Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Roundup
Some of you are tired of the blizzard of coverage the iPhone is getting, so this roundup of iPhone stories is running off the main page. First off, EMIce points out what seems to be plenty of prior art (as well as a booming research scene) on the multi-touch interface that Steve Jobs demo'ed, boasting of having "filed for over 200 patents." FastCompany has a profile of NYU researcher Jefferson Han and his killer demo of a multi-touch interface at TED. Next, Toreo asesino writes in with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer's take on the iPhone; the Microsoft CEO doesn't sound very impressed. And finally, an anonymous reader notes CNet's article on why the iPhone, once it's in the hands of consumers, may be the most muggable item of consumer electronics ever.
I like the CNET.co.uk story on 4 ways to hide the iPOD from muggers.... (You have to dig in a bit on the links.) One of which involves the sun not shining. They suggested the same for the iPhone.
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
The Apple iPhone will trigger a revolution in street-crime convenience. It's a three-for-one deal: not only is it a mobile phone, it's also a cutting-edge video iPod and a Wi-Fi enabled Internet browser. The Met says that people are stealing mobile phones even if they are locked, so that they can access the other features, such as the camera and games. The highly functional iPhone couldn't fit more perfectly into a mugger's dream.
So it's a 3-for-1 deal, an iPod, mobile browser, and phone. If I'm not mistaken, without a usable service (which would no doubt be disabled within minutes of it being reported stolen to Cingular), what are you left with? An expensive video iPod with "camera and games." This is all well and fine in itself, and the article went on to explain how obvious it will be that someone has an iPhone when they're talking into their white headphones, but still, I'm not seeing what's so lucrative when a wallet, purse, Rolex, laptop, or small dog may also be available. At least those don't immediately lose two-thirds of their value when stolen.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
that's a plus for Apple, right?
Most anyone that is interested in the iPhone will already have a cellphone and be locked in to a 2 year contract already. Personally, I have a pretty good deal for my Family plan with Sprint. Moving everything over to Cingular will likely end up costing an additional $100 per month on top of the $599 I'll need to pay for the phone. So, over 2 years, the iPhone will cost about $3000. As much as I like the phone, that's a little too expensive for a gadget. Now if Cingular introduces a plan as revolutionary as the iPhone at launch then they will sell these phones as fast as they can make them.
Jobs said that they've filed for over 200 patents on the iPhone overall, not multi-touch specifically. You can see it in his slide here:
d ia/2007/01/dsc_0232.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/me
If the biggest negative about your product is that people will bury you in the desert to take yours, you must be doing something right.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Tecnology becomes frugal very quickly. Watch the streets today, and see how many peoply walk without problems talking to their cell phone or listening to their iPods/any other audio player. The iPhone may be all shiny and glamorous when it is launched, but a couple of years from now, it will be as common as any other gadget.
Old news.
It might be amusing to add a GPS system. Then, write an app that, on receiving a certain type of SMS from Apple, proceeds to start phoning the police asking for help, and posting its position and a picture of its surroundings to a website. Screaming for help might be another nice touch... or perhaps just making the sound of police sirens as an unsubtle hint.
Yeah, it's a problem; however, there are enough easy solutions that I'd be surprised if Apple doesn't stuff one (or more) in by deployment time.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Your comment makes no sense. What brains are missing? We've already seen what the phone can do in the Keynote and the Apple website: play music, play videos, surf the web (rendering pages correctly), check e-mail, send text messages, visual voicemail - the list goes on and on, and it looks likely that Apple will allow the release of third-party widgets, if not full-fledged applications.
And it will do all of this with Apple's usual ease-of-use and pleasant aesthetics. Not to mention, they have six months to refine it further.
What brains are missing, exactly? I can't really think of much else that I want a smartphone to do. 3G would be nice, but I can live with that omission for now.
This space intentionally left blank.
I doubt it; I am typing this on no real keyboard, and once you get used to it you will never want to go back.
The Fingerworks TouchStream--a multitouch keyboard--presents a very nice interface, with gestures, mousing, and keyboard combined. Typing is somewhat difficult, but that is only due to the (relatively) crude design. (and the other aspects more than compensate for it.) As Jefferson Han pointed out in his presentation, on a more dynamic device, the keyboard can adapt itself to an individuals typing. As software improves, it should work very well; in fact, much better than existing keyboards.
Apple bought FingerWorks several years ago.
You may remember them for their Multi-Touch keyboard nearly 4 years ago. Apple first began incorporating the technology into their scrolling trackpads about 2 years ago. Now it has found its way into the iPhone.
"He's probably wondering why can't he (MS) and its partners not make something as appealing as what Apple does?"
From pirates of silicon valley, which is of course no good for quoting, but still, "We have culture, they don't".
Here are some thoughts I've had in the last couple weeks.
;-)
:-)
Success:
- Will it be a success? Yes. Is it pricey? Yes. Is it gorgeous? Yes. And the price will eventually drop, just like the iPod did. It's Apple's famous method: release a really nice, almost perfect product for a bunch of money, sell a bunch to the first batch of buyers; then, when that supply is exhausted, improve it, drop the price, sell again to the next round who weren't willing to buy the first time. Lather, rinse, repeat. (Note: don't look for a widescreen, touchscreen, iPod until MAYBE September for the 2007 Xmas season; more likely, you'll have to wait until Spring 2008. Apple won't let a nice iPod cannibalize sales they'll get to people who buy the iPhone MOSTLY because they want a widescreen iPod. Oh, and by the way--current iPods have 4:3 screens. (1.33:1.) All Apple's computers are 16:10. (1.6:1.) The iPhone, like the original PBG4, is 3:2. (1.5:1.) So: what shape should iTMS movies be?)
- BUT--the iPod wasn't a success just because it was pretty. It really is a better, easier-to-use MP3 player than anything else out there for most people. The iPhone will ONLY succeed if the touchscreen system works as well as Steve says it does. I can tell it'll be mostly great just by looking--a regular touchscreen could easily handle 90% of the single-finger action he demo'ed--but I'll have to see the keyboard in person to become a believer on that.
- will Apple work out a deal with Cingular to offer a reasonable data plan? No one will be happy with the Internet Communicator of the Future if it costs $100/month to do anything with. For this to really, really work, there has to be reasonably-fast, reasonably-priced data. If it becomes a situation of "Oh, I can't use Safari until I get to Starbucks or Panera" that will be a big buzzkill.
- will they meet their goals? They said they want to sell 10 million phones--have 1% of the market--in 18 months. (God, that sounds like so many WWW business plans I heard in 1995-97--"If we could just get 1% of all web users to visit our site...") That sounds good on the one hand, given that they want 1% of a billion phones, BUT--Cingular only has 60M customers. Is the iPhone so great that ONE SIXTH of Cingular's customer base will spend $500? If not, are that many people going to get out of contracts and switch carriers in the next 18 months? I'm not so sure. Like I said, I really think the iPhone will be a success, but their expectations are pretty high.
Other thoughts:
- no iChat! no iChat A/V! How LAME! Either a) it's part of the deal not to step on Cingular's toes by offering anything like VOIP, or b) it's waiting for Rev B. Unfortunately, my money's on A. Well, at least you can use the browser to access Meebo.
- Proximity sensor--nice. But I hope that's not one of their patents. My Canon XTi turns off the screen when you put it up to your face--and it already exists.
- Apple will need to add 'Cingular' and 'iPhone' to Leopard's spellcheck dictionary.
- I'll pick one up in a couple rev's just to have a decent browser. Despite having twice as many pixels as the iPhone, browsing on my Axim mostly sucks.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
WTF do you expect him to do, fake an orgasm at the mention of a competitor's product?
Apple could develop a cure for cancer, and Steve Ballmer would say "Meh, we've got an offering in the works that will do everything Apple's cure will do, but at a lower price point. And our solution leverages our synergy with our business parterns to enable innovation by developers, developers, developers! in this new market. It'll be brown and you can squirt it to all of your friends!"
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
I'm glad that you put in the comment on the Mighty Mouse, because it gives me a good index on how much to trust your opinion. I really love my MIghty Mouse. I gave up a wireless 3-button scroll Mouse for the initial Mighty Mouse, just because it was so comfortable and so much easier to use, seeming to magically know what I wanted to do, that it was worth the inconvenience of going back to the wire. Now of course, I have the wireless version. These days, it drives me nuts when I have to use an old-style scroll mouse.
The lock on the phone has nothing to do with Steve Jobs being a control freak. Apple is introducing a very sophisticated handheld computer into the marketplace and selling it as a lifestyle device. If the system were open to third-party developers, in the traditional way, how long would it be before phone-spyware, phone-adware, phone-rootkits and other nastiness appeared? There is also the consideration of having a wave of voip software alienating the carriers that Apple NEEDS to ensure the success of this expensive venture, a wave of peer-to-peer filesharing apps on the handset that would alienate and anger the media companies that Apple is in bed with for iPod content and many other potential catastrophes.
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.
Clearly, iChat would be seen as a threat to Cingular's revenue stream. It's pretty obvious why this wasn't included. That is an artifact of the Network monopoly marketplace we live in. It sucks, but it is what it is.
However, I know what Steve is doing. He knows that he cannot deploy a cellphone without a network. But once there are enough users of iPhones, his negotiating position will change. People will become loyal to the iPhone product, willing to switch networks rather than switch phones. The two year window with Cingular is the gestation time for this to happen. After that, you can bet your *ss that iChat and all manner of liberation will emerge. If it doesn't, then people will abandon iPhone for similar products guaranteed to ship from the likes of Nokia, Samsung and Motorola.
Elimintating the possibility of third-party software installation is not the only way to protect the phone, clearly. But it is the only sane way to enter the intensely competitive and huge cellphone market. A privacy disaster or virus disaster (etc..) would quickly eliminate Apple from carving out any significant piece of that market. Steve is entering with all the control in his pocket in order to ensure a successful birth. Wait for the child to grow a bit, it will open up.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
And the lack of third-party applications disqualifies it from the moniker smartphone.
... now where was I going with all this... I don't know, but I need to hang up my web surfing app in treo, and take a picture. This response has taken only 30 minutes to type out by the way. Whooosh this phone is smart!
Because we all know, that only Smart Phones require a slew of installs to do anything useful.
It's a smart phone, because a person can just USE all the advanced features. I love the gestures, rather than backing up on a selected web page, choosing option, choosing zoom, and then scrolling here -- oops, over there.
90% of that Treo functionality goes to waste. I have a semi-advanced phone, and I've yet to play even an MP3 on it. I took perhaps 5 pictures -- how do I get them to my computer? Well I bought some app off eBay because Motorolla was selling it for a premium. One of these years I will install it, but it is Windows Only, and while my 5 year old Mac runs fine, I have to repair my XP machine again.
How many people out of 100 ever add another application to their phone? With this phone, you will add those functions with iTunes, and you will update your contacts, your photos, music and movies the same way. And like 200 million people already use this application. 2 Billion songs served.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
I concur.
... basically it must have a 3D accelerator chip because it is actually running Mac OS X -- just a compressed version of it stored in under 500 megs of Flash. It must have Core Graphics and Core Video -- so the latest OS.
Anything that Javascript can do.
But there is also Quartz running on that machine
So basically, anything that Apple wants to allow, that runs on OS X, and doesn't exceed the performance.
Look at the animation of the CDs again; that is a 3D transform of multiple objects composited over video in real time. Quartz composer can take a video feed, react to sound, and build it all on the graphics card. At 160 DPI, I'm guessing there is almost a 720pixel wide screen there -- maybe 640. So, I'm guessing that this machine is equivalent to a 5 year old desktop in power.
The main stumbling-block would be software interpreting it. The Widgets are easy enough to build and willl get easier. They use PNG graphics files and Javascript. They can actually use C++ programs and JAVA -- but I'm not sure what Apple is allowing for the iPhone.
OpenGL is also in their -- inside of Core Graphics. Again -- it all depends on if they have developer tools that make it easy enough for programmers to build decent games, and how much apple allows.
Definitely mindsweeper, or a ported version of DOOM if Apple allows it.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Just add RFID support to the things. Each iPhone owner gets an RFID patch they put somewhere on their body that's encoded with a key specific to their iPhone. If the iPhone detects that it's been both moved out of range of it's owner and that it's moving around beyond a certain threshold, it sends an unpleasent 10,000 volt jolt through the metal backing into the thief's hand. If that doesn't work, and movement is still detected, it then destroy's it's own SIM, wipes the memory and locks up the phone until it's taken/sent to an Apple certified dealer for repair. All the dealer has to do is run a check on the iPhone's serial number and verify the owner is actually the person who brought in the locked unit.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I have to call BS on this one. We've got plenty of corporates using Windows mobiles (I'm not one of them, thankfully) and the serious e-mailers do prefer a keyboard - a Bluetooth keyboard, not the built-in ones. You can even get them in pocketable folding formats. iPhone has Bluetooth? Check!
The iPhone is just the beginning of a much larger revolution in computing, in fact probably the biggest revolution since the birth of the graphical user interface. Not sure what I mean? Look at the submitter's link to the TED demonstration, and also take a look at the Synaptics Onyx Concept.
Put it this way... if you still haven't guessed where Jobs' head is right now, the iPhone with its arguably limited feature sets is a way of not showing your best work up front. In fact, Apple I think has something much bigger in mind... for which the iPhone is really just a loss leader.
When you see what multipoint capacitance sensors can do, it should become evident that Apple's probably already researching how to redefine the user interface of the home computer... and eliminate the mouse and physical keyboard entirely, but simultaneously give us a user interface far more advanced than a mere 2D touchscreen. A touchscreen tablet strips away some of the advantages of a keyboard and mouse, but a tablet PC with a multipoint capacitance sensor opens up new dimensions of desktop navigation and application control.
Put it another way... Have you seen the Pre-Crime computer in Minority Report? Now you've got some idea where Apple's research is very probably currently focused.
iPhone not meeting expectations, not living up to the hype? Pfeh... I guarantee you Steve Jobs and company are already thinking another five years ahead to the day when the desktop GUI framework will undergo the first systemic metamorphosis in 20 years.