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The Perfect Phone Storm?
peter deacon writes "Is the iPhone the next Segway, the next Zune, or the next iPod? The Perfect Storm offers some iPhone details that aren't secrets, but tend to be lost upon the analysts and journalists cranking out hit pieces on the iPhone. Why is everyone from Gartner to Gizmodo calling for a boycott of the iPhone? An interesting take on how Apple's new mobile phone will push to open up the web as a mobile platform for every mobile device on the market with a standards-based browser, and how Apple 'hacked the hackers' by releasing Safari for Windows in advance of its new phone."
Worked for me...
Good article, shows up quite a bit of bias on the part of certain 'reviewers'... But if you actually believed they were impartial in the first place, I've got a great bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Slashdot has just posted yet another clearly biased article about how great the ipod is going to be, personally I think there should be an investigation into either bribery or conflict of interests of the runners of this site. Okay, I'm being a bit melodramatic, but this article doesn't add anything plus it implies some real crap, for example when it implies an article by gizmodo about the shady past of AT&T is nothing but a weak smear campaign dragging up every tiny thing from the past, it's a well known fact that AT&T is not one of the best providers, and does have a bad record. I'd like to registeer my complaint about this, another iphone hype articcle, being here, right now.
AT&T really has the power to make or break the iPhone. If the network doesn't support fast enough connections to enable fast safari apps the device is sunk. But I like the articles brief coverage of the other non-issues that the iPhone haters are using.
This would definitely not pass wikipedia's NPOV test. The whole article amounts to a shrill rant accusing anyone who says anything negative about the iPhone of being a Microsoft shill. roughly drafted indeed.
I think we should have a cap for shameless slashverts per week per product..
Site seems down, but if it's from Roughlydrafted, I don't even need to read it. I'm guessing it's about how misreported/misunderstood/misrepresented Apple is by this and that media outlet and how some Microsoft conspiracy or Apple detractors were trying to put them down, but Apple's brilliant strategy will allow them to prevail nonetheless. Probably intermixed with lots of photoshopped illustrations and "witty" sub-headlines.
Yeah, I know, ad hominems are bad, but every Roughlydrafted article is like that. That guy is probably minting AdSense-gold from people who get too worked up about Apple (both pro and contra).
Apple is spending all this money paying for the constant hype stories and is turning the iPhone into the most hated product ever before it is even released.
Jesus Christ, why are you still giving this shill a platform? I mean, I know flamewars create ad impressions, but come on. This isn't global warming or terrorism. This is people treating a corporation like a religion! You're better than this, slashdot!
He was caught gaming Digg, you know.
I wasn't convinced about the iPhone until I watched it. While the data rate will be slow, the whole operation of the phone is very simple and highly usable.
While the product may or may not succeed, you will see much of it's functionality stolen by Microsoft and the Symbian crew.
The iPhone interface makes UIQ, S60 and Windows mobile seem like dumbphones.
>"Slashdot has just posted yet another clearly biased article about how great the ipod is going to be"
;-)
We all know how great the iPod is. This is about the iPhone. You may want to re-read the article.
can it just come out already?! Apple has all but abandoned it's desktops(there hasn't been a significant refresh in over 9 months of any of the desktop lines) but pimps this stupid $500/600 phone like there is no tomorrow. I'm just hoping that once this damn thing is released Apple will remember that it makes computers too.
Monstar L
That was quick.
There are a lot of Apple haters, mostly with their fortunes tied to its failure. That's not going so well. TFA is just a response to the avalanche of bought-and-paid Microsoft FUD reporters who can't seem to get the term "unbiased" right. Call for an iPhone boycott? You can always hope - suckers. This article is biased toward outing those buffoons with nothing else to do except panic. I cringe at some the venom this guy has published, but as uppity and fanboyish as Dan is, he's mostly right.
Most of the stuff on
As much as Apple would like to believe the interface can swing it, it appears the only way to code for it right now is to write browser apps (please someone tell me I'm wrong here, I'd love to be). So your apps need to be connected. And costing you money. And limited by the need to be in the browser, so no local caching of information like google maps or live maps for mobile does. No manipulation of files store on the phone. No games outside the browser.
Nokia has the symbian sdks and java, microsoft has the .net compact framework (and in the HTC phones java as well). Apple are restricting everything to the browser (and if we're lucky, they may support flash in the browser).
So why would Symbian or Microsoft steal a restrictive programming framework? The interface may be nice, and it will sell it to end users, but it's not a phone for developers or even corporate users.
Blogs "articles" such as this one make me cringe. Talk about fanboys taking their obsession far to serious. I mean, a Gartner report is the last thing that's going to stop the iPhone from being a massive success. Furthermore, so what if Engadget and Gizmondo have slightly negative writing on the iPhone, that's just 2 out of 3.1415 googol blogs and sites which are giving the phone great marketing for free.
You are being melodramatic. And you clearly didn't take the time to read the piece. I did.
There are moments in the article where he intelligently breaks down aspects of the hatred being tossed around, possibly in conflict of interest scenarios. It seems much of the article points out that the iPhone gravitates heavily toward open standards, which I find to be a very good thing.
By the way, the article is not about AT&T. It's about the Apple iPhone. Thanks for registering your complaint, but please troll elsewhere.
but this article doesn't add anything
I found it useful in several places. Recently my father forwarded me an email from his boss (IT email/blackberry support) saying they were taking a wait-and-see approach on the iPhone, and refusing support for the moment. The reasons for doing so were basically a copy and paste of Gartner's assessment--including the fact that there was no Notes/Exchange support.
I'm not in IT (anymore) so I didn't know that Notes/Exchange support IMAP and POP, so the claim of no Notes/Exchange support is a bit of a red herring. At the very least, Gartner should be embarrassed for being professionals in the field and forgetting about that.
the shady past of AT&T is nothing but a weak smear campaign dragging up every tiny thing from the past
See, I didn't get that. I don't feel the article said it was a weak smear campaign--I felt the article gave the shady past of AT&T its due. For me, the most salient point was the fact that Gizmodo didn't hold other companies to the fire like they have AT&T. If that's true, I think they have a point to a point--AT&T's dealings are so much more shadier than other companies.
It is no wonder that there is a lot of curiosity and anticipation of this device. To spite what geeks/nerds might think, the current products on the market today are a mess. Look at these things with dozens of buttons, thick and ugly, with thrown together interfaces, everything is basically a one-off kludge. Consumers see the potential in handheld devices but they know that nobody has yet realized this potential. Will it be the iPhone? I don't know. But if it isn't, we might be in trouble- I don't know of another device on the horizon with as much potential.
Columnists don't necessarly bash products becasue they hate the product. They're in a ratings business. If everyone writes articles that praises a product, we'll all yawn and nobody will bother to read them. By bashing a product -- especially if it's a product that everyone else loves, this creates controversey.
.99 per song the iTunes Music Store, that maybe Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T came with a clause that also limits what AT&T can charge for the rate plans on the phone in order to keep that exclusivity. I expect to have my sanity challenged for even being willing to consider such a possibility, but remember that since AT&T stands between Apple and Apple's customers. They can totally make or break the success of this product. Apple has a lot at stake and is generally not stupid when it comes to negotiations, so I'm hopeful that their agreement with AT&T keeps AT&T in check or gives Apple the right to sell the product through other carriers if AT&T can't perform.
We see this on slashdot all the time... we call it 'trolling'.
As for the iPhone we'll have to wait and see. While I can find things to criticize in Apple's products (as the saying goes.... you can't please all of the people all of the time) they do have a reputation for good products.
Did anybody *really* have high hopes about the Microsoft Zune? Maybe fan-boys did, but most people in the industry have come to expect that getting software from Microsoft is almost like getting software from the former KGB (it's loaded with 'bugs' and they maintain more control over your device than you do -- why should the Zune be any different.)
The high expectation about the iPhone is because so far most phones suck. It would be really nice to have a phone that sucks less than the one I have now. That phone is a Treo 650 that used to crash 3 times per day. Now it only screws up a few time per week and for some strange reason I am happy with this because I fear that every *other* phone will be just as bad and I'll just end up locked into another contract.
Speaking of contracts... AT&T (Cingular) says they plan to reelase "new phone plans" on June 29th which go with the iPhone. Having a very low opinion of phone companies, my assumption is that this will be a plan intended to rape buyers, but make up for the high price tag by offering poor service. (Please God tell me it isn't so) My hope is that since Apple was successfully able to keep the music industry from charging more than
But seriously, what I really feel will limit iPhone's adoption, at least on this side of the pond, is the non-serviceable battery. What's up with that? That's borderline demented! All the mobiles I've had since 1995 had interchangeable batteries! And batteries these days are notoriously piss poor, they only endure a few hundred charge/discharge cycles, after 6 months or so they start holding maybe 70 or 60% of their initial charge, after a year or less they're good to be replaced. At least with my Nokias I can just ride down to the store, buy a new battery and plug it in. Voilà, it's as good as new.
I wouldn't buy an iPhone because of that reason alone. I have two or three batteries for all my phones, and usually carry a second freshly charged one with me, because I'm not always sure I can go home everyday, or will be able to find a place to charge the phone.
I go through a new mobile maybe every two or three years, but I buy new batteries yearly or less. My phone is very important to me, I just checked and my five and a half year old Nokia 6310i has a little over 715 hours of talk time; my three year old Nokia 6230 has a bit over 482 hours; and the new Nokia 6233 I bought in December to retire the 6310 already ranks over 230 hours. Even with the 40% increase in battery time (what, it'll last 45 minutes now?), the fact I can't change the battery is still makes it a toy. Thanks, but no thanks.
Well, that, and the piss poor data rates are also laughable. What is this, 2002 all over again?
And besides, what idiot had the brilliant idea of leaving out 3G in a handset marketed towards hip, young, urban people? That's the key demographic target of 3G! Leaving it out is an egregious mistake if I ever saw one.
Who let this tripe get to the front page? Everyone should know that RD articles deserve to be marked down right in the Firehose. He profits directly from this exposure. Seriously, what did this article tell us? Oh, right, it told us nothing. It is useless conjecture and more silly defense of a company. The absolute best part is the author has the gall to label some bloggers as "impassioned." Hate to break it to you buddy, but who is the one Photoshopping heads of Microsoft onto movie posters? Or writing at least ten articles about a freakin MP3 player from Microsoft Or running a whole website devoted to spreading the 'truth' in this age of 'Microsoft-loving media'?
But, like everything unintentionally funny, it gets even better. He argues, and I quote, "Apple hacks the hackers." (How clever, did he think of that himself?) He issues a hand-waving argument about how the bugs weren't really in Safari (just in the shared libraries, which, *technically* isn't in Safari.exe. Yeah, let's try that argument for IE, shall we?). But, he then claims that by having the hackers find these bugs, they got free QA. I bet all those hackers are sitting around now and thinking, "BLAST! Our plans have been thoroughly foiled by Apple once again! We have been unfairly tricked! I call foul play!"
It looks like I need to up the ante when it comes to making jokes about RD. And I encourage you to do the same.
The iPhone costs as much as PS3, but that won't phase the rabid early adopters. And as cool as the iPhone is, I just don't see the value when I can buy a low end laptop for the same price.
Just as the original iPod was outlandishly over-priced for my tastes, so too is the iPhone. Give it a few years and the price will drop and the design and UI will be perfected, just like the iPod.
Article worked for me too.
So is it that the article itself is biased, accidentally wrong or just written by a bitter Apple-supporter who can't stand people laughing at this overpriced, yet-to-come non-news? Either way: It's written by a moron or a zealot and this is pretty obvious.
He complains that "Installing Palm OS software on Windows requires admin rights, forcing an administrator to install the software on every machine that syncs with a Palm.", then follows up with this:
What does the iPhone require of IT? Installation of iTunes, which users can manage themselves.You seriously can't mean that this is a good article.
I could go into more details, but really. If seeing that ain't enough to convince you this guy is a overly biased Apple-zealot, then nothing will.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
is not a "special interest feature."
Apple could have killed about 20 birds with one stone if they had polished their internal SDK up a bit and released it with the iPhone. Instead they chose to massively insult their developer crowd at WWDC by passing off AJAX as a "sweet solution." What happens to their "sweet solution" when there is no network available?
Ballmer may be a whackjob, but he's right about four things: "Developers, developers, developers, developers." Without those, your "smart" product looks pretty dumb.
What is the upshot of all this? A closed box with fancy tricks is not worth $499. An open box with OSX running underneath it that can run a Skype client (appealing to personal users), a variety of media players (appealing to personal users), games that actually make use of the hardware (appealing to personal users) and other things we haven't even thought of yet *IS* worth $499.
+++ATH0
Apple has a history of doing what it takes. If "negotiations broke down", it probably means Verizon wanted them to compromise on something that would prevent the iPhone from being the iPhone. If it wasn't good enough for Apple, I don't see why any of us would be happier with it.
The speed of a network can be improved by adding/fixing hardware. The willingness of the people running a network to allow for new features they haven't thought of, can't.
Besides, if I had a penny for every slashdot comment claiming to know how to manage Apple's product line better than Steve Jobs...
Sorry, I had to stop reading when I read this:
"Apple's AirPort introduced a mainstream audience to WiFi wireless networking."
I'm sorry, what? I would wager that 80% of people using WiFi today have never seen an AirPort or used one knowingly. What percentage of the home WiFi (not to mention business) access points are Linksys (Cisco) or Netgear? Is Apple AirPort even in the top 5 behind Belkin, D-Link and the other two big guys?
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
An SDK is not a "special interest feature."
Look, I've done mobile development. I want an SDK badly.
But an SDK not being a "special interest feature"? Come on, you know 99% of phone buyers are not going to be developing thier own applications.
As for buying or using other apps, that's where you get into the greay area of how many apps people buy today are replacable with web based versions, how many Apple will bring to market for third parties, and how useful the internal applications are (since Windows Mobile users I know are mostly buying apps to replace built-in phone applications which are terrible).
As SDk is delightful but there are other ways to fulfil the general needs an SDK addresses without offering an SDK to everyone.
In time, I'm sure we'll have a fuller SDK - but in the meantime the compromise offered will be good enough to fill many application needs, at least all the ones I had ever bought for the Palm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Beer at home: $1. Beer at a club: $7. Perhaps it's *you* missing the reason bars make so much money.
There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that there can't be an "iPhone 1.01 update" awaiting every iPhone user upon their first connection through iTunes.
Can we please stop issuing story after story on this thing until it actually comes out?
I'm a big fan of Apple's products, and have been almost exclusively using apple PCs since the 90s. Granted, I'm not loaded with cash, and don't rush to the nearest store anytime Apple releases a product (the longevity of their machines perhaps the biggest selling point for me. My 1999 450mhz PowerMac G4 is still chugging along, running the latest release of OS X 10.4. It's outlived my car.)
But I digress. The level of press coverage the iPhone is receiving is insane and disproportionate. I could easily deal with a flurry of press coverage around the time of the announcement, and shortly after the release (reviews, and first impressions). However, the level of hype and idle speculation building up is absurd for a product that hasn't even been released yet.
Yes. I appreciate that the iPhone is one of the first smartphones to get a properly-designed UI that wasn't created by a group of telco accountants (anybody who's ever had to deal with Verizon's "standard" UI knows exactly what I'm talking about). It could even very well revolutionize the mobile phone industry, (finally) bringing it into the data age.
It's also extremely expensive, and there's no way in hell I'll be able to afford one, or even remotely justify the cost. Remember that the iPod didn't achieve massive widespread popularity until the prices dropped considerably.
However, none of this has happened yet. It hasn't been released. Let's just hold onto our horses, wait a week, and conclusively answer these questions once the damn thing is in stores. You're all setting yourselves up for a massive letdown.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
But an SDK not being a "special interest feature"? Come on, you know 99% of phone buyers are not going to be developing thier own applications.
The SDK is not for the 99% of phone buyers. It is for the 1% of people who know how to use it. That way that 99% of phone buyers has other applications to use on their phones.
+++ATH0
And the hackers would have released hundreds of "Applications" for the iPhone that bricked it.
From what orifice did you pluck this phantom boogeyman? There are about 12 applications on my Cingular 8525 and none of those "bricked it." There is a huge market of 3rd party applications for Palm and WM and none of those brick phones. Get real.
+++ATH0
I work in a real estate office of about 50 people. Around 30 or so of them have Treos. A few others have Blackberries. Very few have just plain old regular cell phones. You want to know why these folks got Treos? Because they had Palm PDAs before hand and got tired of carrying around a Palm PDA AND a Cell Phone. The overwhelming majority of them don't even Install the Palm Desktop software to sync with their computers and install new apps. This is not a rare occurance. People in other offices act this way as well. This is the NORM. Getting people to sync things is DIFFICULT. You have to give them a reason to do so, something better than "it provides you with a data backup in case your device crashes and loses all its data." I've tried and tried and tried to get people to install their Palm Desktop software to no avail. Want to know one thing they DO have on their computers? iTunes which just so happens to sync with the iPod and iPhone.
The number of people who actually install 3rd party applications onto Palm OS/WM smartphones has been GROSSLY over estimated. The bare basic PIM functions of these smartphones is all most of these folks are looking for. With the Smartphone we had gone from 2 devices to 1 but then the iPod came out bringing us back to 2 devices. For some folks who haven't upgraded to Smartphones yet they're actually still at 3 devices now. The iPhone is THE convergence device that will bring nearly everyone back to having just one device. And Apple will be able to intice more people to install 3rd party applications onto their iPhones than all other smartphones COMBINED.
So to recap, the lack of an SDK here is a non-event. Its totally immaterial. It just doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The iPhone is going to sell like hotcakes, out selling all other smartphones individually and combined because of its INTERFACE, not because you can or cannot install 3rd party apps on it from launch.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Apple related threads sound like we're not talking about consumer products: even the naysayers sometime seem to be their own kind of zealots. Those may be good or even great products (didn't try), but still, it is mainly a marketing strategy.
The way I look at it is the following:
+ nice UI
+ nice screen
+ small
+ nice music/video player
+ looks good
- very expensive compared to other phones
- no 3G
- no unlocking or portability to other carriers
- no GPS
- forced to use, and register with, iTunes
- no touch typing
- bad camera
- two year lock
- very limited programmability
- I don't like being lied to by Jobs about why the iPhone isn't programmable
Lack of programmability means that I don't get a number of things I have had on every phone for the last several years: an open source password safe, an SSH and VNC client, and a good e-book reader.
I expect that there will be a whole range of really exciting new phones coming out, some of which have been in the pipeline, and others inspired by the iPhone. I think this is the wrong time to lock myself into a 2 year contract, in particular at that price.
Really, this is the kind of article I love with Roughly Drafted. It's outright advocacy, but not of the sort that can be ignored as simple enthusiasm. There has been an extraordinary bunch of criticism of a product that has not appeared, usually with people exclaiming, "But how can you be so positive? It hasn't appeared yet!" Well, that's true for both sides, of course. And, the basic point is that every objection you can make with the iPhone can also be said, in spades, for Windows Mobile and the Zune, and yet no boycotts were proposed for that, were they?
I certainly agree with you that there may be some deficits, particularly in early versions. I'm not spending my money on the 29th, at least. But I'm also glad to see the end game of this creativity: other smartphone makers will be forced to step up their games.
From the extensive needs you have of specific functions, it's probably true that you won't be well served by an iPhone. I think, frankly, Apple has its eye on a broader public than enterprise. MS keeps its eye on you and your needs. But there are, right now, a billion people who use cells; the market is very large. Maybe Apple will develop cheaper phones, iPods really, and more business-oriented software, I don't know. But I absolutely love the way they shake up a market. Whatever kind of phone you want -- and are you sure you don't want a small notebook? -- you're more likely to get it after the iPhone hits.
I was speaking at Lawrence Livermore Labs, where phones brought on site can't have cameras. They also can't emit radio in the form of bluetooth, WiFi or even cellular.
So what you're really saying is that phones in generall can't be brought on-site -- I don't know of any mobile phone that will connect calls over a non-radio interface.
"iPhone doesn't support the most basic requirements of an enterprise-grade Smartphone's purpose; over-the-air Groupware/PIM!"
Given relative market penetrations, I suspect that there will be plenty of "enterprise-grade" customers for whom this "basic requirement" can be safely ignored. And probably the vast majority of small and mid-sized businesses as well.
It seems to me that too many people are assuming that everyone else's situation and requirements exactly parallel their own.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Pot and kettle syndrome with the IT management section. For someone who really is trying to dispel myth and rumour, they certainly like to generate it for other products. The comment about blackberry - why would Apple add revocation and other large scale enterprise features to a phone thats targetted at a personal user audience? "Installation of iTunes, which users can manage themselves." - irrelevant, most enterprises will not allow iTunes, having to back up relevant business data takes precedence, along with patch management. Being biased supporting a very large scale MS exchange enterprise, i fully disagree with the completely innaccurate: "Windows Mobile similarly requires ActiveSync to be running, and is a huge headache to support when synching with Exchange. Windows Mobile phones fall out of sync with Exchange regularly, forcing a full deletion of the user's calendar and email and a resync." No, wrong on both counts. Activesync is not mandatory to use a WM device as a phone and pda, and not everyone uses their mobile to its fullest extent like we geeks do. We have Blackberry and WM devices - roughly equal in the numbers we have deployed. Believe me, if WM devices fell out of sync "regularly", we'd drop it and go completely blackberry. WM2003 may have done this, but aren't we supposed to be comparing like for like technology? WM5 and 6 don't do this "regularly"
The reason the iPhone will work is the exact same reason the iPod did. Its nothing to do with having a million features and supporting every standard there is. The iPod is one of the most simple Mp3 players there is- and before I got one I hated the thought of it and bought a 20GB iRiver that has ogg, optical in and optical out, had radio, a mic etc etc. It did pretty much everything and yet all i used it for was to play music. I bought an iPod mini for a present for someone and once I tried it I had to get myself one. And did I miss ogg, radio, optical in/out? Not at all.
The iPhone isn't for geeks (though im sure most geeks will love it). Its for my mum, and my brother and my sister and aunt etc. Its going be simple and its going to work. Why would apple create some complex super phone for the small geek market when it can create a simple but brilliant phone for the masses? I love having lots of features, its why I have the N95 phone, but all I use it for is Voice, Text, Camera and Wi-fi. The 1001 other features it has is never used and the phone is unresponsive and slow and crashes. I just want a phone that can do the main features GOOD, and I'm guessing that most people (non-slashdoters that is) will want the same.
UI is everything. The iPod demonstrated that, and for all the people that complain there is too much hype over this phone, remember that apple didn't create this hype, its the reputation of their past products that did.
1) Company needs OTA groupware. They don't buy an iPhone: they use WM/Blackberry/etc
2) Company doesn't need OTA groupware. They buy whatever phones they can get cheap that work as a basic phone. They don't buy an iPhone.
3) Company doesn't need OTA groupware but decides that it's bored of making money for its shareholders, and buys everyone an iPhone for shits and giggles.
4) Company doesn't need OTA groupware, but does have a pressing need for its employees to be able to listen to MP3s all day, post pictures to Flickr and mess with Google Maps. They buy the iPhone.
I don't know about you, but 3) and 4) don't seem to be a huge demographic...
In a correctly configured corporate network, individual users should not have rights to install any software. Desktop users should be running as "user" without administrator rights. This prohibits them from installing software that modifies windows or programs -- it also protects them against most viruses. In general, users should not be about to install any software other than corporate approved. Most companies have a standard image that does or doesn not include software like itunes. In many environments that isn't any need for itunes so it would not be installed.
Actually on the mac there is the same issue... individual users should not have the "admin" password so they will need IT support to install software like itunes (if not pre-installed).
The general answer is that Apple doesn't get corporate. This is the reason that Macs are so rare in corporate (> 500 employees) environments.
Wow, I wish I had my moderator points from yesterday for this post. :-)
How is it that this is moderated "+5 insightful" when it's basically just a personal attack on the author of the article? I thought Ad Hominem attacks like "It's written by a moron or a zealot.." were more for youth oriented sites Giz and Engadget?
The poster of this comment tries to point out a logical fallacy in the article (that doesn't actually exist), and then follows up with another insult ("... this guy is an overly biased Apple-zealot..") and it comes out +5 insightful?
Please keep the monkeys away from the moderating system!
While it's statistically possible they might end up with Shakespearen critiques, it's more likely they will fling poo around like this fellow did.
Hint: modify your suauth and sudoers files.
As for 'getting corporate', it is well-known that engineering departments don't "get corporate" (example, having a 'standard image' is not going to include all of the scientific, math, and laboratory software), but somehow companies manage to find ways to handle that.
I hate the idea of not being able to install my own apps. What about well-behaved apps that don't need admin rights? It sounds like you don't want people installing those, either, but maybe I'm misreading you.
I have to argue that, in a well-designed computing environment, as long as you don't touch the hardware directly and aren't trying to modify the core parts of the operating system, no application should need admin rights to install (unless you're installing 'for every user'). If I want to install my own text editor rather than using whatever is in the default image, I ought to have the ability to do so. If you're worried about user apps having unlimited access to the CPU or network, you should choose/configure your OS (and your network setup) wisely.