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Inside Apple's iPhone
DECS writes "Despite CNET's wild claims, Roughly Drafted is reporting that Apple's market position and recent performance show the company has the ability, capacity, and interest in shaking up the mobile phone industry. Something that service providers, manufacturers, and consumers desperately need."
The problem is cell providers who make most phones ones that force you to pay ridiculous fees for things that you should be able to get for free (like ringtones, backgrounds, etc). This is the reason why apply had problems with the iPhone the first time around, because the cell companies wanted to charge people for being able to transfer songs to their phones.
For me VOIP on a PDA is the way to go. Works great with with my wireless broadband, or wi-fi hot-spots if they are around. Not the most reliable setup for incoming calls, but having a $10/month pager solves that problem.
MP3 is itself a proprietary format. And iTunes (and iPod) fully supports MP3. So how can iTunes be crippling the "MP3 industry" when it supports MP3?
... and then they built the supercollider.
But if it works well AS A PHONE, it gets my vote.
Well, the iPod sells like crazy, because it works very well as a music player. This lesson is not lost on Apple: notice how they've been very careful not to add a feature just because they can, and when they add something like games, they don't clutter the UI. It's the same number of clicks to get to a song on an iPod today as it was on the first ones they shipped.
If Apple brings out a phone, one thing you can count on is that they will have really studied what's good and bad about the existing products. It will be very, very easy to look up a number in your address book and dial it, to record your voice mail messages, to capture and save a number from an incoming call, to set your ring tones, etc.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why doesn't the iPod publish audio specs? Because it under performs compared to every other player in the market.
Not trying to be difficult, but what does that mean? I mean, granted, I don't listen to music on great headphones or anything, but every CD player or mp3 player I've tried has sounded fine to me. And why would they need to release the specs? Can't people just test it themselves?
-Bucky
I've wandered a bit into corporate culture and away from the impending iMobile. I apologize. But for the iMobile to reach the maximum number of consumers, it won't be a powerful product. It will flash Apple's minimalist design and carry a premium price point, because you're not just buying a cellphone, you're buying "cool".
That entire paragraph was written with the kind of blissful ignorance that discounts the idea that form can be powerful. The parent seems to think that if something is cool, it _can't_ be powerful - that the two concepts are mutually exclusive.
What prevents cool from being powerful? Nothing.
Check out Mac OS X Server. It is quite plainly "cool" and it is demonstrably as powerful or more so than competing products.
XServe RAID - extremely competitive on price, powerful, and very "cool" - the fit and finish of this product far surpass anything else in the space. The management software is very flexible and powerful.
The click wheel and hierarchical interface of the iPod are two more examples. How much could you do with four poles and a clicker? You can provide users with a way to navigate music and build a playlist without even looking at the device - if you're Apple.
The built-in handle and kid-proof shell of the teardrop iMacs is another example.
Form can quite easily be demonstrated as power. I think you're too wrapped up in the idea that something has to have myriad dialog boxes, option sub-menus and configurators to be "powerful".