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iPhone Release Date Is June 29
willith writes "Apple has placed three iPhone commercials on their Web site today, and each ends with a tag: 'Coming June 29.' This puts to rest the question of when the thing will hit the streets, but there are still worries about allocation — AppleInsider is reporting that the supplies at Cingular/AT&T stores may be relatively tight." And some fanatic sites are already parsing the ads for such enigmas as the "mystery app."
I'm not happy with my cellphone. I have a Treo 700w and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of resetting it at least once per day. I'm tired of a browser that won't actually show a properly rendered page. I'll be glad to get a cell phone with a well designed interface.
The two potentially big problems with it I see are:
1. Lack of tactile feedback in the UI. I.e. you have to look at it and concentrate on the UI to use it.
2. The fragility of the touch screen.
As one /.'er said about the Microsoft Surface "if only it fitted in my shirt pocket.."
I think you're being naive to think that it's hype alone which is fuelling this product launch. There is an actual demand for this kind of tech. Even Microsoft who gets hammered constantly on here, received huge praise for embracing touch interfaces. People want these devices, if you don't that's fine.. but you're going to be considered ignorant for thinking this is redundant technology. I for one have a specific hate for mobile phones today, they come across as utterly clueless to what is ease of use. I have no problem sitting there to learn their silly interfaces, I do have a problem for why they are evidently programmed lazily, excessively complicated to do simple actions, sluggish and with a status quo attitude. There has been minimal advancement in the mobile phone field. Even giant like nokia and sony just rehash their exact same interface across mobile phones. Crude evolutions from their decade old black and white devices. We have the tech now, it's about time a big player started making it widely available. (Unlike the LG Prada phone which, despite having a touch screen, seems to think that finger tips are 3px wide.)
I disagree about the fragility of the touch screen. If children's devices (Nintendo DS) can have a touch screen, I don't see why adult devices should be concerned about the fragility of such a thing.
.... hold on. I need to go write a business plan.
As for the tactile feedback, I think you're underestimating the UI mechanisms used to use the device. The most pressing activity on a phone is dialing. If you can solve the ease of dialing issue, you can make everything much easier. If you look at the demo of the Google map, you'll see what I'm talking about. It makes dialing easy. No current phone does this right now. None.
About the only way this could get easier is if they start scanning your voice mail for phone numbers to associate with the visual voice mail
And then there is the question of what plans are going to available for the phone. The standard data plan is not going be nearly enough bandwidth for reading a newspaper and Yahoo, especially considering how bloated the NYT is getting lately.
I will admit the phone has some potential, although I think it is too big for casual daily use. If they are going to sell it like a phone, that will be great. If they are going to get into the games that cingular liked to play in the past, then I will give it a miss until it becomes less hot.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I, however, am completely interested in hearing that you are not interested in hearing that he is not interested. I find it interesting that you complain that his interest is a non interest, and that this interesting topic only be used for non interesting points of interest, such as yours.
Interesting.
Unless you plan to find your contacts exclusively through scrolling, you're still in need of a keypad.
A phone number requires minimally ten digits to be pressed exactly right in order to get the result you want.
A lookup in a contact sheet requres one to three keypresses, and keypresses can be judged contextually to have multiple possibilities, while still keeping the result set usably low.
What Apple is trying to do is to make contacts actually usable to well, contact people with. Just because you've not had that experience in the past on a phone does not mean it cannot be done.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Thanks for filling the niche of people who are interested in people who are interested in people who aren't interested in people who aren't interested in a subject. You can't imagine how long I've been reading slashdot and hoping to find someone with an interest such as yours!
Interesting, INTERESTING
if it is slow copying files, you are probably running Vista disguised as Mac OS 8!
(I know, they really do look very similar)
Anyone got any insight into when it'll launch in Europe?
;-)
Cingular isn't exactly a large provider over here.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What phone do you have?
I really want to know.
You're saying that people will buy it because they're not tech savvy enough to know that there are many phones already in existance that can do everything the iPhone can do (touch screen excepted) and are likely to be a fraction of the price?
I mean, my free (with 30 dollar a month subscription) LG U830 plays music just fine. And my old phone (Nokia N70) which I've had since 2005 and got free wit a 60 dollar a month contract did everything the iPhone will do PLUS it allowed me to run whatever apps I wanted on Symbian OS without them having to be signed by Apple or Cingular.
The iPhone is another apple trick - take existing tech, repackage and advertise to people who like form over substance and like to feel smug about it. They'll claim innovation, style, reliability (all things that Nokia have been doing really well for a long time) when actually delivering a shiny box that can do less than older devices.
See, this is where the argument falls apart. The "in" crowd, aka "too cool for school" aka "hipster" crowd isn't even aware that the iPhone is a computer. They don't care about that. They may like the fact that the device is "sexy", but they want it to work well, too. The iPod took off with this crowd because it worked. There were many dozens of MP3 players trying directly to capture this market. They failed ultimately because their devices suck. Apple solved that problem. Honestly, the iPod doesn't suck. You know that, if you have any clue at all. You don't even need to have ever owned one to know that. In the same way, using the fantastic pattern recognition engine that is your brain, you can anticipate that, come June 29, their will be a cell phone on the market that doesn't suck, for the first time giving ordinary non-computer-geek people something that a lot of them already know they want: the internet in their pocket. There is no reason why Apple should have had to make a phone to please Steve Jobs. In fact, they resisted the temptation for a long, long time. Finaly, almost three years ago now, they gave up and decided to fix the problem themselves.
I for one welcome our new suck-free cell phone overlords.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Obviously they won't reach 70+% market share. That was also not the comparison I was making. I was merely pointing out that calling the iPhone "just a phone" because it doesn't do more than other cell phones was similar to calling the iPod "just an iPod" because when it came out, it didn't do more than other MP3 players.
And yes, the iPhone is already a game changer. No high-end phone manufacturer can afford to ignore the iPhone or "keep going as it always has." If they do, the iPhone may very well soon break the 1% market share Apple is aiming for. And, in fact, the other manufacturers aren't ignoring the iPhone: LG, Palm; and Palm again.
So far, cell phones were about hardware design and lifestyle ads. Apple is changing the game, and we'll all benefit.
Seriously. When was the last time the actual product was demoed AS the commercial?
Hell, when was the last commercial you saw so clear and simple so as to be produced at nearly zero cost? The have a dude holding the phone, and showing you how it works. Then there's a graphic at the end with the date.
Compare to the blackjack commercial with the magic hands. WTF? The whole commercial pimps its card-like design by the hands? is there any indication of how useable it is? You barely even see the *actual* product for a few moments.
My mom owns an iPod now that i've given her one - she fscking loves it. She uses it everywhere. I didn't get her a sansa or something else 1. because she's got a mac and every other music player is pretty much fsck-all useless if you have a mac 2. she understood how to use it in 15 seconds.
She has called me exactly one time because she forgot how to make a new playlist in iTunes. Once sorted out, she's been using it - with 100% no techincal support from me.
Compare to her sprint whatever the fsck it is phone. She's got no way to sync up her phone's phone book with her mac, and its impossible for her to DO anything with the pictures it takes - they're all stuck inside the phone.
Just looking at the iPhone commerical - its obvious that my mom could use 100% of the functions on the phone. Its simple and it works seamlessly on Mac and Windows.
When it comes to technology for day to day use - i want technology designed well enough that my mom can use it because i no longer live in her basement. I don't have the time nor the inclination to figure things out that just simply shouldn't be so complicated. I have stuff to do, and figureing out the minutae of some damn sycning issue is not one of the things i need to do.
It amazes me how many don't get it. Well designed things may cost more - the cheapest thing you can buy is not always really the best answer. My life is considerably less stressful by following this one rule.
Buy the best, or be content with what you have.
(btw: i drove a beater early 90's accord until i could afford a Impreza WRX STi - and now, i enjoy it immensely, as opposed to having a long list of shitty half-baked cars)
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.