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How Apple Kept the iPhone Secret
An anonymous reader writes "Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk — all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google."
Is this the Newton v2 or v3?
Honestly, I can't remember, how many lives has the Newton had so far?
Poor set of phone features + Poor set of music player features -> http://cache.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.g if
sta8dards should erosion of user between each BSD the gay niggers
And also, why do they think I'll pay $2000 for a fucking phone!
I'm sure this is a nice device but, unless
it has a GPS in it that can be programmed
around, this phone is as useless as any
other geographically crippled handheld.
The ability to look up maps on google earth
is nice but, unless you actually *know*
where you are, you may as well be reading
comic book for directions.
What an absolutely ridiculous statement. I haven't looked at any spec sheets, and I can tell you what it does. It makes phone calls and plays music. I didn't need any wild guesses to do that. This fanboyism is such tripe it's making me ill.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It's just a phone there are many like it this one is Apples. Also there has been swirling rumors for ages about this supposed secret. Yawn no digg
Man, how much does it suck to be someone who got one of the iPod renditions for Christmas right now ?
I'd be pretty pissed off if I just spend a couple hundo on an iPod then this thing comes out a few weeks later, I hope retail stores are ready for the iPod rush at the return counters.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Actually I'm currently using a smartphone that I thoroughly enjoy using.
Its a Motorola E680i, it uses standard SD Cards
and yes it does run linux.
Their two new models, the A1200 and the E6,
also run linux and use standard SD cards.
You make a good point. This is why Apple will never be really big. This is why they originally failed in the PC business and their current computer business is stalling. They just want to control everything. They will not let the creativity of the entire computer industry work in favor of their products.
Essentially, Apple wants anything running on an Apple product to be either developed and provided by Apple or provided by another party which is under contract from Apple so that Apple still has control over the software. As you said, that is a recipe for failure, because things new and exciting usually come from unexpected places, which means Apple will never feature anything new and exciting, which means they will always be trying to catch up.
Admittedly they have had some success with mobile devices, and that is because people are not yet used to running third party software on mobile devices. But that is going to change soon, and then the iPhone will be just like the Apple computers -- an expensive and cute looking gadget which never supports the software you need.
It will be a shame too, because hardware-wise this phone is far ahead of anything else out there, because it completely removes the key pad and replaces it with a huge screen.
No, it most certainly isn't.
It's $500 and requires a commitment to a two year contract just for that price. It's locked to one operator, who may or may not be any good where you live. Its capabilities are nice, but not so significant that for the vast majority of people a compelling reason can be found to purchase one over a more conventional unit from an experienced manufacturer. There are things we already know about and nobody in their right mind can be happy about. Sealed, un-replaceable batteries in a cellphone? A non-programmable smartphone (not even Java, apparently)? (Just what was the point of putting OS X on it?) Integration with Yahoo and Google Mail, but nothing else, not even corporate email clients like Exchange? (Mail.app can do it, so don't tell me it isn't possible.)
There are many aspects we simply don't know about it yet. For example: does it do voice recognition? That's pretty critical, and wasn't mentioned at all during the keynote. I'm guessing it doesn't. What do you think?
While it's quite possible Apple will come up with a "Revision B" that's clearly compelling, the high price, carrier exclusivity, and questions still to be raised over the over-all package will mean that this version, at least, will remain one of the more questionable business decisions Apple has made. The entire thing to me looks like the victory of ego over common sense.
Well done Jobs. You've just undermined the one serious success Apple has had in a couple of decades (the iPod and mobile music market) by producing a toy for the wealthy person who lives alone (no spouse to ask "You're spending WHAT on WHAT?"), is not currently in a mobile phone contract, lives in an area where Cingular has good coverage and capacity, has a small enough music collection that 4gigs will store it, and doesn't mind spending $500 on something that'll cease to have acceptable battery life in 18-30 months. If I were an Apple shareholder, I'd be getting out right now.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'd think Apple would have a pretty good defense: either that "i[Whatever]" tends to be automatically associated with it nowadays anyway, or that "i[Whatever]" is such a diluted term that it's un-trademark-able.
In fact, this is one case where I'd almost think Apple has grounds to sue Cisco, not the other way around. People at Cisco must have heard about the long-standing rumors of the [Apple] iPhone (even the rumors were using that name); to release a product of the same name makes them look like squatters intentionally trying to profit off Apple's mindshare.
You can tell that the word "iPhone" was always associated with Apple in several ways:
and, most persuasive IMHO:
Even the mere fact that the Apple article uses the generic term, while the Linksys one requires the qualifier, should be a huge clue. The bottom line is this: if anyone has a claim to the term "iPhone," it's Apple, not Cisco.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Every smartphone to date has been a fucking atrocity. " How do you know this with your free with subscription RAZR, you faggot?
Yeah, seriously! No Wi-Max support? Lame.