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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."
You'll finally be able to transform your daughter into one of those silhouettes!
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.
Apple sells form, not function. They sell image.
Why doesn't the iPod publish audio specs? Because it under performs compared to every other player in the market. How does a minor upgrade in processors constitute a 37% increase in speed?
Expect the iMobile (not iPhone, remember) to be expensive, poorly integrated with service providers (or an MVNO) and a mediocre phone / mediocre mp3 player.
But it'll have HYPE, and so it'll sell. That iPod you just bought your kids for Christmas will be old hat, and the new iMobile make phone calls, text message badly, shoot crappy pictures, and make the cheerleader want to go out with you.
Or at least that's what the ads will say. Maybe I'm just too jaded to bite into the Apple hype. Too many worms.
It wont be called iPhone because Cisco/Linksys has already released one and owns the trademark for iPhone. The Canadian trademark is controlled by Comwave, I believe (someone linked to them defending the trademark against Apple in another article but I can't find it now).
MacPhone perhaps? That seems to be more in line with some of their recent naming conventions as well.
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."
Are they going to building a new competing cell network? Are they going to lower the cost of airtime? Cheap flat rates for unlimited plans?
If not, all they're doing is releasing a new phone. Hella cool or not, it's still just going to be a new phone.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The RAZR is the most popular cell phone in the US, and the newest version (available in the US through Cingular) interfaces directly with iTunes. This is a much nicer phone than the ROKR and comes with a 512MB microsd card (see review). Although it has the restriction of only holding 100 songs, this is about what will fit on the included memory card. I have one and I find it a compelling alternative to carrying around a separate nano. I'm not sure why people are so dismissive of this.
Is that all the service providers want to wall you off in their own little managed garden.
For obvious reasons, Apple isn't likely to solve this problem.
Because they make cool, functionnal, well designed devices and don't care about things like software patents and DRMs.
Be careful, be very careful...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
In reading published US patent application 20060268528 filed back in 2004 - Handheld Computing Device - Apple
In the description, section 0111
"In one embodiment, the device is or includes functionality for supporting cellular or mobile phone usage. In this embodiment, the device includes processors, transmitters, receivers, and antennas for supporting RF, and more particularly GSM, DCS and/or PCS wireless communications in the range of about 850 to about 1900 MHz."
In the claims, they detail the invention as a handheld computing device that is a cell phone made of a non-plastic material to have better wireless signal reception (claims 1, 6, 7).
That's my biggest problem with most of the cell phones out today. They can play music, games, look pretty.
But very few of them do the basics well... i.e. make phone calls. My old Nokia would lose signal. My new Samsung, the vibrate isn't powerful enough, and the ring isn't loud enough.
Oh yeah, but sure, it has a camera phone and will do all these other cool worthless things.
I doubt Apple is entering this market to make a cell phone. They probably just want to make an iPod that can occasionally make phone calls.
it lacks a dead-simple web interface to administrate the device, replaced instead by an application.
Yeh, that's a typical Apple situation.
Alternatively, as in the firmware on the Macbooks, they don't give you control at all...
On the other hand you have their total standards-based OS and open API. They're definitely a mixed lot.
Apple has been integrating the revamped "iSight" into many of its new portables, and iMacs, but the fact that it has been yanked as a standalone product makes it difficult to defend as such a "hit".
Not to mention that the built-in iSight is completely worthless for anything but videoconferencing. I have a third party firewire webcam I use with my Macbook pro, and a bit of electrical tape over the iSight because I can't be arsed making sure nothing turns it on when I don't want it on.
Apple's hardware is mediocre in functionality and power, it's only a hit for style. I could go on with the annoying clickwheel on the iPod, and the passive-aggressive 'it's not really a onw button mouse' crap with the mighty mouse and the double-tap trackpads... but I better stop here.
She's a Heek (hot geek). A creature of fable, second only to the unicorn in it's rarity. Capable of singing a siren song that tends to compel creatures from basements and dark places. If you see one, an easy test would be to gather your courage, scramble your Rubiks and hand it to her. If she completes it in under a minute, propose to her. If she accepts, you may also be a Heek. Congratulations!
If she refuses, she's just a nice looking lesbian.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Will the ZunePhone be the next iPhone killer!?!?!111
and not all the providers, and not all of the same.
For instance, Cingular took the hardware that performs the WiFi functions out of their HTC based 2125 phone while T-Mobile leaves it active in their version of the same HTC based phone. Verizon has a long history of disabling DUN in its phones, both bluetooth and datacable.
sometimes it is the phones though, for many phones you need special software to be able to transfer pictures and ringtones, so you still have to pay to get them there either way.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
"...a small company like Apple...."
Hmmm. Not sure what you call "small" but Apple's sales last year were $14B with profits of over a billion. They may very well hit $20B in sales this year. Nokia had sales of E10B, with profits of just over E1B.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY