Mobile, as both directly compete against Apple in media playback.

So your example in worrying that Apple wouldn't support NIH DRM (I've never put those acronyms together before) isn't really well founded. If anything, it looks like WebKit is gaining support for a multiple page document container for a web archive format that could work as an open eBook system, with or without DRM (I haven't heard anything about DRM support in it).

Add in Google's book library, and WebKit's composite documents (or Leopard's Notes) could serve as a more open eBook container for readers.

UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview

When you accuse someone of not telling the truth, without every saying what they have ever gotten wrong, it really makes you the liar.

UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview

The "two year contract" is for using the iPhone as a phone. A book reader can't place phone calls, so it doesn't exactly compete with the iPhone in that regard.

What I'd like to know is if the Kindle does the same "white to black to white flash" refresh as the Sony Reader. I have checked the Reader out a couple times, but that screen refresh on every page turn is absolutely a functionality killer. Who'd read a book that flashed on every page turn?

Nobody is comparing the Kindle to the iPhone overall; the idea is simply: does Kindle offer enough in display size and book reading specialization features to compare against a general purpose device like the iPhone, which can already display documents that are highly readable, as well as browse the web (something that can't be done by e-Ink displays) and view graphics in color. The iPhone also offers resolution independence that allows you to adjust the type size you prefer just by finger-zooming.

Remember that Tablet PCs sound like a good idea and deliver "features," but nobody buys them because they don't really do enough of anything you can't do with a regular laptop, and can't match a laptop's features, but they still cost a lot. That's a bad product niche to be in. If Kindle fits the same black hole next to a mobile device like the iPhone (which is a phone + a browser + and iPod: that's the reason its cited here apart from a regular mobile phone), then it will suffer the same fate as the Tablet PC. Sony's Reader doesn't exactly suggest a wild future for the Kindle, but it also doesn't do wireless.

If I'm riding the subway, I'm more likely to pull out an index sized iPhone and scroll through a document than pull out a significantly larger slate. Kindle is too big to fit in a pocket. Hence the idea of asking whether it is going to augment the iPhone or suffer the same fate as the Sony Reader.

I haven't looked at the Kindle in depth yet, but if it's a great product that would make reading more accessible, I'm all for it. I think $400 might be too high of an entry price, as it doesn't offer to replace a similarly priced phone (as does the iPhone), but rather the free nature of begin able to read books. Kindle isn't "$400 vs the $400 iPhone plus subscription fees," it's "$400 investment vs $0 reading physical books."

Even the $400 iPod replaced music players that cost $100-400. People who listen to the radio for free wouldn't have ran out to buy an iPod. I don't know of anyone who currently pays $100s for a device to read books, but most people who bought an iPod were accustomed to buying audio players at significant cost already.

So Kindle doesn't exactly face an easy rollout. Amazon also has no history at delivering hardware, and it looks like something that costs $24 at WalMart (in 1989), not a slick luxury item, but if anyone can market something to book readers, one would suspect it might be Amazon. It's also interesting that it can read newspapers, which perhaps offers more of an advantage in reading over using it to read regular books. Although again, I can read newspapers on the iPhone as they were meant to be displayed, and not just a few participating ones.

What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics.

With customers like you, it's no wonder Palm is going out of business. I'm sure corporate America is desperately trying to deliver awesome products for people who only want to pay a "song" for hardware. Further, your irrational fear of AT&T service is hard to connect with your frugality because the iPhone's service plan is hundreds cheaper than any other smartphone plan.

Somehow I don't think Apple is missing out by your refusal to buy their products. The iPhone is the top selling smartphone model in the world (despite only really being sold in the US so far), and I don't think the foot stomping of a few angry holdouts is really going to turn the tide.

Have fun with your Palm. I really liked them in the late 90s, but they went nowhere and I began hating my Treo daily from about 2004 until I unplugged it and got an iPhone.

The Egregious Incompetence of Palm

Your != You're. You dislike Apple because you are an irrational Windows Enthusiast with blinders on.

The iPhone is not "shiny," it's thin enough to fit in a pocket without looking like you have a boner. It also looks like a professionally designed device, rather than a cheap piece of shit pooped out by Chinese knockoff artists.

If you carry around additional batteries, you now get to look like you have two boners. Is that convenient for Windows Enthusiasts? iPod batteries cost about $15 for DIY service kits, so if the iPhone's battery doesn't last as long as you want to keep it before reselling it for far more than any WinCE phone has ever been sold, you'll pay the same ~$20 for a new battery kit. If you have to pay someone else $100 to replace your battery, then you can.

Yes, QVGA is tiny, but the screen size is similar. So your text looks like crap from five years ago, and the web looks like ass. That's more than a slight miss. It's a major flaw of you POS phone.

Carrying around flash cards is not a feature. You have 1/64th the RAM. You can't play a 2 GB movie from an SD card, nor can you load up with a lot of music, a movie, several TV programs, and still have lots of space for email. Having a tiny amount of Flash is not a feature. Shame on you for calling me the "fanboy" here. You're defending the idea that spending several extra hundred dollars on easy to lose, easy to wipe, problematic to juggle Flash cards is a "feature." That's bullshit.

What content would I want to play, H.263 Divx? Windows Monopoly Player? Why not take advantage of the latest H.264 hardware encoding rather than "enjoy the freedom" of using a bunch of inferior codecs? Apple only pushed its users to the latest thing for efficiency. QuickTime/iTunes/Handbrake can convert pretty much anything to H.264, where it plays optimally on everything from the Nano to the iPhone to Apple TV, as well as any other modern device. Why would I want to piss around with a bunch of old codecs or the latest DRM from Microsoft? There's nothing open about proprietary alternatives. I can get more free content in H.264, and I can encode my own stuff too.

Windows Media browsers have nothing on mobile Safari. It also does multiple pages/tabs (8) without eating up screen real estate to do it. You get far more viewable area, resolution independent zoom, and better bookmark integration + syncing with your desktop. You also get an RSS feed reader for mobile navigation, and can play back audio or video podcasts live, as well as media embedded in pages.

You can talk about "typos" because you've been trained to pull up the dittohead bullshit by your talking point wags, but you've obviously never used an iPhone, because within an hour you can type faster and more accurately than on a clumsy chicklet keyboard that can only be driven using thumbs. I'd like to be able to pair a Bluetooth keyboard to have mini laptop replacement, but you can hold onto you lameo slide out keyboard, as I'd rather have a phone half as thick than twice as lame.

Your Google Maps client is significantly inferior to the iPhones, which you'd know if you'd ever used both.

As I said, there are advantages you can claim on other phones, but usability and software superiority are not among them. The fact that you are making excuses for a dumpy piece of junk indicates it's not me who is the irrational fanboy.

The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Well we know for sure that the iPhone wasn't faked, plus it's a lot more useful to individuals than having a few people spend a week going a long ways to bring back sand. A million people didn't willingly pay $400-500 to get in on the moon landing.

UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview

Your HTC Herald/Atlas can do some things the iPhone can't do, but it actually can't do everything the iPhone can, so please stop saying this.

It can't look cool: it's twice as thick as the iPhone and looks cheap and plasticky.
It can't deliver 8 hours of talk time.
It can't run anything beyond Windows Mobile, which is a joke.
It can't display more than 240x320 (that's the iPod resolution, not the iPhone resolution: 320x480)
It can't store more than 128 MB Flash without juggling around SD cards, vs 8,192 MB of Flash on the iPhone (64 x as much)
It can't navigate photos or music or menus like the iPhone's multitouch display, and its media apps are no match for the iPhone's.
It can't play or download iTunes content and there's no integrated, free source for H.264 podcasts and other content.
It can't display a functional view of the web with resolution independence.
It can't display HTML emails in a real email client that works well.
It can't do Visual Voicemail.
It can't be navigated with a single button and screen taps. You have a half dozen buttons on the face alone.
It can't be used with an onscreen keyboard, so you have to slide out a chicklet keyboard that is impossible to type upon.
It can't use slick Google integration to pull up nearby searches and map them at all similar to the iPhone's Maps.

HTC can do some things an iPhone can't do, so if you want to brag things up, here's what to say:

You can edit spreadsheets and word documents within a QVGA display.
You can use a variety of proprietary IM services, including Yahoo, AOL, and MSN.
You can buy several hundred dollars of third party WM apps to match some of the features of the iPhone.
You can access your Exchange Server calendar OTA.
You can have your phone remotely terminated by your boss when he fires you.

UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview

What about albums shifting to MP3s? It seems like what's needed is a reliable, simple way to convert books into ebooks. Publishers seem to think they can charge $10 for an ebook, which seems too high. Pricing ebooks at around $5 and creating a volume market might help increase literacy too. Also, creating a format that makes it easy convert desktop documents + PDFs and use content in fair ways would also propel ebook adoption rather than burying it again as Sony's Reader did.

Seriously, wasn't anyone paying attention to what made the iPod work? It wasn't a DRM money train chugging from the iTunes Store, charging more than the price of CDs. It was a thoughtfully designed device with good integration and the ability to use people's existing content.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Part of the reason for bullshit legalese in EULAs and other warnings is to cover the asses of technology companies that are regularly sued over frivolous nuisance cases because people--and particularly Americans--reserve the right to be morons and expect companies to bail them out after doing moronic things.

By putting disclaimers in a long winded EULA, the consumer at least knows the extend to which the company may go. The alternative to an EULA claiming an agreement that allows a vendor to exchange and collect specific kinds of data would be either not having any clue of possibilities, or not having access to features that might outweigh potential issues.

Do you want the government controlling what services a vendor can offer? Do you want to have no warnings at all? It sounds like you want to have everything with no personal accountability and yet retail the rights to mount frivolous lawsuits over bullshit. Incidentally, that's also why you have to live in a world of bullshit legalese.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Since you can't use the iPhone without a service plan, you'd have to set up service in order to be put in the terrifying position of sending your mobile's address to Apple's servers to obtain information service updates.

There is no crisis involving second hand sales, because owning the hardware does not result in the panic and fretted about in the post. It's only reason for CONCERN if you sign up for service, at which time you have to walk through the EULA trapdoor yourself.

Concern is the new fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Most people with Grave Concerns love Apple and own all of its products. But lately, they've just been very, very concerned. Things don't add up, and its all very frightening. In most cases, the safest thing is to run back to Microsoft, where at least you know you're being spied upon every two weeks with Window Genuine Advantage. Nothing to worry about.

Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic

OS X isn't faster because Intel Macs have EFI firmware, it's faster largely because it loads services in parallel.

In early releases, it it displayed a progress bar during system loading, along with the name of the service that was loading. With Tiger (?) the progress bar was just a timer, and it stopped displaying the names of loaded services because there wasn't time, and because things were all loading concurrently. In Leopard, there is no progress bar. It just loads the window server and then it's up.

Microsoft can optimize resource loading and speed up the parsing of the Registry, but its not going to achieve OS X-like speed without major changes to the architecture of Windows. Given the reception to changes in Vista (say, driver model changes), that's going to be difficult to pull off. And "OS loading time" is among the least important of the problems to fix in Windows. Microsoft should start over and force a transition to a good OS before it loses its monopoly position. It's not like the company has loyal users to reply upon.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

OS X goes from sleep to functional in less than 3 seconds. I goes from sleep to "looks like its awake" instantly.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

We do not have pure capitalism (any more than we have pure democracy) in the US, and few other countries really approach a system where money is the only thing that makes things happen.

Just as we have a representative democracy, we have a regulated capitalist economy. That means you can't say, "fine, you don't like aspects of the brutality of capitalism, well tell us how to replace it entirely!!!"

We need to constantly adjust how our economy works so we have the right mix of regulation (too much is a planned economy that we know is a failure, and too little is a slave labor state with old ladies thrown out into the street, a popular culture owned by mega corporations, and a population of humans that have no social security or health care; both extremes are bad).

What the OP was likely bringing up is that "capitalism" is frequently extolled as a golden god that does no wrong and should never be questioned or reformed or regulated in any way. That is clearly not true, the the OP is giving a real example of the ills of a "Capital Is Everything" system.

The alternative to brutal capitalism is not "communism," just because the Rupert Murdoch channel wants you to think so. It is possible to have a capitalist state with controls and regulations that assist the weak in our society and provide social services for everyone without resorting to a planned economy and a communist revolution that turns labor into an all singing all dancing peasant class.

In particular, the US is in no danger of falling to communism, but is already teetering on the brink of a corporatist state where the government exists primarily to enforce copyright law and dole out corporate welfare. That's fascism, and it's just as scary as communism.

Anyone who defends pure capitalism as a perfect system devised by Jeebus and refers to anyone seeking reform as leftists and commies has fallen to the right wing propaganda machine. The US needs to purge those people out of control just as Germany did after the war.

Kevin Poulsen Attacks Ron Paul, iPhone, Mac Users In a Single Broad Brush of Wired Incompetence.

Warning! You are using talking points that have expired.

The talking point that the iPhone lacked a "real keyboard" and was unusable slow to use has ended. Nobody can be expected to believe this anymore.

The new talking point is that the iPhone's keyboard generates typos and is "not any faster" than phones with mini chicklet keys.

The differences are subtle, but please stick to the talking points you are given. There's no way we can fight the iPhone without your cooperation in chanting the same complaints incessantly. We have to keep the public constantly aware that Apple's product is a direct threat to everyone in the market, regardless of whether they choose to buy it or not.

The F in FUD isn't for "Fucking Around," so get your shit together soldier.

- Ministry of Defense in the War on iPhone

Join Kevin Poulsen in the War on iPhone. Our advertising dollars are at stake here soldier.

I was wondering when this was going to happen. Everytime Microsoft releases a "less than expected" OS they have to find a way to pump the vaporware to keep as many folks from looking at Linux and Apple as possible. And with Vista being such a lame duck that even MS fanboys are starting to call it "WinME II" I knew they'd have to come up with a new vaporware to keep folks from looking away from the mistake that is Vista. For those who haven't read their history in this regard, I strongly recommend The Yellow Road to Cairo.

Which doesn't mean its not shit, of course.

Also, NYT's Pogue and WSJ's Mossberg are both bending backwards in their attempts to look "fair," making limp complaints about Apple and trying to give garbage credit for not being on fire. Pogue reviewed the Palm Centro and danced with it like it was something other than the cheap piece of recycled shit it is, dressed up in childish candy reminiscent of the toilet seat iBooks from a half decade ago.

No review can make Windows Mobile look like less of a failure than it is. Microsoft didn't bother to use WinCE in the Xbox or in the UMPC, the very handheld PC application WinCE was supposed to be designed expressly for. Windows Mobile is simply an attempt to recycle failure, and it deserves to die. Google's Android just vacuumed away its remaining oxygen.

The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Actually France sued the iPod and forced Apple to release an iPod firmware version that limited the volume. I refuse to believe Americans haven't sued over similar "OMG I listed to volumes that were too loud and now I want money."

Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth After years of looking foolish for parading out model after model of embarrassing junk as the next iPod Killer, the seas of punditry have given up on finding an iPod Killer, and have instead sought to identify an iTunes Killer.

Isn't that the role of a market based economy to figure out? If consumers want basic phones, they'll buy them. If they want the ability to watch movies and take photos, they buy that.

Are you suggesting the government should decree what phones should be made available to the people? Perhaps a committee of experts could set standards of acceptable products.

Incidentally, the reason camera stores don't sell phones is also related to supply and demand.

Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic Apple officially announced plans to release a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch in February. That pulls the rug from under the harping wags who have tried to conflate Apple's security efforts with the persecution of third party developers.

Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.

Of course, that's far less sensationalist and fashionable to complain about than whining that Apple delivered the future of mobile phones at a consumer price.

The Great Google gPhone Myth
Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.

Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.

Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.

But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.

Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.

No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.

Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.

What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.

What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking
Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.

Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.

But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.

Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.

No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.

Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.

What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.

What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking
Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

I don't know what's sadder, your "opinion" being an interjection common to 14 year old girls, or the fact that another Slashdot moron moderated you as "insightful" for bothering to type it.

Thanks for making the world a stupider place, I was afraid of the potential of human endeavor until you came along.

Why Leopard's Time Machine Doesn't Support AirPort Disks

Every phone is super expensive over any period of time.

Service fees cost far more than mobile hardware. It's just that no corporations benefitted from pointing this out before Apple turned the industry upside down, eviscerating other hardware makers while totally skewering the service providers by forcing them to allow a WiFi mobile without a fake subsidy shell game advertisement.

Suddenly, the idea that mobile phones cost over $1000 a year to use became a factoid attached to Apple, as if everyone doesn't already pay $50-100 or more for their mobile plan (most US plans start around $80/month with taxes).

So thanks for your astroturfing efforts. The iPhone must be the same as a Shuffle and a POS Nokia, because you put in a graphic next to your crack pipe.

"it's also prohibitively expensive and probably illegal to smoke out the entire Internet every time Windows Enthusiasts print one of their articles. So as a public service announcement, I'm going to simply ask Zoon Awardees Mary Jo Foley, Mike Elgan, Dan Lyons, Joe Wilcox, and Paul Thurrott, along with all the other members of the Zoon Awards Hall of Shame, to please stop spreading false information."

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

It's funny you'd credit the N95 for having "expandable memory" as a feature. Why not point out that it only offers 0.125 GB RAM, compared to 8 GB of RAM in the iPhone (64 x as much memory). The iPhone doesn't desperately need an SD card slot because it already has as much RAM as you can possibly fit into the N95, without buying an extra $250 8 GB SD card. Of course, if the iPhone had an SD Card slot, the pundits would be attacking it as a "Security flaw!!"

From that perspective, the "potential for buying a handful of memory cards" so you can listen to music or take photos is the opposite of a "feature."

A main reason why the iPhone has so much more RAM than any other phone is that it is designed to actually do useful things, not just offer a long bullet point list of features. The popularity of the iPod suggests people like to listen to music and watch movies and podcasts. The N95 not only has an inferior display, but also offers no multitouch interface for browsing photos from your real camera synced in from iTunes, flipping through music, or watching movies. But the N95 also doesn't have enough memory to play back a movie (and still do anything else).

It's fine for you to act out devotion to Nokia, and the company has lots of fans, but the iPhone is designed for a different market: people who are more likely to listen to music, share photo albums, and browse the web, rather than enjoy the hoarding of SD cards and extra batteries, engage in mobile phone play-photography, or get lost in the woods in circumstances where 30 minutes of GPS would prove to be helpful.

Incidentally, that's also why the N95 can be cheaper if you line up the right subsidy (batteries & SD cards not included). Fortunately, we both have a choice to get whatever we want. It's not like Apple or Nokia are going to run each other out of business in a Microsoft-like fashion, so all the high pitched advocacy really isn't necessary.

iPhone OS X Architecture: the Mach Kernel and RAM

The ironically named HTC "Advantage" is a book-shaped small PC with a chicklet keyboard, not a music/movie/web handheld mobile like the iPhone.

It also runs WinCE, which is an absolute joke and you know it. What comparison are you making?

The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Apple is making money on the iPhone, but it's still cheaper for Americans than crappier phones, which appear cheaper with upfront subsidy shell game tricks, but which really cost more.

Steve Ballmer make a big deal about "how expensive" the $500 iPhone was compared to the Windows Mobile Motorola Q, which is sometimes advertised for $99. But that wasn't a true comparison, because the iPhone does a lot more (which is why people want it and are not buying the Q), has a lot more RAM (8 GB vs 0.125 GB of every other mobile on the market) and is a lot easier to sync. The biggest problem with comparing subsidy prices is that Apple contracted to get a cheaper contract from AT&T, so while Apple might be making more than Motorola, consumers are also paying less. When including two years of service, the iPhone is a couple hundred less vs the Q from Verizon.

And then Apple lowered the iPhone's price and gave users a $100 rebate, making the iPhone now $300-400 less to own and use than the dumpy Q over 2 years. The Q doesn't even offer a touch screen and can't browse the web worth crap, and has no RAM capacity to listen to a few songs, let alone watch a movie on a larger screen.

You don't have to prefer the iPhone to get why people are paying any upfront premium for it, and saving money over the long run. Trying to suggest it's overpriced and ripping off Americans just makes you look like a fraud. You might be able to line up a cheaper deal on phones in the UK or elsewhere, but the iPhone is still a pioneering mobile that does a lot no other phone can. It's not just a gimmick like the LG Prada (which is EDGE only, no WiFi, but is sold in Europe), or a the Nokia N95, which has a lot of bullet point features, but is pretty rough around the edges and certainly not nearly as slick as the iPhone. Nokia expects you to carry around a handful of SD cards to do anything useful on the N95, in addition to a handful of batteries if you want to use its toy GPS.

Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 1 - Phony Rage About iPhone Price and Profits

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Apple is making money on the iPhone, but it's still cheaper for Americans than crappier phones, which appear cheaper with upfront subsidy shell game tricks, but which really cost more.

Steve Ballmer make a big deal about "how expensive" the $500 iPhone was compared to the Windows Mobile Motorola Q, which is sometimes advertised for $99. But that wasn't a true comparison, because the iPhone does a lot more (which is why people want it and are not buying the Q), has a lot more RAM (8 GB vs 0.125 GB of every other mobile on the market) and is a lot easier to sync. The biggest problem with comparing subsidy prices is that Apple contracted to get a cheaper contract from AT&T, so while Apple might be making more than Motorola, consumers are also paying less. When including two years of service, the iPhone is a couple hundred less vs the Q from Verizon.

And then Apple lowered the iPhone's price and gave users a $100 rebate, making the iPhone now $300-400 less to own and use than the dumpy Q over 2 years. The Q doesn't even offer a touch screen and can't browse the web worth crap, and has no RAM capacity to listen to a few songs, let alone watch a movie on a larger screen.

You don't have to prefer the iPhone to get why people are paying any upfront premium for it, and saving money over the long run. Trying to suggest it's overpriced and ripping off Americans just makes you look like a fraud. You might be able to line up a cheaper deal on phones in the UK or elsewhere, but the iPhone is still a pioneering mobile that does a lot no other phone can. It's not just a gimmick like the LG Prada (which is EDGE only, no WiFi, but is sold in Europe), or a the Nokia N95, which has a lot of bullet point features, but is pretty rough around the edges and certainly not nearly as slick as the iPhone. Nokia expects you to carry around a handful of SD cards to do anything useful on the N95, in addition to a handful of batteries if you want to use its toy GPS.

Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 1 - Phony Rage About iPhone Price and Profits

Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

You actually got that backwards. There's nothing "unethical about using marketshare [sic] power" if you have a natural monopoly, because governments (supposedly) regulate them (nationalized gas/phone utilities or local cable monopolies, for example). Any company that uses its market share power to prevent competition is running afoul of antitrust laws.

It's not about competing, it's about preventing competition. Microsoft has never competed well in a level playing field. It has only ever won markets through stealing IP, setting up contracts to prevent competition, and then using its sales to pay off lawsuits later. Microsoft has swept $25,000,000,000 of "corporate level losses" under the table in the last half decade, much of which went to anti-trust lawsuits and settlements. Microsoft spends far more propping up its criminal activities than any drug dealer. Shilling for this company only makes you look equally disingenuous.

Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits

For Microsoft Apologists, anything is fair up until a company outside of Microsoft does it. It's fine for Microsoft to bundle apps with its monopoly operating system in violation of its consent decree, but if Apple ships iTunes for iPods, that's suddenly a "monopoly" that needs to be stopped.

It's an "outrageous scandal" when Sony installs a root kit to enforce DRM, but when Microsoft builds even more limiting DRM into the OS and bars the user from working around it, it's "a vibrant opportunity to to experience rich media."

Seriously, it's impossible to take your religion seriously. Microsoft is a criminal organization that has to bribe the world to continue in servitude to its third rate products. What motivates you to make excuses for such greedy, arrogant, and technologically backward jokers?

RDM

You actually got that backwards. There's nothing "unethical about using marketshare [sic] power" if you have a natural monopoly, because governments (supposedly) regulate them (nationalized gas/phone utilities or local cable monopolies, for example). Any company that uses its market share power to prevent competition is running afoul of antitrust laws.

It's not about competing, it's about preventing competition. Microsoft has never competed well in a level playing field. It has only ever won markets through stealing IP, setting up contracts to prevent competition, and then using its sales to pay off lawsuits later. Microsoft has swept $25,000,000,000 of "corporate level losses" under the table in the last half decade, much of which went to anti-trust lawsuits and settlements. Microsoft spends far more propping up its criminal activities than any drug dealer. Shilling for this company only makes you look equally disingenuous.

Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits

For Microsoft Apologists, anything is fair up until a company outside of Microsoft does it. It's fine for Microsoft to bundle apps with its monopoly operating system in violation of its consent decree, but if Apple ships iTunes for iPods, that's suddenly a "monopoly" that needs to be stopped.

It's an "outrageous scandal" when Sony installs a root kit to enforce DRM, but when Microsoft builds even more limiting DRM into the OS and bars the user from working around it, it's "a vibrant opportunity to to experience rich media."

Seriously, it's impossible to take your religion seriously. Microsoft is a criminal organization that has to bribe the world to continue in servitude to its third rate products. What motivates you to make excuses for such greedy, arrogant, and technologically backward jokers?

RDM

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD "tapes" are cheaper--they are both prohibitive expensive in -R/-RW versions, and movies on both are quite expensive. If you were really paying attention during the VHS/Betamax wars, the real issues were:

- availability of rental movies (because there was no retail market for movies at reasonable prices until DVD)
- length of recording time (Beta couldn't originally do an hour and a half on a single tape)
- other features (VHS integrated a clock for time shifting).

Format Wars in Home Theater

None of those issues really apply to BR or HD-DVD. You also gloss over the fact that Sony helped to develop both CD and DVD, in your attempts to suggest that Sony has only ever failed with Betamax and MiniDisc. That sounds like "concern FUD."

The real failures that are relevant today are SA-CD and DVD-Audio, both of which tried to sneak in new DRM under the premise of delivering HD audio content. Sound familiar? Here's a hint: BR and HD-DVD are doing the same thing for video.

What's really shocking is how badly both are selling. Both sides are chatting up how they're in the lead, but combined together, both couldn't manage to sell more than a million players by this summer. That's ZUNE-like! Each have sold about 300,000 stand alone players up to this summer.

The only clear winner is Sony's bundled PS3, which purposely tagged along a BR drive to create an installed base for BR and drop the price of manufacturing. That means there are lots more BR players, but only because of the PS3:

Blu-Ray: 7.3 million
300,000 standalone
7,000,000 PS3 bundled

HD-DVD: 0.3 million
150,000 standalone
150,000 Xbox 360 optional disc player units

That isn't good on either side. Neither format delivers anything that couldn't be done with DVDs using H.264. Who needs PC-style navigation or 20 hours of "extra features" when you can easily put an HD movie on DVD? The only reason for either format to exist is to sell stronger DRM under the guise of HD, and to resell everyone the movies they already own.

As for all the astroturfing about the "Sony root kit," remember that Microsoft's Windows Media is the same thing, you just voluntarily install it. Running from Sony into the arms of Microsoft, which facilitated the Sony root kit in Windows after launching Bill Gate's DRM wet dream of Palladium--well, its obvious that you're all frauds. Come on, Microsoft has never supported anything open or consumer-friendly.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

Is a Root Kit only evil if its installed by an evil third party, but "A-OK" if its shoehorned in by Microsoft? Because WGA and WMA are both exactly the same thing as Sony's third party root kit, it's just that Microsoft additionally uses its access to send home data on top. Spyware + Root Kit DRM. The Windows Enthusiasts don't seem to mind getting bent over by Microsoft, but sure have a lot to say about DRM from anyone else.

Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 9 Apple Is Spying on Users!

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD "tapes" are cheaper--they are both prohibitive expensive in -R/-RW versions, and movies on both are quite expensive. If you were really paying attention during the VHS/Betamax wars, the real issues were:

- availability of rental movies (because there was no retail market for movies at reasonable prices until DVD)
- length of recording time (Beta couldn't originally do an hour and a half on a single tape)
- other features (VHS integrated a clock for time shifting).

Format Wars in Home Theater

None of those issues really apply to BR or HD-DVD. You also gloss over the fact that Sony helped to develop both CD and DVD, in your attempts to suggest that Sony has only ever failed with Betamax and MiniDisc. That sounds like "concern FUD."

The real failures that are relevant today are SA-CD and DVD-Audio, both of which tried to sneak in new DRM under the premise of delivering HD audio content. Sound familiar? Here's a hint: BR and HD-DVD are doing the same thing for video.

What's really shocking is how badly both are selling. Both sides are chatting up how they're in the lead, but combined together, both couldn't manage to sell more than a million players by this summer. That's ZUNE-like! Each have sold about 300,000 stand alone players up to this summer.

The only clear winner is Sony's bundled PS3, which purposely tagged along a BR drive to create an installed base for BR and drop the price of manufacturing. That means there are lots more BR players, but only because of the PS3:

Blu-Ray: 7.3 million
300,000 standalone
7,000,000 PS3 bundled

HD-DVD: 0.3 million
150,000 standalone
150,000 Xbox 360 optional disc player units

That isn't good on either side. Neither format delivers anything that couldn't be done with DVDs using H.264. Who needs PC-style navigation or 20 hours of "extra features" when you can easily put an HD movie on DVD? The only reason for either format to exist is to sell stronger DRM under the guise of HD, and to resell everyone the movies they already own.

As for all the astroturfing about the "Sony root kit," remember that Microsoft's Windows Media is the same thing, you just voluntarily install it. Running from Sony into the arms of Microsoft, which facilitated the Sony root kit in Windows after launching Bill Gate's DRM wet dream of Palladium--well, its obvious that you're all frauds. Come on, Microsoft has never supported anything open or consumer-friendly.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

Is a Root Kit only evil if its installed by an evil third party, but "A-OK" if its shoehorned in by Microsoft? Because WGA and WMA are both exactly the same thing as Sony's third party root kit, it's just that Microsoft additionally uses its access to send home data on top. Spyware + Root Kit DRM. The Windows Enthusiasts don't seem to mind getting bent over by Microsoft, but sure have a lot to say about DRM from anyone else.

Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 9 Apple Is Spying on Users!

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD "tapes" are cheaper--they are both prohibitive expensive in -R/-RW versions, and movies on both are quite expensive. If you were really paying attention during the VHS/Betamax wars, the real issues were:

- availability of rental movies (because there was no retail market for movies at reasonable prices until DVD)
- length of recording time (Beta couldn't originally do an hour and a half on a single tape)
- other features (VHS integrated a clock for time shifting).

Format Wars in Home Theater

None of those issues really apply to BR or HD-DVD. You also gloss over the fact that Sony helped to develop both CD and DVD, in your attempts to suggest that Sony has only ever failed with Betamax and MiniDisc. That sounds like "concern FUD."

The real failures that are relevant today are SA-CD and DVD-Audio, both of which tried to sneak in new DRM under the premise of delivering HD audio content. Sound familiar? Here's a hint: BR and HD-DVD are doing the same thing for video.

What's really shocking is how badly both are selling. Both sides are chatting up how they're in the lead, but combined together, both couldn't manage to sell more than a million players by this summer. That's ZUNE-like! Each have sold about 300,000 stand alone players up to this summer.

The only clear winner is Sony's bundled PS3, which purposely tagged along a BR drive to create an installed base for BR and drop the price of manufacturing. That means there are lots more BR players, but only because of the PS3:

Blu-Ray: 7.3 million
300,000 standalone
7,000,000 PS3 bundled

HD-DVD: 0.3 million
150,000 standalone
150,000 Xbox 360 optional disc player units

That isn't good on either side. Neither format delivers anything that couldn't be done with DVDs using H.264. Who needs PC-style navigation or 20 hours of "extra features" when you can easily put an HD movie on DVD? The only reason for either format to exist is to sell stronger DRM under the guise of HD, and to resell everyone the movies they already own.

As for all the astroturfing about the "Sony root kit," remember that Microsoft's Windows Media is the same thing, you just voluntarily install it. Running from Sony into the arms of Microsoft, which facilitated the Sony root kit in Windows after launching Bill Gate's DRM wet dream of Palladium--well, its obvious that you're all frauds. Come on, Microsoft has never supported anything open or consumer-friendly.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

Is a Root Kit only evil if its installed by an evil third party, but "A-OK" if its shoehorned in by Microsoft? Because WGA and WMA are both exactly the same thing as Sony's third party root kit, it's just that Microsoft additionally uses its access to send home data on top. Spyware + Root Kit DRM. The Windows Enthusiasts don't seem to mind getting bent over by Microsoft, but sure have a lot to say about DRM from anyone else.

Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 9 Apple Is Spying on Users!

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD "tapes" are cheaper--they are both prohibitive expensive in -R/-RW versions, and movies on both are quite expensive. If you were really paying attention during the VHS/Betamax wars, the real issues were:

- availability of rental movies (because there was no retail market for movies at reasonable prices until DVD)
- length of recording time (Beta couldn't originally do an hour and a half on a single tape)
- other features (VHS integrated a clock for time shifting).

Format Wars in Home Theater

None of those issues really apply to BR or HD-DVD. You also gloss over the fact that Sony helped to develop both CD and DVD, in your attempts to suggest that Sony has only ever failed with Betamax and MiniDisc. That sounds like "concern FUD."

The real failures that are relevant today are SA-CD and DVD-Audio, both of which tried to sneak in new DRM under the premise of delivering HD audio content. Sound familiar? Here's a hint: BR and HD-DVD are doing the same thing for video.

What's really shocking is how badly both are selling. Both sides are chatting up how they're in the lead, but combined together, both couldn't manage to sell more than a million players by this summer. That's ZUNE-like! Each have sold about 300,000 stand alone players up to this summer.

The only clear winner is Sony's bundled PS3, which purposely tagged along a BR drive to create an installed base for BR and drop the price of manufacturing. That means there are lots more BR players, but only because of the PS3:

Blu-Ray: 7.3 million
300,000 standalone
7,000,000 PS3 bundled

HD-DVD: 0.3 million
150,000 standalone
150,000 Xbox 360 optional disc player units

That isn't good on either side. Neither format delivers anything that couldn't be done with DVDs using H.264. Who needs PC-style navigation or 20 hours of "extra features" when you can easily put an HD movie on DVD? The only reason for either format to exist is to sell stronger DRM under the guise of HD, and to resell everyone the movies they already own.

As for all the astroturfing about the "Sony root kit," remember that Microsoft's Windows Media is the same thing, you just voluntarily install it. Running from Sony into the arms of Microsoft, which facilitated the Sony root kit in Windows after launching Bill Gate's DRM wet dream of Palladium--well, its obvious that you're all frauds. Come on, Microsoft has never supported anything open or consumer-friendly.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

Is a Root Kit only evil if its installed by an evil third party, but "A-OK" if its shoehorned in by Microsoft? Because WGA and WMA are both exactly the same thing as Sony's third party root kit, it's just that Microsoft additionally uses its access to send home data on top. Spyware + Root Kit DRM. The Windows Enthusiasts don't seem to mind getting bent over by Microsoft, but sure have a lot to say about DRM from anyone else.

Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 9 Apple Is Spying on Users!

Apple included SMS texting on the iPhone, but delivered an email client that can attach photos, completely obsolescing MMS "picture messaging," as emails are free with unlimited data/WiFi. The result was an outraged complaint that the iPhone doesn't support MMS for 10 cent/message charges.

It similarly defaults to sending your Notes to Mail, not SMS, encouraging users to use free email rather than pay-per-text SMS. More complaints.

-

As for Dvorak and "nobody cares about smartphones," the growth in smartphones was far higher than basic phones even before the iPhone:

"IDC says smartphones are growing at a rate of more than 46% each year, compared to standard mobile growth of 21%. "

And no, Dvorak has never been right. When he and other flacks talked about Macs moving to Intel, it was first impossible because of the non-portability of Mac software (Star Trek project of the late 80s could run the Mac OS on PCs, but all software would have to be recompiled and redesigned for flipped endian processors, the same problem that nailed any hope for a cross platform NT), and then because Apple had to support the classic Mac OS software (NeXT/Rhapsody worked fine on PCs, but it couldn't run Office and Photoshop, which is why people used Macs and not NeXT in the first place).

Dvorak et all then changed their tune to Itanium, thinking the industry would move to IA64, when nobody did. Ironically, Apple delivers the EFI PC hardware that PC makers never got around to delivering, using AMD's 64-bit architecture instead.

It's easy to wish for the obvious (if impossible) and then give yourself credit for "predicting" that somebody else would actually engineer a similar solution. Is there anyone who was alive between 1984 and 2006 to whom "the thought of PCs and Macs running the same processor" did not occur?

Why Apple hasn't used Intel processors before.

Dvoark seemingly never been right, apart from the time he explained how he baits readers with sensationalism to get people upset so they "write his followup article for him."

Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC

WYE, WYG: Taking Out the Trash Talkers

Apple included SMS texting on the iPhone, but delivered an email client that can attach photos, completely obsolescing MMS "picture messaging," as emails are free with unlimited data/WiFi. The result was an outraged complaint that the iPhone doesn't support MMS for 10 cent/message charges.

It similarly defaults to sending your Notes to Mail, not SMS, encouraging users to use free email rather than pay-per-text SMS. More complaints.

-

As for Dvorak and "nobody cares about smartphones," the growth in smartphones was far higher than basic phones even before the iPhone:

"IDC says smartphones are growing at a rate of more than 46% each year, compared to standard mobile growth of 21%. "

And no, Dvorak has never been right. When he and other flacks talked about Macs moving to Intel, it was first impossible because of the non-portability of Mac software (Star Trek project of the late 80s could run the Mac OS on PCs, but all software would have to be recompiled and redesigned for flipped endian processors, the same problem that nailed any hope for a cross platform NT), and then because Apple had to support the classic Mac OS software (NeXT/Rhapsody worked fine on PCs, but it couldn't run Office and Photoshop, which is why people used Macs and not NeXT in the first place).

Dvorak et all then changed their tune to Itanium, thinking the industry would move to IA64, when nobody did. Ironically, Apple delivers the EFI PC hardware that PC makers never got around to delivering, using AMD's 64-bit architecture instead.

It's easy to wish for the obvious (if impossible) and then give yourself credit for "predicting" that somebody else would actually engineer a similar solution. Is there anyone who was alive between 1984 and 2006 to whom "the thought of PCs and Macs running the same processor" did not occur?

Why Apple hasn't used Intel processors before.

Dvoark seemingly never been right, apart from the time he explained how he baits readers with sensationalism to get people upset so they "write his followup article for him."

Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC

WYE, WYG: Taking Out the Trash Talkers

Apple included SMS texting on the iPhone, but delivered an email client that can attach photos, completely obsolescing MMS "picture messaging," as emails are free with unlimited data/WiFi. The result was an outraged complaint that the iPhone doesn't support MMS for 10 cent/message charges.

It similarly defaults to sending your Notes to Mail, not SMS, encouraging users to use free email rather than pay-per-text SMS. More complaints.

-

As for Dvorak and "nobody cares about smartphones," the growth in smartphones was far higher than basic phones even before the iPhone:

"IDC says smartphones are growing at a rate of more than 46% each year, compared to standard mobile growth of 21%. "

And no, Dvorak has never been right. When he and other flacks talked about Macs moving to Intel, it was first impossible because of the non-portability of Mac software (Star Trek project of the late 80s could run the Mac OS on PCs, but all software would have to be recompiled and redesigned for flipped endian processors, the same problem that nailed any hope for a cross platform NT), and then because Apple had to support the classic Mac OS software (NeXT/Rhapsody worked fine on PCs, but it couldn't run Office and Photoshop, which is why people used Macs and not NeXT in the first place).

Dvorak et all then changed their tune to Itanium, thinking the industry would move to IA64, when nobody did. Ironically, Apple delivers the EFI PC hardware that PC makers never got around to delivering, using AMD's 64-bit architecture instead.

It's easy to wish for the obvious (if impossible) and then give yourself credit for "predicting" that somebody else would actually engineer a similar solution. Is there anyone who was alive between 1984 and 2006 to whom "the thought of PCs and Macs running the same processor" did not occur?

Why Apple hasn't used Intel processors before.

Dvoark seemingly never been right, apart from the time he explained how he baits readers with sensationalism to get people upset so they "write his followup article for him."

Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC

WYE, WYG: Taking Out the Trash Talkers

Apple included SMS texting on the iPhone, but delivered an email client that can attach photos, completely obsolescing MMS "picture messaging," as emails are free with unlimited data/WiFi. The result was an outraged complaint that the iPhone doesn't support MMS for 10 cent/message charges.

It similarly defaults to sending your Notes to Mail, not SMS, encouraging users to use free email rather than pay-per-text SMS. More complaints.

-

As for Dvorak and "nobody cares about smartphones," the growth in smartphones was far higher than basic phones even before the iPhone:

"IDC says smartphones are growing at a rate of more than 46% each year, compared to standard mobile growth of 21%. "

And no, Dvorak has never been right. When he and other flacks talked about Macs moving to Intel, it was first impossible because of the non-portability of Mac software (Star Trek project of the late 80s could run the Mac OS on PCs, but all software would have to be recompiled and redesigned for flipped endian processors, the same problem that nailed any hope for a cross platform NT), and then because Apple had to support the classic Mac OS software (NeXT/Rhapsody worked fine on PCs, but it couldn't run Office and Photoshop, which is why people used Macs and not NeXT in the first place).

Dvorak et all then changed their tune to Itanium, thinking the industry would move to IA64, when nobody did. Ironically, Apple delivers the EFI PC hardware that PC makers never got around to delivering, using AMD's 64-bit architecture instead.

It's easy to wish for the obvious (if impossible) and then give yourself credit for "predicting" that somebody else would actually engineer a similar solution. Is there anyone who was alive between 1984 and 2006 to whom "the thought of PCs and Macs running the same processor" did not occur?

Why Apple hasn't used Intel processors before.

Dvoark seemingly never been right, apart from the time he explained how he baits readers with sensationalism to get people upset so they "write his followup article for him."

Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC

WYE, WYG: Taking Out the Trash Talkers

Yeah, blast Google and Apple's phone OSes because developers just love symbian! http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/6856C375-FE4E-4BC8-B753-B48AF3BD8B30.html
Our company employs some Symbian developers and I've never heard them say anything good about it.

Hypocrisy is pretending to be something you are not. "Hypocracy" might be a government run by large mammals, but I don't think it's an actual word.

In any event, AT&T and Verizon are afraid of open standards and Google in particular, and are crapping their pants over Google's bid to enter the mobile service business in the TV spectrum auction and suddenly make their existing 2.5/3G mobile networks obsolete.

Apple's iPhone is tied to AT&T, and offers it absolutely no threat. It is not designed to work on future networks. Verizon doesn't have much good to say about it, but why would you think AT&T would view the iPhone similar to Google? Is it because you are unable to view the world from perspectives you don't hold yourself?

And to everyone who gave me a hard time for pointing out the obvious related to the "gPhone" rumors... thanks!

The Great Google gPhone Myth

You are right that Microsoft makes all of its money elsewhere. However, its profits are all related to selling an OS and applications for PCs, and that market is mature. PC sales are not going to explode again, they're going to migrate into more mobile devices and other form factors.

Microsoft sits in an enormously powerful position, but its platform needs to grow and diversify. That's why it's been spending billions for over ten years now to develop WinCE, first to create a Newton-like small PC, then to copy the Palm Pilot hand held, and finally to get into mobile phones. It hasn't captured more than a tiny fraction of the smartphone business in the last half decade.

In Q2 2007, Microsoft software only shipped on 6.1% of the 26 smartphones sold (1.6 million). Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in a day and a half, netting 1.3% share of the entire world's smartphone business for the entire quarter. It then sold 1.1 million phones the next quarter. That's bad news, because Microsoft only makes a bit of OS licensing revenue; Apple earns hardware profits, retail profits, and service shares on every phone sold.

Microsoft's inability to create a workable mobile strategy isn't an isolated problem. It also couldn't develop a workable strategy behind PlaysForSure/Zune, WebTV/Ultimate TV, Xbox gaming, and other initiatives that attempt to clone the Windows PC monopoly licensing business in other arenas.

Add all those efforts together, and Microsoft managed to burn through $6 billion in consumer product revenues and then destroy another $2 billion in net loss (pulled from its other businesses). That's the real problem: the company has proven it has nowhere to go. It continues to try to leverage the only products it can sell Windows PC/Server/Office as tools to push sales of its products rejected in the open market.

If Google were to offer a free or very low cost alternative to run on WinCE platform devices, it would not only scuttle Microsoft's revenues from mobiles and kill its ability to sell them at all, but would also expand Google's search business into mobiles. Google could even pay phone makers to ship its product, funded by ads.

After proving how easy it is to yank away Windows Mobile from Microsoft, Google could then launch its own linux distro and do the same thing on low end PCs, and serve as the desktop for web/email users with Firefox + OpenOffice. Microsoft would subsequently collapse, unable to maintain its monopoly position and unable to adapt.

You know, like a dinosaur.

Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits

Yeah it's more effective to actually point out what I get wrong than to just stomp your foot O'Reilly style.

What You Expected, What You Got: Taking Out the Trash Talkers

Magic Cap offered some interesting ideas but didn't offer a mobile phone--it produced a PDA OS. The General Magic company (mostly Apple employees spun off in an internal battle between Magic Cap and Newton) ended up licensing its technologies to Microsoft in 1998, which turned Windows CE from a laugh-out-loud joke into a mild embarrassment.

Microsoft didn't start shipping a phone product until 2002, the same year the Handspring Treo arrived (which combined the older Visor+phone back pack.) There were no real PDA phones in the 90s.

The Egregious Incompetence of Palm
The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Google is very unlikely to produce its own phone, and if it did, it would be nothing like Apple's iPhone, because Google is good at very different things. It has no experience in consumer hardware, retail, and couldn't even beat YouTube at serving videos.

The Great Google gPhone Myth

Magic Cap offered some interesting ideas but didn't offer a mobile phone--it produced a PDA OS. The General Magic company (mostly Apple employees spun off in an internal battle between Magic Cap and Newton) ended up licensing its technologies to Microsoft in 1998, which turned Windows CE from a laugh-out-loud joke into a mild embarrassment.

Microsoft didn't start shipping a phone product until 2002, the same year the Handspring Treo arrived (which combined the older Visor+phone back pack.) There were no real PDA phones in the 90s.

The Egregious Incompetence of Palm
The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Google is very unlikely to produce its own phone, and if it did, it would be nothing like Apple's iPhone, because Google is good at very different things. It has no experience in consumer hardware, retail, and couldn't even beat YouTube at serving videos.

The Great Google gPhone Myth

Magic Cap offered some interesting ideas but didn't offer a mobile phone--it produced a PDA OS. The General Magic company (mostly Apple employees spun off in an internal battle between Magic Cap and Newton) ended up licensing its technologies to Microsoft in 1998, which turned Windows CE from a laugh-out-loud joke into a mild embarrassment.

Microsoft didn't start shipping a phone product until 2002, the same year the Handspring Treo arrived (which combined the older Visor+phone back pack.) There were no real PDA phones in the 90s.

The Egregious Incompetence of Palm
The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Google is very unlikely to produce its own phone, and if it did, it would be nothing like Apple's iPhone, because Google is good at very different things. It has no experience in consumer hardware, retail, and couldn't even beat YouTube at serving videos.

The Great Google gPhone Myth

Microsoft's "Patch Tuesdays" solve immediate, exploitable flaws with hotfixes. They do not address significant architectural or stability problems, which is why Microsoft doesn't count them as minor (5.x) updates. Apple also releases frequent security fixes. Those aren't counted among the +35 minor updates (10.n.x) to Mac OS X in between the five major updates (10.x) since 2000.

In contrast, Microsoft has released only two major updates, and only 2 minor updates for its consumer systems since then. (On the server side, the situation is similar).

Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 - It's Only a Service Pack!