Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Locked-in? Yes. Crippled? Well, that's just FUD.
How exactly do you expect Jobs to convince a cell phone company to alter a fundamental feature of its network (voice mail) to support an iPhone-only killer feature (Visual Voice Mail)? In this world you have to give in order to receive. It's why he's a billionaire and you're posting lies on Slashdot.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
tiny nitpick, by definition, 50% of people make less than median income. I think you are confusing median with average.
Apple has said publicly that the phones will be locked, and indeed has described people who unlock phones as "bad guys".
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Besides the touch-screen controls, the iPhone should at least have 2 buttons- the wake/sleep button on top and the home button on the bottom. I can't remember exactly, but there also may be controls for volume.
US telco's (speaking as an Australian who moved to the US in December) are up and down. On one hand, for A$200 (US$175), my wife and I get unlimited time to each other, and each of us to any five land or cellular lines in the US and Canada, unlimited evening time, unlimited weekend time, 2000 additional minutes beyond that, unlimited text messaging, and unlimited data, as well as free WiFi access at any of the provider (T-mobile)'s hotspots. On the other hand, it's amazing how horrible coverage can be. Major suburban centers with /zero/ coverage. Some areas where you roam onto another network (fine, esp. since you don't get charged for it these days), but in my office in Redmond I get nothing, while Cingular and Verizon are fine. Mind you, elsewhere, it's the reverse, and friends with those two ask to use my phone.
Apple claiming that it's morally wrong to unlock a phone (such people are "bad guys") to run on other networks, is going to do that.
Apple didn't claim that. Glenn Lurie of Cingular did.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
What you're looking for is a Motorola i560. "The i560 meets rigorous US Mil Specs for dust, shock, vibration, high and low temperature, low pressure and solar radiation." There's a "Maximum Capacity Battery" option with 5 hours of talk time or 130 hours of standby.
It's available for Nextel.
Please read my comment.
I didn't say Apple should license fairplay, I implied that Apple is not above using proprietary tools to lock out competitors (just like the cell phone companies).
Thank you for pointing out that Microsoft, like Apple and the telcos is not above using proprietary tricks to lock out competition. Do you really think anyone's surprised by that?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Yes, you can buy an unlocked phone, but you'd have to make sure it works with the carrier you'd want to use it on. This works best with GSM phones cause of the sim card (the carrier is not involved with you switching phones). However, non-gsm carriers have to be involved to activate your phone, and ones like Sprint won't turn on any phone that wasn't sold through them.
Also, unless you get an expensive pre-paid phone service, you are still stuck with a 2 year contract. And you don't get a discount on the contract if you bring your own phone, so you might as well get their "free" phone.