Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Gets Better Battery, Scratch Resistant Glass
Dekortage writes "Prior to its much-hyped launch on June 29, Apple has announced upgrades to its battery life (almost 40% more than originally announced) and scratch resistance (using "optical quality glass" rather than plastics). The announcement also includes a comparison chart pitting the iPhone against smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, Palm, and Blackberry."
Apart from not selecting like for like that's arguably the most horribly biased selection of measurements I've ever seen used in a comparison chart. I know the aim of the chart is to try and make the iPhone look good but when doing these type of charts most companies at least give their competitors some credit so as not to look too desperate. Probably the most obvious is the first - thickness comparison without weight, width and height comparison? It's a shame it doesn't list things like features either because that's where the iPhone really fails miserably, it simply has no killer app like the Nokia N95's built in GPS.
Posted anonymously to avoid the Apple fanboy army that plagues Slashdot and that can't accept that Apple aren't always capable of producing a decent product.
Those are upgrades every user will appreciate. Battery life is obviously good, and remember all the furor over iPod Nano scratches?
How is the actual voice quality since well it's a phone and all?
The battery probably didn't even change. The only difference is that the old numbers came from engineering, and the new numbers came from PR :P
(I kid, I kid. I think it's a pretty sweet little device, personally.)
Game... blouses.
..and the new Intel Macs were supposed to be four-to-seven times faster than a 1.7GHz PPC and have 4 hours battery life.
I think I might just wait for the first few 100k sales before I look at the next 'comparison chart' from Apple Corp..
The fanboys would also pick up on it too, trying to think of excuses why their list wasn't a list of features that made their chosen product look good compared to the competition, but rather was a list features that mattered. I see nothing has changed in that regard.
The chart is very clearly focused on a small set of features related to key differentiators of the iPhone. It's designed to attract people, to make them want to learn more about the iPhone. People who are curious will explore the feature set of the relative devices beyond this little chart. A giant chart with every feature of all devices would not attract nor interest anyone.
Your use of the term "fanboy" is unnecessary, as no actual fanboy performing actual fanboy stunts is cited. Attempting to use the propaganda technique of creating a boogeyman, "the evil fanboy" who pollutes your, uh, your advertising world by making excuses for, uh, advertisements, undermines any rational argument you may attempt to make.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's expensive. It only works on one provider. And it's closed platform. It is expensive, but I support Apple's efforts to wrest control of the American mobile phone market out of the hands of cell phone carriers. It's an uphill battle, and Cingular was the only company willing to allow Apple to do this; everyone else refused. That's the reason it only works on one provider. Hopefully, if the iPhone proves successful and customers on other networks start demanding it, the other carriers will back down.
I am concerned about the iPhone being a closed platform. AJAX widgets are great, and completely appropriate for a lot of the things I would want a phone to do, but they can't be the only solution. I want an SSH client, for example, and that just can't be done in AJAX. A VNC client that I could tunnel through SSH would be a nice bonus. Hopefully in the future, Apple will begin to support third-party development of real native applications for the iPhone. In the mean time, the iPhone can do just about everything my current phone can do, plus a whole bunch. If it used a SIM card, and had an open API, I'd be a lot more impressed. As someone else already said, it does use a SIM card. As it stands, I'll wait for the Openmoko. Openmoko does sound promising, but maybe by the time that's ready, Apple will have addressed your other concerns in the next version of the iPhone. Don't buy one yet, but understand that your needs are not the same as the needs of a lot of other people, and the iPhone does everything most people want just fine. This is the first release, and the next one will be even better. Don't write it off.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I think you have that exactly backwards. The iPhone is limited by it's thickness and weight. Any manufacturer can add a bigger battery if they're willing to sacrifice in those areas. With the iPhone, removing a keyboard that consumes no power and replacing it with a double-sized screen leads to more power consumption, not less. Apple has had to contend with a device that uses more power for its size than its competitors. It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices. That doesn't mean that the device will be a failure but it sure indicates the unlikeliness of your claim. It's far from clear that battery life is the secret feature; everything suggests the opposite.
/. fashion, the author claims in the title that the iPhone gets a better battery. Not true, of course, as the iPhone gets better battery *life* *ratings*. I'm curious what the new weight *rating* is especially with glass replacing plastic for the screen.
I'll also note that, in true
Prediction based on past performance?
I would agree with you if this was a new generation of an existing product instead of a new product with no past history. Again, manufacturers produce shoddy products from time to time. This is true of every manufacturer.
Is it so unthinkable to say, I have liked products from this company before, I'll trust them with a new purchase now?
Ah ha! But that's not what the OP was saying. The OP was saying that it was definitely worth the money without ever even seeing the product (nor having any real market data since none exists!) based on the fact that the Apple brand name was attached to it. To say "It should be a good product given..." is a far cry from "This product is definitely paying over current market value for..."
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.