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Inside the iPhone — 3G, ARM, OS X, 3rd Partyware
DECS writes "After heading off the top ten myths of the iPhone, Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking 'Inside the iPhone,' exploring (1) why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks, (2) a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), and (3) what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly 'closed' system Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development."
As to the price, my current phone was free with a cheap contract and has 1GB of flash, an ARM CPU and both Java and C++ SDKs. The UI is a little rough around the edges, but I don't think I'd pay $500 for a better UI. It does everything I need a phone to do, and third party applications allow me to use if for things I didn't imagine I would need it for when I got it. Oh, and it does 3G data transfer and lets my MacBook Pro connect to the Internet at a reasonable speed when I'm mobile, which the iPhone doesn't (who buys a device with only EDGE these days? Even a year ago when I got my latest phone it was hard to find one. Buying music from iTMS over EDGE is going to be very painful).
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As for artificial limitations on development: According to a developer I talked to who apparently worked on the iPhone, it will have secure boot; i.e., the bootloader checks to make sure it's booting Apple's OS, and the hardware won't run any bootloader other than Apple's. Obviously Apple is taking a different approach this time compared to, say, the iPod and their Intel Macs. So, I doubt we'll be seeing iPhone Linux or anything like that unless Apple has done something really stupid.
I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less.
I'm of the opinion that Slashdot's extensive coverage of the iPhone is warranted by virtue of the enormous public interest in the iPhone as a product. While there is really nothing new in the iPhone (although it is a clever combination of existing technologies), the public interest in it is intense, and if it does indeed live up to its promise and deliver a dramatically improved user interface experience for smartphones and handheld devices, it could become an extremely signficant product. What is terrifying about this prospect, is of course, the fact that the iPhone represents a blatant rejection of everything the FOSS community has been advocating: open platforms, open standards, open source, and user choice. If the iPhone promotes the idea that closed source, closed platform monopolies are cool, then that obviously does not bode well for us. Consequently, there is an obvious need for Slashdot to cover the iPhone as extensively as possible, so that we as a community can (a) better understand the threat that it poses, and (b) get a sense of how best to respond.
I have a Treo 650 and can install all kinds of 3rd party apps. Of course, the more running on my Treo the more unstable it is and the more I hate my Treo when it locks up.
Apple's products have been successful because they have controlled a lot of the "freedom" (hardware choices on the Mac OS X, software choices on the iPod) that open products offer. More consistency has kept their users from having to stare at driver errors and the BSOD.
I will replace my Treo - with all it's 3rd party software offerings - with an iPhone the second one is available.