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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."
Please, please, please Slashdot editors, can you have mercy and only post eight or ten fan boy raves about how amazingly wonderful their shiny new phones are, and how the iPhone is going to Change The Face of Communications in Our Lifetime?
I mean, it's a phone for God's sake, not a cure for cancer.
Three Squirrels
Okay... but does it run Linux?
Don't call me a cowboy, and don't tell me to slow down!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
It's innovative because the Blackberry is a fucking pain to use.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
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 think the assumption is that if your browser, in the year 2007, is too broken to view embedded object tags, you probably don't have the money to spend.
And if you're a dirty GNU/FSF type, Apple certainly doesn't want its stuff to be seen in public with you. Guilt by association and all that.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
From TFA:
However, there is an odd shot in the newly released "How- To" iPhone ad, where the screen goes from the traditional 11 icon view, to a new 12 icon view. (See below).
It's a pet peeve of mine that people use the word "traditional" for things which were invented very very recently. Traditional things are generational things, handed down from one generation to another. You can't make it artificially, and you can't make it quickly.
Reminds me of this brand new Irish Pub that just opened up down the road from me. As I am an alcoholic, I was right there belly to the bar on the SECOND day they were open. I was amazed to see that all the walls of the brand new bar were full of photographs of customers having good times with their friends, in this friendly neighborhood establishment. Amusingly, for a neighborhood bar, it was surprisingly inaccessible. You couldn't really walk to it, as there were no sidewalks, just rows and rows of parking spots. I wouldn't want to walk there anyway, because the traffic from the Bed Bath and Beyond next door is crazy.
So, these photos were all over the walls of this pub, showing hundreds of people having an amazingly good time. I was really jealous of those people who showed up at this brand new bar, on the first day it was open. They were the lucky ones, having had the opportunity to both create tradition, and have a good time doing it too. But still, it was a good feeling to see that my neighborhood bar had created in just one day what some pubs in Ireland are apparently still working on after 300 years or more.
I think that the new Irish bar next door really captured the tradition which my neighborhood strip mall holds in such high regard. I'm not sure that these little icons on a phone can measure up to that.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Jobs has never over hyped a product just like Gates has never over hyped a product. Remember those four pillars of Longhorn? Turns out that the Vista house only needed one pillar to stay up...both are sales people. Sales people hype. They can't do much else so let them hype.
I always wondered where this setting was...
Wait you've been able to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, got the feeling to eat calamari, look up seafood in Google maps and then make a call to the restaurant? All on your Blackberry, 3 years ago?
I'm not saying it's a new innovation but leaving out select details kinda kills your argument.
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
But with the iPhone your mom can too... That's what makes it different.
You're a brave poster, sir or madam.
:)
Never in the history of slashdot has one relatively ordinary product received so much publicity based on so little actual information. Honestly, it was better when this site wrote off the iPod as a doomed device
Meanwhile, here is a guide to pro-Apple moderator psychology to help you cope through the savage moderation clusterf*ck your post will currently be experiencing:
The Mind of the iMod:
1. I love Apple blindly
2. I will flame anyone who criticises Apple
3. I will flame anyone who criticises anyone who praises Apple
4. Because of 2 and 3 above, I can legitimately say that any post critical of Apple or Apple fan-boy-ism is "flame bait", as I myself will flame them
5. Therefore, all posts critical of Apple will be moderated flame bait
Read Pynchon.
Whoa, wait and minute. I thought that Apple made a big fuss about not allowing the Cell companies to lock users in to long term contracts with subsidized phones and that was why were were going to pay 500+ for the iPhone. The end of the commercial indicated we have to sign a 2 year minimum plan with AT&T. I certainly don't want to pay out the ass for this phone and still get locked into a company.
Yeah, the only new part of that is being able to watch a DRM'd copy of Pirates of Caribbean that you paid $10 to download. Lots of phones have been able to play 3GP movies for a while now, as well as accessing the web for local searches and phone call links (albeit without Google Maps's ajaxy goodness).
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Clearly you aren't appreciating the vast amount of innovation that went into this device.
File Deletion is Murder.
My xv6700 can already play mp3s, browse Google maps, take notes, record videos, etc
Sure. But this is going to be just like the iPod and the "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." response. You can point to devices that functionally do most of the things that the iPhone will do, or maybe even more things (like run Putty and all that). What you won't find is a device that triangulates so well between features people want, high quality user-experience, and excellent industrial design.
I've been thinking about this, and I really can't see anything to be concerned about. Several things come to mind:
I'll wait until I actually see one in action to pass judgment, but I'm a lot more skeptical of the "no tactile feedback" argument than I used to be...
Was the iPod revolutionary when it came out? AFAIK the Dell Jukebox was also around at that time when the iPod came out. The difference? Not much when you compare the features. They both had similar battery life, they both played both played music for your ears. Where is the difference then? The Dell Jukebox would make your ears bleed! What I mean is, you don't have to be revolutionary to beat the competition. Just take what others are doing wrong, and do it right, or in a way that you think people will enjoy. The iPod wasn't/isn't successful because of marketing only. It does a great job at being an mp3 player and not a piece of shit that you battle with just to get it working.
What about the iPhone? It's the same concept if you ask me. There are pocket pc's and blackberries that have many features that the iPhone promiss to offer its customers and whatnot. The difference is more in the interface and how you'll use it rather than discovering new features.
I say this cause I see a lot of people commenting on the iphone and saying that "X" and "Y" devices do what the iphone does.
AFAIK, a Geo Metro and a Lexus IS350 can both go from point A to point B and reach the maximum allowed speed limits on (almost) any road you'll be travelling on. The difference is the experience you get out of driving those cars.
Why are people so obsessed with dialing?... How often do you actually do that?
You got pretty much everyone you know whom you're likely to call already in your address book, and the few times you actually need to enter a phone number will be when you didn't look it up on through google.
- These characters were randomly selected.
If you're some sort of tragic square who needs to run Windows
Yeah man, it's like, can ya dig it... these freaky cats at Microsoft they, like, want you to believe they are innovative and shit, but, it's like, they just take ideas man. And ideas want to be free, like beer man, ideas can't be packaged and sold, they need to run free in the wild, man! Hay brother, keep fightin' fascism from those unhip squares at redmond, man... use the tools of the people, spoken word, rhythm and buying apple products, man!
No thanks Apple, unlike portable music players, people actually are happy with their cellphones.
Guess again, Mr. Ballmer. Apple's done the research, and found that you are mistaken. They don't jump into a crowded market unless they know that it's very poorly-served.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You mean my Windows mobile crappy re-boot a couple times a day PDA phone. Oh, to be sure, I love what it should do. Getting it to do it and do it logically is about as easy as getting a suntan at the south pole.
I mean, having even a basic logical way to close an application would seem a no brainer. I'm nigh of the opinion all present PDA phone manufacturers CEOs should be dragged out of bed and beaten. NO ONE I KNOW is HAPPY with their cell phone PDAs. We just need what they offer and we endure.
I for one and over-joyed for the iPhone. Why? Cause at the very least it will get Microsoft to move it's but. And other phone vendors to try new things. Nokia, HTC, LG, you name it. They know if they do nothing and the iPhone works as displayed and is a success then they are looking at a market 5 yrs from now where iPhone is synonymous cell phone as iPod is to MP3 player.
I think the "How To" commercial does a pretty good job of showing why I expect the iPhone is going to do well.
/.ers obsess over having in their phones. But if they can see how an iPhone can be used for all their calls/mail/web/music&movies in 30sec of watching TV, *that* they'll like.
They visually explained how to use every major feature of the thing in a 30sec TV spot.
Most people neither know or care about UMTS, or HSDPA, or AGPS, or any of the other high tech acronyms that certain
Technology has progressed to the point where a well thought out interface matters more than having the latest and greatest bullet points on a spec sheet some months before the other guy. The bottleneck that needs to be addressed these days isn't generally in the machine, it's often between the user and the machine.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Right from the beginning, at the speech made by Jobs at MacWorld, he mentioned that the iPhone was going to be sold for $499/$599 with a two-year contract with Cingular (now AT&T). This is on par with other high-end devices on all carriers. They never said that the price was going to be for the unemcumbered unit.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Of course, all that has been said of Apple products many, many times before:
1977: The Apple II: one of many personal computers.
1984: Macintosh - just another GUI, hard to upgrade.
1998: iMac - just another all-in-one PC, hard to upgrade.
1999-2001: OS X - just another Unix (or proprietary OS, depending on your POV)
2001: iPod - just another MP3 player.
Honestly, is it really a surprise when people are excited that Apple is coming out with a phone?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I have the cingular 8525 phone. It has a touch screen.
When do I look at the buttons while I'm using it? Whenever I'm going through one of those phone based menus: "Press 1 for english". Older phones, I'd keep the phone by my ear and press the buttons. I could generally be doing something else, and not pay much attention to it. Now, I have to either put it on speakerphone (bad at work), or be ready to pull the phone away from my ear, hit the button, then get the phone back into position.
Technology isn't about sitting on your ass and stopping innovation because everyone's "happy". That might be the game for the cell phone companies, who have spent years cramming more and more functionality into an interface designed solely for dialing telephone numbers. Sorry, but that's just stupid. Cell phones have been overloading the touch-tone phone interface for years, and no real innovation has gone on in the cell phone UI. It's about time someone came up with an interface that wasn't just "Let's put more buttons on it! On both sides!"
It's too bad you will probably get modded down for having an opinion that runs against the tide of apple love, because it is a totally valid one to have.
You ask what the point is? Apple doesn't create devices with the most features or best specs out there. Apple makes devices that makes those features and specs accessible to swaths of humanity who wouldn't otherwise have time or inclination to figure it out.
To play MP3's on my phone, I have to unplug it from the charger, take out the battery, take out the MicroSD card (sold separately), pick some MP3's, copy them over manually, re-assemble it all, powercycle the phone, press the dedicated "Play MP3" button on the outside of the phone, then scroll through a flat list of every MP3 file on the device. I suspect the moment you drop in the iPhone phone to charge, iTunes will kick in and sync your music selection automatically. 7 steps reduced to 0. There is no way in heck I could get my mother to play music on my phone, but an iPod is totally within her reach.
And that's pretty much what all of Apple's stuff is like. They cut out the dumb stuff so that you can get on with the business of doing whatever it is that you were going to do. For the iPod, it was giving the user a scrollable wheel and a Database backend, so that instead of a million up / down button presses the user could quickly scroll around an intelligent (and automatically created) heiarchy. iChat is great because you literally don't need to set anything up to have a household chat network, and setting up AV chatting was far, far easier than in any other client of the time.
Apple thinks about their designs so that you don't have to. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to pick up a device the first time and be able to use it as if you've been using it for years. Even to an inquisitive technophile like myself, I love that I don't have to know what's going on behind the scenes if I don't want to... it just all works the way I expect.
Phone UI's are horrible. To send a video message on my phone, I need to press a little button with a horizontal line (not the button in the middle with the big cingular guy), go to camera, record video, Press the other little horizontal line again, Flip Vertically, Press the little horizontal line again, record, Save it as a file with a hideously random name, go back out to the main menu, go into the SMS application, write out an appropriate SMS, attach the file, find the appropriate e-mail recipient, send the file, get a message back saying that the message couldn't be sent but we deleted the draft anyway, go back in and recreate the message with the file again, send it out again, and get a message back from the recipient in an hour asking what weird format the video file was in.
Oh, and a phone is not a laptop. You can stick a phone in your pocket and carry it with you to a resturant. You can pull out your phone on the road and google maps just where the heck Vacaville is and how to get back to Santa Cruz. Your xv6700 should have shown you that a 2" phone in your pocket is a lot more practical than a 15" laptop in your bag.
The ______ Agenda
Yes, well who do you think the target audience is for this phone? If Apple was going after tech savvy users, they would have made something like existing smart phones. Most people praise the Blackberry or some palm device. A few people like the MS products. Apple is trying to repeat the success of the iPod where they got ordinary users to buy an MP3/AAC player. This is a logical upgrade for them. People don't like carrying phones and iPods around with them. They want one device. Apple now has to compete against various phones with MP3 or WMA support. This is their answer.
You can put Apple down for a lot of things, but making this device isn't one of them. Perhaps it was fatally stupid to make it exclusive to Cingular/AT there are a lot of cell phone subscribers on other networks why might want an integrated iPod/phone. Apple will eventually lose the number one spot in portable music just as Sony lost it previously. Apple fans will be sad and "PC" fans will be happy.
Apple did not innovate with the iPod either but that was a big success. They have massive marketshare... almost windows like. Apple used the Microsoft business model of duplicating existing ideas but changing that one little thing that makes all the difference. Steve used the Bill Gates play-book.
Personally, I won't be purchasing an iPhone. I hate cingular and I don't want to spend $500 on a phone. Apple does not get pricing for the midwest. $500 isn't that much money in New York City or San Fransisco. Its a lot of money in Michigan, or Iowa.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
OK, that's just impossible man. Dead Man's Chest came out last year. So you couldn't have done that 3 years ago.
*ducks*
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
It isn't so much the fragility of the 'touch' part as it is the 'screen part. Notice the nintendo DS folds up. Every PSP I have seen has been scratched to hell.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Overpriced.
Underfeatured.
Like the iPod?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Yeah, the only new part of that is being able to watch a DRM'd copy of Pirates of Caribbean that you paid $10 to download
Are you trying to make this sound bad? I mean, I know that writing the word "DRM" around here is like dropping chum in water filled with sharks-- people go crazy-- but hell, that sounds pretty convenient to me.
Of course, the iPhone will be able to play non-DRMed movies, so if you wanted you could go to Best Buy, spend $25 on Pirates of the Caribbean, use Handbrake to rip it as mp4, and put that on your iPhone. I mean, if you want, you have that option. Still, it sounds mighty convenient to be able to, if you like, buy Pirates for $10 and copy it to your iPhone, the whole process taking a little longer than however long you can download it over your internet connection, and being ready to go without leaving your house.
Yeah, yeah, I get it, "...but DRM is bad and $10 is too expensive!" Well you don't HAVE TO buy it from Apple, but you have that option, and I don't see anyone else giving such an elegant solution. I'll tell you, if you'd told me a couple years ago that in 2007 I'd be able to buy movies online, download them, and copy it to a hybrid iPod/phone/PDA-- showing me how easy the whole process is, how small and thin the iPhone would be-- I'm not sure I'd have believed you. I'd say, "Yeah, sure, and I'll probably have a flying car too!"
In summary: Where's my flying car?!
Like you, I am also a college student living on campus, except in Canada, though WiFi is also ubiquitous here. It is clear we have vastly different experiences. I believe the iPhone targets people like me:
A - I don't have my laptop with me when I go out with friends. Why would I lug that thing around, especially if I'm out drinking? Recipe for disaster.
B - Free public computers only exist on campus. Honestly, is campus really that exciting that you spend the vast majority of your off hours there?
1 - Plans change. This sounds like one of the initial arguments against cell phones. "I always plan ahead, so there's no need for a barrage of phone calls on the go!". Well, invariably someone screws up, or something unforeseen happens (bar closes, buddy gets run over, movie theater's closed, etc etc). Since getting my phone I've had an infinitely easier time socializing with my friends than before, and I suspect this will up the ante for that even further.
2 - 411 is $1 a call. Around here, it means dialing it, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Describing what you're trying to find. Waiting. Waiting. Getting your answer (texted to your phone, nice), and then turning around and calling THAT number to find the actual information you need... Oh, and you might have to hold there too. With the internet at your fingertips, it's "free" (save data costs... but considering how much I plan to use the service, it's more than worth it compared to 411).
3 - Yes, because my friends are my bitches who should look up movie schedules on-call. Not that I wouldn't if I were in a real pinch, but this allows me to find the information I need independently. It also allows me to skim a page for the info I need, instead of forcing my dear friend here to recite it to me.
4 - I suppose this is where we differ. When I "hang out with friends", we hit pubs, bars, movies, restaurants, pool joints, concerts, and any other number of events and weird places. We like to explore a lot, and we bus ourselves to nearby strange cities to take in their sights and sounds. An iPhone-like device would be extremely helpful for us.
Allow me to point out a very recent example. I just returned from Toronto (Canada), where my girlfriend and I went to see the grand re-opening of the Royal Ontario Museum (highly recommended visit for anyone in the area, seriously). After taking a look at the brand spankin' new museum, we decided to take in a movie, but wanted to check the movie schedule, as well as if we'd miss the last bus out of the city. Well, unfortunately that meant:
A - Trudging down the street to the movie theatre. It's only a few blocks, but still 10 minutes wasted if I had access to their site at my fingertips.
B - Trudging to the nearest subway terminal, which has a kiosk where you can look up inter-city bus schedules.
Not rocket science by any measure, but you can start to see how an iPhone would have been useful here. A half hour information trek could've been reduced to 30 seconds. Heck, while perusing the museum we wondered about certain things, and if I had Wikipedia at my fingertips...
if you wanted you could go to Best Buy, spend $25 on Pirates of the Caribbean...
Oh please. Unless you're getting the Blu-Ray version (completely unnecessary if you're downsampling to iPod quality), you're almost guaranteed to find it for fifteen bucks or less at one of the chain stores, possibly quite a bit less if you buy it on sale.
So...um, yeah. I don't know what the point of pointing that out was, but take that! >_>
Goo goo g'joob.
I'll second that. The mobile phone market's wide open to someone who can introduce a coherent and sensible interface that doesn't behave like the bastard child of a mediocre desktop OS. Palm had their chance and blew it. Psion/Symbian had momentum for a while, but have been stagnant for half a decade.
I've been provided with an iMate JasJam, but I'd bin it in a heartbeat and pay good money for a replacement if there was a choice that meant I didn't have to navigate through weird menus and tolerate frequent crashes and lockups.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I'm a bit mystified about what planet you live on.
I know -nobody-, not a single person, that is happy with their mobile phone. Happy being defined as they find it having every feature they need and want and have it implemented in a logical, easy to use way. I've used a good portion of PDA phones out there and I've never had one more than 2 months, I've relegated myself to a slider phone instead of dealing with the pure hell that is most PDA phones.
I'm not saying you should like the iPhone, I personally prefer you don't until I get one. Even if only a small fraction Mac zealots get an iPhone, it will still be hugely successful for Apple.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I think if you want to get on some santimonious high horse, then you definitely need to read up and understand why you don't like the product that you dissent so passionately on. (What's with dissenters anyway?)
As for right now, you just sound like a raving lunatic who has some preconceived hate because someone you don't like admires an apple product.
It might be time for you to be a reasonable person, to try and extract your personal bias from your critique, to realise what a "target market" is. (A device that does everything is often more complex than useful.) Perhaps begin to enjoy technology when it excites you, and just keep quiet when it's not your cup of tea. As for now, there are lots of people liking this new device, irrespective of who makes it. P.S. my portable TV has been "streaming" me live television since the 80s.
You might notice I'm speaking generally, and not just about Apple. It's because you're truly a nutcase.
I assume you mean that the user can't get to the SIM card. Of course, you're wrong. The SIM card is accessible.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
So would their squareness make it more difficult to round them up?
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
$500 amortized over 24 months of the contract comes out to just under $21 a month. Considering typical monthly service plan fees, that is not so bad. I started off with a Treo 650 a few years ago for which I paid around $350 ($15 a month). Not so huge a difference.
Care to share the original design with us?
My advice then would be not to get one.
Oh, well yes. Assuming, of course, that the iPhone is uncomfortable, gets poor reception, has bad battery life, and is built for gentle handling. But wait, how can you know that assumption is true?
I would suspect that, considering the built-in phone and software for managing contacts, making calls, and browsing voice mail, the device is meant for making calls.
Maybe because they want to emphasize that it does more than make calls? Notice how car commercials focus on leather seats, powerful stereos, and sexy design? (Oh, and you can even drive with this!) So what if you could also call it a PDA. That is, very obviously, the whole point and the iPhone is entering the market of smartphones by improving on and building upon features already available in other products.
Okay, you are absolutely right. Apple better close-up shop.
Where is your evidence for this? You must be in some position of privilege to have used the iPhone so much ahead the rest of us.
I might agree for the lower-end market where the phones are all but free and considered disposable. For smartphones, changes come much more slowly. My Treo 650 is pushing nearly four years now, yet there is little to distinguish it from cutting-edge models.
And there is a good chance Apple will do just that: sell millions of units. We have no sales data yet. Can you guess why? And of all the most successful phones in the United States, how many can be used outside globally?
Mobile phones themselves usually have no profit. Most phones are subsidized by the carriers because the huge profit comes in offering over-priced service plans using an existing infrastructure at little to no extra cost.
Are you crazy or am
Why bother.
This and other posts are hilarious. You can almost smell the fear.
/. is not the place for such musings. People here seem to like tech that requires a PhD in order to use. Being able to use some hideously complicated piece of equipment to perform a simple task is a source of distinction on this site. In the real world (fairly or no) it is regarded as a symptom of a mental disease. This is not a phone designed for geeks. It is a phone designed to sell in large numbers and make money.
Apple is going to sell shiploads of these things, and all the fud and whining in the world will not stop it. It has nothing to do with Apple fans. There simply aren't enough Apple fanboys around to account for the success of the iPod. The truth is that it was a success because it was about the easiest and simplest player to use and it was marketed reasonably well. I know a lot of older non-techie people who hate gadgets, but love their iPod, for the simple reason that it takes about 30 seconds to learn how to use it.
The same goes for the iPhone. If you've watched the keynote, you pretty much know how to use everything that's on the phone. If you've watched the commercials, you know enough to use it. I've had a Samsung smartphone with Windows Mobile on it for five months and I still don't know how to use all the stuff on it (the manual is so arcane that you just end up forgetting stuff).
But
The fact that some people in this thread have an irrational hatred for Apple doesn't change the fact that this will be the hottest tech item in recent memory. I'm wondering if the Cabbage Patch doll wars will be upon us once more (Jobs has basically said he hopes so, which makes him look a bit of an ass). Still, it is highly likely there is much link fodder in this thread for future gloaters.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
What phone do you have?
I really want to know.
Every time I've seen it demo'ed pressing "home" brings up the standard 4 options at the bottom of the screen. "Phone" is always lower left. After that Favorites is two over.... and so on.
How do you know how far without any physical feedback ?
As long long as the interface is responsive, "muscle memory" wouldn't seem to be an issue.
You seem to be missing the point I'm trying to make, which is that with decent physical feedback how responsive the UI isn't doesn't matter, because you can confidently be a couple of steps ahead of it.
Please. Watch the demos and notice the "flicking" gestures used to scroll and navigate. Watch how the "scroll" speed matches the velocity at which your fingers move. Gestures are intuitive as hell.
I've watched the demos. It reminds me of the first OS X demos and how "cool" they were. Then we got the UI train wreck that was the Dock.
And texting? Watch someone text sometime. Very few people (even on Treos) are "touch-text'ists", and most are starting intently at the phone while they're doing it. And if you're moving to the iPhone from a RAZR or some other phone that has a standard 12-key-pad, having separate letter "keys" (even virtual ones) would be a godsend over having to hit "7" four times to get an "S", or waiting for the last letter to "enter" up so you can get a "A" after you've entered a "B". Thanks, but no thanks.
I think you need to spend more time watching people under the age of 30 texting, and less time watching technophile, 50-year-old CEOs. Predictive text input systems have been around for 7 - 10 years, "learning" ones for at least 5 years, and anyone remotely familiar with doesn't write SMSes the way you describe. Indeed, I can't think of anyone I know who regularly texts that gives the screen more than a casual glance every 5-10 keypresses.
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if regular texters used to a traditional keypad and predictive input will be at least as fast as people using an on-screen keyboard.
I think you're dramtically over-estimating the benefits of tatile feedback, and ignoring how interface action, responsives, and audible feedback can compensate, or even improve on the experience.
I don't. However, I'm willing to be convinced, which is why I'm waiting before passing judgement.
The mobile phone market's wide open to someone who can introduce a coherent and sensible interface that doesn't behave like the bastard child of a mediocre desktop OS
I agree entirely. I bought my SE P900 shortly after they were released and have been pretty disappointed from day 1. Symbian UIQ seems to be less stable than Windows 3.1 was - even the built in software crashes the whole phone quite frequently, and the built in software is just plain rubbish to begin with. 3rd party software is expensive (no, I have no intention of paying 30 quid for an email reader that actually _works_ - that sort of thing is supposed to be part of the base installation).
So I've decided that I'm not going to buy a new phone until I can get some decent hardware running OpenMoko or similar. I want a device that I can treat like any of my other computer - that includes writing software for it without needing propriatory tools, being able to write bash scripts to do simple jobs, etc., being able to use the device without it crashing on a regular basis, and having a large collection of Free software available. And that last point is important in both meanings of the word "free" - under Symbian and PalmOS every little tool seems to be shareware and adding up the cost of all the tools I'd want would be a fortune, whereas under Linux I get all the tools for free.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
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.
Please consider submitting your request for Polish language support in Mac OS X to Apple via the Apple Developer Connection. It's free, as in T-Shirt (e.g. you need to fill out a little form with a bit of contact information including an email address). Obviously you're interested in the platform. If there's a store selling Macinsoth computers in Poland, then other people are, too, and you would be doing yourself a favor to point this out in your request. Include a URL to the store's contact information, if possible. Mac OS X provides pretty nice localization support for quite a few languges already.
By the way, the original post was a reference to a troll that showed up, if I recall correctly, early on, in every Apple related thread and a few unrelated threads for a while. I recall some speculation that it might even have been an automated troll bot. The AC poster this time was clearly trying to make people laugh by converting the troll to an iPhone troll with a trivial substitution Macintosh -> iPhone. The tip-off for people who didn't recognize the post is that nobody will be copying a 17MB file from a device (the Motorola RAZR) which only has, if memory serves, about 5MB of RAM (newer versions of this phone might have more RAM, but the most popular early model was RAM starved). It was really a bit of an inside joke, as grokiing it requires familiarity with too many things that nobody should bother to remember.
Apple doesn't seem to have described the localization features of the iPhone, although their plans to relase an iPhone in Europe later this year suggest that they are planning at least some support for other languages. The U.S. version of the phone could be limited to English and Spanish, or even merely English without hurting sales too much. As the hardware platform matures (mainly as solid state storage becomes cheaper at larger capacities) it's reasonable to expect that future versions of the iPhone will support multiple languages as a general feature, as does Mac OS X. But then, it's also reasonable to expect the European version of the iPhone to support 3G data networks, and we all know that won't stop people from whining about the presumed lack of 3G and how the iPhone won't sell in Europe without it, as though Apple doesn't know that. (Don't these people think Steve Jobs wants 3G on his iPhone? I'm sure he's personally lobbying AT&T to get their poop in a group and roll out 3G before they get crushed by Verizon's EVDO stuff here. )
Oh, and that store isn't an Apple Store, by the way. Apple doesn't have any Apple Stores in Poland.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
You forgot also "Less space than a Nomad" and "Lame"
I completely agree. This has flop written all over it. Just like the iPod, the Mac Pro and all those other useless and unpopular Apple products. When will Apple ever learn?
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
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.
Regarding the two things the iPod can't do... I haven't tried it myself, but an inexpensive 3rd party product which can waterproof your iPod will enable it to perform one of the two tasks on your list of things the iPod can't do, leaving you with taxes.
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The worst part is that those 15 problems could have been fixed by the vendor but the industry is distorted so that doesn't happen. Before the iPhone, the maker of the handset was under the impression that the telephone company was their customer, and they really don't care one iota about you, the person who must use the device. This little love-fest between the telcos and handset makers results in the consumer being left with no place to turn. It costs the telco money to fix problems on your handset, because they "signed off" on the "final design" months ago and the handset maker has moved on to work on new models. They would rather sell you a different phone altogether than fix the crap software on the handset that you already paid for.
A few weeks after the iPhone ships, Apple will release a software update for it. That will be the day the cell phone industry really changes. When people realize what a difference a vendor that treats them like a customer will make in their satisfaction of the handset, the industry will never be the same. All the pundits are focused on the magical multi-touch UI, and all the vendors are racing to catch up to the sleek hardware design and clean user interface. The software updates are the secret weapon.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
the owners of Microfiber Screen Wipes INC were seen drinking champagne whilst ordering a LearJet.
Joking aside, kudos to Apple for rethinking the phone UI but touch only?
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
As always Apple proves they are the masters of interface. I absolutely LOVE my blackberry pearl. It can do all those things shown in that video. I use google maps all the time to locate places and call them. I'm hooked on the whole blackberry bandwagon. What the iPhone does in functionality, is absolutely nothing new at all. Us blackberry and nokia owners know this. But apple has taken all these ideas and made the best interface for it. As easy as my blackberry is to use, it still perplexes anyone who picks it up off the table. my only gripe with the iPhone will be lack of tactile feedback for dialing a phone number.....but with all phones these days, dialing phone numbers is the function least paid attention too. you only need to dial a number once, and from then on you just click on it or a name representing it. phone number dialing will become what "installing a new program" is like to computer users. Just like the iPod, apple is doing what they have always done best: interface. While the nerds cry about restrictive lock-in, lack of things to tinker with, etc, etc.....apple's only business is interface. They are a company that excels at interfacing humans with technology. and it amazes me that they seem to be of the very few electronic companies that 'get it'. example: the touch-sensitive click wheel and solid case housing is WHAT made the ipod. nothing more. While some of us prefer the GUI's of Windows and the many from Linux, and even for us command-line junkies.....you will see hand held electronics become even more interface driven then the desktop market. Apple may be able to steal a couple consumers with a fancy pretty GUI on the desktop field, but in hand held electronics people care more about interface then any other technology....and it may not exactly be a conscious thing either. the ratio of slick interface to feature set will ALWAYS be high. We can even joke that this is true with most people's preference to sexual partners. this is why apple has such a "religion" hold over people. People appreciate that apple builds products that try to understand you more then how well they can answer your request. Zip ahead into the future when computers will be dancing around the line of "human". who you think is gonna be the "hip" thing to like and the "square". I'm guessing that the most complex part of the iPhone (the electronic guts inside of it!) was probably the last thing that was being designed. It seems to me that apple started with the outside and brain stormed human INPUT. You are going to be holding this in your pocket everyday, so it makes sense that most people want a companion then just a tool.
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.
'' I've been able to do that on my blackberry for over 3 years now. ''
Apple builds stuff for people who appreciate the tiny difference between "I've been able to do that for over 3 years now" and "I've been doing this for over 3 years now".