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No Third-party Apps on iPhone Says Jobs
wyldeone writes "In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms reports that the recently-announced iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, 'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them.' In a similar vein, Jobs said in a MSNBC article that, 'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'"
Now apple has shoot them selfs in the face.
Right. So Sprint's network is going down every day because of some poorly written application on my Treo? This kind of absurd argument merely clouds the issues. This is about Jobs' control issues, not anything technical. I would be fine if they just released an sdk saying, essentially, anyone who wants to install 3rd party applications is on their own. The best, most stable programs developed could be accepted into Apple's Special Developer Program, which would make "official" releases. I have a problem with the status quo as described by Jobs (i.e., where only "approved" applications make it onto the iPhone) because it leaves the fate of potentially very useful applications to the political realities of Apple's relationship with Cingular (this means no VoIP). On my Treo, however, (if it supported WiFi, that is) there would be no way for Sprint or any carrier to stop me from installing a VoIP application; or, more dangerously, an application that allows me to convert an mp3 into a ringtone with out shelling out something ridiculous for the cell phone company's ringtones. It's these sort of applications that are made completely impossible through Jobs' program, and the biggest flaw with it. Another major flaw is that this sort of thing usually cuts out the small timers. PDA programs do not take an enormous amount development effort, therefore making them perfect for small developers; it's one of the few environments left where big development studios don't have a huge advantage. However, any sort of program (which likely would have a closed, expensive development platform as opposed to the cheap, open PalmOS and Windows Mobile SDKs) would almost certainly be prohibitively priced to anyone but these large development houses. In any case, much of the glamor of the iPhone has worn off since it has become clear that third-party applications were out. The device itself is beautiful, but it is the unexpected uses that make these devices so powerful and useful. On my Treo, I control my IR utilities using universal remote software, I have an instant-messaging client, a voice-activated launcher. All applications developed by third-parties and probably uses of the phone unexpected by Palm. I can only hope that Jobs realizes that he does not see perfectly into the minds of all consumers and does not know what we all want or need.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
And AT&T didn't want to see their network go down because someone connected an evil non-AT&T phone to it.
The proper translation of this statement of course is "We don't want anybody do be able to do anything on our network unless we're making money from it apart from the fee we charge for the bandwidth."
Stupid telecom companies will never learn. They don't want to create a free market of any kind. Anytime they make any protest involving having a free market, they're being rank hypocrites.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Okay, I have TWO macs. A G5 and a minimac (that remains unused). I use them for FCP & Aperature. I had to buy the G5 to use FCP. yes, it is freaking awesome, but I'm stuck with Apple.
Now, with Windows I have more options as to when/what I can use. There is more competition. It's nice, not pretty or as quick, but nice to know I have options.
Now, onto the iPhone(Tm)(R)(c). The thing looks awesome. I want to hack it. I want to add additional apps because, while apple seems to think of many nice things, they aren't awesome. I want awesome.
I have a Treo 650. I abused the damn thing. It was awesome but I didn't always use the Palm(R) apps. Nope, I had options. Google maps for example was jawdropping. And free. Apple won't let me do that? Forget it. I gladly pay the SAME price for the iPhone(Tm^nth) as a wall kiosk. It's the perfect size.
As if this thing isn't gonna be running linux yesterday.
The word "irony" is way overused, but these words, coming from a guy who started his company with money earned by selling blue boxes to defraud the phone company, belong in irony's fucking dictionary entry.
I won't buy your phone if I can't write code for it, Steve. I'm sure you're heartbroken. Me and Woz will just be over here in the corner, crying in our beards.
yeah, sure, that's bad and all, but what about 3rd party widgets? i mean, are they *completely* shooting themselves in the foot?
What does this have to do with being homosexual or happy and joyful? I don't understand.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
"These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them" ...bloody lucky I didn't buy a Mac - I kinda like having software on my computers!
-so it might not hurt Apple as much when the name trademark dispute shoves it right back where it belongs. A clunky overpriced palmtop computer masquerading as a phone that now can't even be made to work to a reasonably acceptable degree as a palmtop computer.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
how long until this is hacked and it really won't matter to the folks that care anyway?
That argument makes no sense. If a poorly written application running on one mobile phone has the potential to bring down the west coast network then logically a malicous hacker should be able to bring down that same network. Anything a malfunctioning application can do a mean nasty coder can do much more reliably. If there is the possiblity that an application can do that by -accident- then it should be relatively easy for a skilled engineer to do it deliberately.
It sounds to me like he was just fishing for excuses about why hes not allowing third party apps. It isnt necessarily a bad thing that they arent allowed but that excuse is bogus.
... meet gun. Gun, meet foot. Don't shoot yourself now.
What he was saying "no" to is having a plethora of buggy software out there that would endanger the user experience of the phone. I still expect to see non-Apple and non-Cingular developers having access to the tools to build applications for the iPhone. Now it's just a matter of sorting out the protocol (as in "administrative process") for getting the application that I write for my 100 users, installed onto the iPhones that we're going to buy, for the purpose of using them as small tablet computers.
One easy way is to provide the ability for user-added applications to run with lower privileges (just like they can already under Mac OS X - I can run my own programs as me, but not as "root" or any other user). Though that opens up the avenue for local root escalation vulnerabilities to be exploited.
Of course, for my immediate needs it would be enough to have some way to scan barcodes and interact with web pages. But then, Steve is pushing the line that it's the phone reinvented, not a tablet PC.
Does this mean that Apple don't want any games on their phone also? Last I heard that was quite a large market or at least rising.
Sounds strange to make a blanket ban on all third party programs. I'm guessing you would have to try real hard to make a network go down with most of the programs people might want to construct.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
Ease of development for small companies and indi folk was among the main reasons I wasn't dismissing it even with the lock-in and high pricetag. If this is accurate, and I have some doubts, they really are going to need ipod level "hip" factor.
I thought it'd be the perfect device...all I'd need would be an SSH client to monitor my server status.
How is it that network integrity is dependent upon the (millions of) client devices. If their network is designed in this way, well, I'll stick with Verizon.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Is this Jobs leaking that Cingular have incompetent network administration?
We cannot expect adverts to download various craplets of the vein:
"YOUR PHONE IS BROADCASTING AN I.P. ADDRESS AND A TELEPHONE NUMBER!"
Granted I'm not the prototypical candidate for one of these:
- I'm from South Africa and
- I'm a Geek,
but added to the fact that it doesn't have 3G (which all of it's competitors at this price-point does have) this becomes a no-show for me at least.Part Time Philosopher, Oft Times Romantic, Full Time Unix Geek
My phone - Nokia N70 - allows me to put apps on, including games in Java I wrote myself. It also allows me to play MP3s (like the last 3 phones I've owned over the last 5 years), watch videos, listen to the radio, etc etc. I wonder why they've picked such a deficient piece of hardware to describe as an iPhone.
This is a critical issue for me. There's no way I'm spending $600 for a piece of hardware with that many capabilities if I can't run any software I want on it and develop for it myself. This COULD HAVE been a revolution in computing, but instead, it'll just be another phone, and a crippled one at that. While it might be a fantastic phone, I don't spend $600 for a phone. I do, however, spend $600 for a general purpose portable computing device that happens to feature cell phone capabilities, with beautiful design, all the hardware I need, and running a great OS.
Jobs brings up the issue of running apps that will interfere with the phone capabilities, but I'm sure a bright engineer over at Apple (or maybe two if that's what it takes) could figure out how to give priority to the phone process, and make sure it gets attention when it needs to. This is just BS. I guess I'm getting myself a "free" S-E w800i for a couple more years until Jobs comes to his senses. iPhone, we hardly knew ye...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
" iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, 'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them."
Thanks, Steve Jobs. Now I will be buying a Treo or some (gasp) Windows based PDA/Phone.
I already hacked my RAZR V3i to do more than the iPhone will supposedly be able to do -- a FREAKING YEAR AGO. Don't believe me? Head over to the Motox forums and see what we can do with Motorola phones. iWhatever, I don't care and havn't since 1996 when Apple screwed me and a few million folks over regarding Rhapsody.
I wont buy it. Not interested in a holier-than-thou phone and its master who thinks they know better than me regarding my user experience.
What a childish attitude.
Personally I don't care about third party applications. What would make me buy one is if I could play Ogg Vorbis music with it.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
OK. As the information about the iPhone has started to come in after the announcement, I am decidedly off the bandwagon at this point.
This is stupid. Why do people put up with Apple and these games? If MSFT or Sony pulled this crap, the entire Slashdot universe would reign fury on these companies. But Apple? I'll read 1000 posts about "wait and see" and about how Steve Jobs is protecting us from ourselves.
Apple needs to get over it and open this up. At $600, if you can't even get the geeks excited, this product has 0 chance of succeeding.
Hmmm let's see. No replaceable battery, no use to business users since it won't talk to exchange servers, sync with outlook, read excel/word docs, etc, no Java, no 3G, and now no 3rd party apps? So they want people to pay $599 for something that "looks cool" and do little else? I'm reminded of Lisa and Newton.
the poster misspelled the insult. he meant "ghey". as in lame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghey#Pejorative_non-s exualized_usage
Spoken like a true Apple FANBOI has just spoken...
http://buddytrace.com/
Sounds like Steve Jobs should have picked Verizon. They love to lock they're phones down to where they all look the same, run only "Approved" content purchased from Verizon, they suck!
Is that Cingular or Jobs speaking through Jobs mouth? I for one would have loved to have a iPhone version of Delicious Library on my phone, not just a synced list on my iPod. I think this message will change over time, bullheaded Steve might be but not stupid.
Akvo.org - the open source for water and sanitation
I wonder how every other smartphone's apps haven't brought down the networks. What a load of B.S. from Jobs. Will they also limit what websites we can visit, for our own safety? Which e-mails we can receive?
I was really hoping to put a Citrix or Terminal Services client on one. Oh well; back to Windows.
So I have a Windows Mobile based smartphone. An old one. Now what with being a fully paid-up member of the geek community, I install all sorts of rubbish on it. My applications 'mess up' all the time, yet at no piont have I taken out any such network (would be all the more impressive from all the way over here in the UK..), and neither have the (presumably) many like me with similar phones and must-install-all-these-random-apps habits...
Am I missing something here?
------------------
Basically, I'm out of quotation marks here to throw around your goofy phrases.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gay
The definition (3) under the first few.
If yes, then the problem is solved :) Though I suppose Apple could demand some sort of signing of widgets and/or prohibit downloading them. :(
Otherwise that's another strike against buying it (it does not say if it supports Java apps, which probably means "no"). And I had such high hopes
Hyperom.com
Arrogant bastard
I have a WM5 pocket pc, clamshell phone, 5gig flash drive and sometimes a flash mp3 player in my coat pockets. Its a pain to carry all that around and keep charged, and the interfaces on all of them are a pain to use. I certainly didn't want to get a WM5 smartphone, though I do connect my pda to the 'net via wifi and bluetooth to the phone.
I was a perfect customer for the iPhone when it came to the UK, so I could replace the lot with one slick interface and a lovely form factor. But no extra software on the iPhone? No ssh, vnc, voip or custom little apps like my exercise program? Screw THAT. I need this as a PDA first, phone 2nd, and music player third. If it is only going to have the glorified calendar and contact lists you get on phones, I'm sorry but that's utterly useless to me. Even my existing bloody phone can have extra java apps on it. What IS the point of having a full-ish OS on a smartphone if you can't install any extra software?
Needless to say, Jobs just lost me and a couple of of other people I know who were going to get one. Guess those people saying it's just going to be a pretty, very overpriced phone were right.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
I have Windows based K-Jam i-mate. The appeal is I no longer have to carry a PDA and my phone has handy apps like a Russian-English dictionary. Great for traveling. Windows works ok most of the time but still has the classic windows problems so I was looking forward to being able to get a more usable platform. I use Windows, Linux and Mac laptops and based on the usability of them I was keen to get an iPhone. However if I can't load on the apps I choose, or create, then whats the point? The product is not worthy of comparison with the likes of the i-mate or Treo. What stupid way to ruin what looked to be dream product. I think DOA is the right term, good luck selling them now...
This is great for security. I don't like tons of moving parts with accountability all over the place.
Please could you shutdown the Internet right now before some poorly written application destroy it ?
It seems Jobs think his users and followers are idiots...
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
If you had to pick one single aspect that separates a "smart phone" from a "phone", the best indicator would probably be the ability to run arbitary software. Smart phones can do it: Treo, Symbian, WindowsCEPocketLiteWhatever, and various Japanese ones can all run user-installed software. Dumb phones can't; they just run a closed OS and usually just run that same software until the user throws away the phone and gets a new one.
The iPhone does appear to be a dazzling reinvention of the dumb phone. It does the same things my RAZR does: pictures, email, sorta browse the web, SMS, etc. I don't use, or just barely use, any of these features on my RAZR because the RAZR sucks at all of them. I junked my Treo 650 and got the RAZR because I wanted something that just made calls. So, in a limited way, it is cool that Apple is apparently going to best crappy phones like my RAZR, and make such features work reasonably. It even adds like 3 more features, such as google maps. So I'm sure they would dominate the dumbphone market with the iPhone, if it weren't for the fact that it has that smart phone price tag.
But, despite what anybody (e.g., Jobs) might say, smart phones are a hell of a lot more like computers than they are like iPods. After reading (ahem!) the article, I think we are kind of getting a glimpse of the hubris of the old Steve Jobs who wanted to see trucks full of sand coming in one side of the factory, where Apple would make its own silicon and assemble 100% Apple computers. Closed, proprietary systems can work for something like the iPod, but the reason is that iPods are only for doing one thing: playing media, mostly music.
A "smart phone", on the other hand, does many things. It is able to not only browse the web, but also, on a case-by-case basis, SSH into remote machines, view PDF content, view Flash content, run flash-card software for studying, run English-to-Japanese-Chinese-Arabic-Whatever dictionary software, count calories, time events, serve as a podium-top teleprompter for making speeches, record bibliographic data while researching in the library, play retro Missile Command and Dig-Diug clones, play MahJong, display recipes and cocktail how-tos, track ovulation, and so on, and so on.
Apple might be cool, but there is no way in hell that any single company can fill the software needs of a diverse user base.
So there are only three real potential outcomes here:
a.) Apple keeps it locked tight and is content to sell a very expensive but very elegant dumb phone.
b.) Lobbying by users, developers, and corporate purchases convince Apple that they need to offer a way to load third-party software... third party developers will certainly fill the void, and quickly if the iPhone's OS is really anything remotely like the developer-friendly Mac OS X.
c.) Some kind of middle ground is reached whereby developers pay Apple for the privilege of compatibility--like what they've managed to do with the iPod dock connector.
As a potential customer, I can say that I was 100% ready to buy some of these initially, until I heard about this very surprising position taken by Apple. Now, I don't know. It's possible I would buy one, but $600 is a lot to spend for what is an admittedly elegant but extremely limited feature set.
Although I do have a dollar here that says hackers will figure it out whatever Apple does...
But the executive summary is that this is a bummer for users and has legitimately dissipated the bulk of the excitement that surrounded the iPhone launch. I think most users naturally assumed it would run a diverse set of applications, so at first it seemed like an ultra-portable mini-Mac. Now, it's more like an ultra-portable mini-Mac that only runs iLife. The former is a lot more exciting than the latter.
you mean foot?
Apple has always liked the walled garden approach.
The semi-open OSX core was just a means to an end.
What they probably mean is "no applications unless you pay through the nose to Cingular or Apple for them." And they probably painted themselves in that corner with the price.
Let's face it, the fact that cell phones so far did less is _not_ because Nokia and others are stupid. Psion alone has quite a lot of experience in making stuff that goes from phones to good PDAs (including some decent office tools, for a PDA) to a sort of a micro-laptop. They figured out by now what the users want, and believe me, the thought of using a touch-screen _did_ occur to them before too. (The Psion 5 did a great job of using both touch screen and keyboard, for example.) Anyone who thinks it took Jobs to show everyone how to scroll a map on a touch screen, needs a bit of a reality check.
The reason why cell phones were limited devices has to do with cost, power consumption and "how much do we think the market would pay for it" issues. Most of the market wants to get their phone almost for free, and in fact often get some other stuff with it too. Then the contract recoups most of that, but then it means the phone itself can't cost thousands, because even with the contract and fleecing them for ringtones and SMS, there's only so much money you'll have to pay for phones _and_ the telco infrastructure _and_ other operating costs _and_ hopefully make a small profit, or at least not make a big loss.
So the more money you want a telco to pay to subsidize your phone, the more hope you must give them that they'll actually get that money back one way or another. E.g., you pack an IRC client on it to give them some hope that some idiot kid will rake up a huge phone bill while spending hours on IRC with a crap number pad as a keyboard. Or you give them an exclusivity contract, in which they practically pay you advertising money for a reason for people to switch to their network. That's worth more money, but even that has a limited upper limit. Or you try to lock it down and give them a "see, but they'll have to buy this and that only from you" hope. Which is obviously what Apple is doing here.
So at the end of the day, that's about how much a traditional phone can cost. That's why you can only pack so much CPU, RAM and everything in it.
Why the iPhone does more is probably because it costs an arm and a leg to produce. Being launched with an exclusive contract and still be left with a huge price tag anyway already hinted at that, but it's details like these that hint at exactly how huge the price must be. Cingular probably ends up paying a heck of a lot to subsidize Apple's gizmo, and they needed a heck of a reason to do that. Enter the "what if we completely locked it down, so people have to buy _everything_ from you?" factor.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Cisco, which owns the iPhone trademark, has announced what they want for it.
An "open approach". Interoperability.
Fundamentally we wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future. In our view, the network provides the basis to make this happen--it provides the foundation of innovation that allows converged devices to deliver the services that consumers want. Our goal was to take that to the next level by facilitating collaboration with Apple. And we wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That's it. Openness and clarity. - Cisco's general counsel.
Cringely points out that the original Jobs MacIntosh bombed because he locked out third-party hardware vendors. Now Jobs is doing the same with the iPhone, but this time locking out third-party software vendors. The only real question here is "Will this stop people from buying the iPhone?" Won't worry Grandma or little Bobby, but would it bother your tech savy user? Jobs is betting it won't.
Cringely also predicts it'll be renamed the 'Apple Phone', and says Apple was negotiating with Cisco over the iPhone name before the announcement so it's not like they didn't know. He suggests its a publicity play.
If Mac OS X is truly the foundation of the iPhone, buggy apps shouldn't be able to do the things you and Steve are warning against. Stability of the phone or network shouldn't be jeopardized by renegade user-installed applications because the OS and the networking protocol should lock them down to acceptable behavior.
I was fully going to switch to this phone in June. No joke. But this statement by Jobs has certainly installed boundaries for my imagination running wild with this device's potential. Specifically, I'm betting Apple will restrict 3rd-party-apps to prevent skype-like apps from being installed. Don't want to give the consumer TOO good of a deal.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Thank Heaven these people only have 5% share of PC market. If they had the power, they would be worse than MS!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Maybe Pear or something...It was a long time ago when they actually published the full schematics and source code of their Apple II ROMs. Of Course, if Jobs had any real say, that would have never have happened. He constantly was trying to close the systems more and more (the Apple III was closed). Woz told him to stick it in the early days, but then he left and we got the Mac. In every case, the closed systems flopped while the old, but open, Apple II kept the company afloat for years until they convinced everyone that open was bad. Well, they did a good job. No one seems to really care that their iPods are completely unprogrammable, and that their phone can only run software from JAMDAT. Meanwhile, the whole idea of making computers work for you instead of the other way around has gone the way of BASIC interpreters. People are being USED instead of being USERS. It is a real shame, and I think it bodes very poorly for the future of computing. I dread the day that ALL systems are closed and only a privileged few will be able to program them in any meaningful way.
It is such an incredible shame that such an enticing machine is all look, but no touch. It's like being given a piano and told that you can't try and play it, only look at it. It's just wrong in so many ways.
Well, I guess Jobs thinks that I should be happy that he is saving me from myself. Unfortuntely, it seems the rest of world IS happy about it and that just makes me even more depressed.
I never liked that guy... he still owes woz some money for breakout...
Thanks,
Mike
It's got WiFI, I have no use to EVER use their crappy cell network that doesnt'e even work in silicon valley. Go back to your telegraph business AT&T - that's the last time any pf your products worked.
2. Why would I buy a laptop-replacement device that's a closed platform? How stupid would you have to be...
3. Japan had phones that did all that - 10 years ago. For gods sake Steve, CATCH UP!
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Translation: You are not getting any free calls using Skype. Now pay through the nose and keep getting screwed like everyone else.
Paying to receive calls too in the US - still can't get my head around that.
What will be interesting though, is to compare the replies here on /. between this article and "Microsoft Worried OEM 'Craplets' Will Harm Vista". It can be argued that Apple talks about a phone and MS talks about an OS. But the observation I make is that both Apple and MS seem to aim to be in tight control to either ban 'Craplets' from their product that might impact performance of the product. It may tempt people to argue others reasons like despotism tendencies and monopolistic behaviour, but last time I checked, there seems to be a lot of products out there, besides phones and OS's that void any warranty if you replace parts or add accessories produces not by the manufacturer of the product
Supporting MS products doesn't mean you have to like them.
That something would come along so soon and make the PS3 look like a sound investment.
Sorry steve jobs, I was really excited about this phone.
I mean, where are these "Desktop Class Apps" touted in the keynote? All I see on the phone is Calender, Maps, Notes and a Web Browser. That's it? And we're supposed to be excited it took OSX to run those? How can this phone *not* be considered a tablet PC/phone?
Argh.
There are two segments of the iPone's potential market who will now think again about purchasing this device if they can't load their own apps onto it:
(1) Businesses.
Many big businesses would like to load bespoke apps and/or specific (say Cisco only) VPN clients etc. onto the devices their field operatives use so that they can access the corporate network applications securely etc. If they're not allowed to develop and/or install these then they'll go elsewhere, however pretty and useable the device.
(2) Sysadmins
Sysadmins generally use their smartphones slightly differently to the rest of the smartphone community. For one they'd want/need a terminal program (ANSI complient) with full shell access or at least a working ssh client. If they can't install on of these then they'll probably think twice, even if it is shiney-shiney.
Still, I'm not sure that this is the target audience Apple is looking for, but then again it's the audience who are currently buying smartphones!
Of course, if the target audience is the fashion concious "iPod Generation(tm)" then I'm sure that a device onto which they can load 3rd party games would also be more attractive.
In some ways, yes, I can see the hand of the mobile telco possibly in this. The trouble with the phone industry is that the customers who are always right are not to poor saps who buy and use the devices, it's the telcos. What the telcos don't want the users don't get. Not only this but there's self censorship within the manufacturers so they only produce what they *THINK* the telcos will want to promote and sell.
The iPhone *MAY* help with changing the phone market's competition, but I only see it doing so with respect to the user interface. It's definitely not going to change the market so that it's user driven. The customers the manufacturers will have to please will still be the telcos and not the users of the devices.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
What I did expect was for you to figure out a way to point out how you would rather not pay your employees a living wage and spout off about some incentive program (a.k.a. indentured servitude). Or is that coming later?
The fact that apple has the iPhone tied to one (read: not my preferred) carrier is a far more egregious affront to freedom than not letting people install third party software.
Spoken like a true Apple FANBOI has just spoken...
Posted like a true trogolodyte non-English-speaking moron has just posted....
Dur. De duh. Duhhhhhh.....Dur.....duh....
So why is it exactly that I can load each and every Symbian software on to my Nokia 9300 with no restrictions and neither crashing the entire network nor my phone? (A very poorly written app may crash the phone, but this is extremely rare).
My gut feel here is that Mr. Jobs is trying to cover the fact that OSX is an operating system not designed for mobile devices, let alone phones. As opposed to Symbian you may be able to wreck all sorts of havoc on the phone and the network if you get access to the phones OS, or it may be some slimy deal with Cingular.
This is pure speculation of course, but Mr. Jobs argument is totally bogus.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
The relevant quote...
In other words, the reporter doesn't know squat about the actual circumstances regarding third-party apps and is blowing farts in the wind, making speculative and general statements in the hope that someone will imagine that he's right when something he says turns out to vaguely resemble the truth.
I have been developing apps that run on Cingular's network for some time now. I write J2ME apps that run on most phones sold by Cingular. I don't need anybody's permission and so far nobody from Cingular has contacted me to say that I'm using too much bandwidth. I also surf the web on my Mac Book Pro via my tethered Bluetooth phone. I have not crashed their network yet.
Apple has made great strides making their OS open to developers and this is the reason for Apple's surge in popularity. Now they are coming out with the iPhone, a platform that is more closed than their competitors. What twits.
I could waste time insulting Steve Jobs, but instead I just dumped all my AAPL stock. Thanks for the ride Steve. It was great while it lasted.
I guess we won't have a decent version of Gmail on it then... on my Razor, I am using the java program downloaded for the Google site, and it works well - much better than web access. Even though the iPhone has a better browser than most cellphones, a Gmail-specific app would be much better than web access. For accessing Gmail, I suspect my Razr, at $100 with contract with Cingular, is both cheaper and better...
Its gonna open up sooner or later anyhow, Apple just doesn't want it to be open to AverageJoe who will think "Randomcrappysoftware" is Apple's randomcrappysoftware. Quality assurance!
Actually, no. The proper translation of this statement of course is "Our network security is so poor that we cannot take the risk of anybody connecting to it in a programmatic fashion".
Openmoko.com.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My optimism about iPhone as a tablet just reduced substantially. If I can't program it its of no interest to me. Heck, I imagined a minor bit of programming that I'd like to have on an iPhone as I was driving back from a Chorus rehearsal tonight. Unless Apple has already thought of it, I'd be out of luck.
I'll be interested again when they repackage it as a Mac mini-tablet computer.
Everything I saw in the videos was great, especially the part about many Mac apps working with it. As it stands now, I'm sure I can do more with a Nokia 770 or 800.
There will still be a large market for this phone. Most people cannot program and would not be interested in doing so on their cell phone. But with this decision Apple has given up a secondary market that might have kickstarted their sales.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
The obvious answer to iPhone closedness is OpemMoko's openness. Vote with your dollars: go buy an OpenMoko when they hit the market in a few months. http://openmoko.com/
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Have you never heard the phrase "throwing out the baby with the bathwater"? If third party applications are allowed, you can simply not use them! Disallowing any third party apps because some people have had bad experiences with some apps on other phones is ridiculous.
More likely they are concerned with viruses and trojans. If you keep the system closed you limit the number of dateless teens trying to impress their friends by crashing the network. Also Apple is famous for stability so the more control over the apps you have the more stable. It's not all about money sometimes control is a good thing. They are selling a smart phone not a PC. Eventually it has that potential but for now they locked it up to keep the bad guys out.
So how powerful is the inbuilt web browser?
If it can run java applets near full-screen then I don't see why you can't implement a whole
heap of stuff that way. Sure, no VoIP or offline games, but I can't see why you couldn't run
SSH clients or custom internet based apps that way.
Sure I'm not interested in a device costing that much that I can't write stuff that runs offline for (and in NZ
it'll cost $unfeasible to use our shitty mobile networks), but there looks like *some* ability there
to run custom apps.
- MugginsM
On a tangent, I was surprised to hear someone corroborating Steve's excuse. I've had my Windows phone for about a year and a half, and the worst thing it's done related to phone calls is freeze up requiring a battery pull, and that kind of thing has been very rare. No dropping calls, no inability to dial, no battery problems. I installed and use various 3rd-party apps. Did I just get some good hardware? Is it that I have a "smartphone" and not a "Pocket PC phone"? Do others experience problems on the phone side caused by applications? I was ready to dismiss Job's explanation as pure BS hiding the real reason, but maybe I was wrong. I still don't believe a bad app could cause problems on Cingular's network.
Despite claims to the contrary by a startup which says they'll have it working by June, there's no evidence of Java on this phone. Based on the trouble they're having getting Java to work on Blu-Ray, it would be surprising if Java ever worked well enough on iPhone for the Jobless Man to permit it.
More amazing than the lack of Java is the lack of interest in the subject. It's like unless Steve mentions it, people automatically discount it on their own.
I don't think it will really matter about Widgets. You can still run WebKit (Safari), right? Essentially, that's all there is to a widget, as I understand it. Dashboard runs on WebKit, and this is supposed to be the whole WebKit -- a "real" web browser.
(Widgets get access to more system resources, but is this really something you need on a phone? Are you going to want to monitor CPU levels?)
So "widgets" could be replaced by web apps, which could then be bookmarked. Since bookmarks sync with your computer, the "installation" process would be incredibly easy, and you'd never need to actually know the URL.
Even if you aren't allowed to install widgets, it should be pretty simple to provide web apps to take their place.
The US- wireless carriers are all scared shitless of a device like this.
Sorry, you just don't have this kind of shit dictated by European phone networks. Phones sold here (with and without plans) have no such restrictions.
They also don't have any restrictions in uploading your sounds, images, movies or (in case of smartphones) applications.
They also don't come with criplled Bluetooth stacks or some of the other stunts of which US carriers seem so fond of pulling off.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I don't need a company, and a device THAT I OWN AND PAID GOOD MONEY FOR to tell me me what
I can and cannot load due to some artificial restrictions supposedly put there for my safety(heh)
or the safety of the network (actualy, really just the latter). Fuck that. My cheap Sanyo phone
allows me to load apps, so I don't see why a *$600* phone wouldn't let me do the same. I also know
how to take responsibility for my phone, and I don't download suspicious apps or anything I
have even the remotest doubts about. As for you loading those unstable 3rd party apps, well you didn't really have to do it, you chose to do it. I don't want or need a "nanny" to stop me from loading apps, because there's apps out there that might harm my phone.
the ordinary phone operation is going to be so CPU intensive that any new application installed would find itself crawling. Wait for v2 I think.
If they were worried about security, things like altering the strength of the radio signal beyond FCC limits, the answer is simple: treat the radio/phone functionality as a black box which only accepts certain commands through its API. For example, your program can dial, play sounds, record, play DTMF, play tones... hey, wait a minute... this is how telephony hardware works! It's been implemented thousands of times! Hey... the command sets even look sorta like... old modem AT command sets... which did not, it turns out, destroy our communications infrastructure! In fact... everybody ended up making *more* money when people started using open, standardized networks. Wowee!
But friends, I am here to tell you that the iPhone is still GFN (Really Good News) for everyone. Why? Because it's going to put a serious crunch on all the other phone makers, and the only way they can beat it is going to be A) Introduce comparable hardware, not the monstrosities that, say, Motorola is putting out, and B) Come up with equal or better software. Wait, how can they do that? Those telcos and Palm and those guys *suck* at software! Well... Open Source. Let the users implement what they want. Look at the Maemo software lineup, if you don't think it can work. Motorola, Nokia, and others are already more than halfway there-- they're not completely stupid, after all. All the iPhone does is send them the message that they can't turn back.
I can't wait. The day an open Linux-based phone with decent screen/input model comes out, I'm kicking the Treo to the curb. Literally. I'll finally be able to do things like... answer a call or do an SMS without losing SSH/Web sessions. By the way, a message for Palm developers: sometimes, in life, more than one thing happens at the same time. I know, it's confusing. There, there.
Wow, I haven't had coffee this late at night in a looong time. Tolerance down. Leaving now.
I don't know about anybody else, but the ability to add, tweak, hack, etc. my pda phone is one of the primary reasons I have the thing.
:(
I have had a Samsung i730 for about a year now. I tried the i700 before that (though only for 13 days, and returned it for a regular phone since it was flaky). Thanks to sites like PDAPhoneHome and members like mrailing and sdave, the i730 has been made even more capable than it originally was. The ability to tweak and modify is essential.
I had my wife get a motorola 815 for this very same reason. Before the i730 I had a small samsung phone that I could tether to my laptop (or the mac mini while I had it, before the cable modem was installed) and have net access.
As sleek, shiny, and cool as the "iPhone" is, if they want to lock me out, then I just won't buy it. There are plenty of other options. Maybe not as cool looking (for now) as the iPhone, but a lot more open and flexible. Besides, what's the point of bragging about OSX running on this thing if they are going to lock everyone out of it?
Oh well, last night I told my wife I was going to be getting a cingular account in a few months -- guess I won't have to worry about that now, if this is true.
I think the analogy would be, "Quick, could you shutdown Windows before it destroys the Internet". Microsoft has responded with Vista, such that it is. If it hadn't then the markets would have shutdown Windows for them.
I wonder what the BeOS/Jean-Louis-Gasse and PalmSource people that are integrating with Linux over at Access Technologies think of this?
In the very same article, however, he goes on to say:
"That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
Steve's obviously playing control freak here, but I can understand his reasoning. Sony does the same thing for the PlayStation platform. An SDK ~is~ available, if you pay the huge fee for it, and Sony still gets to decide if your title is good enough to get their PlayStation branding. If the iPhone is going to work as a product for Apple, it really does have to work just as smoothly as its demo. Just like Sony, Apple gets to vet/check software before it goes out into the wide world.
The hacker geeks aren't going to like it, but, hey, it didn't stop Sony from owning the world with this very same model for the PSX and PS2.
Oh, and you can bet your bottom dollar this isn't the only device in this area that Apple will be bringing out. Expect to see this techology in a more hackable, computer-like form very soon.
I say let the iPhone be an iPhone -- that's what's it's going to be good at.
Using the holy grail of OSes...
Well, then they'll need to write some apps themselves. I, for one, wouldn't mind GPS integration, even if it has to rely on an external bluetooth GPS module. I want to be able to read word files and modify excel spreadsheets. I want to be able to connect to corporate email through Exchange. I want Flash in that Safari. There's quite a bit that I want. I'll still buy one, even without all this stuff, but I'll be sorely disappointed if it doesn't show up within a year from June 2007. This will be my first cell in over six years. I cut the electronic leash in May 2001.
Who cares what Jobs says? Have we ever taken him seriously before? It's not like it won't be hacked within hours of it's release. Calm down, if we want third party apps on it, someone out there in geekdom will find a way.
...I got nothing.
Job's is most likely making the asanine statement because of a deal with Cingular.
All of the cell carriers try desparately to controll all content on our phones, such as ring tones, screen savers and downloaded programs.
My sister just disconvered that the game she paid $2.99 for and downloaded on her cell phone was only licensed for one month, and she can no longer play the game till she re-downloads it.
Look at the OBEX stacks for all the bluetooth capable phones. They all conveniently ommit this stack, even though it would be simple to add, so that you cant connect to the contacts database in the phone. Instead they want you to go and PAY for the service to access the phone data.
The iPhone more than likely will be capable of using and installing 3rd party apps. Cingluar just wants to make it hard for the average person so they can rape them on the stupid "monthly" surcharges to have the software on their phones.
Just wait a few weeks after it comes out for some guy to crack it so we can start installing our own shit on the phone.
Controlling the content is just another marketing ploy to rape their subscriber base.
egotistical control freak, all apples products are like this. fuck you jobs if i buy something why shouldn't i be able to do what i want with it. i'm so sick of fuckers like him telling me what i want and whats good for me. his argument that a poorly written app could take down a cell phone network is so floored i hardly know where to start. \how about this - is he suggesting apple would never release software with bugs in it?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Maybe Jobs' keynote made the device seem more fantastic than it is, but really, hyping is all I can blame Apple for when it comes to their iPhone. We don't know how much the iPhone costs to produce, but in any case that's irrelevant since we pay what the tag says, not what it costs to make the device. So let's look at the price from a consumer's standpoint:
Consider that if you take the price of an 8Gb iPod Nano from the 8Gb iPhone's price, you're left with 350 USD. Sure, you might not get quite as much free space for music on the iPhone as you do on the Nano and battery life is considerably less, but in exchange you get (official) support for video playback and a great screen. So all in all you can take out the Nano's price from the iPhone's price and call it even.
So, you're left with 350 USD worth of "other stuff". Some of that price has to go to basics that you'd get with any other phone out there - a four-band GSM phone with support for EDGE and SMS capability (apparently no EMS or MMS, although lack of support for those is less of an issue since there's support for proper rich e-mail). Prices differ a lot depending on where you're from and what kind of contract (if any) you take with your phone, but let's say for argument's sake that you could get a good four-band GSM phone with EDGE for 100 USD (in this case without contract).
Now you have 250 USD left to account for. What REAL, useful features do you get for that price? If indeed you can't freely install third-party software to the phone then the OS does not matter. No matter what its roots are, it's just an OS like the one in any other phone out there. It makes for a part of the phone's price, sure, but it's not good enough a reason for explaining any meaningful portion of that 250 USD.
You do however get a great screen that would raise the price of any mobile product a fair bit as well as a proper web browser to make good use of that screen. The browser might not cost anything extra for Apple to include, but its value to the end user goes up a great deal when paired with a good screen and what looks like a user-friendly UI (no moving about with a clunky joystick or keypad). Then there's WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR support as well as a "basic" 2 megapixel camera (no zoom, no flash). Maybe another 100 USD for all of these together.
150 USD to go. What else is there? I might have forgotten something of importance (and if I have, that only makes my case stronger), but let's say that 150 USD covers a vague cloud of niceties, the appreciation for which varies from user to user and some of which might be available in other "smartphones" (but not in that 100 USD basic GSM phone we accounted for earlier): the fact that it's an Apple product with great design (people do pay for looks); that it's apparently very user-friendly and fun to use (intuitive scrolling, funky photo gallery, Cover Flow, other UI niceties like how conference calls are handled); one gee-whiz sensor (the accelerometer), one neat sensor (the proximity sensor) and one mainstream sensor (light sensor); proper support for POP3 and IMAP and simple syncing of media and other data; the list goes on.
Put it all together and I'm pretty sure you can find value worth 150 USD; fact of the matter is that the value of things is something people tend to notice when it's not there. If the iPhone had no IMAP or POP3 support, you'd notice it. If syncing stuff to it was a pain, you'd notice it. If you couldn't make conference calls or had to jump through hoops to make it work, you'd notice it. Maybe you wouldn't mind switching between landscape and portrait mode by pressing a button, or time-delayed backlighting to save power during calls, but certainly we all appreciate such obvious and helpful use of technology that is available to us?
It is NOT "the phone reinvented" as Apple would like us to believe and I don't care for hype like that (but it would seem it's just the way things work - Apple's not the only one doing it). It IS a real shame if you can't freely install t
Reminds me of the old AT&T days where they refused to allow so much as an adhesive microphone cover to be manufactured by a third party because they needed to 'protect the integrity of the network'. I was really excited by this device because it seemed like it really would break a lot of paradigms. But between this and the mandatory 2-year contract, we're looking at just the typical phone, but with a brushed metal GUI, and business as usual..
I have six mobile phones at the moment, but I have never bought one I couldn't develop my own applications for, and I never will. Doesn't matter how good it is. If I can't be creative with it, it's dead to me.
'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'
Yeah right. That's why the interweb doesn't exist anymore, cause so many people installed their own applications on their computers. System of tubes choked by too much water.
And seriously: how could me causing humongous amounts of traffic hurt the phone providers or their network? All it'll hurt is my pocketses (unless they're stupid enough to sell me a data flatrate with bandwidth guarantees).
...and he sure as hell has spent more time thinking about this than I have. And yet, I still think this is very much the wrong move. Look at the success Nokia is having with the 770 and soon the 800. I will go so far as to say the only reason that device is successful is they were smart enough to build it on Linux (Debian), release an API (for the bits they even needed to do the API for -- e.g., their customised window manager), and foster a development community. That was just effing smart. Instead of the device having very limited functionality, it has -- with very little effort -- a rich set of open source software available for it. Sure, some of that's going to crash it, but there are clear distinctions between Nokia-tested and certified software and the things you download from Joe Blogg's website, and You Are Warned every time you install something. I just wish they'd put a phone module in it, but it can bluetooth to my phone, so...
As for the bit about Cingular's network going down: Bullshit. (Pardon my English.) Do an API to the phone functionality it provides, test that, and that's an end to it. If the network's that delicate, that's a useful thing to know and fix, because sure as heck someone will take advantage of it (using something other than an iPhone) otherwise.
This has the feel of something being forced by the phone companies, even if Apple is historically fairly closed (OS/X being the big -- and welcome -- exception). And yet, frankly, this is going to be the Must Have Item for a large number of high-quality customers (Christmas 2007, start saving now kids), what network can afford not to support it?
Something that made me smile during the launch was "you don't need Exchange Server anymore"!
Well.. What if I WANT Exchange Server?
It's no good going against RIM without supporting, for better or worse, one of the most widely used corporate email systems there is. I can't see my boss being happy about me forwarding everything I have to a Yahoo account. I couldn't if I wanted to as all internet email sites are blocked. This is *not* a Blackberry-killer.
And I don't buy Jobs' argument that these smart phones are difficult to use, he just sounds like a marketing guy.
Oh disclaimer: I'm normally a fan boi.
With the claims that this was running OSX, the most thrilling thing to me about this phone was that I could replace my Palm pda and my cell phone with a single device. I was excited about installing an ssh client, a softphone (important), and an instant messenger. I'd also want a decent media player -- that plays Vorbis. Without these things, however fancy, its useless.
There are other better sources that have Steve Jobs explaining that there will be no 3rd party app support. Im too lazy to look it up for you tho.
Apple needs to get over it and open this up. At $600, if you can't even get the geeks excited, this product has 0 chance of succeeding.
This product isn't aimed at geeks who moan and groan about how "closed" it is. It's aimed at the vastly larger crowd of people who think it's the slickest damn thing they've ever seen, as-is.
Wonder whether the rumored talks between Jajah and Apple then were only to prevent Jajah from running on an iPhone. Might be a good reason to get another phone. Cingular and I guess other providers will like the iPhone with this limitation. But any nearby wifi or bluetooth connection will create the option to do it another way. If Apple has to change the name they could cut Phone from it.
After the initial elation, I'm crashing back down to reality.
:(
The price tag didn't seem that scary at first. My brand new Nokia N70 costs 400E off the shelf.* With a 2-year plan, that came down to 55E, pretty damn affordable for a near-Smartphone. I didn't understand, at first, that the iPhone's price (500$ or 600$) included the 2-year plan! As I fully expect Cingular to charge for services (the very services the iPhone is so cool about) on top of that, the price has suddenly leapt straight out of my potential budget (and I'm a gadget lover with a good pay!).
No 3G? Well, there's no camera on the iPhone, so you won't be suffering bad video-conferencing. And if you're only use text e-mails, that's OK. Too bad for the "our browser isn't crippled and text-only!" hype. At those speeds, you'll want to go back to WAP.
And now no 3rd party apps? Their lame excuses don't even surprise me. I guess they're perfectly understandable for the mid-to-high level risk-averse manager. Whatever. However, I expect they'll catch up by selling apps for the iPhone. This is the final straw that confirms the iPhone beyond "barely affordable but classy social symbol" the iPod was so good to hit, and right into "outrageously priced executive toy".
Happy Feeling's gone
I'm not predicting a flop or anything. I think it'll revolutionize the way we use "phones" if other companies can get the hint, and I sure hope they'll do it quickly. All of a sudden the interface of my N70 seems awfully clunky...
*Yep, I live in Europe, which means the iPhone won't be available to me anytime soon anyhow.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Jobs is explicit quoted as saying:
Nowhere does it say there will be no third party apps available.
They are obviously trying to do the same with the iPhone - using a sexy device to leverage people into buying something they don't really want. Considering that the iPod really was a revolution and people still wouldn't be leveraged, i don't think this ploy will work with the iPhone.
I'm guessing there is a business reason why they tied themselves to one carrier, but i can't help wondering why they didn't just design a phone and market it the same way as everyone else - through all carriers with the carrier charging according to service plan. Apple stuff sells cos its stylish, decently made and its easy to use (due to good design), so consumers would look at the Nokia's, Sony's and iPhone's side by side in the shop and probably pay a bit extra to buy the iPhone. They've really undermined their core strengths by not allowing their customers this choice and it will show in their sales figures. Maybe they'll see the light in a year or two and release the phone to the masses, assuming they haven't tied themselves too strongly to Cingular.
Now Jobs says:
But it's not like the walled garden has gone away. "You don't want your phone to be an open platform," meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. "You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."
Are we grasping at straws or what? Phones have been programmable for several years, with no viruses and no ill effect on networks.
A programmable phone is a must for me, since I need ssh, a password vault, and a notes application. Without that, it's no deal, no matter how nice the rest of the phone may be.
Oh, guys, and stop lying through your teeth. Whatever bizarre reasons you may have for not letting third party apps on the phone, these aren't valid.
Just like the first ibm pc (or pet c=)
Some one make an open ended platform.
Two parts, with screen/Kb seperated by an open protocol/cable. Fixed set of dimmensions, common ports like usb/sd slots.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
At first, I was kind of shocked when I heard this, just because it sounds so absurd, and was ready to abandon my plans of purchasing one when it comes out in Europe. Now I still think this is stupid (_if_ it is completely true), but I still like it enough as it is to buy it.
As I see it, there are two kinds of Applications which could theoretically run on the iPhone: "real" full-blown apps, and widget-like extensions of OS X desktop apps.
While probably a lot of people around here would care more for the first category, like in SSH/VNC/Remote Desktop clients or VOIP stacks, I think the killer app the masses would care about would lie in the second category.
For example, think about apps like the DVD/book/CD management software Delicious Library, or a recipe management software like Cookbook.
It would be incredibly cool if OS X developers could use xcode to compile small widget-like iPhone extensions with sync capabilities for their apps! Buy such an app, one-click install the extension to your phone. You could take your delicious DVD library with you on your phone, have Cookbook create and sync a shopping list automatically for the recipes you chose for the week, have your OmniOutliner task lists handy on the go etc etc.
Everybody wins - you could really have all the data you care about with you whereever you go, OS X developers would add even more value to their apps and Steve would have one killer application more to help him sell assloads of iPhones.
Steve doesn't know which data is important for me, and he shouldn't care. If he truly wants to bring "my digital life into my pocket", then he needs to open up the iPhone at least this far and bring the Mac and the iPhone closer together.
I see absolutely no reason no to do this; who said every app should have lowlevel access to the hardware / the network stack ? Put the apps in a sandbox, publish a limited API, I don't care.
But honestly, I'm taking everything I see with a grain of salt until it is officially on sale.
We see both sides of Mr. Jobs here.. The perfectionist that drove the absolutely wonderful user interface of the iPhone. The attention to detail, and unwillingness to stop at "good enough" just drips off that interface.
Then, we see the arrogant Jobs, insisting on a closed platform, locking out third party software. His statements about it being more like an iPod than a computer are ludicrous. The input capabilities of an iPod are non-existant, making third party software almost irrelevant. A closed iPhone will be hamstrung from the start.
I really like the UI. But, I'll probably wait a bit for the Video iPod version, with no phone features. The inability to load my own software (i.e. have full control of the device I pay for) is a big drawback, as is the two year commitment to Cingular. (And, no.. I'm not an Apple nay-sayer. I own two iPods and three Macs. I'm just not a fan of completely closed systems.)
Sure that apple will do a good job at all their own apps but there is only so much that they can do by themselves. And some rogue app bringing down cingular sounds pretty off-the-wall to me.
I would like to know what happens to the non-cingular countries (New Zealand for example) who get the phone Q4 2006 or so? Are we going to have the same restrictions pushed upon us?
As with most apple products, I'm excited but I'm going to wait for genII at least before throwing my chips in.
My Mommy says smoking kills. Oh, is your Mommy a doctor? No. A scientific researcher of some kind? No. Well then sh
The other way around may be more interesting then: to get this OS X running on an Arm or (Arm) X-scale system. The most likely candidates for the iPhone's CPU are from those stables. Nvidia, Samsung, Marvell are rumored suppliers of an assembly with the ARM core. Transmeta is the only other possibility.
With Vista they are talking about the crappy stuff that folks like Dell and Gateway put on the machine. They aren't talking about what USERS install. (Though a lot of that is crappy indeed.) The OEM stuff is all paid placement and it is brutal that it was ever allowed in the first place.
Does running a bad app on my Mac bring down the whole of the Internet?
Does it even stop me from surfing?
Does it crash OS X?
Funny, I really can't say I've had any problems with this kind of stuff so far.
Ho hum.
This is just speculation, but I'm pretty sure that what they are aming for is administrative power of what gets released and whats not. Just like Nindtendo/Sony/MS have a firm grip over what gets published for their (gaming) hardware.
After all, the hardware is a one time fee, controling the software sales (earning royalties on everything sold for the device) is the big revenue stream.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
While geeks and techies will whinge, the iPhone will sell like hotcakes. People don't want to fiddle around adding stuff to their products, they just want products that do what they are supposed to do well, out of the box. Sure, there are people who like adding features, add-ons and 'hacks', but Joe Blow doesn't.
Take cars, for example. The average buyer won't change anything but the tires and oil (maybe the C.D player). iPods seem to have done all right without software changes, despite the cries of 'no OGG!'. As long as the car drives, handles, and plays CDs O.K, then people are happy. As long as your iPod plays music all right, people are happy. And as long as the iPhone does everything it says it will at reasonable price, people will be happy.
You can use lots of programmable third party phones with Cingular: the Treos, the Nokia E61/E62, etc. The E61 even runs VoIP, and you program it in C/C++.
The source of the restriction must be Apple, not Cingular.
Funny is, I was hoping for Opera Mobile right after I saw "Zinio reader" style web browsing.
;)
We like Safari on Desktop but Opera Mobile is like 5 years ahead of competition on that business.
I wonder another thing. Why can't a system being "5 years ahead" doesn't come with built in spam protection? I tried Kaspersky Symbian Beta and it adds "sms/mms spam protection" to my Nokia.
Cingular doesn't want it too I guess
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-k e850-separated-at-birth/
I remember when Motorola shipped the Moto 710 without explaining that they crippled the thing. Imagine what will happen when Apple ships this "pocket mac"/ iphone without disclosing in a way that even Stevie Wonder or the most brain dead citizen amongst us can understand that it is indeed *HEAVILY* locked down and is not a pocket mac that'll run all the applications that maccers love. I sense that Lawyers will chase after Apple/Cingular/AT&T like sharks after bleeding meat.
Also IIRC, the US Copyright office has already declared that breaking software locks on phones to make them carrier neutral is NOT a violation of copyright law.
Apple lost the desktop market primarily b/c they were not open enough in allowing
others to devleop for the Mac. They seem to be repeating history.
I see an opportunity here for another company to be Microsoft and
Apples loses again.
They won't ask. It can be seen how it would become potential target for viruses. It is much harder to make a virus for iphone, i'd guess because it uses unix. And I won't be surprised if it will the first real application for the iphones. Since Jobs would sue and sabotage anyone making applications for the phones.
What really cripples the phone is binding of it to single network, but a few people pointed it out, that it is necssary for the new features to be added into Cingular network. And cingular or other providers won't bother if Jobs would push open standard onto them. Eventually they will all evolve for visual voice mail and other features. At that point iPhone 2.0 will have a huge harddrive or flash drive and will have voip calling, with all the features and people will be able to buy it without and cruddy contracts. And be able to roam around without paying roaming fees: re different sim cards.
No 3rd party apps?
No party.
And for the european would-be customers:
No UMTS?
No party.
Okay, so just about every single response to this post ranked "5: Insightful" can be summarized as this: "I'm not going to buy the iPhone because Steve won't let me write my own programs!" Sure, fine, great, whatever. Sorry you're disappointed, hope you find another solution that works for you. But after reading this same general attitude a couple dozen times, I am compelled to respond with an alternate perspective: Contrary to Commander Taco's (much quoted) original assessment of the original, the iPod has indeed gone on to become the most popular MP3 player ever produced, to the point that its impact has risen to impacting the music retail business itself. (iTunes now sells more music than Amazon, etc. etc.) All this not only *without* many of the more sophisticated features many Slashdotters may have wished it had - but *because* it doesn't have those features! I for one am glad to have an MP3 player with a simple interface, and innovative (click-wheel) navigation. And while I have no intention of buying the current iPhone - ...because it's out of my price range ...because I hate Cingular's customer service (and have grown quite loyal to my new carrier because of theirs) ...because I want something a little more rugged and less "precious," and ...because I frankly don't need to read the New York Times Online on my phone....
I *will* be *quite* happy, in a year or so, when I can get a nice touch-screen driven, visual-voicemail equipped cell phone in my price range, perhaps called something like an "iPhone Nano" - whose technology was made possible by this initial market entry model!
Sheesh, call me flamebait if you want, but I don't get this tone of entitlement in some of these posts! Cingular (whom I HATE), had to re-jigger its infrastructure to make visual voicemail possible, not to mention committing to the iPhone sight unseen.
Frankly, if they demand Steve not let users upload ringtones for free because they'd rather make money selling them, I simply won't buy any ringtones, but I won't feel like Steve/Apple/Cingular is "ripping me off" for not providing me everything for free.
Sure, you buy the phone, you own the PHONE. Crack it open, get out your banana clips and soldering iron and do whatever you want to it. But if a "closed system" is what Steve/Apple/Cingular decide for whatever reason *including making money* is what they require to bring this tech to market, so be it.
Your palms, et al are still out there for you. Enjoy. And enjoy trying to motivate them to produce a comparable device like the iPhone. I'm sure it'll be any day now. /rant
"if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate"
It's all you people with pratically any phone in existance today... They can all have applications installed on them, so this must be what is causing the network problems.
This is the answer - force everyone to buy an iPhone that you can't install these pesky applications on and the network will be perfect!
Guess I'll stick with my Nokia E70 then. And I've got a Mac Pro desktop, a powerbook and an iPod. I'd say that I don't recall Apple so completely missing the point before, but their closed platform and expensive proprietary hardware back in the day cost them market dominance in the PC industry. So... way to not learn from history, Jobs.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This has been a worry from day 1 with more intelligent phones: how to separate the parts that handle the air interface from the end user sphere where they can run applications. With a hacked air interface you can start playing with frequencies, emission levels, potentially even with billing.
I can remember the last Access All Areas conference in London, in the days of analogue GSM. We had a couple of 12 year olds with rechipped NEC P3s scanning all conversations in the vicinity which was, although interesting, rather worrying. Imagine someone hacks the air interface to let someone else pick up their call charges..
That's also why intelligent phones take a while to gain network approval, and I don't think the networks will ever be able to test it all..
Insert
I was considering using it in a data collection application since the hardware seems to be well suited... but if Steve Jobs intends to keep it dumbed down to super-smartphone levels, why bother?
OTOH, remember what the original Mac was supposed to be? If the original Mac had stayed the GUI appliance he'd planned, there wouldn't be an Apple Corporation today. . . smart hardware h4xx0rs undid what Jobs had in mind and opened up the box.
So it's probably only a matter of time before somebody opens the box and turns iPhone into something far more useful than Jobs intended.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Unfortunately, it's lack of GSM850 means the Greenphone won't be quite up to par (at least on some GSM networks) in the US. It also lacks UMTS/HSDPA (as does the iPhone, which is a major reason I won't get one). Once someone comes out with an open phone that does GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS-HSDPA 1900(US)/2100(Everywhere Else) (btw, hsdpa is downwards compatible with umts), then I'd be interested.
That's fine.
But. As long as standard iPhone app stack will work and will not suck.
I have tried many smartphones in last three years (I want to have one) but they all fail because of (1) or sucky software (2) or sucky integration of whole offering. SonyEricsson's p9xx are biggest disappointment since they lack basic features and applications (like hand-writing recognition). Treo is good - but screen is too small and I do not like the tiny keys.
One thing which made Palm (PDA) as successful as it was - it is precisely 3rd party applications. And the same thing - or lack of it - made most mobile phones to suck. The comment from Jobs is frankly very disappointing. I'm sure Apple would come up with most usable/accessible phone interface - but I'm not sure that it would fit me. One size never fits all, after all.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Even after this news about it being a closed system?
Everyone that has written here in slashdot is *not* buying it for one reason or the other.
Is anyone still thinking about getting one? and why?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
This is an old idea; the part you bolded in your quote says it all. Essentially, the apps need to be digitally signed. It sucks; I used to use a platform that was like that. Things were stagnant in the first year, no interesting software came out. Getting the dev kit and certification is extremely expensive and well out of the reach for any OSS and most shareware.
After a while (almost a year), other operators started to sell the same phone without the limitation. Orange UK, the telco, were forced to allow users to disable the certificate check. After that, the number of applications available exploded, even despite the fact that this override wasn't made very public and was an "in-the-know" thing for some time. Nowadays, anyone can download the dev kit and program in a variety of languages.
So, it's not for sure that it'll never allow you to use a dev-kit, but it's pretty unlikely unless you have got at least $10,000 to burn. But this may change in future.
As an aside, Orange continued and still continued to protect their network. You need a special certificate to write applications that access the phone stack, and this keeps the network free from malicious apps. This can be a pain in the ass, but overall it's a good idea. As the devices generally have a fully working TCP stack, you can just use that for your comms. Sucks if you want to write e.g. fax software though.
Just another step through the doorway to the dark side.
Apple is more Sony, and more Microsoft every day.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Jobs strategy also rules out the possibility of disabled users installing the 3rd party assistive technology they need to use such devices. That should play out well...
This foolish choice was also likely done to protect the iTunes Store. Third party authors would have had every opportunity to sell music, video, games, whatnot to iPhone owners bypassing Apple's own offerings. By locking down the device, we're stuck with the Store, and can also spend $1.99 on some goddamn stupid ringtone.
I'm disgusted by Apple's decision to lock down the phone. Until reading that there'd be no SDK, I'd spent time this week researching some of the new features in Cocoa, working on how to get the iSight going, even looking at comparable (likely comparable) telephony API's. I want to develop for this tablet computer, and we won't get an opportunity to.
$500 and two years with Cingular - all for a device which I'm not authorized to alter? Lovely
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Well,
... so I expected to mount its hard drive ... to install Skype, to program some Widgets for Dashboard, to use it as secundary device for self written apps, to display status or dialogs. Suppose you work on your mac and the dialogs would pop up on this device to be "finger touched".
if that is true and won't change the phone is close to useless. It only has 8 Gig max memory, thats not much space for photos and music, so I certainly would not have any photoes on my iPhone. Otoh, it has a camera, and it makes sense to have 3rd party OCR software to make photoes from business cards nd add them to the address book.
But the main issue is: it is running Mac OS X
Well, if I can't install my own stuff, it lost lots of its coolness instantly.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Now I'm glad I bought a new iPaq rather than waiting for the iPhone.
Apple, you had what WOULD have been an incredible PDA/Phone device and you fucking destroyed it before it was even born by closing your fist too tight. Fucking morons.
Still not an Apple customer. . .
This is extremely bad news: The iPhone is not as smart as a phone.
...
I am currently looking for a good smart phone, but Palm recently sold its soul and delivers the Treo with Windows OS. I thought that the iPhone with OS X would be a great alternative, but seems that Apple is going the Microsoft approach (all closed)
So, what's a good and somehow open (I don't need to be able to replace the network stack, but want to be able to run my applications) smart phone these days? The requirements: GSM, UMTS (desired), Wifi, Bluetooth, USB (if possible), less than 150g weight, available in Europe.
All you need is a buffer overflow.
Why women voluntarily subject themselves to such a controlling and anti-women religion, I will never understand. Is the idea of spending eternity reenacting a teenager's wet dream by servicing 1 man alongside 69 other women really that appealing to them? And would the woman at least have the pleasure of having her clitoris that was carved out with a jagged shard of glass in her earthly life restored to her in her afterlife?
given what's been going on with the web recently does the third party support really matter? in theory won't i be able to use a web based version of flash that bypasses all of the limitation imposed by apple? i'm impressed by the device, but i won't fork for it if i can't run the applications that would make it worth the money, though i know that most people aren't that bothered by this for the time being.
Jon Rentzsch is suggesting that you fill a bug in the offial apple database if you're interested in this feature. I would like to ask everybody to fill one so that the list of "duplicates" show a clear sign of interest. Read more here.
Additionally, you might want to email steve, or spread the word in other means.
Oh...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
..but it won't.
;)
If it actually IS running OSX, however, I suspect it won't take long for the phone's protection to be broken. The irony will be if the phone gets broken by someone publishing a internal apple manual.
..don't panic
which are most, if not all the phones in market nowadays here. No need for an expensive gadget that doesn't even have a keyboard.
Some other company will come to market with a clone that will let me do what I want, and I won't have to give that asshole Steve ANY of my hard earned cash.
I view this as a win/win. Let's hope the clone maker even makes the whole thing FOSS, so I can edit the source of any app on the phone. How much better and faster would my phone eventually be if I stayed with the most popular version of every app/game?
Jesus, it's like Apple STILL hasn't learned why they lost the pc wars, and now they're trying to set themselves up to lose the phone wars, too.
LOL, Jobs will never get an OS to more than a niche market with this thinking, on ANY type of device.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them.' In a similar vein, Jobs said in a MSNBC article that, 'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'"
Well, then we better get rid of all those M$ based phones...wouldn't want the blue screen/massive virus/trojan/etc. problems associated with M$ bringing down networks now, would we?
Hm, i just read the article and it doesn't say that third party software is forbidden, really.. Only that it will be sold through Apples official channels. Quote from FA:
"That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
However, i do think it will take approximately 10 seconds until someone finds a way around this and pumps the iphone full of great, home-made, utilities. And pr0n and spyware. Should pr0n really be seen as a utlity? A means to an end, sort of?
No sorry, the $20/month plan is not available for PDA's - that a smartphone-only plan. Just ask those who bought Blackjacks or Treos. The fortunate ones have legacy plans but new activations are limited to $40 PDA plans. Why the difference? That's a fantasy of Cingular's accounting department.
e s/serviceDetails.jsp?LOSGId=&skuId=sku1040072 - which, since Apple has made no noise about this being included, may be your only way to get this feature. Yea, I'd say $3000 isn't too far off the mark!
Also there is a requirement for these plans to be paired with at least a $40/month voice plan (and not forgetting the $5/month fees that sound like taxes but aren't) that's $85/month - for 2 years that's a minimum of $2540 (including the cheaper phone).
Want voice dialing? Cingular will sell you one for another $120 ($5/mo)- http://www.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/servic
This device looks great but when they went with Cingular they had to get greedy...
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
This kind of control is already present on all Symbian 9.x phones (e.g. Series 60 3rd ed) -in the form of "Platsec" or Platform Security. Apps have to be signed for the "capabilities" they use. The simple-to-understand capabilities can be granted by the phone user.
That's interesting. Where can we get more details? Especially, what can be decided by the user and what is decided by the phone manufacturer? I think that it's quite normal to protect the GSM stack, but would I be able to run my own calendar application (without paying for signing it)? Would I be able to send and receive TCP and UDP packets? Would I be able to run an application that is presented the number of the caller and reacts automatically?
I do not buy the virus argumentation, though. Obviously, if you cannot execute applications, you won't have a lot of viruses. But as soon as you can install anything interesting (e.g. sending packets over the network, sending emails), you can spread viruses. If you have a totally controlled (e.g. by the phone company) environment, you maybe do not have viruses, but you surely do not get the applications that you want (e.g. because they are not in the interest of the phone company, or more easily, because they are not developed in the first place).
What if Apple did open up the phone, and Skype made their service available on it. Now the Apple iPhone is in fact competing with the Cisco iPhone...and who does Cisco sue? It's not Apple's fault, they didn't make the software. And it's not Skype's fault, they just ported their software to someone else's new platform. I'm really wondering, what could Cisco do about it?
so for 2 year sthey have been bettinh that only their appis can sell the Cingular accouts? That flies contradictory to the last 5 years of Mobile Operator experience..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Let Apple controle it. They seem to like putting all kinds of restrictions on their users... Geez, two days ago this device looked amazing, now it's just junk.
Hello, Apple? Consumer appliances/electronics should adapt themselves the the needs of their users, the users shouldn't have to adapt to the wants appliances/electronics.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
The OpenMoko phone/PDA/whatever will be with us in a couple of weeks, and that does everything you want.
It doesn't surprise me that Apple wants to lock the iPhone. But will it really make that much of a difference?
;-)
I have service with Verizon Wireless (because I want a cellular network that actually works when you need it). I also have a genuine Verizon Wireless phone...a V3c Razr. When I bought the phone, it had Verizon's bullshit functional restrictions on it. Later in the day that I bought the phone, and after a 15 minute conversation between the phone and my laptop computer, those bullshit restrictions and limitations are gone
My point is that once the phone actually hits the market, I predict that within 24 hours someone will announce a method to completely unlock it. And within two weeks, someone will have Linux running on the damned thing.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
A friend of mine works with digital cellular application technologies. They have to obtain the deployment and development licensing rights from a US-based third party, which is responsible for coordinating with all the various cellular providers that follow the North American standards.
There are no programmable cellular devices which bypass this process, and there shouldn't be. Otherwise worms, viruses, and trojans take on a whole new level of infectiousness and risk, as you can't very well start loading up anti-virus and other such protections on a cell phone or other cell device.
While I'm personally annoyed as a Canadian to see that the licensing/regulatory management company is in the US, meaning we pay to US services when targetting a Canadian market, I do understand the need for that restriction on data/cell technology deployments.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
... Now I can go back to ignoring Apple for another few years, as usual. Their ability to make cool hardware, and then totally lock it down with self-restricting proprietary software, is nothing short of astonishing to me.
My bicyles
the iphone. Personally, I can't see spending that amount of money on a phone/mp3 player, camera, video player, picture viewer. Other than the "wow" factor about the touch screen, and the tilt sensor and zoom, I just don't get it. Unless the price comes down, and it isn't loaded with a bunch of DRM & Cingular crap, I'll pass. My W810i (unlocked) does everything I require.
The availability of the Idokorro SSH client for my BlackBerry is a killer feature on my phone. I'm a network engineer, so being able to check up on our boxes when I'm not in the office is essential. Why would Apple make such a big deal about having an embedded version of Mac OS X if that OS is hamstrung by not being able to run anything? Lame. It would have been a stretch to ask my company to pay for this anyhow...
If the iPhone can break from poorely written software I do not want it.
I want a device I can write software from without worrying about the
whole phone crashing/burning. So I get the Apple standpoint. But
what do we need this device for if it is to be worse than a smart-phone?
A designer phone? I do not want that. I want a computer-phone with OSX.
I was totally hyped during the keynote. But after reading up I lost interest.
A shame really. The UI looks so good. They should open it up and make sure
people can't break the phone-capabilities with code.
I don't see how they can be that concerned with slowing down the network when it only runs on EDGE and not the 3G services. Constant data transmission will probably sap the iPhone battery life in a short while anyway...
All modern smartphones have a dual OS/processor/memory: - an applicative one (linux, symbian, ...), sometimes open (greenphone, ezx)
- a real time one, with all phone GSM features, which is always totally closed
The GSM part of the phone is connected (at least on ezx phones) to the applicative OS using USB serial, and all the intercommunication is done using AT commands. So there's no way to mess up with the GSM network, except using gprs (but if the network is correctly secured, nothing should happen in the GSM part of the net).
Still, it's not a surprise that the iPhone isn't aiming at people who like freedom: you don't like iTunes? Don't buy an ipod...
Good thing the east coast network is safe. Makes sense, since only us east coast programmers can write good code :D :ducks:
You can sell as long a subscription as you want for anything, but the consumer is always entitled to cancel it after 6 month maximum. It is amazing the good a bit of regulation can do to a marketplace, contrary to Libertarian dogma.
The inability to let 3rd parties develop on the iPhone is a deal breaker, at least for me it is. This doesn't mean the iPhone will fail as a mass majority of people that buy it won't care because of the "euuuuu ahhhh" factor. I think if anything makes it fail it will be the price tag and the out of the box storage capacity.
I will forever be a student.
I hope they will bring iChat AV to the iPhone; if they get it right, it will be the killer app.
Of course, the camera has to be on the front, so this will be a 2nd generation thing....
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for it's children." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
As usual with this sort of story, the vast majority of people who will buy the iPhone won't care whether there are 3rd party apps or not. They just want the thing to work. And so far the closed architectures of most cell phones have not stopped anyone from buying them. The best guess is that eventually 3rd party software will appear, but only through some tightly controlled process which will involve the 3rd party paying some fees to Apple for the privilege. Again, this is typical in the cell phone world and isn't likely to hurt sales of the iPhone in any significant fashion.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
There will NEVER, EVER, EVER be anything resembling a PDA that is not ruined coming out of Apple. Ever. Period. Steve Jobs' ridiculous sense of pride and lifetime grudges will never allow him to get past the Newton and his forever dislike of Gil Amelio.
Which is good, really, because while I don't mind going through hoops to avoid using an iPod, I don't need to go through hoops to get a non-Apple PDA (Sorry, I need devices that work well with PCs from day one, not devices that try to crush the platform I'm using, and then, when that doesn't work out, pull a Microsoft embrace and extend).
OK, this may even sound a bit un-American, but dont worry about the iPhone. The Chinese will copy it. It's a cool form factor, and just like other Apple products, they will clone it. They have already done this with similar phones. It will probably have a better screen,, run Linux, and be easily available unlocked at half the cost in guangzhou, shenzhen or the other Far East tech markets. From there, they'll make it to eBay. Those guys are fast too. There's a fair chance it will be available before the iPhone is even available.
We, the slashdot commune are no the iphone target market. We are the hackers, the people who want is our way, who break it and build it better. So it stands to reason that almost everyone here says "what? We can't do our thing on this thing?.. Forget it!!" The iphone is targetting the people who want the product because its a luxuary item. Because its sleek and sexy, because its a ipod with some nifty features. This is a not a smart phone, this is not a laptop, this is not even a blackberry. This is for the party go'ers, the execs, the teenieboppers, and the wannabe's. The geek set has never been the market target. I'm sure if you think about it.. in almost all cases, that's true).
So lets not bash Jobs on this because this is not really anything new. Apple has always held their cards close to their vest on everything (hardware, etc..) and because this is a consumer device, he has to control the stability and look of the device. I'm sure the second generation will be better (feature wise) and by then, more of our coding brothers and sisters will have this thing singing whatever we want by then. Jobs will get pissed, but then settle down because, hell, more devices are being sold. (a'la ipod and powerbooks).
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
They'll be web apps. If you've got a full featured browser, there's almost nothing you can't do these days. I imagine there will be a profusion of applications written specifically for full-featured browsers on small screens.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I've had a long debate with friends if this phone would be a killer or a dud. Without enabling other apps to run the whole debate is IMHO over.
Well done, it IS after all a market first. A NON-smart phone. A duh-phone..
Insert
So, if having apps is incompatible with making devices that work, then I guess not developing apps for the Mac is officially a good thing now?
This attitude is gonna go over real well with the Mac developer community. "Write apps for our platform! No, not that platform, you suck and will only screw it up. Go screw up the Mac instead, with your crappy apps and all."
I couldn't have put it better myself Steve. That's certainly the strategy Apple has used to make the Mac the worlds most stable computer.
Do your worst Apple fan-boys, my karma can take it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
1. single-click mouse
2. powerpc
3. metallic casing for the laptops (could fry an egg on it)
4. "please switch off your cellphones as it might affect the aircraft's nav systems."
All aimed towards those who don't know better. Obviously, we'll be able to install 3rd party apps in a later release of the iphone. We all know how short product release cycles are with apple's products. Every 6 months, their last product release gets outdated.
still the best phone around
I'm going to run my (third-party) web apps on this phone! Let's see 'em try to stop me!
Seriously, with web access, the high-res screen, and a capable browser like Safari, you can certainly do a lot this way that would ordinarily be done with native apps.
I have a home automation system that I can control via the web. I had been thinking about getting a Nokia 770 wifi web tablet as a portable "house remote" but I think the iPhone would better suit my needs, as access from anywhere would be compelling. I can imagine looking at my "yard cams" and turning on the sprinklers, or adjusting the thermostat, turning off lights, etc, via the iPhone anywhere I happen to be.
Actually that brings up a question, assuming that the iPhone Safari can display streaming video, can EDGE handle that? 15fps postage stamp video is all I'd need.
bp
i'm sure someone will figure out a way, but what's the point of having OSX (does it come with Terminal.app?) in your pocket if it does nothing but look pretty?
i was all hot on buying one, but 500 bucks for something i can't run my own programs on? forget it, i'll get a Treo or something.
If it's true that carriers don't want this, what way do they have of exerting pressure on Apple?
I'm thinking of an analogy to cable, where cable internet providers don't want to lose cable tv revenue due to (say) youtube viewing... but short of capping bandwidth there's not a lot of leverage cable providers can wield.
When Steve Jobs was arranging iTunes, he needed buy-in from the copyright-holding music industry to legally distribute the songs. No such factors apply here that I know of.
What kinds of things am I missing?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I'm wondering how many Slashdotters who complained about Microsoft's trusted computing / Palladium / signed binaries fiasco (WTF I can only run software the OS publisher has approved on my computing device?) will somehow rationalize and buy one of these, with Apple pulling the same stupid stunt.
Jobs comments are also absurd:
"These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them."
So by Jobs' definition Macs, which let you load any software you want on them, don't work.
"Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."
Either Cingular has some massive problems with the security and stability of their network, to the point it would be trivial for a hacker to bring down vast portions of it (apparently without even trying), or Jobs is just spewing FUD here.
Surprised no one has mentioned the Carterphone decision.
In the late 1960s, AT&T argued that a newfangled third-party device called a modem would cause "network harm" if it were attached to the network.
The US FCC overruled that approach with the landmark 1968 Carterphone decision. It's difficult to overstate the decision's importance; it made the entire data comm industry possible by allowing any vendor's equipment to use a carrier's common network.
AT&T was blowing smoke then about network harm. Apple is doing the same here.
Business was never the target market
Sysadmins were never the target market
This device is for idiots with disposable income who's main priority is to listen to music and text their friends about what they're doing tonight. These idiots don't know Ogg Vorbis from VLC.
It will sell.
It was never going to sell to you.
This the very first Apple iphone. Treo is many versions and generations old. Apple does not want to weather a virus on their very first outing. Even instability and debugging user problems would not be desirable. They want to back this phone 100% so for it's debut they are going to do that by keeping it 100% their problem if anything goes wrong. Can you imagine how screwed they'd be if the rumor was that the battery life was only 2 hours not 5 (and it turned out to be some power sucking craplet widget). The people who will buy these are not the geeks like you but corporate executives who want a seemless balckberry existence.
Additionally I would bet that it's API is still in flux. They probably will have lots of debugging code in the first edition. So they probably can't even publish a third party SDK even if they wanted too. I would also imagine that cingular insisted that they can keep skype and VoiP off the phone too.
Remember they probably see cingular as their customer more than they see you right now. After all they probably had some problems getting the company to agree to make all the changes they wanted. For now they want to keep them happy because it's those changes like viusal voice mail, and probably a whole lot more we have not seen yet, that are going to set apple apart and make it like the whole itunes/ipod/music store seemless integration that people love.
GIve it a year before they release an sdk, and another year for the cingular contract to expire before they open it up.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For me I don't really care about third party apps, as long as Safari works as advertise.
Safari with AJAX powered webpages can create a very compelling solution. Forget about "Network is computer" crap from Sun.... Apple finally got this working now, albeit 6 years late.
I'm sure a whole new generation of "web 2.0 companies" will be geared to make "iPhone screensize compatible" webpages, and that would be fun!
I do agree, this is stupid by jobs which ever way you look at it.
1. People who want basic phone functionality don't install random things, and if they do it's running osx see point 2.
2. Modern operating systems such as osx are able to surive buggy software causing problems.
3. Treo, PocketPC, Smartphones, all have had custom software, and yes it is buggy, but i've never brought the network down with my phone. (Buggy, osx vs windows mobile, it shouldn't be a problem)
4. People will hack this, people hack everything, sony which had 4 times as much expericence with desiging and building consumer devices that try to lock the user out, and have to yet to succeed.
Jobs has sold out.
I remember the day when you got the api with the software, or the datasheet with the printer/modem.
A company that is built on software shouldn't build hardware that locks out software. If they believe software is most important thing, then this is increditable stupid, and i'm quite disappointed.
An app market place in iTunes or on the website? It might be proprietary measures, but if there's some good development on the device that doesn't resort to nuking or changing firmware, it'll still draw a group of respectably stable programs. And then profit can be shared between developer and Apple, or something.
space is pretty cool.
PalmOS and Windows (including mobile) and OSX originated as operating systems designed to run arbitrary user applications, one of which may or may not be called "telephone." The iPhone runs OSX and is advertised as running OSX applications...except you can't load any of your own, despite the fact that they'll let you do that on all other OSX devices.
Jobs is blaming this on Cingular. Well, I have a Cingular phone that I use as a bluetooth modem. I could potentially do as much or more damage to their network with that as the iPhone (nowhere did I see 'connect me to your Mac' in the glossies). The "b-b-ut it's Cingular" argument is a red herring. This is a control issue. The question is whether it is arbitrary or with considered reason -- but it's certainly NOT "the network," since that is already vulnerable for the same reasons from millions of existing devices and we've been using cellphones as modems for over twenty years. If it is an arbitrary restriction, you're getting a crippled device for no reason. If it is a reasoned restriction, you're getting a crippled device because it's already broken.
But, the market has repeatedly shown there are many, many people who see no reason not to buy expensive blingy gadgets in either case. As long as these people exist in sufficient numbers, we will be subject to this b.s. at every turn because people believe it and obediently nod "please, put me in a straight-jacket so the evildoers won't hurt my fragile little self."
Steveo was all happy and proud that it has a "full version of safari" on it. I'm assuming then it has java, and since it is os x based might have java web start so apps indeed could be installed. The java app could even be programmed to launch an installer of some sort.
Of course, this all assumes that the phone will run the browser as a user that has install permissions, which they very well may not do. Some clever person I'm sure will figure out a way to get a boot loader of some kind installed, then all bets are off.
today is spelling optional day.
Jobs has been tagged as the PHB he truly is! Either that or he just had a PHB moment there and forgot to put a doubleshot in his latte.
Just write your stuff with DHTML and JavaScript for Safari. Duh?
This is exactly what I have been telling friends the past few days. Sure the Greenphone and OpenMoko are great little devices, but neither of them has the design of the iPhone.
The iPhone is just down right nice, and the interface is fantastic.
However... I don't get why apple fanboys are so anti microsoft. In the past few years, Apple has proven to be just a evil as MS and in some ways worse. The whole "no third party apps" is a prime example, great... another Apple product with some amazing hardware that won't run the software I want.
I'll still buy an iPhone though... just as soon as unlocked ones start hitting ebay.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Doesn't run third party apps. Lame.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
You would have thought they would have learned from the Mac. They refused to let anyone put software on it except them and look what happened with them vs. Microsoft. When I saw the phone I thought it was a death blow to Motorola and Nokia. Guess not. Maybe Apple will never learn this lesson.
I'd say the people looking for a status symbol outnumber the people looking for 'hackable mini-computer' by at least 10 to 1. Plus you're leaving out the majority of potential customer--people that want usable mobile email and web access. Look, I don't know what you expected from Apple. They make devices for the typical consumer, not the gadget hobbyist. Sure OS X is BSD and hackable, but that's easy to do because it's a computer.
Plus the whole $3000 thing is just propaganda. Yeah, you can't get one with 2 years of service, but if you get one you are going to need the service from somewhere. The fact that you're locked into a contract does not make the price any higher than if you weren't locked in. Otherwise all those free phones you can get would be $1200 phones. And your Internet connection is $2000. And you're $12000 car? By the way, it's actually $16000.
I think that Cingular and or apple will be able to SELL you apps at high prices.
I can't help but notice how out of place the president of Cingular looked at Steve Jobs iPod introduction.
How do you know it doesn't have decent accessibility features built-in?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Its not just the phone but most apps need an interaction between the PC and the smartphone, it is absolutely not in the interest of Apple if 90% of these apps won't work with osX or double the price. 3P apps also cost to much, Apple will probably work together with devs and sell the software on iTunes for $5. Apple has no interest in a bunch of software that sells for $99, works only with Windows and has a few 1000 users. They intend to sell millions and for that it has to be clear and simple what the user can do with the device. In short, what is the killer (phone)-app the iPhone won't have and millions of users will want?
I liked the iPhone at first glance but after hearing more about it I'm becoming less thrilled about it. I'm a developer and I want to have the ability to write apps for my next phone. Can't do crap with my current phone. I was initially attracted to the fact that OS X was going to be running on it but if its locked down then big deal. Nowadays gadgets that are open or at least easily hackable are going to sell faster that a locked down brick that will only run what some fool in a board room somewhere decides it will.
THANKS Steve! I had an unfulfillable lust for a bit of techno wizardry that I wasn't going to be able to have. Now the lust is gone.
It's kind of like seeing a really hot woman. You take a deep and breath go over to talk to her. As you approach, all full of nerves, she smiles and reveals a mouth full of rotting teeth. No thanks. I outta here!
-- QED
When did Steve Jobs start saying things like Bill Gates? Can't you just imagine Bill saying something to the effect that "Windows will no longer support the installation of third party apps because we don't want the Internet to go down"? Could it be that the real reason this statement was made is that the nascent MacOS X "mobile" platform of the iPhone can't yet support mobile apps effectively?
Java?
No replaceable battery? On a non-critical piece of equipment such as an iPod, it's merely lame. On my freaking phone, my $500 phone at that, it's a deal-breaker. I'm not trying to wait for Official Apple Service to replace my battery for $100 (or probably more) while I go phoneless - if the battery on my phone dies, I want to be able to replace it, immediately, on my own, and at reasonable cost. Now, add the additional deal-breaker of no non-Apple-endorsed third-party apps, and you end up with an expensive, fragile lump of plastic and glass that I couldn't give a fuck about. What a waste of a nice UI. Apple's layering on the bullshit pretty thick with this one - these are the sort of restrictions that have me counting the seconds until my Verizon contract runs out. I was really interested in this thing, but if Steve Jobs thinks I'm going to switch to a phone that gives me all the restrictions of Verizon combined with the signal coverage of Cingular, then Steve Jobs needs to stop smoking crack, 'cause it'll never fucking happen. I bought it, I own it, it's mine, fuck off.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
I personally enjoy playing Nintendo and Genesis games on my blackjack so I think I will stick with it for a while. I-Phone has to many things I don't like about it. Plus it seems like texting would be a pain, I like being able to feel the buttons.
What is the point of bragging about the iPhone running OS X if the UI is different and you can't write applications for it? OS X has a very nice UI and a very nice application interface, with the first replaced and the second unavailable, mentioning it at the keynote is just spitting in the face of people.
If you want to spend a few bucks more you could take a look at the Sony Ericsson W950i.U nlocked/dp/B000LDNKCG/sr=8-1/qid=1168621329/ref=pd _bbs_1/104-5277645-6583106?ie=UTF8&s=wireless
On the upside it features Symbian 9.1 with the UIQ 3.0 user interface, 3G support, 4GB of flash memory coupled with a powerful music player, a touchscreen, a slick and stylish appearance. What also convinced me was the excellent C++ API for writing native applications for Symbian and Java MIDP 2.0 Support.
On the downside the phone lacks a camera (although for many business users this may actually be more of an advantage). It has no Wifi Support, so you're basically bound to use the 3G network for fast data transfer which can, frankly, be quite expensive. The only thing that annoys me sometimes is that the user interface is not as responsive as I would like it to be, but I hope future firmware upgrades will address this.
I spent about 100 EUR with the extension of my contract, you should however expect it to be a bit more expensive in the states.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Ericsson-W950i-Mystic-
But, I am very interested in a $600 mobile computer that runs osx. Just from my perspective as scientist, we would love this device if only we could use to view data anywhere we happen to be (home, road, coffee shop, conference). But we can't do that if Apple won't allow third party developers. Jobs wants us to think of it as an ipod instead of a computer, but I see it the other way around. In this day, even a laptop is too clunky to lug around but the iphone would be just right. So, I wouldn't pay $600 for a cellphone or an iPod, but I would pay $600 for an computer.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Well, so much for such a nice device. I won't be speaking about how great this phone is to friends/family anymore. It has become a useless, expensive money grab. Good going Apple.
[alk]
Quartz instead of Display Postscript (which was a Turing-complete language used for drawing view objects).
Didn't Avie call this "Display PDF"?
With respect, the only really innovative feature of the iPhone is the multitouch screen - e.g., the pinch gesture for resizing photos. This will not be copied because it is patented, and it is hardware. It is easy to violate copyright because copyright violators are effectively invisible to law enforcement. It is much harder to violate hardware patents because hardware patent violators have to live somewhere and law enforcement can find them easily and shut them down.
So what does it matter if it "runs OSX" and is a "mini PC" if you can't run anything?
Still, it was already irrelevant to me when I found out it was only on Cingular... and had a non-replacable battery (on a phone? Are you crazy, Steve?!)
*sigh* I want to keep neutral about this, but I can't help but hate Apple... It's like a company formed to give the opposite of what I want.
Why don't they call it a MACphone instead of an iPhone
PowerPhone sounds better, and is more likely to appeal to the C-level market demographic they so desperately desire... the people who make business decisions. "My Apple PowerPhone just works; why aren't we using Apple computers?"
An MP3 player for the younger demographic, a phone for the older demographic; just chip, chip, chipping away at Microsoft's corporate foundations.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
You may be right. However it is pretty much unknown if Java is supported on the iPhone. The fact that it runs Safari, doesn't mean that it's the same as desktop Safari. If the device is running an ARM processor, both Java and Flash are most likely supported (simply because the plugins are for x86 only). As far as I can see only widgets are supported and they are neither Flash nor Java. It could be AJAX though, since JavaScript should be supported.
The title of this article is nothing more than FUD. RTFA.
On the other hand, even if no third-party development capabilities ever surface, it's not as if that would make the iPhone (and its future derivatives) any less better than what's come out of Symbian, Palm, Microsoft, RIM, and the rest.
The funny thing about the iPhone is that it's the first handheld I've seen that has caused me not to attempt to justify buying it, but to cause me to try to justify *not* buying it. Right now, I'm in the process of switching from a Samsung SPH-i500 Palm phone to a Samsung SPH-m610 coupled with a Nokia 770 tablet (Music I leave to a collection of iPods). It's certainly not what I would call a seamless transition (or a seamless experience), and one of my main motivations for doing this is to get a handheld that isn't crippled by proprietary software, but even as the iPhone was demonstrated, it appears to contains every essential feature that I need in a handheld computing experience. Sure, there's a few more features I would like to see, but I doubt that Apple is going to be quite that short-sighted about it. After all, no one really worries about third-party Windows Mobile and Palm OS apps "taking down the network", do they?
My guess is that Apple hasn't finalized the developer interfaces, yet. Most third-party apps would really just need to interact primarily with the network protocol stack, anyway. It's quite clear from the fact that the iPhone is touted as running "OS X", "Safari", and "Widgets", that the intended development environment for the iPhone line is Dashcode. Even Steve isn't Steve enough not to see the possibilities of third-party development. Need I mention that Steve is a master of misdirection?
You sir, are a prick.
Well, I thought the claims of iPhone being too expensive was because they were comparing the iPhone with the cel phone, when they should compare it with the PDA. However, I didn't know third party apps were barred. Consequently, the skeptics are right, the iPhone IS too expensive for a phone that can't do what phone-PDA platform can do in that regard. I won't be buying an iPhone, my next device will probably be a Treo. And, I won't have to change providers...
I'd have to say that a lockdown like this is a deal killer. The main reason I'd get a "smart phone" rather than a dumb one is so I could write some of my own software for it. If I can't do that, I'll stick to a dumb phone.
.001% of the land. It'd have to have cell-phone-type IP connectivity to be usable. There are a number of linux handhelds, but do any of them come with usable (GSM?) networking that works? Are there OSs other than linux that are actually programmable?
This was why I never got involved much with Macs much before OSX. The pre-OSX Mac wasn't an computer (which is defined as a machine that's programmable); it was an appliance. When I played around with a few, and found that they didn't come with any compilers or interpreters that I could use, I quickly lost interest. Not that I criticised others for buying them; I understood why they'd be useful to a non-programmer. But I didn't personally want one until I could program it.
So for us weird software types (there's gotta be a few around here, right?), maybe we should be discussing more which handhelds are both programmable and have phone/network capability? To be portable, just wifi doesn't make it, at least here in the US where open access points cover maybe
I did play around a bit with PalmOS a few years ago, but as an "outsider", I found it nearly impossible to find enough information to write useful programs for the things. I also played around with a Blackberry recently, and couldn't even get enough info to make a "Hello, world." program that worked. But I'd be interested in learning of any little thing that's actually usable by a programmer.
But I don't want to sign an expensive 2-year contract and find out that I can't write any software for the damned thing.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
They're worried about bringing down Cingular's network? The Treo or Blackberry doesn't have this problem, something must be wrong with iPhone's OS X application security...
Clearly the application software on the device will not have control over programming the hardware the communicates with the cellular network itself. Apple's operating system has not been through the QA processes that would be required for it to be trusted to do this. The network communication hardware will just appear as a device to the OS, and third party applications shouldn't have a hope of touching registers that can control frequencies etc. This is more about the type of contract that the scum from the telecoms industry would be willing to sign, and Job's lack of respect for his own customers that he can't admit that he had to make concessions that effectively make the hardware he is selling a joke.
If Apple had released a device that has 3G support and Internet access, like the ones you can buy (and use) in China, I would have some respect for them, but iphone is too expensive, has limited functionality, and just doesn't interest me.
Apple is just a small, but more extreme version of Microsoft that failed at monopolising the computer market, because unlike Microsoft, it wasn't willing to give up any control of its platform at all. I fear that the same fate will befall Apple's closed music platform as a result of their greed, and DRM infection, and I can't see iphone selling at the current price point - at least not as a phone or internet device.
The fact that they had a deal with a provider (Cingular) already strongly implied that Apple had taken a "fuck the users" attitude. This merely confirms it.
If Apple were serious about giving people what they want, then it would have been a provider-agnostic GSM phone, with a "please don't be a botnet node" sticker on the back.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Somebody will hack that bastard creation of that SOB Jobs. Probably within a few hours of its hitting the street. This one I really WANT to see something like BSD run on. That creep Jobs wanted to ruin the Apple][+ and he did. Then he tried to sell us the closed box Apple][C which was junk. To compound it all and finish off Apple before he left, he tried to force the AppleIII on a world that knew better than to buy junk for ten thousand dollars. Do not buy anything that Jobs sells or U will be screwed. That guy has screwed so many people with so much junk that he probably has the digital siff. He even tried to rip off the free source community with his neXt box which never sold....another overpriced and underqualitied hunk of imported junk ....chipcounted junk at that.
FTFA:
he said. "That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
Jobs by no means says there is going to be no 3rd party wares.
...unless I can install an ssh client on it.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I'm sure Steve's boys & girls have tried their best. However, when you consider the breadth of, and potential combination of, visual, hearing, and mobility issues that affect the users of (particularly) mobile devices, it is highly probable that specific, tailored optimization of the user interface will be required for many users. Such specialized work is usually the domain of 3rd parties, rather than the Apple's of this world. Artificially restricting adaptation of the interface in the way proposed, blocks such 3rd party solutions and (I'm sure unintentionally) discriminates against disabled people. If Apple really want to restrict 3rd party applications, then they need to find a way of handling this issue. Bob Dodd Researcher (Handheld Mobile Devices) Accessibility Research Centre University of Teesside
This is the number one reason that I no longer use the Danger Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick). It's one of the best designed, easiest to use smartphones out there.
I could type 40 WPM on the Hiptop. Try that on a Treo. The only thing that comes close is the (full-size) BlackBerry, which is larger than the Hiptop.
The Hiptop had full "push" for EVERYTHING. All preferences, contacts, tasks, bookmarks, email, SMS history, notes, and practically anything else on the device gets synchronized to the backend (and the web interface) in real-time.
It also multitasks well (better than Windows Mobile and lightyears ahead of Palm), has a great UI (no touchscreen, just a scroll wheel and function buttons), a notification system that blows Windows Mobile or Palm OS away, and a (decently) low pricetag.
The problems with the Hiptop? It's a closed platform, and the hardware is a bit low-end.
You can't load third-party applications on the Hiptop without a developer key. Getting one requires writing an application for the device simulator and submitting it to Danger. I have such a device key, but it doesn't help - there is relatively little software for the device.
No one wants to write freeware for a device when only a fraction of its users can use your software. And few want to go through the pains of getting an application approved and signed, either. The result? You get some commercial development, but not much. The Hiptop has - maybe - 100 applications. 80+ of those are games.
At least the Hiptop had a keyboard.
There is a pretty sizable third-party software ecosystem around the Blackberry OS. I was able to download and install Google Maps and Opera on my Blackberry Pearl by just going to their respective websites, and in searching around I found tons of other third party software (some free, some commercial) available for my phone. My wife bought an application for her blackberry online for $14.99 after downloading a free trial. Our provider, T-Mobile, has nothing to do with what apps we put on our phone.
As for providers, I think there are several providers that offer blackberry phones - thus you could feasibly buy a Blackberry and switch between providers.
I imagine Windows Mobile based phones have plenty of third party software too, but I don't know for sure.
I think the best answer to your question would be, "the phone not made by Apple".
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
A UTStarcom (Audiovox) PPC6700. I can put any ring tone on it I want. I just give it an MP3 file via the (included) USB cable and tell the device it's to be a ring. Any software I want on it, I can install. It even comes with the CD to give me the tool I need (ActiveSync) to make that happen. VoIP? Sure, Skype has a version for Windows mobile that works just fine.
I know of at least two providers that sell this very device, Alltel and Verizon (I think it has a slightly different name on them). Not only do they sell it, they seem to like to push it.
An iPhone might be useful for your everyday consumer, but I think I'll continue to pass on Apple's i-Series devices - the tech equivalent of the 'for Dummies' books.
What I think is extra funny about this is that, during the keynote speach, Steve Jobs made a big deal of the fact that the iPhone runs OS X and the crowd was very impressed by that. Now, I wonder what Steve Jobs thought the crowd was thinking when he told them that the iPhone "runs OS X".
He must have thought, "Cool. People like using OS X so much that the mere fact that we used it on this phone has them all giddy."
Rather than (the more obvious), "People are really excited about the possibility of being able to run a great variety of apps that utilizes various OS X APIs on this thing."
cygnuhchur
I also find it quite interesting that no one seems to be talking about the possibility of Inkwell running on the iPhone platform. Granted, I'm not entirely surprised at this, since Apple (and particularly Steve) would probably not want too many comparisons to the Newton.
As an aside, I also found it a bit amusing that when Steve got up there to talk about "products that changed the world", there was no mention of either the Apple I/II series of computers (which essentially created the personal computer market) or the Newton (which essentially created the PDA market), both of which arguably fall into the same category as the Mac (and Lisa, if you really want to be a stickler about it), the iPod, and the iPhone. Of course, Steve Jobs had very little to do with the Apple II, as I recall, and nothing at all to do with the Newton (other than killing it).
I'm going to take a Wild Ass Guess here and claim that Apple will have Inkwell running on the iPhone before very long, but it almost certainly won't be part of the initial roll-out because of the Newton associations. Oh, and Palm may as well close up shop right now...stick a fork in it, it's done. The only thing worth saving from Palm is Graffiti, which came before Palm OS as a Newton application, anyway.
This is why I hope that it is proven impossible to make a secure public-key system based on an NP-complete problem, and that quantum computing comes along to deal with the discrete-log based ones. More and more products are going to use public-key signatures to prevent all unauthorized software, resulting in Stallman's nightmares. First the Xbox, then TiVo, then Vista, then the iPhone.
(RSA is discrete-log based in that the ability to calculate a discrete logarithm allows factorization in polynomial time.)
The good thing about living in Europe, and getting the iPhone half a year after the US does, is:
When we get it, it's already been hacked.
No ssh. (Kiss all your sysadmins goodbye right there)
No Terminal at all. (Ditto)
No vlc.
No vnc. (Remember those sysadmins?)
No mplayer.
No open-source software at all. (Yep, them again.)
No games other than the lame-ass ones you have to get from Apple - and watch them cost $15.
Just because you're apparently not imaginative enough to think of reasons you would want useful applications on a tiny OSX box doesn't mean everyone else isn't either.
+++ATH0
Because, I can tell you this, there's no way on Earth I'm shelling out the dough to upgrade my iPod now. I've got a couple fo 4th gen 40GB iPods, plus a 1st gen 1GB iPod shuffle, and a 1st gen 2GB iPod nano. Now that the iPhone is announced, there's no way I'm paying $249+ to buy a 5th gen iPod.
Then again, I'd have no problem paying for a 6th gen iPod if it was basically an iPhone minus the cell phone bits, with something like Samsung's new 32GB flash drive (I say "like" because while the capacity is right, the pricing of the 32GB flash drive is currently quite a bit more than could be reasonably expected to go into an iPod). After all, I probably only use about 10GB of my iPod, anyway, and at that much data, there's *way* too much stuff in it for it to be convenient. That 10GB might even include the installation of Mac OS X that resides on the drive.
In fact, I'd actually want to have both a 6th gen iPod like I describe here, *and* an iPhone. While I think it's pretty cool that I could store at least some stuff on the iPhone, my cell phone is primarily a business tool, and I can't afford to waste too much battery life on media, especially without a swappable battery. With my Samsung SPH-i500 Palm phone (and the Kyocera one before that), I've always kept one battery on the charger/cradle and one in the phone. With my new Samsung SPH-m610, I'm actually considering buying a second unit, just so I can keep a spare battery charged at all times, since it has no cradle that can charge a second battery. I don't like having to keep my phone tethered just so it stays charged; I like to just swap batteries and go.
where this perception that ALLOWING the ability to write applications for the phone somehow "removes" its status as a status symbol comes from.
Letting me install NetHack on my iPhone will not "crash Cingular's network." It is ENTIRELY within Apple's power to keep the phone hardware behind a proprietary wall while allowing the rest of the phone to be accessed.
+++ATH0
Reading between the lines, Apple hasn't had time to write a working API for 3rd party developers. Suprisingly lot goes into mobile phones/multimedia computers. I belive they still have really a lot to do with the device and it's far from ready. We still haven't seen an actual call made with iPhone.
I love my Series 60 phones specifically because of the 3rd-party stuff you can install. From an app that shows my friends' birthdays in order of who's next to a C64 emulator, the range of software means that if I suddenly feel like doing something new with my phone, someone's probably already written an app for it. Remember when that morse coder beat the fastest SMS dude? A couple of days later someone had a prototype morse code input program for the Series 60s. Sure, some programs (like the drivers for my bluetooth laser keyboard) are a train wreck and cause system errors, but blocking everyone just cause some people can't code is, for want of a better cliche, cutting off your nose to spite your face.
To produce such a powerful platform, then lock the world's innovators out of it is, frankly, a show-stopper for a lot of people who are actually interested in a phone that does more than just make and take calls.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I understand Apple's reluctance to have craplets on what should be a streamlined user friendly device however regardless of whether or not Apple releases an official SDK -- I feel that to most slashdot users the bundled apps will not exploit the iPhone's full potential. What good is a handheld computer with out an ssh client, or vnc client? I've registered iphonesdk.com in response and hopefully with enough intrest/talent/bricked iPhone's we can create a 3rd party SDK and app loader to make all our iWet dreams come true for this device.
So while they run Mac OS X they don't have multi-user protection enabled? Are they running in stand alone mode? Our is Jobs just making excuses? I'd like to know the real reason as Nokia Symbian devices even have a free development environment with crashing the networks the phones are used on even if the phones are resplendent with custom apps written often by the not so elite programmers of the world.
I call shenanigans on Jobs!
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Expandability is nice in theory but how in the world can Apple enforce a good osX integration next to the Windows version, apps that don't crash and don't suck up all the power in 15 min? The iPod is exactly the same thing, no external software or plugins but it worked out very good. We are missing out features because of the network contract but it's only for 2 years, i can wait. When a price point of about $300-$400 is reached (unlocked) the whole market will change and everybody will want an iPhone (3e gen). This is simply put a revolution in the telecom business that has just started and not only Apple will benefit from it.
above quoted in the
"That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
Which seems to indicate that maybe there will be a development environment for third party apps. Just some control over them like Symbian signed apps, MS signed device drivers and so on. Still not the best move but not as dire as reported.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
cingular doesn't want third party apps bringing down network...LIES! It's about apple's control of the device and if you need something extra, you can wait for apple to produce an application that can be downloaded to the device and pay!
The fact that they had a deal with a provider (Cingular) already strongly implied that Apple had taken a "fuck the users" attitude. This merely confirms it.
You can't sell a cellphone without dealing with a provider.
And there's plenty of smartphones that don't have a "fuck the users" attitude.
You can't lay the blame on Cingular on this... this is pure Apple "fuck the users" in operation.
I guess even having to back down on the single-button mouse, even in the passive-aggressive way they did it, freaked them out so much they had to apply some smackdown somewhere else.
When I played around with a few, and found that they didn't come with any compilers or interpreters that I could use, I quickly lost interest.
:)
Applescript?
Don't think of it as a scripting language, think of it like the UNIX shell, a universal glue between applications. And it's a better language than anything that came free with Windows.
The big problem with pre-OSX Mac OS was that it was just too bloody clumsy and unstable to support software development in the way people wanted to become accustomed to. Even Mac OS 9 was *maybe* as sophisticated as Windows 3.11 and definitely behind AmigaDOS, or the OS-9 (no relation) on the Radio Shack Color Computer, or... well, just about anything else that was designed after 1981 or so. Even if it had come with "Make", you sure wouldn't want to risk running a compile in the background while doing anything else.
I'd say "Classic Jobs", except Jobs didn't stick NeXT users with the single-button mouse. But it's classic Jobs *at* Apple. Style is everything, and everything is secondary to making the bling show off.
The iMac was cute as hell, but he killed the desktop Mac and forced everyone back to the damned all-in-one model when he brought it out. Killed the best keyboard, best designed desktops, and the best monitors too... the monitor on my Beige G3 was a wonderfully crisp Trinitron... my iMac's this horrible little fuzzy thing.
Even now I have to use an external mouse and keyboard on my Macbook because the trackpad is one-button (don't bring up double-tap, thanks) and the keyboard is painful to use. The camera is worthless to me because I can't pivot or aim it. There's no docking station, instead it's got a power cable that's so easy to pull out I have to
run an app to remind me when it IS pulled out. And to add insult to injury... after I pull out all those cables I have to open the lid to wake up the display to sleep it... and watch for a subtle throbbing effect to be sure it really IS asleep.
The overheating Cube. The bloated Quartz GUI that made a system that was responsive on a 68040 a dog on a G3 at 5 times the clock rate with 50 times the RAM. But boy was it pretty. The iPod itself is full of stupid problems that Mac fans will swear are features...
And that means, of course, that this damn thing may well succeed on style *despite* its flaws. But it would be better off dead.
Our is Jobs just making excuses?
Jobs? make excuses? When has he ever made excuses?
Oh, yeh.
I suspect he will have to drink his own blood on this one, like he did on "No ugly monitors on nice Macs" before the Mac Mini and hard disk players being "only fifty dollars more" than flash players before the iPod Shuffle, and what he's currently going through denial about with the two-button mouse.
now....
...but my phone can't go_boom on me..
No doubt
What?
I use a Treo 650. My most used applications are:
- Tube 2 NYC (subway route map and travel planner)
- Adarian Money (personal financial management)
- PhatNotes (application to handle 1,000s of notes, exportable to CSV)
- OpenChess (GNU chess engine for Palm)
None of these are typical of the applications bundled with a smartphone/PDA as standard fare, yet without them there would be no point to my having the Treo at all, since I don't use most of the other data features at all (apart from the contacts manager, which I can get with a standard mobile phone).
I thought the iPhone looked interesting, and as a Treo-Cingular user, I'm just the market Apple ought to be going for... but they've lost me. A device I can't customize is no device at all. (Now I'm just waiting for an OS X poster from a GNOME vs. KDE story to start telling me once again how this indicates a fault in me and my ability to appreciate "perfect" user interfaces, since the Apple products are by definition perfect and require no customization.)
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Can you image phone spyware? Where you are, who you are calling and texting and potentially even sly use of your camera and microphone? This is no joke. If Apple gets this wrong it will be a complete disaster.
My prediction is that Apple will allow third-party development, but it will be through some certification system. Applications will have to be submitted to Apple for digital signatures or somesuch. This is an expensive proposition for Apple, so I wouldn't expect it to happen right away. But there will be a very serious call for Apple to open the platform and eventually, this will happen (or something similar).
We should be applauding Apple. They have done something very significant here. This device is unique and shatters the envelope. Follow-on models are guaranteed to be amazing with features such as iChatAV, even larger screens, perhaps even docking stations with keyboards, graphic cards, etc... We are witnessing a true paradigm shift. Apple is attempting to ensure the success of this venture. Their behavior will change radically once these devices are ubiquitous.
I saw an interesting discussion regarding Flash and Java. If Flash and Java are supported through Safari on the iPhone, then it is reasonable to assume that application deployment could be completely tied to those technologies. It isn't ideal, but it is a far cry from having no way to run custom apps. Also, everyone here should know, without question, that it will be a month before a root-kit is released (in our community) that allows us to take control of this device and install software.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
I like to think of the whole "locked phone" scenario like this:
:)
US Cellular carriers "profit model" is based on the concept of "exclusivity", being that "we're the only ones with the (insert gizmo or marketing made-up service name here), and that's why you should tie yourself to us for two years."
European communications providers seem to base their "profit model" on providing networks than include many perceived useful SERVICES to their customers, and charging whatever they deem is correct for the usage of said service. Like mobile TV and such, even though a TV in my phone the absolutely least useful thing to me, in my opinion.
I have some friends who live in Europe, and they have a couple of SIM cards with different carriers there. They just use whichever one is cheapest wherever that are at when they need to make or receive calls. Is this the normal thing there or not?
About the "exclusive" thing, come to think of it, this is EXACTLY the business profit model subscribed to by almost every large American company today, isn't it??!!
LONG LIVE FREEDOM, AS LONG AS WE OWN ALL OF IT!!!!
The phone integrates with iTunes. Most other smart phone providers allow you _buy_ third party apps via their download services. These are usually digitally signed to prevent Trojans, malware and the like.
Since the integrity of the phone and IP networks will depend on secure access to such services, I will bet you all that iTunes will SELL the third party apps, or Apple will provide them if they happen to develop all of the good ideas (which no-one believes can happen).
I expect iTunes to host all those apps in the future and they will be thoroughly tested and vetted by Apple labs as part of the distribution deal.
Ergo if a problem or exploit turns up...next time you sync, iTunes will alert you of an important update.
Voila. There's your download mechnism in a nutshell.
Now when do we expext iTunes to get a rename to something more general...like iLife store or something similar. "Tunes" isn't a word that properly describes movies and podcasts as it is. Add the phone in there and WTH??
JB
The iPhone sounds slick, but really, the price sounds overwhelmingly high. Why does Apple continue to push it with prices? That is one thing that bothers me about them.