Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Apple doesn't sell form over function. They differentiate on form, since for this class of device, nearly all the market entrants deliver the minimum required functionality.
Notice that the iPod sells as well as it does without published audio specifications. It is not an audiophile device. In fact, I think at the moment there is no such thing as an MP3 player that would meet the requirements of a discriminating audiophile, and for the vast majority of available content, this is irrelevant.
Just about any MP3 player with a decent pair of aftermarket headphones is going to deliver a "good enough" experience for most listeners. The differentiating factor is how the device looks and feels, how easy it is to use the player's interface, how easy it is to load content on the device, and how intrusive the required copy-protection restrictions are.
The combination of the iPod line of players and the iTunes software is "good enough" for a large number of people.
As far as phones go-- poorly integrated with carriers? Yes, please. I prefer unlocked GSM phones so I can choose my own provider whenever and wherever I am. As far as the bad, misleading and restrictive things that tech companies can do to you, Apple doesn't hold a candle to just about any cellular operator in the world.
Mediocre player? Depends on how you mean mediocre. The device, if it exists, will likely be as mediocre a player as the iPod itself is. You can take that however you like.
However, if, from the perspective of interface design, the first iteration Apple phone is anywhere near as good, compared to other phones, as the iPod is to other MP3 players, then I see no reason why the device couldn't be at least as good as the best Symbian based phones, and a good deal better than just about anything Motorola has produced in the past ten years-- including all-hype, no-function phones like the RAZR and, the ill-fated ROKR.