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Bill Gates: Cellphone will Beat iPod
93,000 writes "CNN is running an article featuring Gates' prediction that the iPod is on the way out. From the article: 'As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run.' His prediction for a successor? Mobile phones-- powered by none other than Windows Mobile 5.0, of course."
Well there already are phones that play MP3s, it's just that nobody wants one. I don't want to have to worry about missing a phone call because my cellphone ran out of batteries while I was listening to a Red Dwarf audio book. Until Microsoft starts making Tricorders count me out.
/sarcasm
But I'm sure Apple would be fools not to follow Gates' prediction, after all Microsoft is the leader in innovation.
That's a safe bet...if the IPod remains as it is. There's no chance that the IPod won't morph into something else in the future...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
...getting tired of these lame-ass predictions from this guy?
And, oh yeah... first post!
I guess that would also include all other forms of portable devices. Cigarette lighters replaced by cell phones, ink pens replaced by cell phones, watches replace by cell phones, etc.
All powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0.
Has anyone ever done any reseach on how often Bill Gates has been right in his predictions?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
What is it with you Bill Gates? Why do you always have to "beat" beat everybody? The history of Mr. Gates is filled with prognostications about how Microsoft with win this and win that and how competitors don't have any idea of what is happening. Rah, rah, rah! Certainly much of this is marketing, but I much prefer companies that just keep their heads down creating the next big thing and then announcing it to everyones surprise. Pre-announcing products by years only serves to generate expectations that more often than not are unmet. Longhorn is how far out of the initial expected delivery date?
Now, as far as his bets on the future of the iPod, like just about everything else Apple has created and Microsoft has copied, the iPod is not stagnant. It's development is ongoing and dynamic, so Microsoft is going to have not not only copy, but out innovate a moving target.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Yea, and that cell phone will be made by Apple
We all know this is bullshit.
+5 Insightful, please.
What else would Gates be saying? "I don't think we can dent Apples monopoly, but we are releasing these ugly mobile just in case we are wrong..."? Dont think so!
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
If this doesn't rile up the Apple faithful, then nothing will.
Doh?
... in a related move, Sony announced today its complete confidence in the Betamax format. Film at 11.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
But I'm sure Apple would be fools not to follow Gates' prediction, after all Microsoft is the leader in innovation. /sarcasm
Still takes advantage of artists....Your point?
cell phones gain better mp3 options, or the ipod gains a cell phone option.
why carry two crappy devices to complicate your life when you can only carry one?
Gates is right - in the end mobile communication devices will swallow the portable music niche, just as they have swallowed the PDA niche and are currently engulfing the photo niche. The advent of cheap annual/monthly subs like Yahoo's just-launched service, coupled with cross-platform availability (your car, your phone, your home, your work PC) means it will be inevitable. But they won;t all be running Windows!
Da Blog
I agree with Gates on this one. In time, all of these individual pieces of tech we have (cell phone, mp3 player, movie watcher etc) will succesfully morph into one unit. It will take time and there will always be a niche market for those that need the best quality/professional quality devices.
Yeah, it sounds a bit ridiculous, but think about it. People don't like carrying around multiple devices with them, and out of all the portable devices out there, the only one that has emerged as a necessity is the cellphone. These days, most cellphones you can buy have most of the features of the PDAs of yore. Listening to music is a fairly small feature to add to a device.
If you look at Nokia's cell phones, about half of them have cameras. A few years ago, a camera phone would've been pretty rare. I think that's where things are heading with hard drive cell phones, and once you have a hard drive, playing music off of it is pretty simple. Sure, the iPod is fairly entrenched as of right now, but when people's iPods break, they'll already have a device that can play music, making another iPod purchase much less lucrative. As more iPods break than get replaced, these Windows Mobile phones will be waiting to take the MP3 player market away.
so Billy doesn't think that Apple hasn't clued into this already?
there will be a cell enabled Ipod soon enough I'm sure.
I believe there is an excellent chance of the mp3 player and cell phone converging into a single device. There are about 1.7 billion cell phones in use today. That means all those people are already carrying around an electronic device. Give them somethign in the same form factor that also plays music and you've got a winner.
As for the part about them all running Windows, let's just say that remains to be seen.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
does Bill do this to himself? From a guy who's spent (most of) his career building off the innovations of others, this "prediction" comes across as particularly entertaining.
Yes, the do believe that the convergence war will be won by Microsoft. I love my 6315 and my Axim - way better devices than the Treo or any Palm based product - IMHO.
It was at least discussed in an earlier article
The first version won't let you call anyone outside of the Apple iCell(TM) network, until the release another version a year or two later. Then, the v2.0 release of (iRingTunes) the desktop sync software will erase your hard drive, and rearrange all of your contacts sorted by area code without asking. Then the battery will die and only after massive online bitching will they offer a replacement....
I just can't wait.
what about that iPod phone?
Ya know, this one time, Bill Gates said 640k should be enough memory for anyone. I bet I'm the only person who remembers that.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
If my windows mobile phone didn't continually crash. Every couple of days the Windows Mobile OS crashes and it won't recognize any button presses. This is particularly annoying as it usually happens when answering calls, and requires pulling the battery out to hard resetting the phone. I originally got the phone because everybody in my office was getting them, and so I didn't have much of a choice. I was skeptical about running Microsoft anything, but I thought, "Hey: Different OS, Different Codebase, maybe it won't be filled with bugs!" Boy, was I wrong!
The upcoming iPhod will kill Bill's MSCellphone. It is a 5 terrabyte iPod mashed with a game player cell phone. Sorry Bill, once again you are wrong. But nice try!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Video killed the radio star!!!!
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
While the idea that a cellular phone could perform the duties of an iPod seemns preposterous at first, I seem to recall some Taiwanese group made a rather large (1TB or so, if memory serves) flash chip a while back, and that could easily serve for music, videos, photos, and whatnot that requires storage on the machine.
However, a phone will not replace the iPod, not unless it can run DRM-less media. Too many people know about DRM these days, and more and more people are avoiding it like the plague.
Not only that, the iPod doesn't have goddamned annoying ringtones that go off in the worst places.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
He does have a point, atleast as I see it. Portable devices seem to be moving in a direction of doing everything, rather than having one dedicated purpose (blackberry is an example of this IMHO) and unless apple starts to put out an appliance that appeals to a wider crowd, I can see them getting pushed out of the market but larger companies. I'm not saying that they'll be microsoft though(or microsoft powered even)
People have tried having multimedia phones before. 3G hasn't been as successful as the companies hoped. Who actually buys a mobile to watch low-quality video clips on? Chances are, these mobile phones will cost vastly more than an ipod, and maybe have other disadvantages. Plus you've got the 'ew, windows' effect on some people to contend with.
HAH! I just wasted a second of your life making you read this, but I wasted a minute of mine thinking it up. DAMN.
Person Y says technology by company X won't last.
Instead, person Y believes technology made by person Y's company will win long-term!
** an aid whispers in Gates' ear **
"As I was saying, iPods are on the way out. Apple sucks. We're going to give you your MP3s on your phone..."
i have already replaced my mp3 player with a windows smartphone (the mpx220 from att) it doesnt even have to be a windows based phone. a linux phone that doubles as an mp3 player is fine too. the point is in the end people will always go for the single device that covers 2 functions (or more in the case of a phone with pda like functions)
Yeah, in a few years, the iPod will be eclipsed by some other revolutionary device, just like so many other gadgets before. Maybe microsoft will do it, maybe not... but a cell-phone? I doubt it. Mr. Gates has enough business acumen to know that smart cell-phones aren't the type of gadget 13 year olds will be begging their parents for at christmas.
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
If Linux and Windows both appeared on PDAs? What stops apple from moving to PDA, and then cell phones, I am more then sure they have already thought about it and brainstormed ways they can do this effectively.
Bill's 160 IQ is over-rated. He's gullable!! Bill is getting this information from his advisors and at least one of them has a higher IQ and a bone to pick.
Next Bill Gates will demonstrate how an abacus can defeat the home computer in a game of Texas Holdem!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I have to agree that in the future we will use cell/mobile phones as our portable media players. With the increasing space availiable on cell phones, and technology and software, music will be an increasing want on mobiles. Smart phones is where it's at. Will it be with microsoft operating systems? Only time will tell. But sure enough, it will happen.
I'll bet in his next prediction, he'll say that the internet is just a fad..er...wait...
Ignore him...his predictions are merely him using corporate feelgoodspeak in order to try to convince MBAs to follow his product line.
Picture him in a wizards hat and cloak, making dire predictions, selling the cure-all for those ails in his cloak. Kinda suspicious...
Some companies actually try to design and test their products first.
And I'm still waiting for MSFT to learn from its mistakes.
I think Bill is right: the iPod is on it's way out.
Apple isn't going to blow it this time though. I wouldn't be surprised to see an all-in-one device from the boys in Cupertino sometime in the next few years. The cell phone recently discussed on here by Nokia is an indicator of things to come.
Wonder why the iTunes phone isn't out yet?
No carrier wants to touch it. Let people sync their *own* files with their *own* phone?? Unheard of!
They want to charge $2 or more per song that you download to your phone. "Paying for convenience", as it were, or so they say...
The more I look at microsoft and bill gates the more i think the company as a whole is on it's way out. They're behind in the trends, they don't quite "get it" on all fronts. The iPod is sticking around whether he likes it or not, in fact it seems like Apple is ahead of Microsoft here on the mobile phone front, the iTunes phone is supposedly coming out in June. When will Microsofts implementation come out? Around the time of longhorn? so... probably not this decade. We'll see, but I see myself wanting another iPod when and if my iPod dies. Simple as that.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
He's right. And soon enough, the cell phone will beat the camera and the PDA as well. What remains to be soon is if Apple jumps into the market for these devices.
-- jimmycarter
I don't have much hope for Win CE 5.0 given problems with earlier versions. One big problem with Windows CE is that each hardware manufacturer customizes it for each device. Ever try getting upgrades to newer Windows CE from the hardware vendor? It doesn't happen unless you trash your existing hardware buy the latest device! Of course you can't just use a Windows CE upgrade for another device because each build is custom to a specific piece of hardware. And trust me you will want to upgrade because Windows CE has a lot of problems.
So much for software being easily updatable. You'd think we'd have progressed beyond having to rewire hardware to do a software update.
Summary: Windows CE = Shit
1. Gates is rich.
2. Therefore he must be smart to have amassed that wealth.
3. He's THE richest,
4. Therefore, he must be THE smartest.
So of course I'll not buy an iPod, I'll follow his lead and buy a Win Phone.
But wait, who was it that said "640k ought to be enough for anyone?"
So much for vision...
Too bad for billy boy that the biggest mobile phone manufacturer is pretty deeply attached to symbian..
Cell phones will be able to take pictures, play music, capture and display video, surf the web, utilize VOIP, scan/fax/print/, and various other daily functions. They will also be the size of a small refrigerator and require a propane generator.
do() || do_not();
I have always been one to say that whatever a product does, I just wish it would do better, not a 100 things in one, because with today's tech, it just won't do any of the 100 things correctly. It is like have a cell phone with a camera. Yeah. I have a camera witha cell phone, but for the next 4 - 5 years, I don't see me replacing my digital camera for the one in my phone.
They can see the end of Windows and Office steaming towards them from a mile off and they want to be able to step aside before it hits them hard.
Deleted
I won't be a fan of Ipods until the play my ogg files (until then, my Rio Karma will do just fine), but Bill Gate's is full of shit.
The Ipod interface is excellent, and with manufacturers producing quad-channel-GSM cell-phones-on-a-chip, Apple is going to have a much easier time adding cell-phone functionality to an Ipod than Microsoft is ever going to have adding an equivelently easy-to-use and satisfying interface to their so-called smart-phones.
I like my Motorola A700 PDA/Phone, but I don't use it to listen to music despite the fact that it is a capable MP3 player. The Ipod and Rio Karma are optimized for music playback--I've yet to see a cell phone that is so optimized without giving up PDA or cell-phone features to do it. I suspect Apple will be the first out with something that does just work, and it will probably be some variation of the Ipod.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What's to say you won't be able to buy a cell phone attachment for your ipod, similar to the Itrip and other devices? Billy Think it out next time so you don't look so one sided.
Haven't there already been quite a few news items about how Apple is in the midst of teaming with Motorola to create an iTunes capable phone? Didn't Bill read any of those?
that's fine with me, as long as i can install iTunes on it I will be happy ;)
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
"As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run," -- Bill Gates
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman, IBM
"There is no reason anyone in the right state of mind will want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President, DEC
Revelation from the future -- M$ releaes a mp3 player similar to the ipod, with very similar 'technology'
Microsoft has tried to do this already with the Smartphone. I have a C500 running Windows Mobile, with a 512MB Mini-SD card. I'm with him that soon we'll have mini hard disks in the phones.
What I don't buy is that people will use it as an iPod replacement. Why? Because it's designed by committee. The headphone jack is on the bottom of the phone. It's 2.5mm so you have to carry around a bulky adaptor.
The phone ships with Media Player 9 as default which sucks. You have to navigate to Media Player to change a song, and if someone rings you have to unplug the headphones. (I guess this wouldn't matter but they provide such shit ones with the one that you have to use your own.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
``640k Should Be Enough for Anybody.''
-- Bill Gates
Bill Gates needs to pull his head out of his ass. One of these days he needs to accept he can be beat, has been beat, and to learn how to take his competition seriously.
It's like "Rock Paper Scissors"
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Uh guys, he's right. Nokia is releasing their new phone in a few months: 4gb HD, phone, 2mp camera, and with decent battery life (as good as ipod!). Price ~$700. Now, imagine it in a few years. Why would anyone have 3 seperate gadgets, taking up 3 pockets (i only have 1 free pocket anyway), when you could get all 3 together in a tiny little phone for roughly the same price? ...
Pretty soon, your cell-phone, mp3 player, pda/blackberry, and camera will all be in one tiny box. All that'll be left is your desktop computer/server/entertainment system for home, and if you're lucky, your laptop.
Am I missing something?
Gates was saying everyone would switch to Tablet PCs a while ago. I think they had a thing called Passport that was supposed to be wildly successful as well. They're always pushing high powered high priced things in the portable/PDA universe. But sometimes something small and simple (and reliable) like an iPod mini is preferable. It does one thing and does it well.
Longhorn is on its way out, gradually being replaced by operating systems that are actually released.
...no matter how many times it crashes, no matter how insecure, no matter how slow, no matter how restrictive the license, no matter how clumsy the interface, it will...
In fact...
SELL?
Don't completely disregard the power of MS. Hell, somehow Windows has always gotten away with it!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Bill Gates says Apple will lose out. If Apple screws up once and Microsoft pounces (and wipes them out in this market), then yes, Gates is correct.
The only way for Apple to survive is to keep on holding Microsoft at bay. Microsoft is like a killer robot, pursuing them forever, until they mess up.
Charles Ferguson, in his book goes into this. Charles sold his company to Microsoft, figuring he didn't have a chance competing with them, and that Netscape, the other suitor, had their heads up their asses (and no future competing with Microsoft).
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
In the long run? We're all dead in the long run, somebody once said. Apple is not sitting back, twiddling their thumbs and enjoying their iPod success. In this game being nimble counts A LOT (what was the last release of IE? Windows? Word? Any new main-stream MS product?). See also: Google.com :)
Simpy
I don't know if we're all going to be using Windows Mobile, but the "convergence" of the cell phone and music player is inevitable. It's already happening, and the only reason it hasn't happened MORE is that iTunes files will only play on your computer or on an iPod. If Apple ever licenses the AAC decoder to cell-phone manufacturers, or if one of the WMA-based music stores takes off, then people will start thinking twice before buying an iPod, when they can have that functionality in their phone and not have to carry around another device.
Cellphones are becoming more and more like swiss army knifes, providing countless number of features - cameras, mp3 players, gaming, email, etc. If cellphones are going to end iPods and other MP3 Players then they should put an end to cameras too in the near future with increasingly efficient resolutions of phonecams.
But in reality that is unlikely. Cameras will have a place in the market, regardless of advances of phonecam technology, because there will always be people, a whole lot of them actually, who would prefer an exclusive camera that doesn't disturb with phone calls while taking a picture. Similarly there will be people who would prefer an MP3 player that doesn't disturb their listening pleasure.
"This new version of Windows will be much safer, stabler and faster than the current version of Windows"
Gee Bill, how can you keep doing this with a straight face?
Oh I forgot, you're laughing all the way to the bank.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Remember his sayings about how much memory we'll ever need? What about his view on Linux in 1999? What about inter-operability? The problem is many people believe him. I don't.
There may be people who will eventualy converge so that everything is on their phones like cameras are now.
... "some day Microsoft will make one of these and the world will flock to it". It's always wrong. They never deliver. Life goes on.
But if I'm going to buy an audio device (and I'm buying an iPod shuffle this week) I want a device which only does audio. And does it very well.
I always perceive these 'converged' devices as being half-assed implementations of several devices, and too big of a trade-off on each of them. I have a phone. I want an iPod. I don't want a PDA.
That coupled that, while I'm obviously not representative of all consumers, I wouldn't buy a phone that had Microsoft stuff in it anyway. I don't see why I should reward them in any way, nor why I should trust them to make a phone.
And, really, Bill Gates' record for predicting what will happen in the future is shitty --- it's always the same thing
I'm sure by now he's predicted that we'd all shift over to Microsoft toilet paper, Microsoft houses, and Microsoft cars. They frequently demonstrate a lack of ability to deliver anything useful anyway.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Boy! Where do I buy them? How much?
Seastead this.
I agree with Gates on one point:
I think other emerging ways to get music be they free or non-free.... they will have to become compatible with all devices, i.e., less DRM'ed, and more fair-use friendly... which iPod and iTunes is NOT. At some point there will be public awareness (am I over estimating the public's ability to figure this out?) and the public will demand more open architecture, and better quality music.
If Apple is able to sustain their dominance they'll have to do so by responding to consumers.
As for the rest of Gates' commentary, any "dominance" Microsoft reaches in cell phones/mobile technology will be achieved in the same way Microsoft has achieved dominance in their other product lines -- which means throwing money and versions at the market until something sticks... a luxury unfortunately not afforded truly creative and innovative companies.
For my own preferences I paraphrase a previous poster in a previous article thread about cell phone technology.... Give me a cell/mobile phone that has good quality voice transmission that doesn't drop calls. So far I know of no devices that meet those two simple criteria.
What a ballsy prediction! Last year there were 735 million handsets sold. Apple is on pace to sell 21 million iPods for this year. Bundle it in the phone and people will buy it -- what a novel concept. Isn't that what made Nokai the largest manufacturer of cameras?
Now what percentage of those current handsets run Java?
I'm pretty sure my cell phone has at least 640K of RAM.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Emphasis mine:
"I think that when someone is 60 years old he should better leave it to someone else to follow trends in technology. But until then there's still a lot to do," he said.
Funny that: follow. Not lead. Freudian slip?
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Since Apple and Motorola are delivering a iTMS based player/phone here soon. If I were Bill, I would be a bit worried being late to market, again (Longhorn) ;-)
Get Ready To Call ITunes Dec 2004
Here is a pre-production picture of it
... Microsoft Windows TE (Toaster Edition). Now with built-in MP3 player. Because, let's face it, when you converge, you gotta *really* converge.
That is all.
In the Shadowrun world, everyone carries a single device called a pocket secretary, or pocket sec, which carries all your info (planner) can communicate through any means(email, im, phone), record video(dig. camera.) etc.
The way things are going, I expect this to become a reality.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
of the article was where BGates promises to leave Microsoft in ten years...
From TFA:
And the 50-year-old Microsoft chairman said he would not remain with the company for ever.
"I think that when someone is 60 years old he should better leave it to someone else to follow trends in technology. But until then there's still a lot to do," he said.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Can we please stop having "a quack said this" on the front page? Bill Gates doesn't have a clue about the industry anymore. When a guy goes "IE is better then Firefox and just as secure if not MORE secure" you know he's an idiot.
It's getting boring to see the same group of people drone on how they will be the best/worst and so on and so forth.
I like muppets.
Bill Gates hinted at retirement in the article. Who knows what he'll end up deciding, but the fact is all the leaders of the personal computing revolution of the 1970s and 1980s are approaching retirement age.
We saw Apple without Steve Jobs, for a little while anyway, but we've never seen Microsoft without Bill Gates.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
What I want is a simple cell phone to make phone calls and does that really well. I don't need the Internet, video games, camera, wallpaper, MP3s, ringtones or BSOD/RSOD.
Even with the cell phone I got, I had to turn everything off that I don't use and there are still some features that can "accidentally" turn on that obligates an additional charge on my bill. My cell phone provider is unhappy that I haven't changed my contract in six years the plan I started off with much more generous than the plans you have today. I always laugh when people tell me that they have 20 minutes left and 20 days until the next billing cycle.
What if I want to talk on the phone and listen to music at the same time? Or talk and take a picture? Merging different technology onto one device is convienent for carrying, but not for using.
Ardente veritate incendite tenebras mundi
With people needing to charge their phones every day even with light to moderate use, how annoying would it be to have your phone die out every couple of hours now that you're listening to music?
./ A place were close-minded f*cks meet.
Anyways, apple doesn't want to create a ipod/cell. They'd be fighting with the providers over who's selling the music. Providers charge $2-$3 for ring tones... while apple charges $.99 for the entire songs. This is the reason why the apple/motorola deal is being held up. No provider wants to sponsor an ipod/cell.
Microsoft has a good chance because content sales isn't their top priority.
sure you can claim that it is a phone that swallowed an iPod, but Apple will claim that is was an iPod that got the ability to dial phonenumbers too. That iPod dial look quite like the old pulse dial.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
This from a company that choose to use people in dinosaur costumes for thier new add campaign?
Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
Longhorn will slowly be replaced out by operating system that's are actually released.
Billy boy is right that combo cellphone/music players are the wave of the future. However, he's *sorely* mistaken to assume that Windows Mobile is going to be the predominant platform on which these things are based.
We've all seen the ugliness that is *any* mobile microsoft product. Apple has them beat hands down when it comes to UI (even the original Newton UI had much in its favour over current Windows Mobile UIs).
What's going to happen? Steve is going to come out with a cell phone / ipod combo sometime in the future that is going to be sexy, sleek and easy to use. And Bill will sit in Redmond wondering why the hell Windows Media didn't catch on.
CNN is running an article featuring Gates' prediction that the iPod is on the way out.
Bill has really got to learn the difference between prediction and predilection.
He is basically blowing his own horn here, and I think the idea of Windows on most cellphones is unlikey, but I think the basic premise stands.
I sometimes carry my mp3 player. I _always_ carry my mobile phone, though. It already has an excellent screen, radio, email and internet connectivity. If it had a gig of memory and an easy way to move sound files and text to it (I already read stuff on it by emailing it to the phone but that's a bit clumsy), my mp3 player would never see the outside of my desk drawer again.
The phone is already the defacto "pocket media device". Of course, Windows in any iteration is likely too expensive for it, considering just how cutthroat the mobile markets are.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Because, you know, that's all the memory a cell phone ought to need.
The subject says it all - This guy's living in his own world, while his kingdom's being attacked from all sides.
He doesn't see the barbarians at his gate, as he's too busy telling himself, and anyone who will listen to him, that he/Micrsoft's always the best option, no matter what! The guy should really get a reality check.
The era of ignoring your competitors, and thinking they'll just disappear is over. This is the information age, and the tides are a-turnin'! People who don't even use computers are aware of the MS alternatives these days, and those who do use computers are checking out the competition and realizing that they've been misled by the MS monopoly. Bill's insanely optimistic, pro-MS stance is just further evidence that he's out of touch with todays users, and their needs and wants.
Don't get me wrong... Bill sees the "needs" of the users, but he's wrong in thinking that whatever MS decides to shove down their throats will be acceptable, as it has been in the past.
He's getting his butt kicked by Apple in the MP3 market. No way is he going to admit they're better or that they're winning. He does that and a dozen MS MP3 player engineers jump off a bridge.
Yeah, the iPod will fade. Just like every other piece of technology. Windows 3.1 didn't last forever, neither will the iPod. It's at the top of its game right now and really has nowhere to go but down... also we're approaching a point where everyone who would be inclined to own one, does. Standard distribution graph for technology dispersion fits pretty well.
One thing to remember is that the iPod wasn't the first to the market in terms of players. It was fairly late to the game really. What Apple did was wait to see if this new tech was going to stick, then they waited for the right hardware to come along, then they took it and did some brilliant engineering and marketing work and gave us the iPod. There's nothing revolutionary about it. What Apple does now is wait to see what the Next Big Thing ends up being, watches the market for a while and then turns out a device that is extremely well engineered.
So while MS is pushing SmartPhones that crash a lot since they're working out the bugs in the hardware and software, Apple will be sitting in the background, watching others make mistakes and learning from them, and in a few years put out an iPhone (or something) that doesn't necessarily do everything the other phones do, but does a few key things extremely well.
Multi tool electronics never work. For multiple reasons. Say you have a PDA, Cell, MP3, gameplaying, photo device
1. battery life the more they do the faster the battery dies and you lose all five devices.
2. in order to do all of that compromises have to be made, and nothing is the best it could be.
3. price this thing is going to expensive are you really going to want to carry something in your pocket that costs $900-$1200(very conservative est)
4. multi tasking try talking to someone and entering a phone no into the pda or looking up a file on the pda without accidentally hanging up.
5. if its stolen or broken your out all five.
The ipod does one thing and does it well. We are a long way from being able to produce a device cheap enough and powerful enough to do two of these jobs well. Let alone all five
You can legislate morally you can't legislate morality
Yeah, well. I know first hand that these guys believe that WMP will beat the iPod. Sorry, you can't polish a turd. Yes, some people will buy cell phones with mp3 players but I bet that they won't run WinCE.
I can't believe how huge the Windows portable division is and I don't see sustained sales supporting them.
Actually, I was much more sure of this a few years ago than I am today. I say that because of 2 things.
... selling you expensive monthly service plans. The phones are just a means to an end for them, and you'll always see them crippling functionality if it allows them to charge extra for using a feature the way THEY want you to use it. Think "Jack of all trades, master of none." when you think "all in one cellphones". That's all you're gonna get.
1. Cellphone service still hasn't really come down much in price. Years ago, everyone seemed to think the emergence of more competing services would bring monthly charges way down, but it hasn't really worked out like that. Anyone can buy themselves a music player or even a PDA and get lots of use out of it, out of the box, without subscribing to anything. Cellphones, on the other hand, are useless paperweights as soon as you stop paying for monthly service. You can argue that cellphones are much more of a "necessity" - but that really depends on who YOU are. For quite a few people, they're just a convenience - as they could wait until they got home or to work to make/return their calls.
2. Cellphone makers have been horribly clueless in building a "convergence device" that really meets people's needs. Look at the latest "cream of the crop" PDA/camera/phones, for example. Take the Treo 650. Still so new, you can't even get on through many major carriers like Verizon, but if you do - you find out it's very fragile/breakable, not to mention still almost too large to carry around comfortably. Battery life could be better too, and as a portable music player, it doesn't hold a candle to something like even a first generation iPod. Meanwhile, like most all other camera phones, it takes lousy low-resolution photos. Where's the desirability in that??
I think the truth is, cellphone makers are really only interested in one thing
"I think that when someone is 60 years old he should better leave it to someone else to follow trends in technology."
That's what I call great news. Bill will be leaving in ten years!
13-4=54/6
And let's not forget about missing important calls or dropping calls because a) the phone crashed, b) the phone is too busy playing spyware ads, c) you can't dial because of all the pop-ups, or d) microsoft suddenly thinks you're pirating the windows mobile OS in rom and has disabled your phone until you call the reactivation number.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
i dont know about anyone else here, but i'd like my cell phone to do less; not more. i was recently amazed at how hard it was to find a cell phone that only made phonecalls. that's what phones were designed for, and that's all i need to do with them. what i dont need is a bunch of useless crap cluttering up the menus.
when combining multiple technologies into one device, i think its important that the technologies complement eachother in some way. the inclusion of a cheap digital camera into some phones was an interesting idea with some useful applications, but i have yet to figure out what games and music have to do with making phone calls. it annoys me that i had to pay for these features even though i'll never use them.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
well, just goes to prove, Gates says ANYTHING and this crowd goes wild. Hes getting his publicity for free... I dont think Gates is as dumb as we all wish he was
I've heard more than one person say they were surprised and impressed by the sound quality they get from their iPod.
When people think, playing music on a mobile phone, they think, playing it over the phone's built-in speaker, either for the world to hear (like a ring tone) or with the phone held up to the user's ear. I'll guarantee nobody wants either of these! The only way a mobile phone could become successful as an iPod competitor is if you could plug a pair of headphones (or earbuds) into it, and use it as an iPod, folded up and clipped to your belt. The only way this really makes sense is to also build a microphone into the headphones, so they can also be used the way mobile phone headsets are used now... but unlike current mobile phone headsets, you need good quality stereo sound.
I can see some interesting features resulting from the integration - when the phone rings, the music automatically pauses and you hear the ring in your headphones, instead of disturbing everyone around you. iTMS downloads over 3G wireless. Sync your MP3s over BlueTooth. Merge overlapping features like a contact list, calendar, and the iPod Photo stuff (mobile phones have built-in cameras now).
So then you have the issue of storage. Is 1GB of flash memory (the larger iPod shuffle size) enough (or 2GB as costs come down), or do you want to bring your whole 40GB collection everywhere you go? Who wants to carry a hard drive around in their cell phone? Remember that people will also want to be able to use it as a normal phone without headphones, which means holding it up to their ear. How big and heavy will that battery need to be, to play music all day AND stay in touch with the cell towers?
I think Gates is just upset that so many Microsoft employees are wearing iPods, made by one of Microsoft's biggest competitors, around the campus.
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...maybe Pocket PCs will become more versatile in the future. Palm OS has its downfalls, including interoperability with M$ products. Pocket PCs can already benefit from a wide assortment of peripherals that mate with ordinary PCs and it's got a wide software market (though possibly not as wide as Palm's - it has been the dominant force in PDAs for a lot longer).
I don't see why an iPod-styled device couldn't be used to make calls or track appointments. Put a big color LCD screen on it, add a stylus and plug a sim card in and you've got a phone/pda. the MP3s could fit snugly into the embedded hard drive or a 20GB CompactFlash card.
Bluetooth will of course allow one to transfer audio files, sync with the desktop Outlook plugin, listen on your headphones or speak with the embedded microphone.
Why do companies keep bringing out these all singing and dancing products that do everything under the sun? I don't think people want one gadget that does everything. They'd rather have multiple gadgets, each that does its job superbly.
That is what the iPod is. Not a phone, or a PDA, but a gadget that is a superb platform for listening to music.
When you think about it, how many things do you own that do more than a couple of jobs? My oven cooks, my fridges cools, my washing machine does laundry, and my clock radio tells time and receives radio signals. Would you want a machine that combines all these into one package. It can be (and I think has been) done, but would you *want* it?
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I think that there is a simplicity which is deceptive about convergence. The idea of carrying one device instead of, say 4 (a PDA, a phone, a camera, and an MP3 player) is great. Unfortunately, the functions these devices perform dictate their form to some degree, and sometimes these forms work cross-purpose. Can these limitations be overcome? Maybe. Right now cell-phones don't have the best cameras. PDA's don't make the most convinient phones. (even if you wear one of those blue-tooth ear aliens that make you look like you are a nutter talking to yourself). Bill may have it partially right. As the components for these devices get smaller and less expensive some great devices will arise that combine functions. They will not however eliminate the dedicated devices. The single purpose device will be all the better for the advances.
my cube has a window...
Am I crazy, or isn't apple making an iPod Cell Phone w/ Motorola... like here: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/motorola /index.php#motorola-confirms-itunes-mobile-softwar e-launch-for-july-102830
Call me crazy, but Billy may be right that cellphones will beat iPod, but my money is on the Moto winning the market.
Talk to any rabid Star Trek fan, and they'll probably start yapping about how the cellphone will eventually morph into the infamous tricorder ,... Then again, even in the Star Trek universe, the equivalent of the modern day cellphone, the Star Trek Communicator , is a separate device worn on the uniform and not in the tricorder.
You can draw those parallels but only if you keep it extremely simple can you draw the same conclusions from those situations. There are tons of differences between how the old Apple Computer handled the Macs and how the new Apple Computer is handling the iPod. The primary ones:
* Apple never had an analogous lead in the computer market the way they do in the mp3 player market. They were popular computers, but they did not dominate like the iPod does.
* Apple was extremely arrogant about its computers when the Mac first came out and assumed that cheesy-ass evangelizing and a killer new concept (as opposed to building relationships with retailers and doing heavy advertising) would carry the day for them. Wrong. Are they doing that with the iPod? No.
* Macs never attempted to be inexpensive or compete with low-end machines for market share when prices started to fall in home computing. The iPod is going after the low-end part of the market aggressively.
* The GUI on the Mac was a great concept but the machines themselves were not technologically more impressive than what other companies offered. iPods generally are better machines overall than the competition.
* Macs were at a disadvantage early on because of a proprietary system and hardware. The iPod doesn't suffer from that problem. The "software" equivalent for the iPod in this situation is music, and the iPod is compatible with most major formats. The "hardware" equivalent is the fact that iPods work on both Macs and Windows (the predominant platform.)
* Macs were never "cool" in the same way that the iPod is. There was never a real cultural buzz about Macs that the iPod enjoys.
Anyway, there are more problems with the parallel that Gates is drawing, but those are the primary ones. He's just plain wrong and I can only conclude that he's smarter than that and knows damn-well that he's wrong. His comments are clearly yet another attempt for Microsoft to spread FUD in a market they don't dominate.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Two words: Battery life
When I go for a one hour run listening to my music, I want to be able to make a cell phone call when I get home.
Of course I am a strange bird in that I buy cell phones based on charge life rather than features. It's possible I could be wrong, but I think I'm on to something.
-Nuke the moon
Bill Gates is just looking to cause trouble. Nothing Microsoft does will match Office and Windows. As everyone knows they earn Billions of dollars a year.
Everything else Microsoft does is a sideshow.
They wouldn't even be in the consumer market except for the fact that their product is required to use x86 PCs (mostly).
The only consumer Microsoft understands is...well, they don't understand any consumers, really. They are a monopoly. Businesses have to buy their products. Even Pitney Bowes competes with someone. Microsoft just competes with older versions of its software.
The media, though, haven't figured this out yet because reporters are stupid and lazy. Plus they're always trolling for drama. Computer reporters especially are drama junkies. They have to be - the industry is so freaking boring that they need something to keep their lame existence interesting.
Microsoft? Peh.
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Really. Of course he's going to trumpet about Windows Mobile.
Bill Gates was also the guy that sounded off about how the Tablet PC was going to take off, powered by Windows XP Tablet edition, of course.
Just because Bill Gates says it, doesn't mean it'll happen. Fortunately.
I said they'd add GPS to them, and they just added them. Next step is coordinating buses and taxis so you can page them to get where you want to go. It could even spawn a transportation revolution as public transportation costs go down, and more people find they're easier to use.
God spoke to me.
The Road Ahead
Does anyone remember Gates' book? I'm certain he wishes no one does. Released in 1995, it almost entirely discounted that li'l ol' thing called the Internet. Oops.
I wouldn't trust this guy to deliver my pizza, let alone guess which computer, mobile phone or music player I'll be using. However, like his underling Allchin, he nonetheless makes for a humorous read.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
The Samsung Uproar came out before the iPod and combined cell phone and MP3 functionality. If it didn't sell then, what makes Gates think it will sell now? Combining everything into one device just gives you a single point of failure. I'd prefer a cell phone that will always reliably make phone calls, thank you very much! Not one where the battery will go dead from listening to music all day, causing me to miss the call with a new job offer...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I hate to say it, unless the phone has substantial mass storage on it(20 to 100 Gig), It probably won't be usefull as a video or music device. Both music and video have massive file sizes. To deliver these files to several million users simultaneously will require massive wireless bandwidths. I doubt the FCC will make several GHz of spectrum available so users can have instant acess to their tunes. If this bandwidth is not available, then it will take an unreasonable time to acess content (think dial up data speeds).
Whats more, what if you like a song, Will you have to pay each time you listen to it? I doubt if that will catch on either.
I'm definitely in a minority here, but I don't have a cell phone, nor do I want one. I prefer to be unreachable when I'm not at home or work. Too many phone calls is just annoying and distracting. Yes, I know I can always turn a cell phone off, but I would still have to pay for it, and it's simply not worth it to me. I do have an iPod, a digital camera, and a PDA, and I prefer them being separate devices that are very good at what they do, instead of mediocre at a bunch of things. If there are enough people like me, there will be a market for dedicated devices like the iPod and digital cameras.
Like this one
or this one
There will always be a group of consumers, like me, who don't mind carrying extra devices around, so long as each device does it's function and does it well. Jack of all trade devices tend to do many functions but none of them well.
It's very doubtfull that in the near future a cell phone would contain a portable digital audio converter and internal amplification, not to mention suffcient storage room to store decent quality bit rates. But then again, a piece of shit DAC and a 10 mA volume amp is enough for the main consumer crowd. Which is actually kind of disapointing, but not suprising.
I'm what you'd call an audio geek. You can label me as an audiophile and it wouldn't bother me, but I'm more of a music lover than an audiophile. I carry around a 4g 40 gig ipod (soon to be replaced by an iaudio x5 probably), a headphone amp, and Shure E5cs. I'm a muggers dream, only since I don't have the white earbuds, they wouldn't notice me and leave me and my 1000 worth of gear alone. Me and the others like me (and there are lots, see www.head-fi.org for our sick kind) will never succumb to all in one portable devices until they do everything just as good as a standalone.
And as for some direct commentary about the article. I think Bill Gates is rather short sighted to note that the device will be a cell phone anyway. Likely the cell phone will be yet another device absorbed into personal organizers and not the other way around.
The way I would predict it: We'll have one device with a number of accessories. It's not hard to imagine a hard drive based PDA, PSP or insert portable gaming platform here, Music / Media player, cell phone and camera. More or less it would be a small tabelt like brick with a touch screen and detatchable unfoldable keyboard, earpiece for your cell phone, stylus, ect. You get the idea.
But it'll have a shitty DAC and so I'll still need a standalone portable music device with a decent DAC. Or if I got my way, one with an optical out so I can use my own external dac and amplifier.
How long before someone mentioned 640K?
Gates is talking about commoditization. And -if- digital music technology becomes portable and commoditized, there's a good chance that he's right.
But I guess if microsoft really wants it to be true it will happen. Im prefectly happy with my iriver ihp (i do wish it played flac). I dont want a cell phone at all and certainly dont need all that extra crap. This is like all that hype about gaming and phones. There is a reason no one owns an n-gage. sounds like a good way to tack on an extra riaa service fee... they'll find a way.
really bored? My blog
natural language interface so they don't have to glom a bunch of buttons and a big display on it!
Other than the excellent styling of the ipod (not shared by the mini, (that was a boner move, not using the same deziner, stevie) IMO, it's not all that innovative, in and of itself.
The killer product is the shuffle. I don't know a kid out there who doesn't love the shuffle's elegence of execution and utility. Let's see Mr Bill put a cell phone in that puppy and sell it for $99.
As to Ipods, whatever Apple's flaws, the marketing of the IPod has been a marvel to see. Apple has managed to brand themselves, and I don't think MS is going to be bashing into that market as easily as they think.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now, my girlfriend had recently confided to me that she wanted one of those smartphones, like the Blackberry although it was a different brand.
I did not consider buying her one for her birthday, it didn't make sense to try to buy the thing without a plan, it was too expensive.
Moral of the story? I believe that there will always be a market for a standalone MP3 player, and as long as Apple makes the best one their position is safe.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
'As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run.' DUH, so, uh, like you mean the Ipod won't be around forever. Jeeeepers. You just can't count on anything these days. I better go dig up those 250 Ipods I buried in my back yard for safe keeping and sell them now.
battery life is the important feature. my phone can already play mp3s which I use for ringtones, but the battery life isn't good enough for more than a couple of hours' music.
the iPod shuffle is already so small and light that if I have the option of keeping my phone and ipod separate then I will. fusing them together offers no improvements, just less flexibility.
so convergence won't be beneficial until there's a massive improvement in battery life (without increasing weight).
That's exactly why I think Apple won't be losing ground here anytime soon. Apple excels at design. The Ipod is as popular as it is because it was the first really well designed MP3 player on the market. Even today I'm hard pressed to think of a music player that's on par with the Ipod in size, features, and quality of design.
So imagine doing the convergence that gates is talking about but with Apple's design people running the show. Imagine a device slightly smaller than comparable products with elegant apple design, and an intuitive interface. Dock your phone with your computer and not only does it sync your music but it also syncs your e-mail and address book now. Plust what about using MMS to do limited sharing of music files with your friends?
Computers are mostly functional devices. Style is a minimal concern. With phones though, style is as much a part of it as the function. As long as the phone can answer calls, view e-mail, and have an address book, the rest is just fluff. So I think Microsoft will have quite a fight on their hands.
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This prediction by Bill Gates reminds me of a famous predition http://www.leonine.com/~lion/pub_papers/itphil/nod e3.html
640k Should be enough for anybody. Of course now we can look back and see just how great Bill Gates is at predicting the future.
10 years from now I'm sure someone else will reference Bill Gates saying "The iPod is on the way out"
The idea of something that can do everything is very enticing. As often as not though, consumers reject such devices. A simple device that does one thing well is much more satisfying than a big complex kludge that tries to do a bunch of stuff. If nothing else, the user interface is often a real pain with such devices.
Look at all the stuff you could be doing with your computer. You could play all your games on it, watch tv and listen to the radio, it could control your whole house, you could use it for your telephone. Now consider what you actually use your computer for. Most people have separate devices for all the aforementioned functions.
The idea that all possible functions will migrate to the cell phone and that that will replace the iPod is by no means a done deal.
Since I don't have an iPod, my cell phone rules.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
All I have to day about this is that I have had an iPod for about three years, and I have had three different cell phones in that time period. What happens when you switch cell phone service and need a new model? Also, on a more privacy-related note, do you really want to store all of your mp3s on a device with closed, embedded software? Soon you will be getting calls from the IRAA.
we won't go!
...from iPod to a WinMobile5 cellphone, but Bill has to promise to make that cool "Bob" interface available again!
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
Personally, I'd rather have a PDA/Cell phone than a PDA/Cell/iPod.
Any convergance right now will be a train wreck.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Perhaps others would appreciate an all-in-one device.I, however, don't always want to be chained to my cell phone. If I'm using the earbuds to listen to music, I certainly don't want to be interrupted by the #@$!! phone.
I gotta plan......I'll just buy several more do-one-thing *cheap* gadgets as they come out, nothing expensive. I give them to my girlfriend, she loves those things and crams them all in her purse. Got camera, cellphone, cd player, radio, flashlight. When we go out, fully equipped! What's not to like?!? It's kinda like going on safari and having a gun bearer, or a caddy at the golf course...
Oh, nevermind, Slashdot always steals its content.
You know like on the South Park episode where people pushed food up their shoots and the poo came out of their mouths. Kinda like this pronouncment.
You could be right about most devices, but this isn't always the case. Case in point: HP and Dell. Of course, if you're talking cell phones, well...I can't help you there.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
I totaly agree.
For one thing i hate the sevices that the operators say you want but i hate the idea of downloading music and video over my phone when i have DSL sitting at home and at work which is faster so i can get bigger files which are better quality etc, etc...
I also believe that since i use my mobile phone for and during work all day everyday and find that its hard enough to keep it charged anyway, why would i want it to then have to play music too? Bigger battery? I think i would prefer a small lighweight phone thanks and choose whether to take a music device with me or not. On the flipside, if i was using my phone as an mp3 player could i turn the "mobile" part off when i'm out of work? - i doubt they'd make it that simple would they?!
Reinventing the wheel since 1979
This seems like the same caliber of prediction as saying no one needs more then 640k of ram. I'm going to take this as meaning the iPod will be around forever and Windows Mobile will flop.
In my opinion, a gadget can have too many features. For example, a PDA is cool, and it would be improved if there was an integrated beer bottle opener. However, it would be a bit overboard if that PDA also had a blood sugar testing kit, a pedometer, and also functioned as a concealed carry weapon.
Some people just want their phones to be phones and their portable music devices to be portable music devices. Extra features are cool, but going too far is not cool.
As an aside, Bill Gates is a complete horse's ass for wanting to crush his competition. Competing is good, crushing competition an utterly ruling the market is bad. There must be balance in the force.
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
Apple and Motorola are working on a cell phone/iPod hybrid. However they're having a hard time getting carriers to sign on. Read about it here.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I dunno, putting everything together might solve some problems instead of causing them. If the device had a good 20 hours operating battery life, then not only would it play music all day but you wouldn't run out of power in the middle of a phone call either. I've noticed more people clipping their phones to their belt and using an earpiece; with the device on the belt its being slightly larger wouldn't matter much, and you could replace the earpiece with headphones and a mic. And here's another idea: Add a display and keyboard on a wire as well. It'd be very light since it wouldn't need its own battery, memory and processor, and you could keep it in your pocket.
Hold off until he tries to demo his Magick Alternative and it bursts into flame.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
People love the ipod not just of it looks, but also because of its userinterface. A mobile phone is already more complex, and I see people with blackberrys and stuff like that switch back to normal phones just because it is easier to use, and has less bloat. Devices like ipod will stay, just like that people like to buy appliances. Windows will go way out because of its everyway possible use, to big interfaces and tough to find programs.
Disclaimer:
Yes, I use an ipod, the interface could even be easier.
Yes, I use windows, linux (kde) and OS X: They are all bloated. OS X certainly is not the easiest of the three when you want to find a program.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
...coming soon to a cell phone near you! {shudder}
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
Yesterday, while sitting in town watching people come and go (try it; it's good exercise for your eyes from the strain of screens or reading), I noticed a guy loaded on hair gel, in hip clothing and designer flip-flops strutting a conspicuous white ipod on the side of his belt and plugged into his hears... now trying telling him he should be using a windows-mobile-powered samsung or motorolla.
Despite any pipe dream from the likes of bill gates, there is a reason why cellphones are primarily cellphones and why mp3 players are primarily mp3 players and why PDAs are primarily PDAs.
The current technology to store even 256 meg of mp3s or similarly compressed audio would either displace other vital cellphone components or would make the phone that much bulkier. If I want to go jogging or hiking, the last thing I want is a large phone bulging from my pocket or strapped to my waist. I want something as small and as light as possible that can be worn around an armband that won't interfere with my activity. If I'm out hiking all weekend, I want a whole lot more than 2 or 3 hours of music, I'll want an entire weekends worth, which means a minimum of 1 gig. Unless there's been a revolution in flash memory technology lately, a 2 gig or 4 gig flash drive or even adding a mini harddrive to a cellphone would make it so bulky it would seem like the first cellphones of the 80s.
To bulk up a phone just for that is both impractical and combersome. Besides not everyone wants (I for one don't want) a cellphone that can play mp3s, play tv, surf the web, etc. I'd want the device to do one thing and to do it well. If I want to listen to music, I'll take along an mp3 player or a radio or whatever. While a swiss army knife on the surface might appear to be practical, who would actually prefer it over a small toolbox of dedicated tools for day to day activities? It might be useful for camping or hiking when bulk is bad, but if you had a toolbox of screwdrivers and knives, would you not rather reach for the separate screwdriver?
To me there will always be one right tool for the job. Keep the phone as a bloody phone and the mp3 player as a separate mp3 player damn it.
They are morphing into invisibility.
Where can you go from there? Anywhere you want to. You are invisible.
I wouldn't worry about product 'stagnation'.
When the iMac first came out, in 'bondi blue', it didn't look like a box.
The other PC makers couldn't match it. They were stuck with their beige boxes. Then they tried putting colored plastic panels around the same chassis that used to be in those beige boxes.
We have seem the iMac morph twice, the 'football' and the half ball with a scren slung in front of it, and now its just a flat panel on a pedestal. It was obvious what was happening but the PC makers are still selling their boxes.
I'm thinking that the MacMini and the tablet that Apple just patented, using a wireless network to hook up the devices are the future of home computing.
PCs are still stuck in their old chassis, requiring a desk and a chair in a 'work station' and instead Apple is offering invisibility.
If you had to change a house around, which would you rather have, a monolith with a big footprint or something you can't see except for a portable tablet?
I'm not ever going to touch the iPod, iPod Mini and iPod Shuffle. And neither can the PC manufacturers.
Apple 'gets it'.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm seeing some arguments than in 5-10 years, that many cell phones will have the capability to run MP3s. I believe that there is a very good chance of that, because technology improves over time.
Except that's just it... technology improves over time.
The important thing that no one can gauge is if the iPod will improve over time. Ignoring any perceived quality issues, what if the iPod starts doing things a cell phone can't, or does things better.
Or maybe Bill is right in a weird way, and the iPod BECOMES a phone?
I.E. this article is horseshit propoganda, no one knows exactly what's happening in 5 years and Bill has not addressed all the variables.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
So who *is* actually building Windows phones in quantity? Well HP is.. a little tiny bit, but most of the world's Windows phones are manufacturerd by HTC of Taiwan and then just rebadged. Sure.. HTC is doing well, and the HTC Universal certainly rocks.. when it eventually comes out. But for all the squillions that Microsoft has put into this project, they haven't seen an awful lot come out.
Oh yes.. the iPod. Well, on one part we have these "jack of all trades" devices that have a so-so camera, music player, phone and PDA built into one. There's a market for "unified devices". There's also a market for focussed devices that are of a better quality. There's a market for both. Don't forget that Microsoft has been failing to kill off Apple for over twenty years too..
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
... especially considering that cell phones currently outsell iPods by about a 100/1 ratio.
I'll stick my neck out and make some similar bold predictions:
The New England Patriots will win the 2005 Superbowl.
ABC will have a huge hit with "Desperate Housewives."
And lastly, Gilligan will get off the island, but he will eventually move back and open a resort with the rest of the gang.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
won't somebody think about the batteries?
Adventure City Tours
It came with stereo headphones, and it plays MP3s and Real Audio/Video files. The sound is great.No HD in the phone, but I have a 128MB trans flash card.
I still use a Rio Forge when I jog because it's smaller and has an arm strap, but I use my phone for other portable music listening.
The built in speaker isn't half bad either.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
... he has exclusive access to some of the latest, greatest research and demo products and compares that with a shipping product, for awhile now.
What kind of "prediction" is that? I call it a sure bet and would be more impressed if he beat Apple to market with something, anything, as popular as IPod apparently is.
Does anyone else here get the feeling that this guy has finally gone over the edge....with that mentality that "With enough money I can force the buying public to go with my product whether they like it or not", he really believe that shit !!!
Wow.....
Wireless device the supports: voice, internet, calendar, alarm, screen big enough to be usable, tough enough to be dropped and still work, keyboard so I can enter text (stylist is no good) or very good recognition. And costs less than $25/month with unlimited voice and data... Until then.. I don't want one.
While I agree that cellphones are sort of the logical target for convergence there are some huge obstacles to overcome. I agree that the iPod's days are numbered in its current form. I think many people would be very happy to just carry one device and a smartphone of some sort seems the ideal candidate. (Personally I prefer best of breed devices linked by Bluetooth but I think I'm in the minority there.) It's already an audio focused device and there are sufficient storage solutions. The main technical obstacles are battery life and a good user interface but those will be overcome in time I think. Of course the iPod is unlikely to remain in its current form unless Steve Jobs & Co have a collective stroke. But the real obstacles are not technical ones but market ones.
Cell phones are not yet a commodity product the same way PCs are. There are at least 3-4 major operating systems, there is no dominant hardware platform, incompatible radio technologies, and the main buyers of cell phones (cellular providers) are far less fragmented and more powerful than any buyer of PCs. It's a very different market. The only way I can see a iPod-replacement-phone taking off is if it if the developer (Palm, MS, Motorola, Nokia, etc) can somehow get the carriers to fight each other for it.
A huge problem with cell phones replacing the iPod is that there is almost zero financial incentive for the cellular providers (Cingular, Verizon, etc) to offer iPod/iTunes functionality on their networks unless they can make money off it. I don't see them being flexible enough to make that happen. They'll want a business like the ringtone business and they'll want it captive so you have to buy it from them. Witness Verizon with their disabled bluetooth functionality on one of their phones. They have no interest in services they can't charge for and are afraid of subsidizing development on a service one of their competitors will benefit from. One of the main reason's the iPod is successful is that you don't have to rely on any third party to use it. You can *choose* to use iTunes, etc but you aren't forced to. This is the exact opposite of how the carriers think.
Another factor is that most phones are subsidized by the providers. Now it's possible someone might produce a device people are willing to buy without subsidizing but I think they can't charge much more than an iPod or Treo. People are obviously willing to carry devices that cost as much as $400-$500US (Treo, some iPods) but if the cost is more than that, I think you are getting outside the sweet spot and most want devices that are much cheaper. It's possible it could happen, I'm just dubious it will happen if the cellular providers have much say in the matter.
is bitchin' hold music.
Believe it or not, there are still some people in the world who want a device that does one thing well. not ten things half-assed.
Look at the Olympus m:robe. (It's a large, fragile 20GB MP3 player! It's a large, fragile camera with poor image quality!) It was advertised during the Super Bowl and hasn't been heard from since, except for some reviews that range from mediocre to downright embarassing. And how about the first incarnation of the N-Gage, we all had a good laugh over that one.
If there's one thing Microsoft has historically done well, it's stuff pointless features into their products, often to the detriment of the essential features in those products. I expect more of the same from them here-- a buggy POS backed up by their usual Jedi Mind Trick-style marketing.
Not surprised nothing's happened to you! And get off my damned lawn!!!!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I think the general consensus amoung you slashdotters here mainly stem from the fact that you're a little behind in cell-phone technology. Over here, cell phones are already starting to eat away at the portable music-player market (this is going strictly from what I see with my friends though, I doubt it'll turn up at market-analysises this soon).
Good music playing phones already exist, and why shouldn't they? Playing music is simple, calling is simple, using sms is simple. There is no general purpose interface, and none of the generalization problems PDA's end up with.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
At some point in time, the iPod will fade into obscurity but I doubt it will be caused by anything Microsoft makes. They've got one point of domination--Windows and they have severe quality issues.
Any emerging technologies out there for cell phones are going to have to consider several factors if they want to compete and beat the iPod as a music player (or if Apple wants to morph the iPod into a cell-phone):
1) Battery life. With all the stuff these uberwidgets are doing, they are going to have to find a good, stable, non-explosive power source. The iPod or other music players have a dedicated purpose--if you multiply the purposes, multiply the power consumption (probably by an exponent). I'd rather have a separate music player than to chance losing all my juice in my phone.
2) Portability--by that, I mean music can be moved from/to an iPod or computer to/from my new music phone easily. The interface has to be easy to use and it will have to be compatible the dominant music sources. Otherwise it's going to have hell catching up because re-inventing that wheel has not proven to be a match for iTMS. People won't switch products if it's not easy or they feel to heavily invested in or loyal to another product/service.
3) Availability & Pricing. If you can't get one from or working with your provider, it doesn't matter how good the product works or doesn't. [Look how long it took the Treo to get ubiquitous support]. The price dictates availability, too. The market demographic for people who want music and cell phones may not have the disposable income to afford it if it's not priced right. (i.e., cheaper than a nice cell phone + an iPod).
4) Fashion. MS's devices aren't ever as slick looking as Apple's--that will definitely be a factor in its appeal to both vendors and consumers. The "cool" factor enjoyed by the iPod is something Microsoft's money just can't buy. They'll have to compete in quality and design--two areas they don't do well in.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
The trouble is, all of these features saddle the poor little device with a complexity that will boggle even the veteran cell fan. You have to wade your way through a staggering 583 menu commands, along with far too many pointless "Are you sure?" confirmations, to find them all. Just looking up your own phone number requires eight button presses, for goodness' sake.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
when will Gates realise i don't want an all-in-one portable electronic device. something that is a rubbish phone and a rubbish mp3 player.
toaster telephones - they suck. different to dial, and make for bad bagels.
From what I understand, we would have many MP3/Phone combinations now if it weren't for the Cell companies like Verizon, and the rest dragging there feet. The phone companies want a share of the $0.99 per song. So, they won't sell phones that have MP3 capabilities without crippling them so you can only put songs on them by transfering them over their network (and charging you for the "feature"). I was looking at a cameraphone sold by verizon. It had a flash card in it. But you couldn't images couldn't be transfered through the flash card to your computer. You had to pay a $3.00/per month fee to transfer the photos via their network to your email address. The salesman said it was because transfering pictures from via the flash card was a security problem, and would make it possible to get viruses on your phone. Yeah right. They want cell phones to work just like the POTS phones, where they charge for every little thing. Honestly, I'm surprised that Verizon doesn't charge for "backlight minutes".
Anyhow, If this way of doing business continues with the phone companies, who in the world would ever use a phone as an MP3 player if you had to pay a monthly fee to use your MP3 player as apposed to freely transfering songs back and forth. I would just carry a second device.
There were rumors that Apple and Motorola had some sort of combo device coming, but the cell companies wouldn't sell it for their network because they didn't get a cut of the song profits.
So really, what Bill says really carries no weight, it is all about the pricing models the telecoms choose to use. Maybe Microsoft will subsudize the windows phone, but but I would still avoid it, just for the sake of keeping my gear free of viruses and BSODs.
You're wrong. Cell phone makers only care about selling phones. The service providers (ie. VZW) don't really give a rat about selling the phones... in fact. they're almost giving them away for free.
The Digital Couture Collection
Make a cell phone that's as cool and easy to use as the ipod.
..and has tried to release a phone with MP3/AAC/ITunes support in partnership with Nokia.
The major wireless providers have basically shut the phone out of the market by opting not to subsidize them because they want music downloads through their networks as a revenue stream.
It's not as if anyone is caught flat footed by convergence devices. The question is not if they will come about, but how long it takes a good one to make it past all the market barriers.
Eeyore
I have been considering buying an iPod but I'm probably going to buy a SonyEricsson K750 or W800 because the old one is slowly dying ... However I doubt mine will be running Microsoft Windows Mobile.
iPod leads to Cellphone
Cellphone leads to Microsoft
Microsoft leads to suffering!!!
My treo is capable of playing music. So are others. The problem is that the cell phone feature is way more important. And unless I can do both without killing the battery, then no thanks. Until battery life becomes a non issue, I'll reiterate others, Gates is full of it on this one.
(that said, I've been extremely happy with my Treo's battery life. But it wouldn't be near as good if I listened to music all the time)
You wuss! I remember the first mobile phones, they were a box the size of a car battery. And get OFF my DAMNED lawn!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
to bill and his predictions - we all know the technology world revolves around bill.
at least with the ipod I don't have to have a subscription - at least I hope not - I don't own one. at least I can take my own cd's and rip them onto the ipod and i don't have to have a subscription.
I don't know about everyone else but I am just about subscriptioned out - between cable, cell phone, isp, etc I just don't want any more - I want less - I am thinking of getting rid of my cable - I hardly ever watch - all the shows are pretty lame in my opinion. now they want you to pay for radio - ridiculous - but I guess that is what they said with cable.
technology is great but all I see these days are innovation on how to make people pay subscriptions and just suck more money out from us.
Well lets see.
There's the iPod Mini, the iPod Photo and lately the iPod Shuffle which has a drastically different case.
Sorry but the iPod has changed in size, capacity, utility and form factor.
I'd say that Apple has kept pretty good pace.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Using 'PTunes' on my treo 600, I already bring 12 albums of music around and play them using an SD card... And I can play them on my desktop also if I want. As SD and other media get cheaper, this will get easier and easier. I also can listen to shoutcast streams. All that on a tiny little OS like Palm. Why should I worry about Windows on my handheld device when Palm works and will boot up in seconds.
The second thing I noticed in the article was this quote:
"The BlackBerry is great but we're bringing a new approach," he said. "With BlackBerry you need to link to a separate server, and that costs extra. With us, the e-mail function will already be part of the server software."
With Chatter, I get IMAP email pushed in real time to my treo.No extra server needed here either, just a _standard_ IMAP server which supports IDLE, and my treo can get email pushed to it in the background.
It makes sense that cell phones will eclipse other devices eventually, but they'll have to surpass those devices' FUNCTIONALITY to win.
So your fancy new cell phone has a camera in it-- great. It's no replacement for a digital camera, though-- camera phones haven't caused any decline in digital camera sales. Why? A digital camera is a better digital camera than the one on your phone, just like an iPod is a better iPod than your phone's mp3 player.
(Also, phone mp3 players tend not to play AAC's, which is how I rip my music. Ogg people, give up already!)
I've been using my cell phone as a watch for years. And, as soon as the screens get large enough while keeping the unit size small, I'll turn in my PDA. And, since I already have a multi-function stylus/pen/mechanical pencil, I'll just hold on to that.
:)
Of course, my PDA has more memory, so my new phone will have to take an SD card or a CF microdrive. BlueTooth is already in many cellphones, so syncing is a done deal, and so tomorrow I can cast music to my car radio with little trouble.
Powering the beastie adequately to not only be a phone and PDA, but also to play music for a few hours each day might require some novel innovation in battery technology. Maybe a miniature ethanol or butane turbine instead of Lithium-ion and NiCad...
Say... Butane or ethanol? Maybe a lighter isn't that unreasonable after all.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
And he's right that Apple is not positioned for the long haul (ooooh, here come the Apple fanboys). Steve Jobs will be off to make some other neat, shiny thing.
Advice: on VPS providers
I have had my ipod for 3 years now. In that time I have had 3 phones. Most people ditch their phone after their contract runs out and trade up to the newer free one.
Most people view their phones as temporary which I really think will limit what people use the for.
Mobile phone always connect with a base. The radio signal is the electro-magnetic waves.
I do not like to have a mobile phone (radiostation) near me if I can help it.
... the 640K left after putting Windows on the phone ought to be enough for anybody.
I would think that once their competitors are aware of this strategy, they would counteract it simply by not resting in their laurels but instead developing cool new features for their devices so that Microsoft can never catch up to the point where their crappy device is good enough to compete. The biggest danger when competing with Microsoft is that you'll be lulled into a false sense of security by how shitty their revision 1 products inevitably are.
Apple's already experienced this once at the hands of Microsoft -- Windows prior to 3.0 was a joke, 3.0 was just good enough to put a hurtin' on Apple and once Apple got smacked down Windows didn't change appreciably for well over a decade. Oh I know they had NT, but it's not like THAT was ever marketted at the home user.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Apple, Cray, SGI, Sun, and IBM have joined forces to create the ultimate computing machine. It has a variable dpi LCD monitor with resolutions up to 3840x2160, flawless voice and handwriting recognition. It can replace entire datacenters; play full screen movies and 3D video games at 80fps; playback and record 96 simultaneous tracks of 192kHz, 64-bit audio, including DSP plugins; and hold up to a terabyte of RAM and 30 terabytes of disk. It can fit in your pocket, and it runs quiet and cool.
What's the first question asked at the introductory press release?
"Can it run Windows programs?"
-mkb
Gates wiped his nose on his sleeve!
Quick! Post an article on it!
Have you seen the size of a regular iPod next to the Treo?
1. The only way the "subscription" model for the music stores is going to take off is if it's combined with an existing subscription model that takes no effort for people to add to. The only two things most people subscribe to on a regular basis is cable television and phones. It's very credible to think that if Comcast offered $5/mo for you to download any songs you wanted onto your ComcastRio, a lot of people would do it. Probably similar with cell phones.
Therefore, I see Napster and friends quickly being bought out by Comcast, Cingular, etc., and becoming a music service provider. Whether they even converge the cellphone and the MP3 player is beside the point... it would help them cut down on costs, but I don't think is fundamental to the model-- they could just have the CinglarRio or whatever.
2. What is Gates smoking? From the article:
"You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface--like the iPod today--and then lost its position," Gates said.
Yes... it's a pity the Macintosh fell from its previous 92% market share to where it is today. Oh, wait a minute, that's not what happened at all.
E pluribus unum
and the salesman who sold me the piece of crap would have sued me for braining him with it.
I want a phone to WORK damnit.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
He founded arguably one of the most successfully companies in history, of course he's going to tout his own products. The average person doesn't think like us.. All they hear is this insanely successful person think he must know what he's talking about and believe him. Most user have probably never even heard of firefox.
I am by no means a MS junkie but if I was him i'd say the same things. Its all marketing when executives at that level talk.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
But there's another side to this: The battery life between charges on an iPod is decent. Unfortunately, you can't (easily, and under warranty) replace the battery. Although a replacement battery for most cellphones seems to cost nearly the price of the phone itself these days, at least it is consumer-replaceable. Wouldn't it be amusing if the "iPod-killer" turned out to be the cellphone because of that?
Mobile phones-- powered by none other than Windows Mobile 5.0, of course.
Not on my side...
I flat out refuse to use ANY M$ based product.
Besides, I don't want all that crap. When I'm not at my desk, I'm doing something, driving, working, etc. I don't have time to screw around with a stupid device like this. Besides, I'm old and I can't deal with the "Nintendo thumbs" syndrome. I watched my kids operate those tiny little controllers and I hated the damn things. And doing that on a cell phone while I am trying to drive, that phone is going to get zinged out the window!
I want a phone that I can call people on, has a totally dependable battery, has a large send and hang up button, that I F--king can SEE in daylight (I hate my V120T) and get's a good signal everywhere. Screw games, music and text messages, screw notes and all the other nerd-bling.
I just want a phone that I can depend on when I need it and that everyone doesn't want to steal from me.
Why do companies keep bringing out these all singing and dancing products that do everything under the sun? I don't think people want one gadget that does everything. Would you want a machine that combines all these into one package. It can be (and I think has been) done, but would you *want* it?
I think they would, you've pretty much described a PC.
The iPod is successful because it's easy: simple, immediate functions, and a simplified interface. Just like the Palm Pilots, which were successful because they were simple, with immediate functions that were easy to use through a simplified interface. And like cellphones, also easy to use, with immediately accessible functions.
Windows is complicated. Especially for perpetuating the Windows desktop legacy, and supporting Microsoft's corporate customers, the many different functions and modes of Windows make it complex. And Microsoft has never designed a successful "simple" interface, the way Apple and, say, Nokia, have. So Gates is right about mobile "phones" taking the (current) iPod's turf. Networking these devices makes them exponentially more valuable, by bringing more people into the value system. But Windows will likely just ride the rising tide, as usual, without contributing much to it beyond mass marketing. Apple is less encumbered by inhibitors, with a better brand for "innovation". Future "iPods" will be networked, and much more easily used than their Windows competitors, as usual. In the expanding mass market, that ease of use is the most important factor in success.
--
make install -not war
The limiting factor in this technology is battery power. I have vastly different levels of concern for battery life on my cell phone vs my music player. Keeping them seperate means I will use my music player a lot more, if I kill the battery, no big deal. If it is tied to my cell phone I will be much less eager to use it and risk killing the battery of something important.
Finkployd
See, this is the fundamental problem. Everyone wants to make the killer convergence device, but they run out of space.
First we had the cellphone. In terms of functionality, it's about as good as it's going to get. You can make calls, receive calls, and even read/compose SMS messages, if that's your thing.
Then we tacked on the PDA. Now all the wireless data makes sense. I can get my email, check my stocks, and even type quickly, if you have a decent thumbboard.
While we're at it, let's tack on voice memos, since it already has a microphone. Then, let's throw in a camera. Great!
Now I have a device with a crappy camera, an anemic amount of built in storage, and limited expandability, since the space which might normally go to a second flash memory slot is taken up by the cellular radio.
You can't kill the digital camera without having a GOOD digital camera in your phone. And not just on raw megapixels. You need good optics, a decent optical zoom, and a decent interface. A flash becomes pretty important, and that just eats up battery life.
You can't kill the music player without having as much space as the dedicated models. Now we need more power for a 20GB (or greater) hard drive.
You can't kill the video player for the same reasons, only with more storage space.
You can't kill the game system without decent gaming hardware. Now you need a fairly power-hungry CPU, a 3D chipset, plus an MPEG decoder for video and audio, a large backlit color touchscreen, since that's what the convergence people want, and a system that won't crash when it's playing a movie, a song, or a game, and you get a call.
And it has to sync up with a PC, I'm sure. Bluetooth? Wireless USB? Wi-Fi and VoIP support?
How much crap do you have to shove into a handheld device the size of the iPod in order to win? And once you do, how long will it last between charges? And even then, who's going to buy it?
The iPod's spread across a wide range, from $100 up. $200 gets you an iPod mini, your fairly standard cellphone, now with color screen and camera, comes for free with a new contract, and you don't have to move your music around when you replace your phone. I wouldn't say that it's perfect, and I would love some kind of magical tiny convergence device which does the job of my game system, smartphone, iPod, and camera, but the dedicated device approach is far less catastrophic when things break, and far less problematic when you have one function stepping over the other. (If I were to play a game, listen to music, and then get a call on my smartphone, I'm not sure I would trust the whole thing to stay running.)
But hey, if Bill thinks that his people can make a cellphone that doesn't suck when pulling double-duty as a media player, and make it all cost less than a phone and an iPod of a similar capacity, more power to him.
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
It's not about Apple or Microsoft or Samsung or Sony or anything to do with design or branding.
The one thing that will set a huge fire on wireless devices will be fast and very cheap networking. Hopefully WiFly will do it. But if not there's other possibilities. It's just a matter of time.
When it does arrive, say like 1Meg bidirectional for twenty bucks a month, everybody will have one and they'll just stream all of their media from their home PC.
But at that point the margins will be too low for either Apple or Microsoft. Instead, the handsets will probably have your telco's logo and be made by the zillion by Golden Gragon Ltd contract mega manufacturers, Shen Zhen China. They won't need more than a tiny bit of local storage since you'll keep everything at home. The rest of it wil just be a few chips and an antennae in a piece of plastic.
The best part is that they'll be all over India and Brazil and the Ukraine just as fast as they hit the US. Globalization isn't all bad.
How long before Apple or a 3rd-party iPod accessory vendor makes a cell phone plug-in for the iPod, (sans the clumsy keypad)? Apple has developed some decent voice recognition software ("iPod: Dial 555-555-5555" or "iPod: Call Bill G."). Contacts could be stored in a playlist. Plug in an iSight for cellular video conferencing. ("Can you see me now? Can you see me now?") Hmmmm....
The problem with Bill is that he never knows when to just be happy with what he has, he has to have everything. Like a little spoiled brat, he will do anything to get his way. I wonder if his kids know how evil he really is: "Dad, what did you do today at work?" "Well I destroyed another company, demonized anyone who uses Linux, and launched my latest plan to take over the world."
If he spent half the time he did on fixing the stuff they sell now vs trying to run people out of business, Microsoft products would be worth the money.
Looking back at Palm, it was the coolest thing people will want to have. But since it's first generation, it really didn't change a whole lot but evolve around a PDA model. Even look at the Palm Zire now, how much does it differ from it's original other than memory/speed? Even size is about the same I'd argue.
Don't you know that your tinfoil hat protects you against that kind of stuff?
Ok, one small rant...
.c file). Not just a defective unit -- the replacement failed too.
The purpose of a cell phone is to -- now hold on to your hats -- is to make *phone calls*!
That essential function seems to be relegated to the low-priority list in the rush to cram endless features into a ever diminishing form factor.
It seems that when every "new", "improved", feature-packed phone comes out, the audio quality keeps getting worse. They're beginning to sound like cheap half-duplex speakerphones you pay $5 for at Wall-Mart.
The networks are getting crammed full of non-voice traffic, so the carriers are crushing bandwidth to accomodate the ever increasing demand. No doubt that exacerbates the situation. Maybe some of that is CDMA.
Strange how 5 years ago, my little cheap Siemens GSM phone had audio quality (both directions - incoming and outgoing) that was superior to the average landline.
Now my web-browsing, half-pda, color screen, camera, usb modem enabled phone has audio *almost* as good as my landline. That is, if you ignore inopportune duplexing, mediocre echo cancellation, and the occasional lost packet. I consider myself lucky - I got one of the premium Motorola ones on a 2-year re-up on my contract and it is better than most. It replaced one that I could hardly make calls on!
Of course, that was far better than the one I had before that which was so well "engineered" that it would lock up unexpectedly leaving a debug message (an error number and a reference to a
I dunno - am I asking too much? Just a good basic phone with clear audio?
Sure, iPod/iTunes is all marketing, but that's the point. The *device* is the totem of the trend, and therefore carries with it cultural significance (it's cool to own an iPod; it's not-quite-as-cool to own an MP3 player). Apple will continue to update the iPod to keep people buying them (thus, the forays into photos, video, games??). Microsoft has utterly failed at making its products cool. I fail to see how shoehorning a music player in an already antiquated form factor is going to set the world on fire.
I think BillG is making a critical error here in thinking that the iPod is on the way out. The reason the iPod is so successful is it makes it ridiculously easy to hook up to your computer and transfer a boat-load of music. There aren't any fancy cables, and the software to get it onto the iPod is easy to use and fast. Cellphones aren't standardized, aren't made to connect to the computer easily, and generally involve Herculean Measures to transfer even the simplest data back and forth from anywhere, let alone a computer. Greedy cellphone companies will cripple any usability these new phones may have in the name of greed and lock-in. Unless there is a major shift in the industry attitude towards cellphones, I expect the iPod to enjoy many more years as the device of choice for people looking for portable music.
I don't mean that as a slight against Apple's pricing or anything. What I mean is, let's assume Apple finally reaches 'computer nirvana' and has a perfect system. I (this is just my uneducated opinion) would think that a smart way to go would be to work on size and cost.
Imagine, instead of having "the computer" on a desk in the office, the computer could be a bunch of little nodes around your house. Instead of heading off to the computer room to google a recipe you could just use the node in the kitchen. Or stream mp3s into the bathroom while you get ready for work. I think the technology is nearly there anyway. Bring the cost down so that it makes sense to buy a few nodes at a time and make them small enough to be unobtrusive and I think it could work.
Of course, that's just my opinion, but in any case I don't think we're even close to running out of room to innovate.
The trouble is that Gates assumes that everyone else is dumb and he's smart, so no matter what someone else has done, he can start with their ideas and improve upon it. He doesn't take into account that others are doing the same thing, and that by the time the MS version gets out the door the innovator has moved on.
Witness:
At least some journalists are taking notice:
Kevin Fox
I won't be a fan of Ipods until the play my ogg files
http://www.ipodlinux.org/Main_Page
Check back on the iPodlinux project every few weeks, they are working on ogg playback. Once the 4th gen version is out of alpha, ogg can be implemented more easily, due to the more powerful processor.
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
and only have iPods.
Low tech - the only way to go, provided you've got music.
I think the article reflects Bill G's sour grapes over missing out on providing s/w for the iPod, a device that he gets 0.00 percent cut on from Apple, as compared to all the other Apple products which ship with MSFT s/w inside and are a profit point.
The revolution already happened - iPod, iListen, iLive, iNotMSFT.
Will in Seattle
...is up there on my list of priorities, right under buying a toaster with built in HDTV.
approach their collective visions of how want you, the consumer, to run your digital life. Microsoft, like Apple and Google, want to control as many aspects of your digital experience as possible. Microsoft, while creating a simple to use environment, inundates the user with MS preferred content, unreliable functionality, and the company itself has turned into a bloated beauracracy that has the mindset of BIG BIG AND BIGGER. Google, on the other hand, has a different type of corporate mindset: Functional, Simple, Streamlined, Unobtrusive advertising, and I think it can be said that as compared to MS, those people have the mindsets of young and forward thinking innovators. Apple, perhaps is somewhere in between. They want to make functional, powerful equipment that is considered "Cool" to use. When it comes to aggregating technology and services into individual devices, you can be rest assured that MS wants to do it in a manner that will try to dummy the user into accepting its rule unknowingly and lovingly, and it's competitors, say Apple in particular, will cater to a more refined and discriminating user (or perhaps one with more money to burn than the rest). I think however, they will prevail in this battle. While more expensive, the software quality, as opposed to MS, as well as the "Cool" factor (being the growing underdog napping at the heels of a giant, seriously, what is so cool about using MS stuff, hell, that is for the office) will ultimately come out ahead. I don't think MS is going to totally die a massive death, but at some point, if they do not alter the way they market and build their products (with the old tech mindset) they will certainly lose a massive chunk of the market.
The issue with a PDA/cell phone merging has always been about the form factor and user interface. Technically you can design the device as small as a cell phone but that would make it hard for the user to use (screen too small, buttons too small). Making the device large enough to be a PDA makes the phone cumbersome. Until we get something like holographic interfaces, the PDA will have to be separate.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
i recently got a sharp tm-150 from t-mobile. it does pictures and video and all that. the nicest feature is that it has an SD card slot, so I can stick half a gig of flash memory in there. the phone doesn't play mp3s (oh well), but i know there are others that do. it won't be long before memory card slots and music playback are standard phone features.
i think he's wrong about windows mobile, though. j2me has a pretty fair chunk of the market and, having developed for it, i can vouch that it's a good platform.
The limiting factor in this technology is battery power. I have vastly different levels of concern for battery life on my cell phone vs my music player. Keeping them seperate means I will use my music player a lot more, if I kill the battery, no big deal. If it is tied to my cell phone I will be much less eager to use it and risk killing the battery of something important.
/.
Dude, you need a solar-powered iPod. All the hep cats here at the U have them - you just pop a solar film hoodie on your pack and wire it into a recharger for the iPod.
I think they covered them a few weeks back on
Will in Seattle
hahah
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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
iPod rules because it's simple, clean and does exactly what the user expects. For 98% of the people who buy iPod, it's not about hacking the iPod to do all sorts of crazy things. Bill really has no clue when it comes to consumer electronics.
Capacity to everything well will come soon enough. Its just there will be some things you want to with pocket-size form-factor, and other things with a clip-board size.
I think that it will be nearly impossible for an iPod to be replaced by cellphones. because the battery life is not there. If you walk around for an hour or two with a big ass cellphone/mp3 thing and it runs out of power. You havent just lost your music but your cellophone too. What are the options? 2 batteries? Its gonna brick.
I personnally like it when i cellphone battery lasts at least 2 or more days between recharges? Can i get an Amen?
People can't call you on your iPOD.Granted, I'm in the minority, but for me, the cell phone is a neccessary evil, not something I really want. By contrast, portable Music is desirable. In addition, cell phones tend to make really lousy music players. Heck, for the most part, they aren't even very good telephones. When it is on, my Motorola V220 (or whatever) cell phone will transmit nasty buzzing sounds to any speaker within a meter or so. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but that isn't a feature I'm looking for in a music player. Of course, this seems to be unique to the Motorola. My old Ericson T28 didn't do this.
Gates will only win this fight because of his current hold on users.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Today, you can buy a PDA / Cell Phone / Camera. Now I want to buy a PDA / Cell Phone / Camera / MP3 player. In 6 months, I will want a PDA / Cell Phone / Camera / MP3 player / Video game system. Then it will be a PDA / Cell Phone / Camera / MP3 player / Video game / Toaster.
This isn't progress. PCs and TVs are popular partially because you can add new things on to them. But today, to add something to a cell phone requires buying a new cell phone. That aint cheap. Soon, we will need a standardized expandable cell phone so that we can add the drink mixer attachment easily without replacing the whole device.
Until then, I won't waste $1000 to buy the ultimate integrated device, knowing I will need to throw it out very soon.
Id rather have direct control over my files.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When I carry my cell phone, it is because I want to be connected. No need to talk up the amazing utility of the device. But it is a double-edged sword because I am subjected to unwanted calls that I feel responsible for answering. If my boss calls me I feel obligated to answer. The solution is that I don't always carry my cell- I leave it in the car or at home because I need some time 'offline'. It is during those disconnected times that I also am most likely to use my iPod. Using my iPod is like being in my own world. Noisy office distractions are kept out, panhandlers on the street see my (stealth black) headphones and don't bother to hit me up for change. The point being the uses of the two devices are inherently at odds. Add to this the fact that a my top-of-the-line moto cell phone is dreadfully difficult to use for anything but phone calls, and my iPod is wonderfully easy and intuitive, I won't be buying a merged device anytime soon...
The digital cellphone system with internet connectivity is already in place.
How much would it take to make a "car radio" (or boombox, for that matter) that has internet streaming capability via the cellphone system? This WILL happen someday.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Well, Apple has a long history of charging for every minor OS release, and the Apple zealots just keep opening their wallets. I wouldn't worry about Apple. They could come out with an iPod that's identical in functionality, but is called "iPod2", and you'd have people waiting in lines outside of their stores. Apple has got their customers hooked in a way that other companies only dream about.
I don't respond to AC's.
- Nikita S Khrushchev, 11/17/1956
And not just MS, phones suck for anything other than being phones, ok, camera phones are fun, but, the pic quality is crap, give me something that will be as good as my phone, camera, pda, mp3 player, and camcorder, that has like a 5 year warranty, will connect flawlessly and instantly to my Linux, Windows, and Mac systems, and can survive the abuse my phone takes: dropped, kicked, stepped on, puddles, rain, snow, etc, etc, and even if it cost a couiple of thousand $US I'll buy one, maybe two! Otherwise piss off with the all-in-one baloney ESPECIALLY if it comes from MS - sheesh!
[what?]
The problem with the mythical all-in-one device is, if you have one gadget that plays music and makes phone calls and keeps your contacts and plays games and surfs the Web and answers e-mails, and you break it or lose it, then you can't play music OR make phone calls OR check you r contacts OR . . .
I just hope when this obviously Windows-driven product comes out, it at least comes with a lanyard and a nice warranty.
There are advantages to both universalization and specialization.
Even when hes wrong he makes money, so hes right in the long run.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My cell phone is about as small as it can get and still have a useful interface and with over 10Mbite's of onboard storage it's better than PC where 20 years ago.
In ~10 years I expect at least 10GBites of storage so you can have all the music you want on your cell phone.
In ~20 years I expect around 10TBite of onboard storage at which point you can have 100 HD movies.
That's right in 20 years your cell phone is going to be more capable than PC's are today. The only problem is trying to get a good interface on a device that small. I think you will play simple games, chat with or without video, watch movies, and listen to music. I don't care how good the voice > text interface is it's not going to be a word processor and the interface is not going to make it good for playing games but it is going to kill off the iPod.
Honestly, the media these days just fucking invents polls and then publishes them. They aren't even representative of the population, but it's believed they will MAKE the population, representative. That is, people look at the "polls", see that 68% of respondents think this, and as such, it must be a good conclusion. It worked all through the 90's like that, but ever since 2000, it's been changing back around. A lot of people are starting to think critically again, in part, due to the internet.
Anymore, I look at the polls, and wonder how the question was loaded...
Please, no. Do you really want that?
The problem Gates doesn't seem to see is that the more things you "melt" into the device, the more difficult all of the features become to use, and the less likely you'll find the features you want.
When I buy a muic player, there are certain specifications I want. The same is true for my cell phone, music player and everything else. I can have the Apple iPod that's exactly what I want, and the Sony digital camera that's exactly what I want, and the Nokia phone that's exactly what I want.
Does anybody want the "MS Device" that plays music, takes pictures and makes phone calls, but is more difficult to use than all three together and does nothing well?
Personally, I don't see myself buying anything like that, but I guess many people would be very happy with it. At least that's what I keep hearing.
I can just imagine the dulcet cello tone of the Windows Xp error message proclaiming "Codec Not Found".
People like the the iPod because it plays the MP3's that they already own. The cell phone companies will _never_ provide their customers with a phone that can be connected directly to the customer's PC and MP3's copied to it for free.
These phones will come out, but you'll have to get your music from the phone company (for only $20 extra per month for up to 50 songs, then $2.99/song after that, plus airtime charges)
Ok, lets put the MS concept out there, following a pattern we've already seen [in brackets]:
- MS proposes an industry-wide standard for cell phone and music-service interoptability. The market already has several proposals on the table, but MS's does in fact win some vendors. [IE HTML]
- MS uses an "open standard" to transport and identify payloads, but with "extensions" that lock platforms to their releases. Several platforms, especially the MS Phones, accept this standard without the extensions. [OFFICE XML]
- Music bought through MS-hosted services use their licensing scheme, and require MS-based phones for basic and/or extended capabilities (like the ability to offload the data out of the phone). [MEDIA PLAYER 10]
- Vendors, including hardware from Seimens, Motorola, etc and software from Apple, Sun, MS and content from Vivendi, Disney, Turner slowly start lay out the best options for new versions of the mulitple standards, including transforms, security. We approach convergence.
- At this point, other convergence models from the consumer market are expecting new behaviors from phones, one or more being: VOIP, Electronic Keys, Car/Home Alarms, GPS transceivers, language translators, health monitors, projectors, electronic wallets and identification devices. Modular phones become the norm, with sizes of the base hardware shrinking to a matchbox. Multiple modules can be connected, instigating a wrapper layer around the prior standards.
- The standards are eclipsed by another transmission protocol entirely, which support the transfer specifics necessary to get all these new behaviors. Transfers are now completely swarm-based, as these devices are supplanting or ebedded in almost all prior active/passive devices: cars, locks, switches, meters, telephones, remote controls, keys, headphones, microphones, rings, watches, shoes and hats - all now carry "intelligent" information in new and competative ways. The transfer of this information is easy and ubiquitous.
- These points become yet another set of sites within Internet 2, and one can google opt-in points for statistics on anything. These statistics are used for interesting trivia and occasional political battles regarding trade/taxes or "protecting the children"
- Finally...MS proposes a new standard, whereby their "Intelligent Life" platform is completely integrated with their single protocol proposal, which they're submitted to the market to be "open" (but immediately extensible). Most vendors balk, one or two are discounted into adoption. And So, we start all over again...
Cellphones, on the other hand, are useless paperweights as soon as you stop paying for monthly service.
and...
I think the truth is, cellphone makers are really only interested in one thing ... selling you expensive monthly service plans.
I haven't had a monthly cellphone subscription in 5 years. I don't know anyone, except my Dad, who does have a monthly contract. Contracts seem so old fashioned; you might get a free phone on signing up but upgrading your phone twice a year through ebay works out cheaper in the long run. My mate always has the latest and greatest phone and only seems to spend thirty or forty pounds upgrading.
We all use pay-as-you-go. Everyone that I know under thirty years old uses pay-as-you-go. It's a pain when you run out of credit and can't make calls but that doesn't stop you receiving them.
I for one don't have enough money for a cellphone and an Ipod. Loads of people are in the same position. I do have enough money to replace my phone once a year. I'd love an MP3 player and when they appear on low-cost phones I'm going to have one.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I live in europe [old country], so this might not apply everywhere. I have a Nokia 6310i [which my boss/work provides] and personally a Sony Ericsson s700i which has 128MB MS-Duo (half capacity of the iPod Shuffle) and plays MP3, MP4 and 3GP nicely.
I don't see my work/boss buying 100 multimedia phones/pda's for all of us that work there so we can listen to radio, play MP3's and watch video during work hours... just NO WAY.
And in my private time, I don't want to sit on a terrace in the summer, listen to my music (MP3 or radio[stream]) and be disturbed by my boss, mother-in-law or any cutomer that thinks he/she can bother me on a saturday afternoon. The S700i (and other models) cannot play and turn off the Phone completely; you'd need two (2) power-buttons, one for the phone and one for the rest. And there is the problem; I might forget to turn the phone on... and be fired the next tuesday!!
And what really would freak me out, should I put my Phone/MP3player/pda in a cradle and hook it up to my stereo, someone would just call while I'm listening to Limp Bizkit and the amp is at 9... and then I would hear the ringtone... full force.
No thanx Bill, I'll take my iPod and got to the beach, and if you want to talk to me; call the office
--- 'Pain heals, chicks dig scars... glory... lasts for ever!' -- "Footstep" Falco
The iPod is a pda, it just has a crappy screen, your pda is basically a phone, but with out a mobile adaptor card and your phone is an mp3 player but it doesn't have a hard-drive. All these devices should naturally be one general purpose computer.
I think he's right. At the end of the day, everyone wants a cell phone, an mp3 player, a camera, and a pda (games etc) and they don't want to have to carry 4 things around. The technology is there, hell, even the products are already there, its just a question of economics - is it more profitable to make devices that only do one thing or that do everything? and will people wan't to spend lots more money on one gadget?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I completely agree that cellphones will one day take over. Every one carries a cellphone around, and Moore's Law is ensuring that we can fit more and more stuff on a phone. Within 5 years we will have decent cameras on phones, and we can aleady put a HD and an MP3 decoder in one. Imagine how great it would be to have a portable HD (perhaps even flash based), digital camera, phone, mp3 player and PDA all in a package the size of an IPOD. This *can* be done within 10 years given the current rate of advancement.
The only reason why we would not be able to do this is the battery. Current battery technology will simply not be sufficient. I think once the next battery technology comes out, a revolution will occur in mobile electronics. "Super-phones" will be the next big thing.
I think fuel cells hold a lot of promise. Once some hurdles are passed, they are quite ideal: they can be charged in seconds and can hold a decent charge.
Huh? For me this parses as: "The RIM device needs to connect to a server for email, and that's bad. With the MS device, you need to connect to an email sever, but that is part of the server software, and that's okay."
It's not like MicroSoft wouldn't charge for email if they could. Oh wait, they do charge Blackberry users.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
As for the part about them all running Windows, let's just say that remains to be seen.
There's nothing really new here. What Bill said in that article, he's said for 10 years now. Let me make that obvious by quoting the article:
Partly in response to pressure from Apple, Microsoft is now positioning itself to be a key player in the growing market for digital movies, pictures and music and grow beyond its core Windows operating system business.
Those dorks have been trying to be the middle man and own all your media since the wildly unjustified success of Windoze 95. The terms Ipod and cellphone are just frills on an old, old story of "multimedia integration". It's not going to work because neither users nor manufacturers want to be tied down.
The reasons for their failure in media, games and cellphones will apply to music playing cellphones. No one wants a media player, cellphone, PDA, or music playing cellphone PDA that shows the Blue Screen of Death a large percentage of the time. Microsoft's bad reputation with worms, trojans, spyware and all that on their desktop follows them elswhere. Even where they have a supposed strength, such as gaming, Microsoft has been unable to do reach outside their Monopoly OS racket. Anywhere there is any real competition, Microsoft is defeated. When there is a connection to that monoply, like there is with PDAs, Microsoft simply destroys the market. Those who feel trapped into the M$ desktop end up with second rate and unusable PDAs from Microsoft or one they can't sync from someone else. Cellphone makers, we can hope will have learned their lesson from the PDA market the same way everyone else has learned their lesson from Windoze Media Player. DVD makers never made the M$ mistake.
Outside of Microsoft, the world is much brighter. Good quality PDAs, music players and cellphones can be synced with good quality PIM software from KDE and Gnome. This relationship will continue to get better as more people adopt free software.
I teach old people Linux and they love it. The tipping point is here, baby.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Just as simply as that.
Everything-in-one-place actually DOESN'T work good. And my guess it never will.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
anything that somehow ressembles an ipod - everyone will *already own an ipod* ! And those ipod gadgets last a couple of years. They even grow on you. So this is a lost battle for Microsoft and MS DRM.
I think the next big thing Apple will come out with is some sort of video pod supporting movies. Of course MPEG-4 or H.264 based and better than anything else out there (yes, there already are portable video jukeboxes out there)
--- Eat my sig.
I write "CNN is running an article featuring Jobs' prediction that the cell phone is on the way out. From the article: 'As good as mp3 cell phones may be, I don't believe their success is sustainable in the long run.' His prediction for a successor? iPod phones-- powered by none other than embeded Darwin, of course."
Gates is right. Here's why MSFT will win: they are already winning. Like BASF. they don't make the hardware, they make the hardware you use better.
MSFT is going to transcend the debate about form factor (is it an iPOD that makes calls, is it a phone that plays music, is it a camera that tells me when my next appointment is???). Instead, manufacturers will use whatever mobility software MSFT builds because it is going to work great with what MSFT has already built. My contacts in Outlook are the same on my phone. The pictures on my camera are already in my MyPictures folder, the music I play in MediaPlayer is the same on my mp3 player. MSFT is going to win because as hardware concerns (including Apple, Nokia, Sony, etc) are going to fight over "best" form factor and MSFT will be on the sidelines, watching them bleed as they fight the wrong war. MSFT will control the information that makes all those tools worthwhile in the first place. If any of those manufacturers want to get a leg up, they'll beg MSFT for WindowsMobile on their devices.
Even if the MSFT offering is marginal compared to what "could be."
If you think of it as "just a phone" then, yes, of course it's going to compare badly size-wise when compared to dedicated phones.
But if you think of it as a PDA with a built-in phone, which is how you should be looking at it, then there's nothing at all wrong with its size at all.
Look at it this way, if it were any smaller then it would be useless as a PDA, right? So what good is making it smaller?
Seriously, I don't have huge hands (I'd describe mine as being of average size) and I find myself looking at most phones, PDAs, etc (not just the Treo range) and wishing the buttons were a little bit bigger: I'd hate to think how unusable these devices would be to a lot of people if they became any smaller and the buttons were to either become smaller still or be less well-spaced out.
Too big and bulky? You're kidding, right?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
They are subsidizing the cost of the phone with the income from your plan. The "free" phone is to get you to commit to a 1 year $40/month contract. Your "free" phone is costing you almost $500. Notice how you do not get a discount for bringing your own phone. They do not offer this because they want you on the hook for $500/year. Also the phones are responsible for the high-markup add-ons like car chargers, cases, earbuds, etc, where the markup can be 10 times the cost.
The service providers are interested in selling phones that will make them money.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
I guess your time has no value. Nor the $$$ worth of apps you get that come with the Mac that you would have to buy in the Windows World.
;-)
You're funny...
A Corvette is more expensive than a regular Chevy for a reason
What people seem to be forgetting is that service providers only want a phone with a music player if they can provide the music.
... Not that there is anything wrong with this, but he is not in it for the music.
Apple and Motorola have already had trouble finding takers for their iTunes capable phones because service providers want to sell music to the customer, rather than have them load it off of their computer. It doesn't gain them a whole lot if you can upload your own music.
Plus they are selling crappy ringtones for $3 or more, so can you imagine what would happen if they sold whole songs? They would have to lower their profitable ringtone price point, or sell songs for an outrageous amount, and I'm guessing on the latter assuming they only let you buy music from them. (And probably charge you for the internet access that you will have to use to browse for songs)
Service providers don't want you to have your own music. You hear people whine about iTunes music store, this would be Cingular Music store. $5 single songs at 64k that are DRM's to only your phone.
And as for Bill Gates, he doesn't care about the music player. He wants you to get the phone for the music player and then be tied to microsoft products to sync it. And since you'll also have Word on your phone, you'll need it on your computer... Excel, Outlook,
Like puzzle games? Warehouse51 for iOS
... and erm... our next OS will be secure and immune to spam and virus!
And er... you know we will then build better Microsoft space craft. You know I just read Jules Verne "From earth to the moon" and we have this great new innovation in space travel in our labs packed with all these mensa folk, its called...
zzzzzz...
realkiwi
They are always trying to give out a free cellphone (tether) at work (only works in radius to the campus) I always say no thanks, but I suspect some day they will remove our desk phones and require them.
Here are my observations of those who have them, they take calls at lunch, when in in the Bathroom, walking in the halls.
When I am at lunch, I am at lunch, same with the bathroom or walking in the hallway. I dont' need the interruption.
Now on my personal time. When I am driving, I am driving don't need phone calls. When I am out hiking up mountains, I am enjoying nature, don't need phone calls. When I am out, I am already doing something and will check my messages when I get home. I survive just fine cell phone free.
I do have a digital camera and mp3 player, but I have no desire to combine them into a single device mediocre at both tasks and I certainly dont' think adding a cellphone would help.
I have an iBook...but, it is dual boot with linux, linux taking up most space on partition, so, no way really to keep much of my music on that for easy transfer. Most of my music is in flac on a linux media box..I can easily convert to mp3 to take on the iPod..but, also am concerned about the USB 2 connection listed on the new iPod..will this also work with USB 1? I don't have USB 2 on my media box...and for that matter, my iBook is USB 1.1, but could use firewire there.
Anyway, if anyone could give experiences or suggestions of iPod use with Linux...please post.
Oh..did any of the older iPods use usb 1.1? Would it be better in my case to try to buy a used one off eBay?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There are some devices that make more sense combined.... Do you have a separate refrigerator and freezer? Or a single device? Does your video camera allow you to view your video, or do you carry a separate viewer? There are some economy of scale when you can leverage the guts of a device to do more than one thing. It just needs to be done right...and get the right balance of combined functionality with battery life, weight and ease of use. Not necessarily easy, but not impossible.
maybe eventually, but its likely Apple will be the one who developes it. Hell as it is RIGHT NOW Apples cellphone with Motorola is on hold cause they cant do that well.... Gates really does love to hit that pipe still huh?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
No they wouldn't. Just because a PC can do all these things doesn't mean people want the PC to do all these things.
Yes, I have a PC. And yes it can play music, make phone calls, send faxes, and take pictures. That doesn't stop me from owning a stereo, a phone, a fax machine, and a camera, each which do a better job of the task it was designed to do.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
"We all use pay-as-you-go."
This type of service is not wide spread in the U.S. as far as I can tell. At least in Hawaii the few options I've seen for pay-as-you-go are basically used as a marketing tool to get you to sign up for a monthly plan. Basically the cost per minute is jacked up so that it makes the monthly plan seem like a steal. Contracts are at least one year with a nasty buyout (upwards of $175 U.S.) for leaving the contract early. Companies push 2 year contracts by offering the big breaks on the phone cost. "Well you could go with a 1 year contract and get this basic phone for free, but if you go with two years you get this great camera phone with internet access (extra charge) for just $20!"
I've known people who have put up with absolutely crap service just because it cost to much to get out of the deal they are in. And if you do try to get out they'll throw more incentives your way to renew your contract. "We'll throw in a $100 rebate of this NEW better camera phone AND give you an extra 100 minutes for FREE!"
It sucks. I hate them all. They must die. I sure don't want to get stuck buying a music plan from these guys. "With a two year contract you get 25 songs a month for FREE. And the new 10gig phone with music playback is only $50!"
It's like those stupid pay $5 a month ringtone service. Lame.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Why won't Apple come out with a phone enabled iPod? Or why won't someone else come out with a mini belt computer (PDA) that does both. To say that the Cell Phone is the ultimate data tool seems a little short sighted. Kinda like when Printer/Scanner/Fax machines were poised to take over the paper data world. But didn't because they all sucked.
...But who wants to hold it up to their ear all day to listen to music.
You know those things cause cancer.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
Philips has signed an agreement with Microsoft to integrate Windows Media into its chip designs for set-top boxes, PVRs, HDTV, portable media players, cell phones, the works:
Philips, Microsoft Seal Software Deal
The future of the cellphone as the primary means of mobile communications is in doubt anyway, as more and more cities are moving towards a "utility" model for their citizenry's broadband access, (i.e., public wireless service), and WiMax seems to offer a solution to the 100ft range of a base station. I recently switched to VoIP myself, and I would have no problem purchasing an all-in-one device that would allow me to use VoIP services via wireless, as well as access my media, (music, video, images, etc), via online streaming services and a more or less direct connection to my personal media server - you know, the thing in the basement that will be running everyone's home in the not to distant future... With such a platform, these devices could easily be offered with different configurations, (e.g., a greyscale LCD rather than a full color, a smaller flash drive for devices used mainly for phone and streaming rahter than portability, etc.). And unlike the chaos created by each cellphone service providers creating proprietary protocols, the TCP/IP protocol is the a tried and true no-brainer choice for these new devices. (Though I can see the OS battles moving to these "portable laptops" very soon.) The more I think about it, they sound more and more like the PCs of the future: compact, powerful, mobile, and wired. The only thing one would need is a simple "docking station" with keyboard, mouse and full sized LCD. The biggest problem I can see would be theft, and if the reports of increased iPod theivery are any indication, this will be a REALLY big problem...
By the time cell phones have enough storage and power to be full-fledged MP3 players, Apple's iPod will support downloadable video, and you'll still want a separate, larger unit simply for the bigger screen.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
How much does your prepaid service cost? Looks like you're in the UK, but here in the US, prepaid tends to run in the $0.25/min range (just from browsing a couple providers). Figure 10min of calls a day (~300min/month) and we're looking at $75/month. In contrast, for $45, I'm getting 1000 minutes per month.
*checks bill*
Looks like last month I used about 500 minutes...makes the decision to stick with a contract pretty easy. They'd have to get the price down to around $0.11 for me to break even and below that to overcome the equipment subsidies.
Virgin Mobile: live without a plan.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Cellphones, on the other hand, are useless paperweights as soon as you stop paying for monthly service.
Especially in North America where every single carrier seems to have a different standard. At least in most of the rest of the world everyone uses GSM so it's possible to switch companies.
Here in NA some phones work with some companies and not others.
Heck, I went with a GSM phone up here in Canada because we had two companies that did that (Rogers and "Fido"). A couple of months back Rogers bought "Fido"s parent company and now we have three carriers all with different protocols. (One of the companies actually uses two protocols because they grew thru an aquisition -- so we have four protocols for three companies.)
Letting the market decide is one thing, but this is ridiculous.
Hell yeah.
Only thing I can't figure. Only guy I know with an iPod has a SMOKIN hot wife. Maybe it's a cover.
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My cell phone is about as small as it can get and still have a useful interface
I bet it could be thinner with out sacrificing usefullness.
Brett
i do believe that mobile phones will merge with all sorts of technologies in the future, may it be mp3s, divx, and what not when minihardrives are added and battery life issues are "solved"..but why would someone specifically buy an all in one super device when there will always be a company that will be better in one or the other technonolgy because they are specialist in only that field (or at least the product they offer)
Why did Apple succeed with the ipod?, i believe because they concentrated on the music lover they segmented their market, created the perfect tool for that segment, keeping this in mind the whole design, technology, etc is based on the profile of the music lover..does a phone maker like nokia have music lovers in mind when they create a communicator? sure they add mp3 support since its a minor addition..but these are two different things and the communicator is aimed at business people so its best for them.
Given the point that apple now rules the portable music market, they didnt start with a million ipods sold, the success came gradually over a period of time where all the marketing and technological efforts of s. jobs settled in, due to the fact that the device had a clear target market. a "all in one device" cant win since nowone can satisfy everyone at once, its not possible...stick with what you know best and go ahead and create synergies but dont try to rule the world, it never works, history has shown that
Wow, I guesss they do. I've never seen them advertised here at all.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
20 years? My cell phone is faster, and has more space on it than my old 486 (which I had in 1995). The screen is a little smaller, but that's the price of having a smaller device.
Speaking of convergence, I believe XM and Sirius will be vulnerable to radio delivered via the mobile phone data links. The user won't have to worry about a second device and dodgy satellite antennaes.
blarg.
That deal is just about hardware codecs. It's not about putting a full fledged Microsoft Windows(TM) Operating System in every Phillips device. The more codecs the merrier. MS's codecs will either be too DRM burdened to gain popularity, or more likely in historical terms, they will just use lousy DRM which will make them "open" formats for all practical purposes. Either way, it doesn't seem like major news. I was surprised EETimes decided to call it a top story.
I wouldn't read too much into it. It's not even exclusive. Other codecs could reside on the same hardware.
Sign up for the new Microsoft Profet Sharing Plan
Nostradamus may have predicted the Intel Pentium bug but now even hotter air is available from the man whose legal agreements have kept billions of people enthralled around the world: Sir William Gates!
When interviewed specifically for this article, Gate's press release had these amazing words formulated, "Microsoft's new Profet plan isn't just another random quatrain generator, this is Microsoft we're talking about. I personally inspired the greedy algorithms behind this product's code to be the most realistic possible today. Now with the extra polish from Microsoft's engineers my predictions will be even better than reality."
Indeed, results of paid tests by independent research shills have shown that Microsoft Profet is always 100% right, but shockingly, reality can sometimes fail in the most surprising ways.
Requirements: $640K per year. Non disclosure agreement signed in blood. Half a brain (or less). Incompatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and certain reality distortion fields.
You forgot 3. PROFIT!
The cellphone manufactures charge for every little feature, and make devices restrictive enough to generally ensure that you can't go around their content.
Paying for a stupid ringtone or java applet should be put in the same category as buying products from SPAM email--just harmful to everyone.
I don't own the technology, and can't control it, so I am forced to beleive it cannot succeed...
Does Mr gates have any hint of realisation that his 'predictions' are anything other than utterly predictable these days?
What did you add to your TV?
Samsung had a small phone with built in mp3 player and 64mb internal memory. I loved it, b/c I always had it with me when excercising. Unfortunately, no one else did, and they stopped making those phones.
It didn't have a bloated OS either.
who thought 640k would be enough??
Nokia's highend handsets are running SymbianOS 7.0 and mostly their own Series 60 platform. It is not particularly stable and there are odd disparities between particular Nokia models that are supposed to run the same OS. If the OS could be updated OTA (Over-The-Air) it'd sure be neat but this won't be possible for a year or two yet. You have to go to a Nokia service center... My experience with Windows Mobile OS is that it offers pretty much the same stability. I haven't used too many applications created for Windows based handsets, but on Series 60 they are extremely unstable. Also the phones tend to leak a lot of memory and you shouldn't be surprised if you have to restart your brand new Nokia every few days. Sound familiar? Yep, but you cope with it, in the same way that you shrug when Windows decides that blue is the colour of the day. For some reason the "Out of memory. Close some applications and try again." tends to happen when you have the camera trained on some pretty girl :-(
The handset will become the computer and integrate
everything in itself. This I do not doubt and the
industry is preparing for it already.
This is called Worthington's Law
.....Way to go, Einstein. So, read Value Magazine, and get to know the 500 best people in the world.
[which reads "More Money = Better Than"]
and it's used to gauge the value of human worth.
Carl Espick, economist and editor of Value Magazine:
Carl Espick: Yeah, that's right. So what do you think? Wrong! Whatever you were gonna say doesn't matter because I make more money than you. That's if you're 80% of the public. So, I'm right. Each year, Value Magazine ranks the 500 best people in the history of the world. Did you know that, according to Worthington's Law, the opera singer who called himself "The Great Caruso" was nowhere near as great as Sammy Hagar, The Red Rocker? So shut up, Caruso! Hey! Who's greater than Saint Francis of Assisi? How about, uh, Darryl Strawberry? See ya later, Saint Frannie, ya schmuck. Hey, guess who's better than Van Gogh. Let's see, after adjusting for inflation..... almost everybody! He made nothing!
[cut to Mechanic fixing car]
Mechanic: So that means that I'm better than Van Gogh and Galileo put together!
Carl Espick: And I'm better than you, brainiac. In 1995, Steve Peaters had no money. He was a public school teacher, so his opinion wasn't worth very much. But then, in 1996, he won the lottery, and he was a great man. Greater than Einstein, who made very little. But then, guess what this genius-for-a-day does. He goes and gives his money to charity. Now he's about as dumb as Einstein!
Rock still beats both!
As far as I could see the PDA has disappeared in Japan. I saw two or three people using them on the subway and that was it. I couldn't find any Palms or PocketPCs on sale, even in Akibahara. I did find a few 4Gb Sharp Zauruses and lots of ebook/edictionary things. But otherwise no PDAs.
Phone use in Japan is unbelievable. Walking down the street you are faced with hordes of people all texting as they walk. Cellphones in use everywhere. Old people, young people, anyone. I have no idea what some of these people were doing. I assume they were all texting but when I looked over people's shoulders I often saw funky looking animations. It's clear that the convergence with the cellphone has already happened, at least in Japan.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
You seem to be living in a different world than me.
*Everyone*, even kids, have a mobile phone here. Depending on the person they either have a subscription or pay-as-you-go. The carriers all use GSM, so any phone you buy here will work with any carrier.
Only reason you would have for buying a new phone would be if there was something better being released, or the old one broke. This makes it no different from portable music players or PDAs.
Only problem i see is the battery life...
- These characters were randomly selected.
The iPod already has (limited) PDA functionality built into it. Adding a GSM cellphone wouldn't be much of a stretch (although battery life will be an issue).
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
I do question the streaming from your home server. Most people do not have a home server at all. Much less one that you can access from the Internet. The sad thing is broadband providers are going to more and more limitations not less and less.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Gates was half right when he compared the iPod/iTunes success to the PC market software.
Thing is, he didn't "get it".
Just as MS enjoys a dominant PC market position with Windows, they enjoy it in part because consumers and businesses loaded up on Windows-only software that couldn't run on anything else. Once you've dropped $500 on MS Office, switching to a non-windows platform means re-buying MS Office for the Mac or going with another option for other platforms.
The same holds for the iPod.
When you have spent a couple years buying up iTunes AAC Fairplay DRMed songs, all of a sudden, no matter how low the Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription price is, the cost of switching to WMA includes not only the cost of the plater, but the cost of the music - the software if you will.
Add to that the fact that the player cannot be one of the top 8 music players in the world (the iPod line) and add to that, the fact that the iTMS has a library of 1.5M tracks, including many exclusives, and a great way to browse music, while the others are topping out at 33% smaller 1M song catalogs and using a web browser interface to buy music like collectables off eBay.
For his part, Gates is using his position to be a highly recognized mouthpiece of the anti-ipod establishment that sees the growing market and hates being in the bottom 20% of it.
Meanwhile, I am totally satisfied with my iPod, my iTunes DRMed songs, and can't wait to buy a new iMac as a home PVR (1080i playback, 400GB internal drive, VESA mount for a 20" crystal clear flatscreen - yippy!)
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
It's too bad there's no way to have a "simplified" algorithm for low power devices... i.e. reconstruct the full waveform if you have a 3ghz desktop machine, but reconstruct a lower fidelity waveform if you're running on a palm III.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Until Moore's law makes the integrated device that will be the mobile phone in a number of years capable of holding all of your music, until advances in HCI and lens technology makes the camera phone a workable alternative to respectable cameras, until battery techology improves to the point where you can have an autonomy of a week with all that stuff, people will still use a separate music player, a separate camera and a separate phone.
Sure, people will buy the integrated everything monster, because feature competition will very soon dictate that all "mobile phones" must have all of the above features plus more (java games!). In fact they will not buy them, they will rent them on monthly plans like they do now, and I believe not use them very much except for yacking away, just like today.
Will that put a dent into the iPod sales? sure, when everybody who wants one already has one.
Have you also noticed that phones compete on size? most people like a tiny phone. At the moment that means a tiny memory, a really tiny screen, a minuscule camera and a tiny battery with not much juice to power all of this. This is not going in the direction that Bill Gates wants, expecially with windows for mobiles.
This is why I think Apple needs to either get in the cell-phone business or partner with someone who is and lend some design experience. Both in terms of the interface and the physical device, the people designing cell phones generally stink. They're expensive, ugly, cheap-feeling, and fall apart. Maybe that's part of the scam-- to get you to buy new phones, sign up for a longer contract, buy the more expensive models, etc.
But even more than the physical device, there interfaces still feel like something hacked together by amateurs. PDAs too, I have the same problem with them. I don't know how people actually use them. Everything is too complicated, too flakey, too error prone.
Anyway, maybe I'm being too harsh, but both of these areas are where Apple really shines. I've said it many times before, but the reason I didn't own an MP3 player before my iPod was that they weren't worth the trouble, but Apple simplified the syncing process and simplified the interface on the device, and now Iuse my iPod all the time. Well, right now I feel PDAs just aren't worth the trouble, and cell phones with PDA functions and cameras aren't worth the trouble, so I stick with one of those simple phones that let you put in phone numbers and call people, and that's it.
Why aren't they worth the trouble? Ok, a camera phone should have:
- a one-button picture-taking capability, meaning you don't have to flip it open and navigate through a menu to get it to take a picture. You should be able to pull it out of your pocket, press ONE button, and have a picture.
- decent memory. 16MB won't cut it. at minimum, there should be 128MB
- Greater than 2 megapixels
- a flash
- decent image quality
Until that's available, I'm not buying it. I mean, really, the cameras in all these phones stink. An MP3 player should have an interface as simple and efficient as the iPod's, syncing as easy as the iPod's, and a substantial amount of space (at least a GB or two). Until it does, I'm not buying it. A cell phone should have the ability to make and receive phone calls with good audio quality. A PDA should be able to sync with my computer in a way that I don't even have to think about it so that I can carry my calendar and address book with me, as well as an interface that I can use without thinking while squeezed in a crowd of people on the subway (no stylus). And each one of these devices should come in a small, light, but sturdy casing, or I'm not buying any of them.However, if you can get me one device that pulls all these things together and doesn't have any huge sucky drawbacks, I'd spend a decent chunk of change to get it. And though I don't care who makes it, I'm guessing that its first incarnation is not going to come in the form of a Microsoft smart phone.
There will always be some CEO opining that their next-gen widget will blow away the current market. Not really newsworthy.
What interests me is how many fail to recognize the market segment that prefers purpose-built devices to all-in-wonderful devices. Several previous posters lament that they only want a phone to phone people, and I know that I'm not going to use a camera phone anytime soon. I prefer the higher res images and higher-quality optics of a consumer digital camera. And I don't pay (directly) to transfer images. Similarly, my PDA and phone aren't combined because I prefer a smaller phone, but a larger PDA screen for usability's sake.
Footwear manufacturers discovered this way back in the '80s when generic sneakers gave way to sport-specific "tools". Technology visionaries have blindspots, and I believe this is one.
...Welcome our Zoolander-phone-sized iPods!
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I think the truth is, cellphone makers are really only interested in one thing ... selling you expensive monthly service plans. The phones are just a means to an end for them, and you'll always see them crippling functionality if it allows them to charge extra for using a feature the way THEY want you to use it. Think "Jack of all trades, master of none." when you think "all in one cellphones". That's all you're gonna get.
The problem with that paragraph being the cell phone manufacturers don't get any of your monthly service fees. Your cell phone provider does. Sure, the providers undoubtedly hire the manufacturers to make custom phones for them but it's all your evil cell phone service provider that gets all your cash and demands crippled features on your phone.
There's a small point you bring up though, most integrated devices on phones are poor implementations at best of standalones. 1mp camera with no focus or zoom, whoop-dee-freaking-doo. I think there were better cameras put out on first generation digital cameras.
Granted, fitting good implementations of these devices in a small package like a cell phone really is a true challenge.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Maybe Gates is talking about this: http://www.mobilegazette.com/motorola-e790-rumours .htm
When I read stuff like this, I shake my head. Just look at recent history, Bill. The PDA market is dying. The great promise of the PDA offering a convergence of functionality into one easy to use product was partially realized in the Newton, made cheaper, junkier, and more attainable in the Palm, and then that market went boom. Why? Because it didn't do anything particularly well. And the laptop market has made that device omnipresent, so why carry a treo or smart phone, huge with all the junk, when you also already have your laptop with you. All I want is a small phone that can text message, sync an address book, maybe read email and send off T9 email messages, and most important of all F*cking stay connected for more than 2 minutes. I wish phone manufacturers would stop trying to add baubles and bangles to sh*t and trying to call it the next best thing.
for those of your who haven't switched to Windows yet, believe me you will soon. Once Longhorn is released the world will finalize realize that Bill Gates' vision is the vision of the computer industry.
The man is the future. Worship him now.
When I read stuff like this, I shake my head. Just look at recent history, Bill. The PDA market is dying. The great promise of the PDA offering a convergence of functionality into one easy to use product was partially realized in the Newton, made cheaper, junkier, and more attainable in the Palm, and then that market went boom. Why? Because it didn't do anything particularly well. And the laptop market has made that device omnipresent, so why carry a treo or smart phone, huge with all the junk, when you also already have your laptop with you. Redundancy, the same that caused the PDA to fade away. All I want is a small phone that can text message, sync an address book, maybe read email and send off T9 email messages, and most important of all F*cking stay connected for more than 2 minutes. I wish phone manufacturers would stop trying to add baubles and bangles to sh*t and trying to call it the next best thing.
I like the idea of reducing the number of devices, the question in my mind is can it do those things simultanously. If not then there will always be a need for multiple devices just for the sake of multitasking. I'm not saying I want to listen to music while on the phone. But I would sure like to browse the web while on the phone, or check email. I definately would want to receive calls while browsing the web, which a lot of phones these days dont do, its one of the other not both. If they could make a device with A LOT of storage, plays MP3s, does email/web browsing, while the phone was running I would be one of the first in line.
If Microsoft's products weren't utterly horrible, his prediction might be correct, because, why carry a phone AND an ipod when the phone serves the ipod's purpose? Yes, his prediction is correct if you believe, as he does, windows doesn't suck, which it does.
Have u guys seen the nokia N91...that is the cell phone tht'll kill the ipod. It has a 4 gig hard drive, 2 mp camera, built in wifi and ofcourse bluetooth and doesnt look bad. so lets see how this one does. http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2005/04/27/n okia-n91
Given that we haven't seen an iTunes phone because the phone companies want a nibble of the profits, are you willing to give over control of a phone's contents to them?
Unless that model changes there's no way I would move to a phone that gives control the the cellular service provider. I'd rather have a couple of different devices that are MINE than one that is mostly THEIRS.
Canadians hate their cell phone companies. Macleans' reported last year that cell companies are tied for 2nd place among the most hated corporations in Canada. People just don't like the services, but buy the product anyway because of the sheer advantage of a portable phone, no matter how badly it works. The average life expectancy of a cell phone, furthermore, is only 18 months. How does Microsoft expect to make an iPod-killer in an industry that works this poorly? I don't see it. The ultimate cell phone isn't an Mp3 player combo, or a waffle-maker combo, or any other combination device. People just want a phone that they can make calls on. Why has no one made a long-lasting durable cell phone that simply makes calls?
The network IS the computer!
So we need big powerful servers and very thin clients. I'd bet my business on it.
I won't be a fan of Ipods until the play my ogg files (until then, my Rio Karma will do just fine), but Bill Gate's is full of shit.
Bill Gate does indeed have a lot of Britney Spears and other crap I'd never listen to on his iPod. But it's his, so I guess it's his choice.
remember when everyone had a palm, and a phone? now almost every cell phone has advanced PDA-like features. phones are also replacing the dedicated handheld game console. really, no coolness factor or neato user interface is going to make me carry around two devices when i can have one.
I've already been in Bill's fantasy world. The results of being able to play MP3s on my Pocket PC Phone edition was that the battery in the phone was flat when I needed to use it as a phone.
But only once.
I solved the problem of music flattening the battery on my phone by not using it as anything but a phone. It's an easy and obvious solution, and works well. It's also the solution to the problem of using my phone as a handheld videogame or an e-book reader and having THAT flatten the battery. You can tell when you're onto something when you solve one problem and it takes care of a bunch of others.
I solved the problem of having a phone that actually crashed and had to reboot by getting a simple phone that was just a phone. AND it got better battery life still. It's amazing how that works out.
Buffet passed him last month.
Price of MSFT has gone nowhere in years.
Convergence devices could work. Having tried Pocket PC phones, Palm devices and various others, the closest thing to a workable convergence device is the Sony Ericsson P910.
It'll play music and has a headphone socket. It has a usable size screen, a web browser that can cope with real web pages, a POP and IMAP client, a PDF viewer, and so on. It'll sync via Bluetooth with your desktop. Unlike Palm, it'll actually multi-task properly. Unlike Pocket PC, the UI isn't totally crap.
Now, how many mobile phone providers in the US offer the P910? And even if they did offer it, they'd lock it down so you couldn't change provider, couldn't install software, couldn't load music or do anything with it without being nickel-and-dimed by them.
Even the P910 isn't perfect. You have to put your MP3s on Memory Stick Duo. And the idea of a single all-in-one device sounds great, until you're on the phone and need to take some notes...
Also, it's big. And that's the real reason why I think we won't see convergence to a single device, beyond those few geeks willing to strap a small brick to their belts. What most people want is a tiny phone that flips open to be just large enough; until we get folding screens, you're not going to be browsing the web or reading books on that.
So my ideal "convergence" would be something like the Sony Librié without the crippling DRM, plus something like the Sony Ericsson T68i only usably fast.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Nokia N91
How many fscking times do I have to say this:
7 500819/qid=1092673183/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl 14/104-8277930-2988753?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
I want my phone to ring(I hate ring tones), I want to be able to sync my contacts (bluetooth), I want an earpiece, I want it to stay charged a long time, and I want it to be durable... Oh, and voice activated dialing... The luxury that is nice that I can do without is adding pictures to contacts.
If I want a damned MP3 player I'll fscking buy one.
I don't want to store files on my phone, I don't want to listen to mp3s on my phone, I don't give a crap about the games, I don't want to use it as a web browser (that's what a laptop using the phone for dialup is for), I don't want to pay for stupid value add crap... I sure as hell don't want to watch TV on it... I also don't need it to be a camera... I have a Olympus C-740, takes nice pictures, has 128M flash, does the job...
I just want a phone.... and I want it to work well (as a phone) and for as long as possible...
What's next, adding the plate screw in on the bottom so that the phone can be mounted to a tripod to take better pictures?
How about adding the ability to record movies...
Next thing you know it'll be like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/155
designed to do everything, doing none of it well, and incapable of doing specialty jobs that need done....
Except it will never run windows mobile, because that OS is horseshit. It will probably look more like the Sony Ericsson W8004 303603 7/%5B/URL%5D
[URL]http://www.engadget.com/entry/12340005
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I think an all-in-one cellphone with music player will be fine for casual use, just like the built-in cameras.
But a lot of times that I am using my iPod, I am using it to GET AWAY from everything else... to zone out. I turn my cell phone OFF so I can enjoy the music. I sure as heck don't want to be intruded upon by my cell phone when I'm zoning out to music.
I think I will still reach for my iPod when I want to do some "serious" relaxation to music, even if my cellphone plays mp3's. Just like I still reach for my Canon Digital Rebel XT when I want to take some serious pictures, instead of just using my camera phone, which does have its uses.
"you don't need a high percentage of "being right" to be very successful"
Very true. You simply need to have greater success from the times you're right and it'll all average out to your advantage. And when Gates is right, he's damn good at being successful at it.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Well, I'm sure you realize a server is just a piece of software. Any PC can be called a server as long as it's running a server. I mean I'm sure you understand that almost all Linux distros come with FTP,HTTP and SSH.
But I assume what you are emphasizing is that people don't have enough upstream bandwidth to run a home server. This, howver, is precisely why I said these revolutionary devices should have bi-directional 1mbps.
This is the crux of the matter than you mention about ISPs, these devices would not just replace cell phones, cameras and MP3 players, they would also be used for fixed broadband access. They'd be so cheap there would be no reason not to.
So, that's the answer to your problem. The old ISP infrastructure won't present a problem becuase it won't be a part of the equation.
WiFly is staring out as a fixed broadband sollution. When the mobile version comes out and has a few years to sink in and saturate the markets, I think this is a realistic scenario and it doesn't involve Apple or Microsoft.
I swear, billy bathgates is just AMAZING... and we all know how he 'innovates...'
If you run the battery down on the iPod, you can still place a call on your cellphone.
As always, anything from Microsoft with a .0 at the end is a sack of shit. Microsoft first releases are always bad, but a release pushed out the door to make fanfare at a show is going to be worse.
If you want to beat a MP3 player, make a better MP3 player. I mean the only thing that's going to beat the iPod in my opinion is a MP3 player that has the same quality as the iPod, at least the same features, works with iTunes, is priced about the same, but has it's own really cool innovative design. I mean, how hard can it be? It's a white box with a rotary dial for god sakes.
The glass is half-full. With poison. And there are cracks in the glass. The dirty, dirty glass.
I have a plam treo cell phone/pda with a 1 Gig SD memory card in it. The integrated real player sounds great on this thing. The capcities will only get bigger. Now I just need to be able to carry my collection of DVD's and have a built in projector.
There are a couple serious problems with this vision. First, a large portion of the market for a handheld streaming device are people that don't have a desktop that is online 24/7. They have laptops that only get powered up when their owner is sitting in front of them. Secondly, the locations with the highest density of in-use iPods are places that don't get cellphone service: the subways of major metropolitan areas. A streaming handheld will be of little use to the twentysomething urban commuters who made the iPod such a success.
i forget
I won't be a fan of ogg files until they support what the full ID3 tag spec does.
That means album art. It's a deal breaker for me...
But just because Universe Man is a pacifist.
"But I assume what you are emphasizing is that people don't have enough upstream bandwidth to run a home server. "
Actually I was emphasizing that many ISPs are starting to block all server ports.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Apple has designed their systems so that you dont have to worry about viruses and spyware or adware. while on the other hand MS prcticlly make deals with spyware and adware companies. do you want you cell phone to be riddled with adware spyware and popups., where your trying to call mom and before you press dial 100 popups com on the screan for mom related products. or your trying to download a song and 50 popups for other products show up. i recently watched an MS user puting up with these things and i was horrified at the idea that he had accepted this as the cost of using a computer, i pointed out that i never get pupups or adware, spyware, viruses, or BSOD's and i can use office and all of the other mainline produc tivity software. i think he will be buying a mac soon. i dont care if macs are cool i use a mac because it lets me do what i want to do the way i want to do it when i want to do it. the ipod worls the same way. MS on the otherhand believes that everyone should do things the way MS wants them to do it, this is why an MS bassed cell phone will never take off.
Do you have a separate refrigerator and freezer? Or a single device?
Both actually. I have a refrigerator with a freezer, as well as a separate freezer that does the job right. (the combined one is too small and certain items don't fit well, such as frozen pizzas)
And in case you were wondering, I don't carry either of them with me.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
> Personally, I don't want a combined pda, phone, camera and mp3-player
> since all such devices seem to be bad at everything they do.
I would tend to partially agree, as you cannot fit a high quality lens or a decent-sized screen on a small call phone.
However, I think that a marriage of a cell phone, MP3 player and FM radio can be a good thing, especially if it is expandable with memory cards.
I strongly believe in having multiple personal devices, having the simplest and easiest device for each purpose. Thus, I'm against the digital covergence that everyone is talking about. Sure, your cell phone can take pictures, play MP3s, record GPS logs, send faxes, and brew coffee, but I'm pretty certain it still sucks at all. Furthermore, if one component fails, you have to replace the whole thing. iPods don't pretend to be anything else, and they do a fantastic job at their one purpose, and that's why they're so successful.
i want a slot in my phone that i can shove my shuffle into, that's all.
Newsworthy or not, just look at the response he illicets here on slashdot. The largest response of any article in quite a while. Polarization can be a powerful marketing tool in itself. Quite possibly it was said in that frame of mind to begin with. It would be shrewd. All they have to do is say something once and they get hundreds of voices piping up to talk about it. It's free publicity and they win with that, even if they do lose the war with the iPod. They got the free marketing. Apple has spent millions. When you rile the masses opposed to you, those who are indifferent inevitably take notice of the issues involved. There are a great deal of indifferent people out there, as MS's own sales numbers show. We are only serving their purpose now with our loud retort.
Except that you will be in violation of your TOS if you run any services on your broadband connection (even P2P applications usually fall under this provision). There are some exceptions (Speakeasy for instance), but by and large the TOS you agreed to when you signed up explicitly prohibits servers of any kind.
Heck, some TOSes are so restrictive that you can be in violation for doing anything other than surfing the web or reading your email. The problem is that some providers have started enforcing these agreements, especially if they overprovision the network and need to cut down on their less profitable customers (like the ones that do more than visit Hotmail).
I read the internet for the articles.
But my pen and tiny notepad go a lot further in life than any of this digital crap that everyone talks about.
Steve Jobs has been saying this for years--and what product was he saying this about?
Microsoft's own failed tablet garbage. In fact, as early as 2003 at the MWSF Keynote.
Apple's on their way with iTunes-integrated phones--just wait until July or so. Then we'll really see things take off if they are going to here as they have in Asia regarding cellphone tech.
Phone + mp3 = no music in flight for you!
Please someone figure out that you don't always want your phone on when you want music!
And I'll be damned if I want my phone sending DRM or other info back to MS. Plays-for-Sure my butt.
You know what?
My cell phone... it makes phone calls.
Has a speakerphone.
A 5-day battery life.
Is indestructible.
The more purposes you give a piece of a hardware, the less effectively that piece of hardware operates for each individual purpose.
If integration were the key to everything, Microsoft should abandon the XBox and start working on optimizing their OS.
i'd love it if i could have a slim phone that play'd mp3's and was a pda and scratched my arse. but it's just not there, and you can shrink chips as much as you want and blather on about the speed at which technology is improving, but i don't see improved battery life, batteries are the same as they were 5 years ago bill, so unless your all in one wonder can live on bugger all current,it's just not going to be any good
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Just remember Mr. Gates, that any device that does more than one thing, will do NONE of them well. The Ipod is a single function device and works well. I predict the only function your cell phone will be good at is spreading viruses.
Pick a different ISP. Mine (sonic.net) explicitly states in the TOS that you are allowed to run servers. They provide multiple static IP addresses at no additional charge. They even have a helpful support staff.
They actualy called me the -one- time my service went out and told me what was wrong, and when they expected it to be fixed. When I started my service I was busy and didnt set up my systems right away, on day four they called to ask if I needed help.
I didnt pick the cheapest ISP in my area. I picked the one that fit my needs best. I read the TOS on the various ISP homepages. I skimmed some newsgroup posts about ISPs I was considering.
Dont pay for inferior service. If your ISP doesnt value your business, switch... and take your friends with you. Its all a $$ game in the business world. Pay well for what you want, and refuse the bullshit at any price.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Any questions?
He also added that not one will ever need more than 640 songs..
I have what was, essentially, the cheapest cell phone I could get when I signed up for a plan. The fucking color screen is a piece of shit, because I can't see a goddamned thing in any sort of light, and every polyphonic ringtone is so annoying that I have it set to only vibrate. Phones need to be just that: phones. I have an iPod for music. It works great, and the interface actually makes me hate listening to music on my computer, because it's so much more effort. It will be atrocious trying to control a music player and whatever other garbage they pile on to this piece of crap with just a number pad, and it will be a shitty phone if there are any other buttons. The *only* thing that might be positive is the ability to play movies (should it support that sort of thing), which I think is one of the iPod's weaknesses at the moment.
People have been saying that Bill Gates' predictions are often way off. That is not so - you just have to interpret them in the right way.
BillG does not make predictions in order to predict the future - he makes predictions to advance the fortunes of his company.
If you look at his predictions from the point of view "What is the best thing i can say to advance Microsofts fortunes" you will see that he is 100% spot on there every time. His publicity helps Microsoft, which, in turn, bolsters his very own bank account.
MSFT is up by 0.36% today, whereas AAPL is down over 4%. Go figure.
MS could afford to license full fledged Windows operating systems for FREE to certain strategic markets. Consider the Chinese cell phone market, for example. License the handset OS for free, then integrate it with an MS server OS that lets phone users buy things easily thru their phones. MS then tries to get a slice of the server-side commerce.
How else would MS make money in China? Giving the phone OS away for free could make a lot more money for them than attempts to sell their desktop OS & apps.
Their OS could make a phone into a digital music player, with music provided from the server for barely more than the cost of phone service alone, and no easy way to get the music off the phone. Cheap and easy to get any music you want for barely more than the cost of the phone you'd be paying anyway. So people in markets like China would be paying for music, too, and probably not caring too much.
And if this approach makes money for MS, they could do it worldwide. It's not as though it would be cannibalizing other MS sales, only cannibalizing Apple sales.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Motorola is already known to be making an iPod phone. If Gates says the cell phone is going to take the place of the iPod then Apple has already ensured their continued success. Same goes for if he's wrong :-)
However, if I were Gates, I wouldn't exactly want to bet that it'll be running any kind of MS OS, embedded or otherwise.
Sure, convergence can be convenient and the above product done right would be more than the sum of its parts.
However, the bottom line function for a mobile is that it damned well works as a phone ALL the time.
If you want to your ability to recieve make emergency phone calls on any Microsoft OS, "Want to buy some land?".
Tech Public Policy stuff
I hate admitting it, but Bill Gates is probably right about this. My argument, well Irwin Jacobs the CEO of Qualcomm told me so. Not only is Jacobs a master businessman, but he is a person that knows the technology he is working with inside and out. He is an extremely smart guy ( got his Phd in EE from MIT in just three years) and has not made many mistakes. My thesis advisor is one of his good friends and when he came to visit our lab, all he could talk about is how cellphones will be more than just voice boxes, they will be full on computers having the capability to become our number one media centers. He even said quote,"I wouldn't put my money in IPODs, they aren't going to be around for much longer".
But at that point the margins will be too low for either Apple or Microsoft. Instead, the handsets will probably have your telco's logo and be made by the zillion by Golden Gragon Ltd contract mega manufacturers, Shen Zhen China. They won't need more than a tiny bit of local storage since you'll keep everything at home. The rest of it wil just be a few chips and an antennae in a piece of plastic.
You say that like its a bad thing, or like your stuff is made anywhere else..
Now imagine:
Kelvin listens to music on ipod. *ring ring* Kelvin clicks button on headphone cord. Kelvin carries a conversation with Judy without ever reaching for his cellphone or taking off his white headphones. Kelvin arrives at hot dog stand. Kelvin puts Judy on hold so she can listen to his iPod while he orders a chilidog.
Okay that last part might be a little excessive... But this isn't all that much of a stretch. White headphone style cell headsets are already on the market!
Damn. I need a patent.
---k--
</stupid>
I can replace my walkie-talkie, my ipod, my garmin GPS, my PDA
I like the idea, however
When I go to the gym or run, or bike
When I go play paintball, I will fall/step/shoot on/into an expensive phone except of the $25 motorola 2-way
when I go offroading, I will strap (or ducttape) my expensive (non water-resistant) phone on my handlebar
+of course my phone will ring, half the time, and half the time it will kill batteries as in the forest there is no reception....
the pda is a cool idea in a phone, on the other hand the IPAQ is small enough to be a hated device to do anything an ordinary computer would do
multi devices are OK for the average JOE
and yes, I spend hours and hours before i decide what is the most perfect device that I can still afford for a certain task
but that is just my
Cell phones will only displace ipods if cell companies allow people to link cell phones with computers with the same sort of ease that the ipod has.
Considering the way verizon acts wrt to bluetooth, this will never happen as long as more cell companies emulate verizon.
Just because Philips makes it, does not mean it will necessarilly be used. For years they have made chips which *should* have put my company out of business, but Philips is often simply too expensive to use on this kind of almost disposable device. My company is doing fine because my would be competitors do not want to pay for Philips parts.
I'll keep my Ipod; it does one thing and does it rather well. The size and utility of the thing - the manner in which it performs its intended function - is terrific! As far as I am concerned, the other music player manufacturers are watching Apples tail lights, trying to catch up.
I'm disabled and chronically ill. I can only sleep for 2-3 hours at a time, when I can sleep at all. I frequently listen to my Ipod (40gb) using Bose noise cancelling headphones (QC2) to get to sleep and to mask room noise while I sleep. If my Ipod included a phone and it rang while I was trying to sleep (or actually sleeping), I would flush the thing, after stomping it a few times.
I sincerely hope other peoples needs are different than mine - but this is my 2 cents worth.
// be obscure clearly
Be Obscure Clearly
There are visual errors in time as well as in space.
Every time i hear an opinion from anybody at Microsoft, the more i being to realize their snottyness. They seem like the spoiled rich kid of companies, acting like they are the best and have no competition.
pad. No innovations there. Go away.
I realized as soon as I submitted my message that I had mistakenly said "cellphone makers" when I meant to say "cellphone carriers". In any case though, the net result is about the same. No cellphone manufacturer wants to be caught in a situation where none of the major carriers will officially use their phone - because it creates too many "loopholes" in their plans to levy fees on the features you use. By the same token, I think they have a vested interest in building cellphones so they start falling apart after 2 or 3 years. It makes people pay for extended warranties, which ultimately just pay for new, replacement phones for you (more profit to that manufacturer!) any time you drop yours and break it, or something dies on it.
most places that have pre-paid calling have this wonderful feature called "calling party pays". So of that 500 minutes, how much was people calling you and how much was you calling other people?
The system in north america is a fixed racket. The comfortable oligarchy of the cell service providers means they have no incentive to offer anything of the sort.
Don't need to surf the web or take pictures or listen to MP3's or stream video with it. Just make a cell phone that works when I'm trying to talk to someone on it. Is it that damn difficult...?????
That would be cool. I can buy a skeleton mp3 player and use my 20gb drive, which is lying idle. Any suggestions?
The grandparent is a retarded troll.
Quit buying those iPods, we make a WinCE device that can play all the audio you want.
Your Average Joe
In ~10 years I expect at least 10GBites of storage so you can have all the music you want on your cell phone.
That's right in 20 years your cell phone is going to be more capable than PC's are today.
I agree with your second point, but unless you dropped a zero I think your timeline is way off. I expect 10GB phones fairly soon (12 to 24 months).
And in my opinion, 10GB is no where near enough for a good (my) music collection.
Without Bill's endorsement, the iPod has no future. By the way, I hope you all don't get too attached to this "inter-net" thing, because The Microsoft Network is the way of the future...
When you think about it pretty much everyone has an organizer now. Even dumb people. The cell phone has become a universal tool. Soon we will even have universal translators in them when the technology grows up a tad. I have a ppc phone- battery life is great and when Im at the office I just plug in the ac adaptor- battery life on the ipod is superiour but I will take my hand held anyday as I can watch movies, play games,chat, make calls, surf sites that my company wont allow... My ppc phone has records which I have transfered from over 4 generations of devices starting with my old casio to my lastest t-mobile device. My first hand hand device was actually the casio fx700 g worked well in tech school... then various other weird little calculator/organizer combos that sprung up. like the tandy hand held computer that had a keyboard that is the cover that folds out- pretty cool. then, or the casio organizer watch line(as a side note I had a casio watch that was a remote. I could go to a bar and shut off the game at some crucial moment and nearly cause a riot!funny!!!!!)...Later on I got the casio version of the first palm- not a bad little organizer. Never ran out of battery power! Then the Philips nino- NIce little organizer. it was loaded with every program you could ever need..the cf slot was very usefull it had a very strong ir and I used it for a remote from time to time... I moved up from there to the casio e100- nice little multi-media handheld- listened to a lot of mp3s on company time with my feet on my desk comforatble in my cubical while everyone else was prairy doggin... Now I have the tmobile ppc phone... As far as making a tricorder as someone said in here. Well there is a palm based tricorder that works and it would not take much to make adaptors for hand held devices to make them in to transportable research instruments... THe ipod is nice but cell phones are the answere...apple needs to make an a cell/ppc combo if they want to stay in the game...
I remember thinking in the 80s that Bill's haircut was not sustainable, yet here we are over 20 years later...
Once I got a PocketPC, I stopped carrying an ink pen. I write on the PPC instead. Once I got a mobile phone, I stopped carrying a watch. What's it good for if your phone tells you the time? Once I get a PocketPC phone (this weekend, I hope), I will stop carrying a separate cell phone. I don't smoke, but if the methanol fuel cell PDAs are for real, maybe they will have lighter attachments...
The wrist watch started life as a bulky dangly thing on a fob chain. Much later some OOS developer (swiss I think but not to sure) said, enough! "This damn thing should be worn as a garment". So much so that you can wear it for days without looking at it except when you forget what day of the week it is. Later came all sorts of devices like PCs, cell phones, video players, digital camaras, portable entertainment units that attempted to knock the modest old wrist wathc off its perch as the timepeice of chioce. I haven't seen it happen yet. Those who want to make a statement about their wealth or social standing can choose between a Rolex or a Timex. Bill it won't be long before the "wrist watch" knocks your media player and cell phone of their perch, heck why not go the full hog and take on the PDA also. And whats more I don't give a toss what OS or brand of memory resides in my wrist watch, but I do get a bit of a kick when people notice the "badge". Down the track I do not expect the MS badge is really me. I want something that says cultured, sophisticated rebel. Yeah that will do. Sure the interface to these old things we used to call portable Xs (replace X the likes of phone, media player, etc), will be scattered around the place, one at home, one in the car, one in the breifcase (if they are still fashionable). Woman will have an advantage here as they will just have one foldaway visual interface if they don't like wearing their visual interface implanted in the lense of their sunglasses. /n
In the meantime my iPod is just fine, sound good, phots are OK, but what the heck it impresses people I don't like and thats the main thing isn't it. I will keep it for "retro" purposes in 20 years. My grand-kids my think it is cute, even if a bit "vitriolic". (if you are over 45 you may understand what vitriolic really means). Bonne Journée.
I swear - in the last.. what... 6 months, if I haven't heard Bill bitch about the inadequacy of something that Apple was doing, at least once a week, i'm a monkey's uncle... What's FUNNIER is that in every single one of these "don't look at them... listen as i niggerdomus your ass with empty promises of atomic-powerd credit card sized super computers!", all i can think of is that old over the top "Food for Windows" joke...
/etc
i mean, seriously - read it, and then replace Cuisine International with Apple and iPod and iTunes with Word and Food Processing... and its a scream...
Monday, 10 AM -- Chicago, Illinois -- Apple Computer announced , the first interworking program to seamlessly integrate iPods and Music with the iTunes Music Store. Called breakthrough for music listeners, Apple Chairman Steve JobsSteve Jobs confidently predicted sales of thousands of copies with shipments soon to begin.
Monday, 4 PM -- New York -- Apple Computer shares closed sharply higher on announcement of new iTunes Music Store product.
etc.. etc..
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
More than mere navel gazing.
Big business tycoon announces that competitor will fail. Film at eleven.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Microsoft predict that Linux is on the way out, and everyone will buy tablet PC's and outlook licenses.
CNN must be pushed for content.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
optical zoom?
Phones are too small for good quality photos. Optics s and mechanics just don't fit in.
You got to spend a long time in your own locker with your underwear shoved up your ass before you start to think,
"You'll see. I'm going to take of the world of computers! I'll show them."
Your Average Joe
"In principle, you can only throw products onto the market and then learn from your mistakes," Mr Gates said in that interview. Probably never heard of uuhh, testing?
His theory is that portable music players will not succeed unless they're combined with phones. Because of that, the iPod will fail.
However, Microsoft has its own portable music program. Is Gates admitting those players will fail too?!
It's not to often when you see someone tell us their current products are out of date and worthless.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Music is fun, but less of a priority than a phone and few people are going to be eager to run the batteries flat on their phone just listening to ripped music. I can see separate devices staying on the market. The iPod is one of them. Some sort of linux based phone + PDA would be the other.
What we're not doing. We're not open sourcing Palm OS®; we're going to implement it as a software layer that runs on top of Linux. Our business model will be licensing that layer, with hardware companies that use the layer in a device paying us royalties. We don't charge developers a license fee to create software that is compatible with Palm OS. Our development tools are also free; they are built on Eclipse, and we are a member of the Eclipse Foundation.
Cuz I have a 150 dollar coolpix that takes photos that look 4 or 5 times beter than that crap.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
How typical of Microsoft. Or should I say, Bill Gates? As with most of his predictions I've heard lately, I disagree with this one. I just don't see it happening. I do, however, look forward to seeing a BSOD on a cellphone.
Sorry, I was talking about 10gb on a phone that does everything mine does. Aka It would be less than 1 inch thick, have 2 full color screans (so you can see status info without opening it up), a camra with flash, use solid state memory (no HDD), cost 100$ or less and have great battory life.
I could have said 1 year to 10GB+ and 11 years to 10's of TB but when you add in cost and size I don't think there going to be 10-40GB phones for that cheep for 5-10 years.
Sounds great and I'll be in the line to buy one.
What are you using now?
Could not find the exact model but looking at the website it's basically a Samsung SCH-a670.
It's 99$ for the phone on a 1-year contract so it might cost a little more than that to replace but they do a buy one get one free deal so it's got to be fairly cheep.
I can't find total memory for the phone as they break it into sections. My year old phone can store 60 seconds of shitty video + 60 ok pictures + 2mb for games + 20 voice contacts + voice Memo's so I am guessing around 10 - 20+ MB total.
Talk time: 175 minutes
Standby time: 170 hours
Size: 3.3H x 1.8W x 1.0D inches
Weight: 3.8 oz
Now it could get thinner but dropping under 1 inches is hardly worth it and it could have a longer battery life but it's a week of standby or 2.5 hours talk time so it works well enough. I ended up getting a 40% larger battery which added 1/4 an inch to it's depth and it's still thinner than my wallet so what's the point. (I added more battery life because I keep forgetting to charge the thing. Now I charge it once a week and it keeps on ticking.)
Many devices are better at what they do than my cell phone but I can get by with out a calculator (the onboard one sucks but it works when I want to do simple math.), Memo pad, camera, and game station.
Granted a 200$ digital camera is much better than the cell phone at taking pictures but it works well enough and I have it on me all the time. I could buy a PSP and it would be better at keeping me entertained but my cell is good enough when your trying not to get bored at the DMV.
I hope to see a 256mb phone that you can use as an Ipod shuffle in 2 years that let's you use that memory for taking pictures. After that it's just going to be a question of how much CPU and memory the thing has because it's going to be more limited the interface than anything else. As it keeps getting better at all the things my phone does now there is going to be even less reason to keep a memo pad / appointment book, game station, camera for stills or video, walkman, PDA, portable DVD player, and with good voice to text it might take over email.
PS: Verizon might try and keep you from having a USB port to the phone so you need to use some sort of mobile web to get songs on it but if anyone avoids doing that I will be happy.
Your 486 did not have a 10GB HDD chances are it had 200 MB Disk space which is still more than most cell phones.
As I said 10 years till you have the 10-40GB cellphone that's small and cheep. And 20 years till your talking about 10-40TB cell phones. Yea, I can get a TB on my PC right now but it's going to cost a little over a grand for 5 250GB disks in a raid 5.
You could build a cellpohone the size of a iPod with 40GB of storage today but it's not going to be cheep and it's not the size of my cellphone.