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How Jobs Played Hardball In iPhone Birth
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Apple bucked the rules of the cellphone industry when creating the iPhone by wresting control away from normally powerful wireless carriers, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Only three executives at the carrier, which is now the wireless unit of AT&T Inc., got to see the iPhone before it was announced. Cingular agreed to leave its brand off the body of the phone. Upsetting some Cingular insiders, it also abandoned its usual insistence that phone makers carry its software for Web surfing, ringtones and other services... Mr. Jobs once referred to telecom operators as "orifices" that other companies, including phone makers, must go through to reach consumers. While meeting with Cingular and other wireless operators he often reminded them of his view, dismissing them as commodities and telling them that they would never understand the Web and entertainment industry the way Apple did, a person familiar with the talks says.'"
I'm really for anything that helps wrestle proprietary control settings away from the major carriers.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
Incorrect. The consumers are the orifices in the telco / phone maker / customer relationship. Everyone gets to screw them.
Anyway, let's hope the iPhone enjoys more success than the last Apple/Cingular deal mentioned in the article:
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Jobs, hard, ball, ....there should be a joke in there somewhere....
Remember than no iphones have been sold yet. The analysis needs to wait until some sales figures are available.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
My god! When will the innovation at Apple stop? Ever? And how long until everyone else in the business world copies Apple and starts playing 'hardball' too?
At least we Apple users can still be smug and remind everyone that Apple invented playing 'hardball'!
...if Apple meant it, the phones would be 100% unbranded and unlocked, they'd take any GSM provider's card, and APPLE would provide simple, regional, downloadable settings (for carrier-based web proxies, etc.)
Apple doesn't have to sell them through Cingular (AT&T) or anyone else.
Bucking the system...my shiny metal ass.
I guess the tone would indicate we are supposed to demonize Jobs for wanting control of his product rather than letting the Telecoms dictate what he could build. Point he was talking about a tiny market share so none of them had a gun to their heads. Cingular decided to play ball but they could have said no. Microsoft could have just as easily come in and said we're throwing ten billion at this the first year and expect in three years to have 10% to 25% of the market share. Play ball or we'll run you out of business. Asking for conditions to make a deal is called negoiations. Neither party was required to say yes and the final deal was mutually benificial. Where's the harm?
At least we Apple users can still be smug and remind everyone that Apple invented playing 'hardball'!
What, throwing chairs isn't hardball?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
IIRC the messages at launch placed cingular as THE monopoly carrier for these phones, with no other options.
You have to sign multiyear contracts to boot.
I think they maintain not only control, but an iron grip on these phones.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Love the telco's or hate them, Jobs only "got away" with his demands purely because he has a rock solid "PR" product which will certainly sell by the litre. Regardless if the product is a stinker it will sell well, because its Apple.
If anybody has half a brain they will stay away from this product for at least 1 revision - like most products, especially Apple.
And yes I own lots of expensive Apple gear.
It seems the Americans are getting screwed still on the contract, so Jobs didn't get all he wanted. The product launches back in Australia next year but it seems Telstra don't want a bar of it, will be interesting to see if it sells without a contract, I'd say it changes are high it won't.
I'm a Mac user, and I'll say it straight up: Apple only wants to stop the carriers from screwing customers with the iPhone so that Apple can screw customers harder with it instead. So it doesn't have AT&T ringtone, messaging, and pr0n software. You're locked in with Apple software instead. They've already confirmed that you can't install your own apps. The phones are network locked, too, so I don't see how they're stopping the carriers from screwing customers, anyway.
A carrier doesn't screw you too badly. I have a Hutch3 branded Nokia 6280. It was a lot cheaper than the unbranded version. It's network locked and has branded firmware and has a Hutch3 logo on the case. However, it can be unlocked and have the firmware replaced. Hutch3 will do this for me for free one year after I bought the phone. Also, I can install any Java MIDP application I write or download.
The iPhone will be a joke until:
Obviously, we'll all have to wait until it's released to see what it's like. Apple are the masters of the UI, and most phones/smartphones I've had have really lousy UI. 3G or not 3G, I'd like to have a phone that doesn't suck to use. At this point, I'd toss out all the current crap and go back to my Nokia 6160 - it did what I needed and stayed out of the way. While I like getting email, Blackberry and Windows have a long way to go before they get away from sucking. I hope Apple's UI is a step forward. I could give a crap which 'G' my phone uses, so long as I like using my phone.
I used to work at Motorola and saw how much the handset makers really bend over backwards and do whatever the cell phone carriers want. I couldn't understand it. I thought that they should have been selling unlocked phones off their website, but they were too afraid to do so. Their employees-only section of the online store had unlocked phones every once in a while, but they usually disappeared quickly.
I am encouraged by Nokia's flagship stores in the US. The phones you buy there are unlocked, but nobody is advertising this fact - not even Nokia. It's like an open secret or something. Apple's insistence on selling this independent of Cingular is a step in the right direction even though the phones are still locked. If this works out well, some of the big guys might start demanding these contract terms and then, hopefully, they will start selling them unlocked and tell the carriers to screw off if they don't like it. I think the key is Apple doing all the hard work convincing the American public to buy phones for full retail price.
On another note, I saw the Motorola iPod phone while it was still a secret. Motorola tests their phones by giving them to employees that put their name into a hat and agree to write up a daily report for a couple months. You then use it as your main daily phone. The iPod phone was developed at a Motorola facility in a whole other city from us and we had very limited contact with those devs. All the secrecy involved made it seem, to us, that Apple was forcing Motorola to use that phone platform as a test platform to throw off anyone that managed to catch a glimpse of the phone when the testers used it in public. It was highly unusual to be "testing" a phone platform that had been on sale for a year. And at the same time there were other people testing the Moto SLVR and those people had been told that the phone hardware was designed with the iTunes software in mind (if I remember correctly, iPod phone version 2 was on the SLVR platform but was pretty much stillborn due to the poor showing of version 1).
All in all, everyone I knew that had any sort of knowledge was puzzled by the way Motorola acted and chalked it up to Apple running the dev show. I really think that Apple intentionally crippled the phone from the start, but I have no proof or anything. Perhaps Jobs wanted to get us back for all the pain we caused Apple when our CEO forgot that we also had a semiconductor business.
.if Apple meant it, the phones would be 100% unbranded and unlocked, they'd take any GSM provider's card....
And then Apple would not be able to provide features like visual voice mail which require changes to the carrier network.
What Apple gets by partnering is concessions in network development they would never get if they stood along against all other phone companies. That is the value that Apple brings to the table, making complex things easier and stuff like network improvements to handle random access voice mail are part and parcel of that. If the iPhone were just like any other MVNO phone, it would lose a lot of potential for true innovation in phone development.
What will be really interesting to see is how the open Linux phones proceed, or if they run into roadblocks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The iPhone is a joke until it runs Windows Vista Mobile Premium, with Aero enabled holographic projector with 3D holo-conferencing. I'll hold out for the dellPhone.
Obviously, we'll all have to wait until it's released to see what it's like. Apple are the masters of the UI, and most phones/smartphones I've had have really lousy UI.
I'll second that motion. The most common features I need are gazillion menus down in my Motorola phone. People keep talking about how iphone "lacks features", but feature O.D. is a Microsoft trait, not an Apple one. If you want quantities of features, regardless of how easy it is to use them, then Apple products are probably not for you.
Table-ized A.I.
> Obviously, we'll all have to wait until it's released to see what it's like.
So till it happens I will happly use my current smartphone, and then another, and then another... Speaking by myself I don't see *any* reason for me to want the iPhone.
> Apple are the masters of the UI,
I use Macs daily. Please don't BS me.
> and most phones/smartphones I've had have really lousy UI.
But you *belive* iPhone will have better?
> 3G or not 3G, I'd like to have a phone that doesn't suck
> to use.
Today I did like lots of videocalls. I think it is very nice to see the other person while talking. Now can you do this with iPhone? Of course you can't since:
1. It does not do 3G.
2. It does not exist on market.
So how we can *even* speak about 1 million (opposed to hundreds of millions of phones sold annually) some retarded phones that do not even exist revoluionizing cellphone market? Now this is disortion.
Steve does get it with some devices but he totally misses it when it comes to a phone. I don't need my phone to be iPhoto or iTunes. My phone is fucking communication device. So first of all I need it to do all current stuff (like calls, videocalls, data transfer) robustly - iPhone does not do that. Secondly I want it to be easy to use and I don't really have problem with using my Nokia. Seriously.
Steve Jobs really is a badass! I played hardball once in high school; broke my leg, three ribs, and four fingers. I hope the engineers weren't too severly hurt...
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Steve Jobs has clearly established his pattern over the last couple of decades:
Marketing.
He plays fast and loose with the truth, and establishes a cult of personality surrounding extravagant claims which are largely repeated parrot-fashion by his groupies. Even people who like his style talk about the Reality Distortion Field (as if it's a good thing, no less).
I have a mac. I run OS X. I've administered many macs, both pre-X and post-X. I've also widely used windows, linux, xBSD and many commercial unices (some of which you may not know of). It's just not that damn special.
I also have worked quite a lot in the telco industry. While the industry leaders are usually a bunch of crooked backscratchers, the engineering side of the industry works under threat of substantial fines if they get it wrong, and high standards for success. If your solution isn't five nines, it isn't a solution. Steve Jobbie (for those of you who understand Glaswegian) can posture all he likes, and protest about the ignorance of others concerning the web, but when it actually came time to bring his own vision of technology to the forefront, what was it?
A slick front end on top of an OS model which was outmoded by the mid-eighties.
Underwhelmed doesn't begin to describe my reaction. The telco rajahs may be corrupt fatcats, and should probably be forced to remove consumer lock-in if you think that monopolies are a bad thing, but mister close-the-code telling the Baby Bells, who know plenty about how to interoperate on the strength of existing standards, that they don't understand the web is such pitifully weak flimflam that I can only blame them for falling for his snakecharmer act.
If Steve Jobs came to me tomorrow, in person, complete with jeans and turtleneck, and told me that he had the hundred-dollar solution to all my future computing needs, I would demand to see it in writing, with a very hefty penalty clause written in. The only reason that I think Cingular bothered to cooperate with him was the hope that they might get a little marketing zip, and the knowledge that they have lots of other handsets to sell.
Apple and Sony are looking more and more alike: overpriced producers of crippled but marketable crap for those who know no better.
P.S. I think that a fair explanation of Steve Jobs's frantically hysterical assaults on the market is competition with Bill the Gates. He wants to be a bigger liar, and better marketer. It's like the clash of the titans. They make the last four US presidents look like honest men.
Cue the endless stream of orifice jokes... now!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Have you ever heard of something called a 'user interface'? Apple knows how to build a good one, and Motorola, LG, Nokia, and the rest of them do not.
That is what will sell the iPhone. For every geek who looks at the iPhone and says "Bah! My free-as-in-speech, open-source, ugly orange phone with the stupid name (OpenMoko) will do all that and more! The iPhone is crap!", there will be 100 normal users who try it out and say "Goddamn, this phone is so much easier to use than the POS I have now. I'm buying one."
I am by no means technically illiterate - I'm a computer science major at MIT. But I have long since lost my patience for fighting with badly-designed, badly-engineered, badly-implemented consumer electronics. I will be buying an iPhone when it comes out, because like all of Apple's recent products, it will 'Just Work'.
It will be a hybrid iPod/cell phone/PDA with no sacrifices in functionality, compared to carrying around three separate devices. As Jobs mentioned in his keynote, the price is still cheaper than buying a smartphone and iPod Nano separately.
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Yeah I agree, I'm on my third motorola flip-top and while each new version does get slimmer and smaller, it seems there's always compromises. E.g., on my newest one, its too easy for the quick buttons on the side to change the ringer type while the phone is in my pocket. Not to mention the fact that T-mobile puts their "download ringtones" links first in the sounds menu and there's no way to delete them... It annoys me because the phone has bluetooth so I just upload my own mp3s; I'm not buy any of their crap.
If anybody can fix the UI disaster, its Apple. Sure it won't be perfect, but my guess is that it will be an improvement (if you want to pay for it). This whole situation reminds me of the way Apple dealt with the music companies, and we all know the DRM is a mixed bag, but it sure beats the competition for most people.
Strangely enough, I'm a bit proponent of the "do one thing and do it well philosophy", but after seeing the keynote, I am impressed. A good UI makes the extra features useful, a bad one makes them annoying.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
I'd prefer the person on the other end not know that I'm taking a dump while talking to them!
It's been stated pretty clearly: implementing some of the things Apple wanted is a lot of work for the carrier. I think the "visual voice mail" is one of the bigger ones. Someone has to pay that freight, and a good way to do that is to offer a time-limited lock-in to the carrier, allowing them to recoup their investment and make a profit as well. Verizon turned Apple down, so we get Cingular.
I'd been wondering exactly what Apple got out of the deal. The only previous item I'd heard was the visual voicemail. And I don't consider the marketing and retail channel to be big gains for Apple against the exclusivity limitation they're giving AT&T. But monthly revenue sharing could make sense for Apple. I would guess that Jobs made it clear they could go operator-less if they didn't get a good deal.
I am looking forward to trying the iPhone. In particular I'm looking formward to being free of the god-awful software that comes with most phones.
Just this weekend I decided to check an ebay auction on my samsung phone. I noticed that Sprint offers a "ebay premium" program for download. Guess what? It's FIVE dollars a month. WHAT? I already pay for internet access on my phone, why should I pay another dime to get a better view of my ebay account? If the phones came with capable browsers then this nickel and diming wouldn't be possible because the phone would have desktop-similar browsing capability. I think the iPhone is going to go a long way to helping consumers.
That's *all* very *interesting*, *Sir*
And now the countdown starts on the two other phones cited in the WSJ article. It didn't fly under my radar the "boy have we patented it" line at the expo - and for those who want the recast, on the (free) download at iTunes of the keynote - at 1:30 (remaining) comes the clarifier of over 200 patents filed on the iPhone.
Looking at the slightest cause for a lawsuit - "trade dress" it seems the other manufacturers are playing with fire already.
For a fan of corporate porn (me), it's going to be fun watching the legal fallout from the clones (remember all the imac clones that emachine tried to sell within a year - that's absolutely nothing compared to the design theft that happens in cellphones all the time). The LG and the Samsung weren't mentioned to have touch-screen but - boy - the LG is really looking to open it's legal doors in "creating consumer confusion from trade dress" bigtime.
Anyone want to place bets on when the first lawsuits from Apple start? I'm guessing August by the latest.
Well, there is now a DMCA exemption to unlock your cell phone to connect to another carrier (assuming you have an open account with said carrier). Not having an iPhone myself (I like cell phones that let me talk to people, and not much else), I don't know the answer to this question: How long before another carrier reverse engineers whatever service is being provided, so that you can buy an iPhone and subscribe to another carrier's service?
Write me a check Apple!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
We see the same thing here. Instead of just treating data like voice, and charging a fix amount for fixed amount of data, the phone companies want to further monitized data, not in any way that beneficial to the customer, but merely to generate additional revenue, often at the expense of the customer. It is like MS, forcing everyone to MSN just for the privilege of using a browser that is already paid for through the acquisition of the OS.
But Apple is really doing no different. Safari and iTunes is a brand that Apple needs to build, and if the mobile standard is Safari, then that will be a great feather in the Apple hat, and a great defeat for MS. The thing is, that this is healthy competition. Just like the AT&T breakup let us have more than one phone in our house, and brought long distance rate to criminally low levels, something like this, along with carry along phone numbers, could allow to buy phones, and then choose a carrier. Wow.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Have you ever heard of something called a 'user interface'? Apple knows how to build a good one, and Motorola, LG, Nokia, and the rest of them do not.
Well, a 'good' user interface is very subjective, and even OSX has many carry over design flaws that were good in the 80s but are quite outdated today, yet Apple still sells the concepts as 'easy' or the 'best'. Take the Menu bar, and how many users just don't get the 'multi-application' usage concept because the flipping bar confuses them, so they close and flip between applications.
You also seem to have left out Windows Mobile in your list of companies that you seem to think don't know how to make a user interface. People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use.
Oh, and Windows Mobile has been around for quite a while now, and with 6.0 pushes the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity far beyond anything Apple has promised for the iPhone.
It will be a hybrid iPod/cell phone/PDA with no sacrifices in functionality, compared to carrying around three separate devices. As Jobs mentioned in his keynote, the price is still cheaper than buying a smartphone and iPod Nano separately
It is people like you that forget the rest of us have been using Windows Mobile and even Motorola 'user interfaces' on our phones for SEVERAL years, playing our music, using our bluetooth, playing our movies, and also accessing the internet at near DSL speeds, with the latter being something the iPhone can't even do.
If you are a CS major at MIT, then my faith in the next generation has been destroyed.
If Apple is the God of user interfaces, then why do they continue to copy good ideas and try to promote them as their own, you know like the iPod?
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first.
After Steve Job's open attack against the teacher's union,
you can expect Apple education orders to dry up very quickly.
Not to mention a Linux built PC classroom lab would cost half what an iMac lab would cost,
and cost much less than a Windows 'Vista Ready' classroom filled with Vista Ultimate top-of-the-line machines.
Open Source is the way to go for public education,
any Non-Open source software is a waste of public education funds.
The iPhone is typical Apple, big on flashy, big price tag,
and outdone by a dozen Asian companies in less than 3 months. Meh.
Cell Phone land is different than computer land, Apple will need a new model
every 6 months just to keep up with what the competition will be producing.
Attacking the teachers' union, one of Apple's largest customers. Brilliant!
Big talk coming from a guy who never ran a school.
Jobs should open his own school, if he thinks he can do better.
Deliver results, not excuses.
Steve - Put up, or Shut up.
So, if the cell phone carriers are orifices, then the iPhone must be the phallus. Then what does that makes the consumer, the ovaries...or perhaps the eggs? Also, what thing or things represents spooge in all of this?
So after the industry realizes the iPhone doesn't do anything that hasn't been done for years on other phones, and people realize they can't even develop for it, the new marketing hype is that Jobs has made it great because of the deal he made with Cingular?
7 710
This sums up how I feel about it...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
The iPhone just gets better and better via the Marketing machine, maybe someday Apple will get back to actually creating something 'new', right now their best 'new' thing is an OS based on 1989 Next concepts. And the UI paradigm from the 1989 Next still outclasses OSX.
So I guess Apple is radical and innovative if you date everything back 18 years.
Apple decided to not take cash directly from Cingular, hence the lack of a Cingular logo on the phone. The phone is locked, so Apple has don't nothing for consumer. Yes, you should be able to get an iPhone out of contract and that means a cheaper monthly for the consumer (in theory). Is Apple the good guy? Not really.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
You actually do have them a bit worried. For the moment it is "Too hard" for the average person, but so were cell phones 15 or so years back.
You might also want to consider Skype over an "all you can eat" data connection, especially if you make a lot of calls. Quite likely your terms and conditions forbid that, but if they get sticky a VPN client will stop them seeing what you are up to.
Yeah, the cell phone business as we know it is doomed. It is only a matter of time.
Apple selling your dissent back to you at twice the price! Film at 11!
You are perhaps from Europe somewhere, and are thus unaware as to how the open American cellular marketplace operates, so let me enlighten you:
$0.10/ text message
$0.99/ qvga-resolution "walpaper"
$1.99 per 20 sec "ringtone", each
$2.00 per 500 kB data transfer
all this on a basic voice plan at $40/month x 24 month +activation fee +cancellation fee +credit reporting fee +tax fee +NSA wiretap fee
In this regard, whatever Jobs offers is lightyears away of the competition. (oh yeah, and shut the hell up about how you get "Free Long Distance!!!11!!1" when you pay up $79.00 x 12 per year)
How nice your comment will look in 2-3 years when iPhone would prove very popular, maybe it will be just as funny as "no bluetoth, less space then a Nomad... lame"
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
like all of Apple's recent products, it will 'Just Work'.
You mean like the ROKR? Apple fans are always quick to disavow that one as though Apple had never touched it.
It will be a hybrid iPod/cell phone/PDA with no sacrifices in functionality, compared to carrying around three separate devices.
Wouldn't a lack of 3G be a sacrifice in functionality?
As Jobs mentioned in his keynote, the price is still cheaper than buying a smartphone and iPod Nano separately.
Well, you can buy a Pocket PC phone for $2-300 and drop in an SD card to hold music and movies, so I'm not sure what a Nano would bring to the party.
saying they don't think the iPhone is that great and probably won't sell that well. I think this is perhaps the Telstra exec being a little miffed at being treated differently and taking the fight public. I'll bet someone like Vodafone or Three will be the exclusive carrier in Australia. They can see the value of products like the iphone in getting more subscribers away from Telstra.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If you'd bought the full, unlocked, version of the phone you have, you'd still have paid considerably less than the $500 needed for the Apple phone - and the T-Mobile branding, locked-out features, etc, would be gone.
"You also seem to have left out Windows Mobile in your list of companies that you seem to think don't know how to make a user interface. People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use."
That's why Vista's UI is so great, right? I've seen it on several machines now, and it's a freaking mess.
"It is people like you that forget the rest of us have been using Windows Mobile and even Motorola 'user interfaces' on our phones for SEVERAL years, playing our music, using our bluetooth, playing our movies, and also accessing the internet at near DSL speeds, with the latter being something the iPhone can't even do."
Did you completely miss my point? I realize that these things are all technically possible on Windows Mobile and Motorola devices - the point is that the interfaces are lousy. I guess it's a matter of opinion - but I know a lot of people share mine.
"If Apple is the God of user interfaces, then why do they continue to copy good ideas and try to promote them as their own, you know like the iPod?"
Again, you're missing the point. What did the iPod copy, other than the idea of an MP3 player? The iPod was a success because of the user interface, and solid design that felt good in your hand. People like to whine about the marketing and 'cool' factor, but the iPod was popular long before the ads, and long before it became a fashion accessory, because of how good the UI was.
"
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first."
So, that's the best Microsoft UI innovation you could think of?
And you don't think that the iPhone represents a new user-interface paradigm, with the multi-touch screen and all?
"Take the Menu bar, and how many users just don't get the 'multi-application' usage concept because the flipping bar confuses them, so they close and flip between applications."
Ever heard of Fitt's Law? There's a very good reason for putting the menu bar at the top of the screen - it makes it much easier to 'hit' the menus with your mouse, because the mouse stops at the top of the screen. Compare this to windows, where you have to hit a target of about 20 pixels or so to select a menu. I suppose it might not be completely intuitive, but in the long term it is a much better solution.
"If you are a CS major at MIT, then my faith in the next generation has been destroyed."
I'm crushed.
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It just isn't happening with Cingular or T-Mobile, which could explain Apple's problem. If they want to release a 3G phone in the US, it'd only make sense to release a CDMA phone, but then they wouldn't be able to sell it in Europe. This way, they can sell it to a bunch of Americans out of the gate who don't know any better, and then sell it in Europe once they have 3G support ready.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
"You phone companies don't know nuthin' about proper phones, not like Apple does."
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Believe it or not, there are many de-facto standards in the mobile phone industry. One of the most famous is the voice mail icon.
Your whole rant makes it apparent you don't understand what visual voice mail is. It's not iBiff. It's, well, voicemail that is visual - as in, you get to see a list of all voice mails you have currently waiting, and then you can choose to listen to any one you like, in any order.
Now of course this is not a new thing to phones, IP phones in particualr. But the cell phone industry? They support nothing like it today. To actually be able to randomly access voice mail is, in 2006, apparently a startling concept to cell phone network providers.
Making an unlocked phone doesn't mean being forced to limit yourself to the documented features of GSM. You can implement whatever the hell you want, and let the carriers decide what they're going to implement.
And the carriers can laugh at you, and the feature is useless. Apple cannot realistically build a phone, and then release it "hoping" that all (or any) of the ideas they have get implemented. They have to make a polished device first, so that people wll actually want to buy one. If they did not the cell industry would seek to kill it fearing Apple would gain too much power. Far easier to play to the greed of a single carrier and get them to do what is needed.
The Linux phone is basically taking the path you advocate. But I really do not think it would ever be in a position to dictate new network features the way Apple currently is by basically taking hold of a carrier and shaking some sense into a very stagnant industry who really doesn't understand device development. I say that as a user of various cell phones for years, which are uniformly horrible in day to day use. The Linux phone would eventually be better but it would always be limited in potential by what the carriers allowed. I am thinking the Linux phone will eventually be able to make use of the same features that are being added for the iPhone.
Also Apple is not just supporting visual voice mail, but also push email from Yahoo and perhaps other things we have not heard of yet. Allowing Apple to help design user-oriented improvements to the network is something that eventually will improve all phones, not just the iPhone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You need to start using some better phones. I've had a lot of mobile phones (as we call them in the UK) but a landmark was the Ericsson T68 that I bought back in 2002. The user interface was awesome and remains to this day on the SonyEricsson phones I've been buying ever since. The UI honestly couldn't be any easier to use.
I think the OP was trying to make was that this sort of phone won't be popular in Europe or the East because, although it looks nice, it's expensive and lacking features. It's also been mentioned that we won't be getting it for a long time - so it'll be even more out of date by the time it arrives.
On the 12 month contract I've got with Vodafone at the moment, I was presented with a wide range of free, or very nearly free, handsets that all have wonderful UIs, all had 3G (this is important to me - I do a lot of mobile data), all had good cameras (taking pictures can be fun), all had bluetooth 2.0 (a novelty I'm told in the US) and many had WiFi.
The competition's hot here - when I renew my contract people are keen that I don't go elsewhere - I often pay less than the advertised price for handsets, I often get a bunch of free accessories and additions to my monthly call/text/data quotas, there's often a load of half price stuff too. And the UIs are always great.
It's cheap, it's good; there's a healthy competition in the European market place, my phone is very easy to use, even if I've drunk far too much. Why would I want to spend a lot of money, and be tied into a 2 year contract, on an iPhone? For a good UI? Errm... The world looks much better without Steve Job's cock in your mouth.
Jobs himself said, shortly after the iPhone launch, that you can buy applications for the iPhone - they will just be tightly controlled by Apple, probably similar to the games for the iPod today (and there is speculation games on the iPod were actually a was to test delivery of software via iTunes which is how the iPhone is updated as well).
Frankly I also think users will be able to move Dashcode creations onto the iPhone, I would be very surprised if that was not the case. For me that eliminates a lot of the need for custom applications.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think Jobs figured he could best manipulate the loosened moving ground under the feet of Cingular. With AT&T swallowing them, it seems like managment might have had a "nothing to lose" frame of mind when they agreed to Jobs' terms. I'm sure the tone amongst the execs at Cingular and AT&T was not too unlike an episode of "Survivor" where alliances and rivalries can make or break your chance to stay when it comes time to let people go.
Say what you want about Jobs—but he's no dummy. I'm pretty sure he was eyeballing the players and muttering to himself like that kicker in Waterboy:
"Who's it gonna be? Who's it gonna be? Who's it gonna be? [Chuckling] 0h, yeah. There's my bitch."
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Ken Kutaragi: Our product is so good we want the whole industry to bend over backwards, kiss our ass, then take a good old anal reaming and for our customers to pay $600 for our product.
Slashdot: Arrogant asshole.
Steve Jobs: Our product is so good we want the whole industry to bend over backwards, kiss our ass, then take a good old anal reaming and for our customers to pay $600 for our product.
Slashdot: OMG!!1! you are such a massive visionary. please come here and ream me right now.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Jobs did not say you could not install any software. Jobs said that he thought you'd be able to buy software for the iPhone but it would be tightly controlled, probably to a very select few third parties.
However, look at what software people usually buy. The smart phone owners I know are mostly buying software to replace the software that comes with the phone! Apple has a good track record of actually bundling software you would want to use instead of replace.
Add on top of that constant web availability and I'm not sure custom apps are as mandatory a feature as they once were.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Regardless if the product is a stinker it will sell well, because its Apple.
The Cube?
Case closed, on your argument.
People buy Apple products when they work well. Over the past few years Apple has done a good job at producing products that work well for people. It's amazng how sales follow when you build something that works.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Making an unlocked phone doesn't mean being forced to limit yourself to the documented features of GSM. You can implement whatever the hell you want, and let the carriers decide what they're going to implement.
The general way of making a deal with another partner is "you do this for me, and I'll do that for you". Apple got a percentage of the monthly profits, complete say over the look-and-feel of the phone, goodies like the 'visual voicemail' you deride, the most-widespread cellular operator, and for that, they had to tie the phone to the network and give 5 years exclusivity for that model.
I also think you're missing the point of the visual voicemail - you can't just implement it on the *phone*... you need carrier-support to do this, or you'd have to download every message and store locally - yuk.
And the idea of "configuring a hack" isn't something that sits well with Apple DNA - the phone will "just work". That's pretty much one of the selling points for the vast majority of people who don't know how to apply a "hack" to a phone, and don't want to know, for that matter.
In any event, from your comments, it looks as though an iPhone isn't for you. So don't buy one - I just don't get why you're so upset over it. You're obviously not the target market... I do wonder if every time an advert comes on TV for something you don't want, you go on such an invective-fuelled rant though. Must be fun around your house!
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Edge was a way better choice than 3G for the iPhone - in the US.
Here most people would be using the more data intensive features around WiFi connections which will be way faster than 3G.
For the rest of the time, you need a decent level of connectivity that will work in as many places as possible. 3G is still not deployed in a number of major metropolitan areas of the US. I can't get 3G where I live, but I can get Edge, and there are a lot of people who can say that.
Apple also said already they would consider different needs for other markets. So for europe, 3G support makes far more sense and will probably replace Edge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use. Please don't try and defend the Windows Mobile interface as being "easy to use". Sure it works and can do some powerful things...but it's not very intuitive, it's cluttered, and a pain to use for the average user.
Spam is the essence of evil.
_Mediocre_ as compared to what? Show some stats and pricing. You clod, what's your story? Apple crapped out a black box overnight and picked a price from a hat? Why don't you look at the damned features and compare to similar smart phones in the same price range.
Look at a N73 MSRP $699.
Or a N80, MSRP $799
Now look back at the iPhone expected MSRP $499 & $599
MEDIOCRE?
I'm sure they're all fine phones, but FFS show some respect, the iPhone as it is now is a pretty good damned shot at the competition.
Is it true that the iPhone will only have 1 button?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Well, a 'good' user interface is very subjective, and even OSX has many carry over design flaws that were good in the 80s but are quite outdated today, yet Apple still sells the concepts as 'easy' or the 'best'. Take the Menu bar, and how many users just don't get the 'multi-application' usage concept because the flipping bar confuses them, so they close and flip between applications.
.03% of the whole phone market, but we are so uber cool because we know how to pair devices that no-one else matters and therefore do not exist"
Translation -" I know nothing about UI design, and are pleased to advertised the level of my ignorance."
You also seem to have left out Windows Mobile in your list of companies that you seem to think don't know how to make a user interface. People can hate Windows concepts and MS, sure, but MS spends a lot of money with real people to ensure their crap is easy to use.
Translaton - " I have no imaginaton that an interface could actually be better than Windows crammed into a tiny screen. "It was good enough for granpa, it's good enough for me!""
Oh, and Windows Mobile has been around for quite a while now, and with 6.0 pushes the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity far beyond anything Apple has promised for the iPhone.
Translation - "6.0 offers a lot of cool advanced features, which people have already been using for some time via third party add-ons because it takes so long for Microsoft to design a good UI. I will acknowledge Visual Voicemail as a cool feature when Microsoft supports it in Windows Mobile 9.0"
It is people like you that forget the rest of us have been using Windows Mobile and even Motorola 'user interfaces' on our phones for SEVERAL years, playing our music, using our bluetooth, playing our movies, and also accessing the internet at near DSL speeds, with the latter being something the iPhone can't even do.
Translation - "The "Rest of Us" is
If Apple is the God of user interfaces, then why do they continue to copy good ideas and try to promote them as their own, you know like the iPod?
Translation - "I did not realize the iPhone had a totally different interface than the iPhone, and to me multi-touch is what I do at home in bed with my Windows Mobile device".
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first.
Translation - "I am annoyed that Apple not only copies UI elements but improves on them, so I will prtend they are UI pirates and bring nothing to the table."
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You mean like the ROKR? Apple fans are always quick to disavow that one as though Apple had never touched it.
Oh, Apple touched it - and found out what happens when you let tradition cell-phone design take place. Not even Apple can come up with a usable device through the process. This of course dispells the notion that people buy things just because APple is involved with them - people buy Apple devices when the work well, not when they suck.
Notice they were able to learn from thier mistake, which is what the article is really about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do tell us, how many?
And how long before the law suits start?
3...2...1...
qz
Who makes unlocked unbranded versions of nearly all of their phones? Well, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, HTC and Palm...off the top of my head. But, they're only like 95% of the market, so, who knows.
Sure. Some of their phones are only available branded. If you want a Blackjack or a Dash -- you're going to have to get a Cingular branded or TMobile branded phone. If you want an unbranded Samsung i607, or 320n instead of a "Blackjack" then get one. Same goes for any HTC Excalibur that someone rebadged and sold carrier specific.
www.myworldphone.com -- if you want one of a hundred resellers of unbranded unlocked phones.
Contrary to popular opinion, "Good User interface" does not mean "Identical to what Windows users are accustomed to." Dissociating windows and applications makes as much sense today as it did in the '80s. Mimicking the MS Windows paradigm is not a path to superior user experience.TheNetAvenger is making a ridiculous assertion. Cancel or Allow?
If Apple is the God of user interfaces and that is what you see as them doing well, why don't they actually create a new user interface paradigm, yet the new concepts for UI come from the OSS world and even MS. Remember this the next time you drag and drop text in a document, MS did it first.Yup. If they did it first....I guess that would mean NeXT did it zeroth. Sure.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Sorry. I just did a search for cell and/or phone(s) in the DMCA. No mention. Please quote your sources.
qz
It would have 12 buttons, and make phone calls... and would be waterproof, have a huge freakin battery, and survive a fall from a low flying airplane. Why are no companies making the kind of cell phone I want? No MP3 player, no alarm clock, no text messaging, but broadcast a signal strong enough to stop your grandpa's pace maker, and heavy enough to be used as a meelee weapon in a bar fight!
I want the civilian version of this:
http://home.att.net/~wd0giv/Phones/ta838.jpg
Then the high speed access or HDSPA if they have it will only work with iTunes...
That is how it seems to be happening in Japan. Ultra high speed but all you want plans only work if you access through iMode (pay services) and high speed access is marketed as the way to get music and video. (well in addition to digital terrestrial broadcast, though from what I've seen it's not so impressive content-wise).
If you want to access an arbitrary Internet site you are going to the poorhouse. I want to get an HDSPA card for a new mac laptop but it might just be too expensive.
A nice choice is the little PHS Willcom WinCE phone with real pushbuttons. Not as big a keyboard as other models in the line and the screen is tiny, but it has a GUI and apparently you can add arbitrary apps. PHS network is cheaper too.
Call me when the iPhone comes with an all you can eat IP connectivity plan at hdspa speeds and embed a limited range airport in it (say within 10 feet) and give me real pushbuttons, and I'm there!
The iphone is $499 and $599 with a 2 year plan that likely needs a high cost data plan. The other phones do not need a plan at the price.
Not optimal, but hardly painful. Using today's codecs, I could get several minutes of VM (which is far more than you're likely to get) into under 100kb. Even on an EDGE network, that data transfer could be as little as four seconds. Less, when you factor in that unless it's due to non-connectivity (ie if you go silent in a meeting, etc), it's going to flow in as received, not as a batch.
100kb? So? My last two phones came factory (not provider) bundled with 512mb of memory.
I pay $19.95 for unlimited data. And I use multiple megabytes a day.
My partner and I pay $20 for unlimited text messaging (for each of us).
You did an amazing job of missing his point. The comment had zero to do with "being able to hit the menu bar", it had to do with the one menu bar changing "context" based on the application. It's actually quite an odd concept to grasp... you're working away on an app, you change focus, you see the app window come to fore, so there's a change there - that's noticeable. Nothing has really changed (especially with commonality of many application's menus, made even worse by 'cohesive UI guidelines') on the menu, so you don't immediately notice that the menu has changed.
Hint: most phones these days come with at least 512mb of memory. Sure, not iPod sized, but expandable to 2GB+. Sony has the W810, a pretty accomplished "walkman" phone. Nokia has the N91, with 4GB of drive space, a neat interface, and a 3G phone. And so on, and so on and so on. That's not to mention the global PDA market.
Another hint: most people know how to connect their phone to their PC. It's called mini USB. Know how I know they know how to do this? It's the same method as an iPod.
By Steve's own estimations of "1 million phones sold in a year" (which is a stretch, I think), the phone that'll have .03% of the phone market is the iPhone, not the rest of us who *gasp* have phones that can do everything the iPhone can (yeah yeah visual voicemail *yawn*), and in many cases, have had for quite a while (N91 came out a year ago, W810 more than).
then watch the Steve Jobs keynote at MacWorld. Or more specifically, fast forward to 1:34:35 and watch Stan Sigman, the CEO of Cingular Wireless. Two things struck me. The first was his admission that they entered into the contract with Apple without ever seeing the device. I mean, damn, that's a sales job. And the second was my general expression that he just seemed like such a fish out of water at MacWorld. The way he consulted his note cards, his stilted delivery, his tilt towards marketing over technology, and so forth. Mr. Sigman is an old-time phone company wonk, and it showed.
For what it's worth.. I can text message my carrier, and get a text message back that is a list of all voice mails I've got, date+time, number, etc. All I -then- have to do is text back whether I want to listen to the voicemail (their machine will dial me and play it back), delete it, etc.
Now - granted - it's not in a fancy interface. That said.. it's text messages. It's a very basic operation. This can easily be done through a front-end that -does- implement a fancy interface.
It's not new, and definitely doesn't require some major change to the networks. It'll be more efficient that way, for sure, but that's about the extent of it.
Of course, even better is that I can just GPRS onto the web, log into my carrier's website, and manage my voicemails from there. Now all of a sudden I can do it from my phone, from the library, from my home... anywhere.
visual voice mail... *yawn*
...and replacing them with a different proprietor? That's, at best, just switching masters, not freedom.
Digital Citizen
I think you read that John Gruber post a few too many times ;)
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Comparing the unlocked Nokia equipment to the heavily operator subsidised and rebated iPhone! Oh, so funny! What do you think Cingular gave in order for that exclusivity deal? Hint: a little more than "visual voice mail". Let's hunt for some subsidised Nokia prices, shall we: Hey look, Cingular sells the E62. Price: $349. Do you pay $349? Fuck me! You don't! You pay $99!
Face it, you screwed up here. Thinking that there is not going to be some visible or invisible carrier rebate, as there is on every single other phone on the market because it's the all-holy iPhone is laughable is bad enough. Using that to try to deride other phones as being more expensive than the iPhone when you deliberately quote the unlocked, unbranded MSRP is even worse.
Exactly half of people make less than the median income (by definition) and since intelligence is on a bell curve, exactly half of people have average intelligence or less.
The cake is a pie
I understood his point just fine - my point was the usability (as opposed to intuitiveness) benefits of placing the menubar at the top of the screen make up for the slight chance of confusing new users.
OS X makes his point a little less valid as well, since every application's name appears as the first item in the menubar.
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Yeah, because it's strictly inconceivable that he might say such a thing, knowing that it might impress the Appleheads into saying "wow! i gotta have one!" (even more so), meaning more customers for Stan. No! He wouldn't do such a thing! Hint: MacWorld, and most other corporate presentations, are heavily scripted, not the place where a candid "admission" is made by a CEO that his publicly-listed company entered into a multi-billion contract without being very sure of every last detail of the transaction.
Another hint: most people know how to connect their phone to their PC. It's called mini USB. Know how I know they know how to do this? It's the same method as an iPod.
Yes, and how do you transfer files to it? Either you drag files manually into weirdly laid-out folders, or you have to use some kind of flaky, slow, ugly application the manufacturer had some moron throw together, with bitmapped graphics all over the place.
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Let me say this again - it doesn't matter that your phones could technically do everything the iPhone can. The point is that the iPhone will make it simple, straightforward and easy.
It's like you're saying that all cars are the same because they can all get you to your destination, will keep you hot or cold, and will let you play the radio. Never mind how fast they accelerate, what the fuel mileage is, how well the AC works, how good the speaker system is, how reliable it is. A Kia Rio and a BMW 335i _technically_ have many of the same features - why would anyone buy the BMW?
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Here's one such article.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
All that is happening is going from carriers that lock down your phone to Apple doing it. Any one who believes otherwise is an Apple fanboi that has his head too far up Steve Jobs' orifice.
Why people even still talk about him amazes me. He is basically an emotionally unstable and fiscally irresponsible version of Bill Gates. Steve Jobs is responsible.. for the fact that Apple will never regain the foothold it once had in computing. The guy has made nothing but negative contributions to Apple including driving away key employees and getting himself fired in the process.
So when the man speaks.. the world need not listen. Lets just see what iPhone can do. I'm very confident it will not do well it's first or 2nd generation. Like MS's first xbox Apple will have to use their money and industry leverage in other areas to keep the product alive until it can really be profitable. The big challenge here is simply keeping up with the cell phone market, which has to be one of the faster moving tech markets out there, especially from a global perspective.
Is the iPhone really a good enough phone to justify it's costs. Set aside all the fancy extras, because that's what they are, extras. Do people really want a simplified PDA for more than the cost of a PDA? Why didn't apple go right for the Pocket PC market instead of constantly selling their platform as a closed appliance. What the fuck are they doing anyway? Since Tiger and the Ipod Apple has done shit and this is probably their biggest opportunity since before Windows 3.1 was released. The video Ipod and the newer Ipods are all more or less dying markets. Trendy and effective gadgets yes, but a reasonable additions to a persons life.. not really. Plus they offer little to no quality features, but rather rely on the idea that everyone wants a all in one super gadgets that performs at less quality than competing solutions and costs more.
Face it a portable DVD player is where the smart money is. And.. while the iPod is a nice self contained device. An audio player that plays mp3z on DVD is more practical an probably will last longer. The iPod is a trick. It should be emulating a media type, but instead it IS a media type. I do like the Zune's sharing feature much better because of this proble. While it's 'kewl' to have a 30 gig iPod, most people don't have music collections that large and if you want video get a DVD player with a MUCH larger screen for far less money.
Unless your gadget must be as small as possible the iPod is a bad choice as are any devices that store music on proprietary media and/or formats. Something like a mini HD DVD player would be far better for the market because you could pop it out and load in another 20 gigs in a second or share the discs with your friends easily without tedious data transfers and such. Plus then instead of having retarded ideas like stereos that iPods plug into thereby using the finite lifetime of your overpriced portable gadget as a replacement for swappable media driven stereo. This might not matter if iPods were known for their longevity, but more realistically they are known for their recalls and Apple's strategy of denial when it comes to fulfilling warranty support.
Songs on discs always made more sense. Thats why I bought a walkman style cd player that simple reads mp3z. It cost 20-30 bucks at walmart and I use it just as much as my GF uses her iPod but it costs like 1/10 the price and my music is organized better since it's by CD and her is always being reshuffled.
Basically I've come the conclusion that for value and practical use iPods are really only a smart buy when they are absolutely necessary such as for someone who must listen to music while jogging or working out at the gym where you can't have a normal stereo and/or the walkman is too bulky since your moving around a lot.
However if you recall back in the caveman days we all used to deal with those massive walkmans by slipping them into a pocket or such. Sure maybe you can't slip the walkman into your belt, but thats not safe for the iPod and you look like a total dork anyway.
Most people I've seen who get ipods.. mostly kids stop using them after a couple months or maybe a year or two. In todays work
So Apple is embracing and extending voice mail and it's ok? Cuz when Microsoft does it y'all piss your panties in frustration.
The difference is that Microsoft takes an exsting working standard, and adds a proprietary microsoft bit to it to make it slightly different and slightly incompatible. It's usually not a great advance over what exists already, it's just enough to provide lockin.
Whereas what Apple is doing is overhauling voice mail. There's nothing there to extend really. And when they are done the carrier will have an ability implemented that OTHER phones will be able to make use of, rather the exact opposite of lockin.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are there any other features that require Cingular on the iPhone? I hate to think we're justifying the decision to lock the iPhone on a single feature most people could care less about.
i would bet that there are - I'm not sure but the Yahoo push-mail may be one of them as well. I am also thinking if there are not others already there will be as Apple comes up with other ideas to make phone use easier.
Lockin was a sad nessecity to allow innovation to proceed at a reasonable pace in the cell phone carrier market we have today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes phones today come with lots of expansion capability - that only the most technical users make use of.
They also can sync via USB or even bluetooth to computers. Yet people hardly sync anything over this connection. The more advanced among us actually make use of address books and contact lists.
But wouldn't it be great if many more people could make use of a lot of storage and computer syncing through an interface they use today? iTunes phone syncing means that a lot more people will be able to access features that really only the most technically inclined people use today.
Now here's the real aspect of the phone that will propel popularity, yet is hardly mentioned - the dock. In a world rife with iPod friendly accessories, no one feature of the iPhone is quite as immediatleey useful as the standard iPod dock connector it sports. It will be able to charge in the car with chargers people already own. If that isn't a first for amobile phone, I don't know what is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I will admit that was a source of inspiration for the whole reply.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is the look of a mac fanboy rationalizing getting himself raped in the ass by his idol. Everyone look, isn't it sad how they live?
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Oh, and Windows Mobile has been around for quite a while now, and with 6.0 pushes the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity far beyond anything Apple has promised for the iPhone. As someone who's developed on a product that used Windows Mobile (and still owns a few units...) I can't help but laugh at this. Windows Mobile is anything BUT easy to use. "Pushing the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity", yes, perhaps the envelope of poor design and badly implemented functionality...
Most of europe had gone to an all digital network in the early 90s - I believe you can still find areas of the US that still only have analog service. Nationwide 3G is still a pipe dream.
The US services do seem considerably cheaper. We pay about US $90/mo for two lines, 1000 "any-network" minutes, free calls to other T-Mo subscribers, unlimited edge data, unlimited hotspot access and subsidizied phones. Each of our phone numbers is also a local number which is free for any local landline to call.
When i last lived in the UK the per-minute costs were stifiling (particularly to other cell networks) and data was pretty expensive too.
Or you're a Verizon customer, you pay them 25 cents to put it on a web page, which you then screenscrape.
Maybe just me, but I'm failing to see what's so weirdly laid-out about this...
Apple could have made the iPhone into the perfect unlocked, carrier-independent phone. They could have created a platform on which people can install OS X "light" software. They could have provided carrier-dependent software like "visual voice mail" as small, add-on applications (preinstalled if you buy the phone from your carrier).
Instead, it looks like you won't be able to buy an unlocked iPhone at all, or even use it with different carriers. And you can't install anything on it. Given its price, that's really an outrage.
I don't want Jobs controlling what my phone does or how it does it anymore than Cingular.
Yes, and you could ONLY buy a phone from one of their special stores, and you had to have a credit reference just to get started (which was a lot harder back then). Your choice of phones was limited too.
And let's not forget that we wouldn't have broadband. The Carriers fought DSL tooth-and-nail just to protect their absurd pricing on their T1 lines. You'd be lucky to have ISDN by now.
Suddenly, it doesn't look so peachy anymore, does it?
You remind me of the old folks in Russia who still long for Stalin and the other leaders of Communism.
Ever heard of Fitt's Law? There's a very good reason for putting the menu bar at the top of the screen - it makes it much easier to 'hit' the menus with your mouse, because the mouse stops at the top of the screen. Compare this to windows, where you have to hit a target of about 20 pixels or so to select a menu. I suppose it might not be completely intuitive, but in the long term it is a much better solution. ...
That's why Vista's UI is so great, right? I've seen it on several machines now, and it's a freaking mess.
So if hitting the menu on an appliation is too hard and you need the edge of the screen to find it, then maybe you should try Vista, it is virtually menu free, a paradigm even easier than the dated menu concepts still in use on OSX. Or even really blow your mind, try Office 2007, again no menu and a nice large ribbon to find (that can auto-hide if it gets in your way). (And being Menu-free or using a Ribbon are neither MS nor Apple innovations.)
I can't believe you actually had the guts to defend the Apple menu bar that is carried over from 'UI Innovations' of 1983 in an argument about how Apple's UI is always better and 'more' innovative. Either it is guts or you just don't get it.
Did you completely miss my point? I realize that these things are all technically possible on Windows Mobile and Motorola devices - the point is that the interfaces are lousy. I guess it's a matter of opinion - but I know a lot of people share mine
I actually didn't. There are lot of people that actually do like the UIs on some of these devices and is also a reason for their success, even the Motoral Razr has nice easy interface with voice activated dialing that is a great selling point for users.
So Windows Mobile 6.0 is a lousy interface? That is YOUR opinion, and considering it hasn't even been released, I kind of doubt you have used it.
Even PalmOS has some 'innovative' ideas that made it a success and a success on Phones years ago.
Oh, and there is the fact people can develop applications for not only the dated PalmOS, but Windows Mobile and even JAVA or Brew applications for MOST phones, again something the iPhone won't be able to do.
Considering I have been using 3G and other high speed cellular techology from my phone for OVER 3 years now, it is frankly SCARY that Apple thinks its users will want to try to browse the web, download songs or do anything on their phone at barely better than dial up speeds.
So when you are using your shiny iPhone, and notice the guy in the corner of Starbucks watching TV or streaming a movie on their cellphone, don't be jealous. Just remind yourself that Apple is so innovative, they know better than the other companies and you can remind yourself you didn't want TV or Movies because Apple told you so.
So, that's the best Microsoft UI innovation you could think of?
Ya, that is only one I could think of, what a great counter-argument.
Oh wait there is also the concept of select and modify, so next time you highlight some text and then change the Font/Color/Size/etc, think of MS, again they did it first.
Do you think it is just possible that I might be using rather simplistic examples of 'innovative' concepts in UI usage that is littered THROUGHOUT any modern GUI based OS?
Geesh...
Please don't try and defend the Windows Mobile interface as being "easy to use". Sure it works and can do some powerful things...but it's not very intuitive, it's cluttered, and a pain to use for the average user.
A. That is your opinion
B. Since we haven't seen Apple's ideas, they could be far worse.
C. There is also the new Windows Mobile 6.0 and I doubt you have used it.
However, I am not here to tell everyone how great Windows Mobile is.
I would just as easily defend the UI on a Motorola Razr or V710 or V815, they are all easy to use, can watch movies, play MP3s, and have voice recognition so you NEVER EVEN NEED TO TOUCH the keypad of the phone. Oh, and you can also stream Movies and Live TV on them too, something again iPhone won't be able to do.
And THESE are all examples of fairly OLD PHONEs and old UIs in terms of when they were released.
Innovation is more than a patented 'multi-touch' display. Apple is good at some things but UI innovation has NOT been their bag for a LONG LONG time.
Translation -" I know nothing about UI design, and are pleased to advertised the level of my ignorance."
Odd, when Netscape wanted to hire me in 1999 to be a lead on their UI team, they seemed to think my knowledge was pretty good.
Although I do admit I'm glad I didn't move to take the job.
This is one of the times that your assumptions about people are about as far off as you could get. Go look up a couple of projects called X11 and Motif, you will find my name in the documentation.
Contrary to popular opinion, "Good User interface" does not mean "Identical to what Windows users are accustomed to." Dissociating windows and applications makes as much sense today as it did in the '80s. Mimicking the MS Windows paradigm is not a path to superior user experience.
Wow, you nailed that out of the park. That is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make. (gag)
This is about Apple, I never said MS or Windows were the holy grail of UI, nor did I imply that they were even great.
So do you assume when someone talks about an OS paradigm that doesn't have a locked single menu bar at the top, they COULD ONLY be talking about Windows?
I think you need to look around at other OSes, you just might be surprised that most DO NOT use the OLD SINGLE MENU metaphor, and many are even getting away from Menus all together.
As someone who's developed on a product that used Windows Mobile (and still owns a few units...) I can't help but laugh at this. Windows Mobile is anything BUT easy to use. "Pushing the envelope of mobile usage and connectivity", yes, perhaps the envelope of poor design and badly implemented functionality...
As for pushing the envelope, I was specifically talking abot Windows Mobile 6.0, and if you have ALREADY developed a product for it or even used it, I will be a bit shocked, because that means you work at MS since it is NOT Released yet.
Besides Windows Mobile is just one example of the point I was trying to make, and also note that you 'did' develop an application on Windows Mobile (if you really did), since this is not something anyone will be 'allowed' to on the iPhone as it might destroy all the cell networks in the world accroding to Jobs. Geesh.
Yes, and how do you transfer files to it? Either you drag files manually into weirdly laid-out folders, or you have to use some kind of flaky, slow, ugly application the manufacturer had some moron throw together, with bitmapped graphics all over the place.
Well on my phone, lets see how hard... I find the song or movie on my computer click on it and then select "Send to Bluetooth Device". I then have to hit the accept button on my phone.
Wow, that is wicked hard, let me see if there is another way.
Oh ya, I can yank the transflash card, I put it in my computer, the window for it pops up, and I just drag my songs and movies to the card.
Ya, the last one is much easier and faster too.
Of course this is an OLD phone from 2004, I'm sure it is probably easier on 'modern' phones. Geesh...
The word of the day for your post is 'daft', you win a prize.
... this is a word almost non existant to much /. readers here ; give a better word which has more functionality please ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Translation - "The "Rest of Us" is .03% of the whole phone market, but we are so uber cool because we know how to pair devices that no-one else matters and therefore do not exist"
.03% because she can put music on her phone.
So dragging a file to the device, the transflash card, or hitting send to bluetooth device is that complicated for the rest of the market?
I will be happy to inform my non-techie aunt that she is a super tech genius in the top
Of course she only as a 2GB card, so she isn't quite as hip or a tech genius as my mom with her 8gb transflash device on her phone.
iPhone nerds act like this is the first freaking device to offer storage or music and other COMBINED features with a freaking phone. There IS a reason Windows Media PLAYS on Windows Mobile phones, people actually use it. There is a reason my work cell is a Windows Mobile, so I can use Remote desktop and actually operate my computer at my office from my car if I need to. These are NOT new concepts, in fact, freaking OLD ONES, and it scares me that people like you don't realize this.
PS, This is not an 'ad' for Windows Mobile, my aunt and Mom have Motorola phones and are quite happy with the UI, voice dialing, and playing music on them, my second cell phone is also a Motorola Razr.
No, nobody gets to screw the customer. You can always choose not to buy their crap, if it's that bad.
However, I wonder why Steve calls the network providers orifices. In Germany you can simply buy a phone (why wouldn't you be able to?), or you can get a phone with a phone service contract, and get a rebate on the price (but then you get stupid branding etc.). Or you can get a contract without a phone, but then the contract is a lot cheaper (so you have to see what the price difference between subsidized phone and the phone's market value, say on ebay, is).
With US phone providers, can't you bring your own (old) phone, and is there really no way to buy a cellphone without a service contract? I know you can get non-cell-phones without an AT&T contract for $10 in stores, so why not cellphones?
At least those phone makers who don't have the privilege of being featured in the Cingular subsidized-phone-list should WANT to sell you phones without a contract. On the free market (yes, outlandish concept that one).
Apple's "iPhone" is really an old-style content delivery device. The new frontier is social networking. Check out Helio. Helio integrates Myspace, GPS, and mapping. BuddyBeacon shows where your friends are, on Yahoo maps. Apple has nothing like that.
Helio is a 3G device, too. Music, videos, fast web browsing, and more. Plus stereo Bluetooth - no more dweebish white wires.
Well, I don't know. If I were gonna lie, I'd make up a better one than that.
"Ever heard of Fitt's Law? There's a very good reason for putting the menu bar at the top of the screen - it makes it much easier to 'hit' the menus with your mouse, because the mouse stops at the top of the screen."
I actually like the MacOS menubar, but it does have it's ahare of problems:
- As screen-resolutions increase, the distance between the app-window and the menubar increases
- Related to the point above: multi-monitor setups. I'm working on a window on the secondary monitor. I need to do something with the menu's, what do I do? I need to move the cursor to the top of the primary monitor in order to access the menu.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
You are comparing prices of handsets without contracts (the nokias) with iPhone (including 2 yr. contract). I can get Nokia N70 for ~$100 with one year contract.
It would have 12 buttons, and make phone calls... and would be waterproof, have a huge freakin battery, and survive a fall from a low flying airplane. Why are no companies making the kind of cell phone I want?
... 17 Buttons. (you'll hardly find any less) ... Extremly spraywater resistant. ... Check. ... Check.
Siemens M35i
12 Buttons?
Waterproof?
Survives fall from low flying airplane?
Huge freakin' battery?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Have you actually used any recent Nokias or SE phones? From your comments, I somehow doubt it.
The current range of S40 Nokia handsets have one of the easiest user interfaces on the planet, its no surprise that the range is the best selling around. Any idiot can figure out how to use it.
I'll admit that S60 isn't quite as intuitive, but its still not exactly rocket science to work around. I'm using a Nokia N73, and the UI has hardly changed since the 7650 made its appearance, not necessarily a bad thing, but there are still some config elements in strange places.
However, the king of UI design on mobiles has to be SE. For the last few years their user interface has been slick, consistent, incredibly easy to use, and generally about the most intuitive UI around.
I think you'll find that a lot of people are just happy with a phone that they can call people on, can send text messages on, and has a decent battery life - the last one is an absolute killer for the iPhone, no-one in their right mind would say that a day or twos battery life is usable. Heck, my N73 can just about stretch to 3 days at a push, I do miss my old SE W550, as that was an easy 5-7 days out of a charge, and that was with an hours music, a few text messages/calls per day.
The iPhone prices are NOT subsidised, the 499/599 prices are apparently without any rebates, which does seem a little bizarre, and its not something that I can see happening over in the UK/Europe.
the phone itself will work on any network, but apple have apparently insulted cingular into making a few changes to their network to allow stunt features like visual voicemail to work. no biggie: how many voicemails do you tend to have to deal with at a time?
Tony Montana (heavy Cuban accent): This country first you gotta get the money, then you get the power and when you got the power, then you get the women.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Actually, I have a Nokia N73 that does my ipod/cell phone/PDA functionality all fine and dandy. Plus:
It also runs Tom Tom so quadruples as a GPS unit.
It also handles 3G.
It also syncs nicely with outlook via bluetooth.
Its also got a 3MP camera.
+ it takes a horde of 3rd party symbian apps (some great, some not so good...)
Point being: OK the UI ain't as flash, but I'm used to it now and it doesn't slow me down too much. Sure touch screen would be nice but I'm not taking a cute interface over real functionality.
Since carrying it around I've never looked back, sure it ain't as great an mp3 player as a dedicated player, the camera pics are distinctly iffy compared to a real camera (but blows chunks out of most camera phones mind you, and perfectly adequate for happy snaps). This is the target Apple should be aiming for. There are lots of phones out there that are quite decent MP3 players when u throw in a memory card.
Of course, I'm missing the point as this will not matter one iota to the average non tech user but what the hey, here's one geek whose not buying the hype.
Why he does not wear a shirt... ...... the man hates buttons!!!! :-)
RIM, with their Blackberries, were really the first ones to not allow carriers to screw up their firmware. It's really quite trivial as a normal user to do pretty much whatever you want with a Blackberry (provided you have a data plan).
I am _positive_ that Nextel ran a GSM network, as my phone from a previous employer had a sim in it. So, at the very minimum, Sprint (which, of course, owns Nextel now) runs a dual mode network.
That isn't unheard of: Cingular operates both networks, as well, due to their AT&T Acquisition. They are, however, phasing out the CDMA network.
Are you claiming that there will be no TV or movies on the iPhone? Or are you saying that streaming shows over a cell connection is better than loading up from the iTunes store?
Did you actually understand the gist of the article, how difficult it is to get through the "orifices" to get to the customers? The carriers are (except Cingular when it came to Jobs apparently) in total control of the delivery system, and can demand anything they want from phone manufacturers.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. My point is that these assertions are total bullshit. I've been using unlocked phones on Cingular for many years, and I am using three different unlocked, fully programmable phones right now. Not only do they work on Cingular, they also work in other countries on other carriers with other SIM cards when I travel. And I can (and do) load many different applications on them. And when you buy a locked Cingular phone, you can easily have it unlocked.
I think Verizon and Sprint try to exercise more control, but it's not right to lump Cingular in there.
So, Jobs didn't free users from carrier control, he is trying to establish control over users, with a totally overpriced and feature-deprived phone.
Well golly gee willikers, don't buy one then!
I won't. And I'm trying to convince others not to buy the iPhone either, since I think Apple's behavior should be discouraged and punished by the market. Once they come out with an unlocked, programmable iPhone, then it's maybe worth looking at it again.
Which country is that in?
In the UK I couldn't get service nearly that cheap.
Granted it would be nice if the US would let you just buy airtime from the cheapest bidder, but the current packaging system works out well for me.
Also I consider the fact that I pay for incoming calls to be a HUGE bonus. In the UK you pretty much need a landline to take business calls, new customers are much less likely to make a call that costs them 10x what a local call would. In the US it's virtually impossible for someone to tell whether you gave them a cellphone or a landline.
I'm interested to know if you really can beat this package and annual spend
* 2 lines
* 700 shared peak any-network minutes per month
* unlimited minutes to subscribers on the same network
* unlimited nights/weekend minutes
* Nokia 3166
* T-Mobile Dash (Actually an HTC Excalibur, Feel free to substitute any Windows Smartphone with Built in Wifi & Bluetooth)
* Unlimited GPRS/Edge Data
* Unlimited Access to T-Mobile Hotspot Network (worth US$20/mo)
Total annaul spend of about $1180 (including the phones). We're also in the fortuitous situation where virtually every single family member and work collegue that we call on a regular basis is also a T-Mobile subscriber - as a result we regularly use 1000 free minutes in addition to maybe 500 of our plan mintutes.
I'm not saying you can't beat that in another country, but i'd be surprised if you could do siginificantly better
What Apple does is say "if you buy DRM content from iTunes, you can only play it on an iPod." What cell phone providers say is "You can only buy your phone from us, and we'll cripple it in any way we see fit." You are certainly free to put your own content in non-DRM formats on the iPod you bought, no matter store you buy it from. You might have a point if buying your iPod from Wal-Mart meant that you got an iPod with mp3 support removed but support for some Wal-Tunes proprietary format instead, but that's not the case, so you have no point.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
There is a pretty good reason that network carriers lock down handsets. If they are absorbing fairly hefty subsidies on each piece of hardware sold then they need to have some reasonable certainty that they are going to see that money back. If that means locking their customers into using their services then of course they are going to do that.
It's not like you can't buy a non-subsidised, unlocked, SIM-free phone and just go to a carrier for a connection and do what you like with it. You pay your money and you take your choice.
I came from a windows and linux, solaris, X11, etc. background and I am trained to stop at a certain vertical position to select a menu item (unless of course I know the keyboard shortcuts - and on a Mac I certainly don't, yet.). I am still doing this on the Mac but now realize I don't have to. Cool.
Thanks!
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
Odd, when Netscape wanted to hire me in 1999 to be a lead on their UI team, they seemed to think my knowledge was pretty good.
Netscape and UI?
You're really not helping your case.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple is so "in tune" with what computer users want, it has captured a whopping 5% of the total market!
FIVE PER CENT!
Forgive me if I don't rush out to get an iPhone - which I can onlyuse with one carrier - and only use "permitted" software on. I'll stick with my phone that doubles as a PDA and has web and email capability already built-in. WiFi, too.
And it cost way less then Jobs' model, to boot.
Agreed on that point.
What makes Apple products and UIs special is that they don't give the customer what they ask for... they give them what they want. Apple studies how people do things, and then develop interfaces that help the user accomplish tasks without getting in the way. Usually, this means coming up with a completely new paradigm (like the touch wheel on the iPod). Once you get over the initial shock of "hey, this isn't what I asked for" and accept the UI design on its own merits, you see that a lot of thought went into it, and it really is better. Other engineering companies have done similar things in the past (the Blender Foundation comes to mind), but they are rare in the industry.
People who dislike Apple interfaces are the same types of people who focus more on doing it their way than on doing it a better way. Apple may be called a lot of things, but "poor engineers" is most definitely not one of them.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
You basically just called the guy an idiot. Great argument!
damaged by dogma
Quite the ringing endorsement in these parts.
Just goes to show that some people can put up with anything. My current phone is a Sony Ericsson, and it has, bar none, the worst UI of any device I've ever had the displeasure of being subjected to. I was led to believe that it was one of the better phones when I bought it, so I shudder to think of what the rest of the market has to tolerate. If Sony Ericssons are an example of the better phone UIs, then Jobs is just the man to give the industry a beating with his clue stick.
Well, to my team anyways. (Sitting at Cingular's call centers now)
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
As does everyone I know. I hate voice mail. I really don't care to spend 30 seconds navigating through a damn voice menu just to listen to a 5 second message. Most of the time when I notice I have a missed call, I just call the person back and ignore any voice mail they may have left because the vast majority of voice mails are pointless anyway. This is a great idea, and should have happened years ago.
Actually, LG interfaces are pretty good
Boy, if that isn't proof that YMMV--I was gonna post about how I thought the UI on my LG phone really sucked. What constitutes a good interface is largely in the eyes of the beholder and probably has as much to do with what you are used to as anything else.
This ain't rocket surgery.
The exemptions not specifically mentioned in the statute itself. Application for an exemption is made to the Librarian of Congress, who then makes a ruling as to whether or not the exemption should be granted. The cell phone exemption unlocking was granted in the most recent cycle:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/
Are you claiming that there will be no TV or movies on the iPhone? Or are you saying that streaming shows over a cell connection is better than loading up from the iTunes store?
No they will be on the iPhone, but you will have to run home and load them from your computer unless you want to wait 4hrs to download a video clip.
High speed 3G streaming is VERY common on cell phones for the past 2-3 years. That is why when you buy a new Motorola Razr, you get an ad to sign up for TV services, that stream TV quality video to your phone in REALTIME.
So REALTIME streaming is the key here. Also if you buy a song on your phone, users with 3G phones get the song as fast a someone on DSL, they don't have to use a dial-up comperable speed connection to wait for it to download as you will on the iPhone. Think how long and painful downloading a new album from iTunes at dial-up speeds will be, when others can get the same album on their phone instantly from the music store.
Hope that clears it up.
My hats off to you.
I'm old enough to remember when just about everyone I know remembered dozens of phone numbers without thinking twice about it. It's just what you did back then. Sure you had a phone book with some numbers written down but if you threw together your friends, family, and work you were probably walking around with one to two dozen numbers in your head.
Sure it's nice that technology can help manage phone numbers. It's also nice to be able to remember them when the technology isn't there to do it for you. Standing at a pay phone and being unable to remember your own wifes cell phone number is kind of pitiful. I saw that happen to a coworker one day. I guess he was having a vague fear of his wife giving up on finding us and leaving us at the renaissance festival that day. I wasn't afraid though. I was just pissed.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
The plain fact is, most telecom carrier senior management couldn't find their "orifice" with both hands & a flashlight...
you really expect me to be able to express my opinion of what's so fucked up in this world in 120 characters or less?
Um, pretty much the only thing wrong with the Cube was the pricing. The success of the Mini demonstrates that rather nicely! There have been real Apple lemons.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Um, no you can NOT legally do this.
I challenge you inform all of us how this is legally done.
Um, pretty much the only thing wrong with the Cube was the pricing.
Didn't it also have case cracking problems? It was kind of an interesting idea but it just didn't seem to work out well, too much in-between a desktop and a non-desktop (like the Mac mini, which inetrestingly enough seems to have done very well).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley