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iPhone's "Mystery App" Is H.264 YouTube
Rebelgecko writes "It turns out the iPhone's mystery app is a custom YouTube viewer. The iPhone will play YouTube's videos using the H.264 codec(as will the AppleTV after an upgrade) for higher quality. From the look of it, it will take advantage of the iPhone's screen design and touch capabilities much more than watching videos in the iPhone's version of Safari would. The videos can be streamed via a Wi-Fi connection or the EDGE network."
This is more evidence that if you want to write a killer iPhone app, Safari+AJAX may not have the power you need. Apple sure didn't find that combo to have the horespower when it went to implement Google Maps and now YouTube.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Actually, I think the killer app will be uploading to YouTube from the iPhone. It would be predicated upon the chipset having H.264 encoding capabilities as well, but I see this being a potentially huge win for Apple if they could pull it off. It's the logical extension of what they're attempting to do with the platform, and it would transform video blogging and bring it to the mainstream.
1) Apple manages to do this by making the iPod as perfect as they can. People actually like using it.
2) No one else has managed to be "hip". So yes, everyone tries, but so far Apple is the only one that has managed, with the iPod. Nintendo is a close second with their DS and Wii.
3) The n-gage was a disaster. Comparing the n-gage to an iPhone is like comparing a sour grape to an orange.
4) Apple has this effect because they do things right, with the iPods, iTunes, and iTunes store.
Your Treo is not targetted at consumers. Are there ads for the Treo on billboards, subways, or prime time TV shows? Does it make it trivial to synch your data, your email, your bookmarks, your movies, and music? By trivial I mean, no user action, just plug into your computer! Does the UI make it easy to access all those features? Not being able to access a feature is about the same as not having a feature in the first place.
Then the killer... is this something your parents can do? Your neice? Your next door neighbor?
That's Apple's secret. The iPod is accessible to everyone, not just geeks.
GPL Deconstructed
Well, YouTube videos are delivered at 320x240 resolution, whereas the iPhone has a 480x320 display to work with... of course, much of the source material uploaded to YouTube may be in a lower resolution anyway, since the content authors may not have anticipated having higher resolutions available for their videos later on.
Even at the same resolution and bitrate, however, H.264 is a very high-quality codec and is bound to have higher video quality with less blurring and blocking than Flash Video. The reason YouTube uses flash is that it's loaded on damn near every desktop computer and doesn't require spawning a separate player, installing decoders, etc. But it actually makes sense when targeting a fixed platform like the iPhone or AppleTV to take advantage of the better video formats that are available.
Also, I'd personally love it if YouTube let me set an option in my profile to view H.264 videos as I'm browsing the website. Keep the videos in flash by default, but let people who know they can view embedded H.264 take advantage of it.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
You don't understand how Apple has this effect because you, like everyone else who's a registered member of Slashdot, are a geek.
Geeks have a higher tolerance for poor user interface design, I mean heck look at how popular Linux, BSD and Unix are amongst the geek set. The "CLI" or Command Line Interface is actually PREFERRED by this set. You take two computers, say either a Windows based PC or Macintosh and compare it to a GUI'less Linux setup and a geek would know that both computers can do anything. A regular person however would consider the Linux computer to be useless because they wouldn't know how to nor would they be interested in taking the time to learn how to use it. If it isn't point and click, it loses. Geeks don't mind investing the time though, they LOVE to tinker.
This is why you consider the iPhone to be nothing special. I own a Treo 700p that can already do all the things the iPod can do just about and there are certainly Windows Mobile and Symbian phones that also do most of what the iPhone does at a much lower price. But thats NOT THE POINT. Its not about matching features for features. Its about making sure that people will actually be able and WILLING to use the features that your product DOES have.
I am absolutely positively certain that regular folks will get more use out of their iPhones then they will out of their Treos, HTCs, Motorola Qs, Blackberries, Nokias...etc simply because the iPhone has the better interface. Regular folks have higher standards when it comes to interfaces. Either its going to be well designed or it won't be used. Geeks on the other hand will put up with crappy user interfaces because they are blinded by the features underneath. The truest test is when a user buys a device on their own and no longer needs their "geek" friend/neighbor/co-worker to set it up for them. Thats the iPhone.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
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Everybody tries to do this. Apple isn't alone. You dont think PalmOne, Motorola, Erikson, Nokia want to be considered "hip"?
The difference is, apple actually succedes at it.
Now before you flame the fuck out of me, think about what I'm actually saying... I am NOT saying that apple is better than these other companies, I am not saying that their technology is any different or better or anything. I am simply saying that while Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft, Creative Labs and all those other clowns want to be considered "Hip", Apple actually IS considered "hip" and that makes a big difference.
They didn't get into that position just by marketing, they didn't get there by having superior technology. They got there by figuring out what features and interfaces the majority of people would really dig and then selling that. Nobody else seems to do it as well as they do.
That is what makes apple different, if you don't understand that you will not understand what makes them successful.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I was pretty close to adding a Flash version to the existing QT (H.264) and WMV formats I currently offer clients, but the quality just wasn't there. It's great for talking head and animations, but try boosting the bit rate to make it useful for "full-motion" clips longer than a minute or so and the file sizes get too big to do anything with.
I think YouTube has done the right thing to go with H.264, and it's a really big deal for Apple on so many levels...and yet another nail in Microsofts all powerful wmv.
Absolutely. The low EDGE speeds are supposedly mitigated by the fact that the phone will automatically use wifi if it is available. I don't see this working well, in practice. The reason I got an internet plan with my cell provider was precisely because most of the time, I'm not in an area with wifi, or I'm in an area with locked down wifi. Add to this the recent problems people have been having for using wide-open wifi without the permission of the owner, and this just looks like a disaster waiting to happen (though, perhaps, the iPhone will spur people to either lock down their access points, or will spur legislation explicitly defining when it is ok to connect to a wide-open access point.)
When I'm at home, I'm going to use my own Internet connection. When I'm at a coffee shop, I'll be using my notebook. At work, I'll have the work's connection. I guess if I'm at a friend's house without my notebook, this might be useful, but hey, I could just borrow his computer.
No, I think that Youtube won't be the killer app that Apple expects it to be. Although, who knows? If people don't think about how slow it's going to be over EDGE, it might be just enough to convince some people (who otherwise wouldn't) to buy. But I doubt it.