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iPhone Doesn't Surf Fast Enough for Jobs
ElvaWSJ writes with a link to a Wall Street Journal interview with Steve Jobs and AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson. As you can imagine, they're pretty enthusiastic. Just the same, they address the possibility that the iPhone will slow internet access on Ma Bell's cell network. "Mr. Jobs acknowledged that the company's new iPhone won't surf the Internet as fast as he would like on the network, called "Edge," but added that the device's ability to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots would give consumers a speedier alternative for Web browsing. For his part, Mr. Stephenson said the iPhone represents a broader push by AT&T into Wi-Fi services, including, potentially, mobile Internet calling. The two men also discussed the iPod's "halo effect" and reflected on the origins of their corporate partnership."
iPhone Don't Surf!
Since AT&T was supposedly the only provider who would agree to Apple's list of detailed demands, it's likely they had little choice but to accept their network. It's not like other providers were lining up for a chance at it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Simply put: it ain't 3G. That's going to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for iPhone. It's one of the reasons why I won't be buying one, despite the fact that I drooled over the iPhone initially.
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But 640kbps ought to be enough for anyone?
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
OK I made it half way through Job's first sentence, which was:
One of the things we feel is this is the biggest breakthrough in user interfaces in 23 years. Since the Mac in 1984 brought us the mouse and bit map displays and folders and icons
hmmm...
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
"Since the Mac in 1984 brought us the mouse and bit map displays and folders and icons, there really hasn't been much except for the evolution of that in the last 23 years."
Nice to see Apple continuing the fine corporate tradition ov copying other people's innovations and claiming them as their own.
Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
I was afraid we wouldn't see a single iPhone advertisement...I mean article today...my fears have been relived...
That's thenormal MO for tech.
If you don't like that, I suggest you find an interest in wood working.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
AT&T has an HSDPA (3G) network, but there are two issues with it. (1) It's not widely deployed (a few dozen cities, compared to EDGE, which is everywhere that AT&T offers cell service). (2) Although the network is quite fast, the chipsets that support it presently consume too much power. Apple apparently wants a lower power chipset so that battery life of the iPhone isn't adversely affected.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Those had been shelved by Xerox and it was the deal Apple made with Xerox that allowed them to create a product. They DID bring it to 'US'. 'US' being the consumer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Or has Jobs put his finger on the real difference between Apple and Microsoft?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
This is a revolutionary user interface [on the iPhone] -- multi-touch, direct action. It's pretty remarkable. I'm very excited.
He is exited about something PDA's have done for years. Many laptops, too, have had touchscreen capabilities for a while now. And with the exception of the touchscreen, the iPhone is one of many cell phones that can play music and view the web.
Revolutionary? Only in the sense that Apple could make it mainstream like they did with the iPod. But, like the iPod, this is nothing new.
I'm amazed AT&T or any cell company would allow a cell to enter their market that has built in wifi. Won't this cut into their profits? Since anyone can go to McD's and check their email instead of having to pay their provider for the online minutes.
Why did not apple buck the whole system and offere the iPhone as a unlocked device only.
that way you could get your choice of service, your phone is not held hostage by unscrupulous Service providers, and it would have forced a change in the way cellular companies abuse their customers.
a win,win,win situation.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What is up with Jobs selling nonexistent features?
Ringtone business gets a tease:
Mr. Jobs: One might imagine a lot of things down the road.
Mr. Jobs: There's a lot of things you can imagine down the road.
But you can forget 3G in revision one:
Mr. Jobs: No, we just don't comment on future stuff.
I also got a kick out of this:
Mr. Jobs: There's often times a Wi-Fi network that you can join whether you're sitting in a coffee shop or even walking along the street piggybacking on somebody's home Wi-Fi network.
Theft of service, it's the Apple way!
With all the hype over people getting sued and arrested for using someones open AP, I wonder if the iPhone autoconnects without user intervention or if it requires some manual selection. If auto this could cause legal problems as the user would be according to recent suits "stealing bandwith and computer fraud by illegally accessing an another persons network" I dont agree with it, but that appears to be the direction we're going.
Does the iphone browser incorporate a server side compression system (a la Opera Mobile)? - that would seem to be a good solution for speeding up a slow data link to a device that has limited display capabilities anyway.
How about some plugins to block graphical advertisements or other unwanted content on popular sites (a la greasemonkey) ?
There are so many options to optimize web browsing for such devices - this slowness web surfing MUST have come up in beta testing - what solutions are included?
Some of it's voice mail features required the carrier to change it's network. If you just put it on the market as an open device, no carrir is going to botherto spend the millions to change their network.
Of course, if the iPhone does become the next iPod, then other carriers will start to make changes to support those features. Then APple will open it to other carriers.
This is very Jobs. Get his foot in the door, then eventually be the hippest cat in the whole room.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can I plug the Origami, UMPC, of Samsung into my Mac and have it sync with my iTunes library?
No? Then it isn't a music player as far as most of us are concerned.
It is telling that you compare iPhone's wifi (only) to Origami and UMPC. Then you compare its cell data connection to a Samsung phone. And totally ignore the fact that none of the above play music from iTMS.
What you FAIL to understand is that iPhone combines ALL of these features into one sleek package. It doesn't just do wifi as well as the Origami. It doesn't just look better than the Samsung. It doesn't just play my iTMS music. It isn't just the simplest smart phone with the best UI. It doesn't just have ground breaking visual voice messages, or multi touch inteface with no clunky mini-buttons. It does ALL of those things, really well, all packed into a normal sized cell phone package.
Watch. When every other person you pass on the street has iPhone, you hillbillys with your half screen half keypad dumb phones will be the laughingstock.
> If I were running an AT&T competitor right now I would be wondering why Jobs didn't approach me with this opportunity and what I could do to earn his approval. I wouldn't want to be left behind
z on-iphone_x.htm
Unless, of course, you're Verizon who had the balls to stand up to Apple. Right decision in the end or not, at least they stood up for their business.
If someone came to you and said:
1) We want you to agree to sell our product, sight unseen.
2) You have to cut all of your partners out of it.
3) We will tell you whether the phone can be replaced if a customer has a problem.
4) We want a percentage of service revenue.
- does that sound like a good business decision to you? You're going to alienate all of your other partners (i.e. Best buy, Walmart, etc..) You're going to alienate your customers (Sorry, we'd love to replace your handset Mr. Big-Important-VIP-Customer, but Apple said no. Can't help you.), and worst of all, you open the door for *EVERYONE* to take a piece of your service revenue - why wouldn't Motorola/LG/Samsung/etc. ask for the same deal? (You did it for Apple - either split revenue with us, or no RAZR2 for you.)
I agree - I think it would've kicked butt if VZW had the iPhone. A real 3G network (EV-DO) would complement iPhone wonderfully, as would a real voice network (GSM quality is crap. CDMA not only covers more area per tower, but it has a better vocoder as well.)
But can you blame them for turning it down? I would have, given the way Apple approached them.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-28-veri
Mr. Jobs: We can report to you that it hasn't so far. I think they should actually wait until it is released before they can tell if it's going to or not.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Seems that there are credible reports coming in that in the last 24 hours AT+T have increased EDGE speeds to >200 k bits/s. This should be good news to all AT+T EDGE users:
r s-seeing-sudden-boost-in-edge-speeds/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/atandt-custome
As we know, increased means they probably removed some artificial cap....
I wonder how many days will go by until the drop the speed again? I guess there will be a halo effect of new iPhone buyers showing their friends - "hey look at this I can browse the web" - just for the sake of it....
Turn's out the A990 requires a cable (not included) and you had to sync with Windows Media 10 and only uses WMA! Besides the fact I'm a linux user, this is just a step backwards. I thought we where passed the days of requiring special software to transfer songs to a device. Pretty much everything I've seen for the past 4-5 years (even those cheapo players down at Wallyworld for $32) are mass storage compliant letting you just copy your files to the SD card.
While she did keep it, just no music, I would have taken it back and utilized my 15 day return policy. Chalk one up for crippleware.
Flame me all you want, but I think Apple blew it by going with Cingular/AT&T for the iPhone.
Apple should have gone with Verizon Wireless, which would have given the iPhone the ability to access EVDO wireless networking that has data transfer rates in the 350 to 800 kilobits per second range. In that case, the iPhone would have actually been a truly useful device to access the Internet and corporate email systems.
nice how the rest of his response was cut out... "Mr. Jobs: You know every (AT&T) Blackberry gets its mail over EDGE. It turns out EDGE is great for mail, and it works well for maps and a whole bunch of other stuff. Where you wish you had faster speed is...on a Web browser. It's good enough, but you wish it was a little faster. That's where sandwiching EDGE with Wi-Fi really makes sense because Wi-Fi is much faster than any 3G network. What we've done with the iPhone is we've made it so that it will automatically switch to a known Wi-Fi network whenever it finds it. So you don't have to go hunting around, resetting the phone, flipping a switch or doing anything. Most of us have Wi-Fi networks around us most of the time at home and at work. There's often times a Wi-Fi network that you can join whether you're sitting in a coffee shop or even walking along the street piggybacking on somebody's home Wi-Fi network. What we found is the combination is working really well. When we looked at 3G, the chipsets are not quite mature, in the sense that they're not low-enough power for what we were looking for. They were not integrated enough, so they took up too much physical space. We cared a lot about battery life and we cared a lot about physical size. Down the road, I'm sure some of those tradeoffs will become more favorable towards 3G but as of now we think we made a pretty good doggone decision. "
>> Watch. When every other person you pass on the street has iPhone, you hillbillys with your half screen half keypad dumb phones will be the laughingstock. Ah! You mean Sheeple? Laughing at me? I dont mind that.
Someone needs to tell Zonk that removing one vowel won't reload Slashdot on his iPhone any faster.
Here, let me correct "it's" to the possessive "its."
How long do you suppose before someone is able to crack the iphone to use a wifi connection for internet calling?
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
It will surf teh interweb, answer email, make calls, play MP3's, wash your car, clean your house, spank you off. FINELINE PRINT: Product may not work as advertised. In order to benefit from our huge technologically advanced vertically intergrated technologically advanced technology, users must first purchase an advanced proactive neurally intergrated vertically horizontal network card from our vertically implemented horizontally vectored service provider.
Infiltrated dot Net
Not because the phone is faster, but because you won't be out of your subsidy period when the new one arrives. There's got to be a 3. Profit in here somewhere!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
While I don't have any experience with the newer 3G wireless internet services and other such things, using my CDMA phone with 1X internet is painfully slow, even for playing the online "who wants to be a millionaire" game, or even load up the google mobile search page. Not only that the batter gets drained pretty fast if you're doing any kind of prolonged surfing. I imagine that anything faster would just draw more battery power. I'm not sure whether mobile internet will ever be a good thing. Even if you had 802.11x, most laptops have severely reduced battery life if you're using the WiFi chip.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yeah, Verizon can sure be proud of themselves. I bet it's been really refreshing to not be bothered by one of the largest product launches in the last few decades. I mean it's just a phone, right ? (the iPod was just an MP3 player, right ?) It's not like anyone has been "talking" about the iPhone. It's not like hordes of customers are going to be switching to AT&T Wireless.
You can bitch about how overhyped all this is and how other phones already do this and it's not 3G and blah blah blah - shut up, I want one, so do lots of other people. It's cool. It's looks like it works well. It's going to be seemless with my mac and share information really well. It's going to get updated with new features via software update, and that'll just "happen" when I plug it in to charge it. I'm not going to bitch when I have to replace it in four years, because that's a pretty good run for any tech device these days. I haven't used any applications that came on my Nokia. I'll use all the ones on the iPhone, because they look and act just like the software I'm using THIS VERY MINUTE. How many times do you Apple haters have to have this beaten into you ? We, the great unwashed, just want the damn thing to work. Make it easy. We're stupid. Not as smart as you, Mr. "I can build a computer out of tinfoil and Linux"
Oh, poor Verizon doesn't get to handle customer service complaints ? Jesus, it'll suck for AT&T not to listen to customers bitch when things go wrong. Whatever horror stories people have about Apple, I'll take their customer service ANY DAY over a friggin cell phone company. If my iPhone doesn't work, I'll take it into the Apple store at my local mall, where a helpful, perky 20-something will hand me a new one from the back. Have you dealt with cell phone insurance replacement plans recently ? Does the phrase "hell-bitch-hassle" ring a bell ?
Damn, Apple "forced" AT&T to let them set the conditions for sign up. Now I have to click a few buttons in iTunes, instead of watching a rep spend 30 minutes on each customer, slowly going through all the options and explaining to fat, retarded people what "anytime minutes" are. I sure am going to hate how fast and easy the signup process will be. Way to go, Verizon !! Don't let the man tell you how to make things easy and user-friendly !!
Please. AT&T needs to sit back and get paid. Apple is worth whatever money they're getting. You will never convince me otherwise.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
More bullshit from AT&T:
e ct-lightspeed-and-the-jedi-mind-trick/
Mr. Stephenson: If you think about wireless broadband networks, EDGE is the only ubiquitous nationwide broadband network deployed today. It's a 300-plus kilobit type service. We're selling in the tens of thousands every single month of smart phones that operate on nothing but EDGE. The service experience is really, really good and what you're going to see with the iPhone is the caching technology that Steve and the Apple guys have developed here makes the EDGE experience even better. Between the Wi-Fi and the EDGE coverage, this is a really good experience.
High latency, low bandwidth broadband. Huzzah!
Sprint's EVDO network is deployed as widely as AT&T's EDGE network (not even all of AT&T's GSM network is EDGE). Worse, Sprint's EVDO revA network is deployed in most metropolitan areas, nearly all interstate highways, and nearly all tourist areas.
For AT&T, Edge is "all the speed you need", up until they deploy HSDPA, in which case that will be, "all the speed you need". Just like this: http://www.nyquistcapital.com/2006/03/30/att-proj
Mr.Stephenson said that AT&T's field tests have shown 'no discernable difference' between AT&T's 1.5 Mbps service and Comcast's 6 Mbps because the problem is not in the last mile but in the backbone.
Ridiculous
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
There are rumours of a major speed boost (up to 200 kbps) in the EDGE network today.r s-seeing-sudden-boost-in-edge-speeds/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/atandt-custome
No idea if this is true, but there are similar rumours coming from elsewhere as well.
But you forgot:
5) Look at what we did for the music industry
Which means that Apple redefined the entire business. Any label that turned down Apple when they came calling about iPod/iTMS has either wised up and jumped on the bandwagon too late or had better spend the last few dollars they are about to make on shutters to cover their windows when they vacate their buidling.
The future is plain enough for anyone with vision to see. iPhone will be the new word for cell phone. 5 years from now when you walk into a hospital you won't see "No cell phones" signs, you'll see a graphic of an iPhone with a circle and a slash through it, just like you do now for iPods (oh, I'm sorry, 'music players' to you few remaining holdouts).
Sure, Apple might eventually relent and let other carriers join in the revolution, but likely AT&T will always receive preferential terms. And probably inside access to the partculars of how to make their network use iPhone's industry leading hardware to its fullest.
But no, I'm not surprised they turned it down. The US cellular industry could be used as a model for how not to be visionary and instead rest on your laurels and hide behind regulation. But the time will come when consumers demand change, and they'll be driven to do so by iPhone.
EVDO is 3G, and it's available across the US. And my EVDO phone's battery lasts a lot longer than 45 minutes.
The US is 3G ready - it's Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile who aren't.
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I'm not sure he was trying to be funny. There was a very real possibility that people would not buy an iPod in the last few months, because they knew the iPhone was on the way and it would make their iPod seem outdated. I know that for me, after seeing the iPhone demonstrated, iPods seem less exciting and cool.
I think it is significant that iPod sales have not seemed to be negatively affected by the iPhone announcement.
Seriously, if the iPhone is ONLY really good on WiFi networks, why the iPhone?
Well, Apple is taking this as an opportunity to push the US wireless carriers to upgrade their networks. And, they get to put an Apple device into a market that MS hasn't been able to penetrate very well (yet). On top of that, they get to use the iPod capabilities to continue their dominance of the online music market.
Just a thought - how long do you think it will take for Apple to add a full iTunes store on the iPhone? Download whole songs over the wireless network, sync back to your PC for backup, etc? Given the piss-poor bandwidth at the average cell site backend, this idea has got to have AT&T shitting themselves over the coming data wave. They've probably not included it yet for the very reason that AT&T needs to upgrade every cell site in the country.
The next release of the iPhone in 18 months or so will probably include 4G capability (skipping over 3G) and the iTunes store. If they've got to touch every cell site, why not do a full upgrade to 4G? And that will push everyone else to do the same, or be left behind. Maybe Steve is pushing this to be the backdoor to increased high-speed bandwidth for the country?
My initial reaction was that, come the European launch, if the iPhone doesn't have 3G/UMTS/HSPDA then it would be laughed out of court. However, on reflection, it sounds as if Apple's attitude is:
GPRS is good enough to check your EMAIL and gives good phone coverage. If you want a decent web-surfing experience on the train, subway or in a coffee shop, your best bet is if some bright spark has installed WiFi. So lets do a phone which makes a much better job of doing WiFi than the competition and not weigh it down and waste battery life by putting in 3G capability. We're Apple - maybe we're influential enough to put some momentum behind WiFi coverage.
(PS - am I right in thinking that EDGE/GPRS and 3G/UTMD/HSPDA are two incompatible "family trees" of protocols, and a phone that supports both needs a certain amount of duplicate "gubbins" inside?)
I have a (UK) phone that does GRPS*, UMTD & HSPDA*, bluetooth and WiFi and while 3G coverage here is ok (and HSPDA being rolled out - and very nice when you can get it) it wouldn't be much good without GRPS as a fallback. You certainly can't use the internet reliably on a train (I've tried - and did manage to send an EMAIL from a train here but it was a labour of love and certainly wasn't HSPDA!) The phone (MDA Vario II - AKA HTC TyTan) is a bit of a brick and it certainly doesn't flip seamlessly between WiFi hotspots (cough)WM5(cough).
PS - real Apple Fanbois should, of course, equip themselves with a backpack containing a laptop with a HSPDA data card and a compact WAP. Then they can whip out their iPhone and impress people anywhere with HSPDA coverage... (* OK - PCMCIA, as they say, so I'm trying out multiple permutations for the ETLAs and DETLAs here:-)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Around Christmastime last year
Mary Cheney: Dad, you look so sad, it's Christmas! You should be happy! What's wrong??
Dick Cheney: Well Mary, I'm having a hard time holding things together. My boss is a halfwit, nobody understands me, the press is relentless, and things might come unravelled if people start asking for emails. On top of that Michael Moore is coming out with a film that could hurt all of our big pharma stocks. I don't know what to do. *sigh*
Mary Cheney: I have lots of connections in SanFrancisco. Lemme see what I can do.
Right after New Years
Steve Jobs(phone):Hello Mary. Nice to hear from you. It's been a while - the artist's benefit for street muscicians I believe?? Anyway, what can I do you for?
Mary Cheney(phone): Well my dad is having a hard time of it. I know that you don't see eye to eye with him on politics. But I need help. I need get all the rabid press off my dad's back. The only ones who give half a shit is Fox News. He has a bad heart, you know. Plus Michael Moore is coming out with this horrible film that's a pack of lies.
Steve(phone): You're right Mary. I am not on the same page as your father. But I do have a lot of pharma stock myself. When is Moore's film due out? June 29? I have been tossing around an ipod plus phone product for a while. I'm calling it the "iphone." I will announce it next week. It will be huge. So huge that it will eclipse the sun! People will be selling the empty box on ebay for hundreds! No one will see any bad news reporting on your dad because the news will either be about the iphone or people will be in line to get the iphone. And they will be either too tired to go to that stupid Michael Moore movie or they will be too busy playing with the phone to even bother with life let alone go to the movie. And those that don't have the iphone will be trying to buy empty boxes on ebay! Nothing to worry Mary. It'll be like a national holiday away from all the problems!!
Mary(phone): Brilliant! Thank you Steve! You're wonderful! I love you! But like a friend kind of love...
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
EVD0 owns all...my Sanyo M1 owns the iPhone. sure, it doesn't have the nice big touch screen, but it can do everything the iPhone can and faster thanks to EVd0. the only thing the iPhone has on mine is the whole iMovie thing, but seriously, who wants to watch a movie on a phone? Sprint and Verizon will have their answers to iPhone soon and i wouldn't be surprised if they were made by microsoft and/or sony.
> How many times do you Apple haters have to have this beaten into you ? We, the great unwashed, just want the damn thing to work. Make it easy. We're stupid. Not as smart as you, Mr. "I can build a computer > out of tinfoil and Linux"
...). I love Apple technology more than just about anyone. All I was trying to say is that, in the world of business, some things are a good move, and some aren't. Sure, Apple's going to sell some iPhones - probably even a few million. But VZW has over 60 million customers. Even if 5 million had iPhones, that's still 55 million 'other' customers to worry about. Again, I think that's the biggest thing - the fact that it would open the door for Moto, LG, Samsung, et al. to demand a chunk of service revenue too. Not a huge loss to give up a piece of revenue for the 5 mil iPhone customers - but for all 60 million, month after month? That's a lot of money to give up.
Apple hater? Are you kidding me? I'm typing this on my G5; the Powerbook is VPN'd into work next to me, and my old G4 Cube is on the floor waiting for me to reload the OS. I've got an original iPod (not a '1G' iPod, but the ORIGINAL iPod - the one that didn't list a size on the back, because there was only one
At the end of the day, no matter how cool or innovative or seamless a device is, money talks. This deal goes way beyond Apple - it has repercussions throughout the cell phone industry....
(in iPhone-user-friendly plain-text.)
iPhone 'Surfing' On AT&T Network Isn't Fast, Jobs Concedes By NICK WINGFIELD and AMOL SHARMA June 29, 2007; Page B4 [nowides]
In an interview on the eve of the iPhone launch, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs and AT&T Inc. CEO and Chairman Randall Stephenson addressed concerns that the device will have slow Internet access on AT&T's cellular network.
Mr. Jobs acknowledged that the company's new iPhone won't surf the Internet as fast as he would like on the network, called "Edge," but added that the device's ability to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots would give consumers a speedier alternative for Web browsing. For his part, Mr. Stephenson said the iPhone represents a broader push by AT&T into Wi-Fi services, including, potentially, mobile Internet calling. The two men also discussed the iPod's "halo effect" and reflected on the origins of their corporate partnership.
The iPhone's first real chance to prove itself will begin Friday at 6 p.m., when the public is finally able to get its hands on the product. If it's successful, the product -- a cellphone combined with entertainment and Internet functions, all of them controlled by finger taps on a touch-sensitive screen -- could force changes across the wireless industry, forcing cellphone makers to respond with new twists in their own hardware. Already, eager fans are lining up at AT&T and Apple stores around the country to buy the device
Excerpts from the interview follow:
* * *
WSJ: Steve, on the eve of the iPhone launch, we wonder if you might compare it to others you've been involved in -- the introduction of the Macintosh, for instance -- both in terms of the consumer anticipation and your own feelings about the impact the product will have in the market?
[Steve Jobs]
Steve Jobs: One of the things we feel is this is the biggest breakthrough in user interfaces in 23 years. Since the Mac in 1984 brought us the mouse and bit map displays and folders and icons, there really hasn't been much except for the evolution of that in the last 23 years. This is a revolutionary user interface [on the iPhone] -- multi-touch, direct action. It's pretty remarkable. I'm very excited.
I remember the week before we introduced the Mac. We knew every computer would work this way once we had the Mac. You couldn't talk about 'If,' you could debate about 'When.' That's how I feel about this. I feel this is the direction mobile devices are going to have to go. I don't think it's a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The first and most breakthrough one of them is going to be on the market tomorrow.
WSJ: One of the interesting things for people about the iPhone is the bundling of data and voice into one service plan. We've talked to some other smartphone manufacturers in the last couple days who say that would be great if that were extended to other devices because it seems like it would ensure that out-of-the-box people aren't getting an experience where they're pressing a button and something doesn't work. Is that something that you are looking at extending to other phones in the AT&T lineup over time?
Randall Stephenson: It depends on the handset itself. With this particular device, to not have an inclusive data package with a voice package would be almost irrelevant, right? This is a data and a voice product. It's nonsensical to sell a rate plan separate. As you see devices migrate towards this type of device, I fully expect you'll see rate plans migrate towards that as well.
WSJ: What do you both envision being added over time to the iPhone, in terms of access to ringtones through Cingular's (now rebranded AT&T) platform and maybe through some other manner, like turning your iTunes songs into ringtones?
Mr. Jobs: As you may know, iTunes is now the number three distributor of music in the U.S., ahead of Amazon and Target and behind Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and obviously the largest online distributor of
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Oh noes!! Please don't withhold the RAZR2 from us!! Our customers will die -- all three of them!!
Well OK, the RAZR sold more than three units. I assume. Anyway, the curent economic model between the cellphone manufacturers and service providers sucks. It leads to stupid shit like feature-blocking. I want my cellphone provider to provide service. And usable information about that service. My cable company didn't sell me a TV. My ISV didn't sell me my computer (and if they did I'll bet it wouldn't be one that I wanted.) Sure, I wish the iPhone was usable with all carriers, but it isn't. Yet. One step at a time.
Oh, and P.S. When the RAZR came out it cost $500 as well WITH a service agreement; $800 without. Just saying.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
GEM was previewed in 1983 at COMDEX and released in 1984.
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That's not a limitation of the phone itself, but an artificial software lock imposed by Verizon. I've heard that with that phone, you can rename .mp3 files to .qcp, and they will play. I have not tested this, though, as I do not own one of these phones. Please try it and let me know if it works!
Yeah, VZW stood on principal, and it's probably going to bite them in the ass for the next few months.
On the other hand, they'll be first to market with the LG CDMA/EVDO iPhone copycat, starting at $199.
Information wants to be Free. Useful Information will cost you.
Don't blame Samsung, blame your carrier. In China, the hot phones are the Samsung Anycall (SCH) series, and the kids who buy them use Bluetooth to swap songs all the time. It's most likely your carrier locking down the option (like some who force WiFi to NOT work as a phone link).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Blame Verizon for that one. My SAMSUNG A707 (Cingular SYNC) can play any rate MP3s, it just doesn't like some high rate VBR ones, and the titles have to be under 30 characters. I can synchronize them and get playlists using WMP, but if I dont want to, I can use a card reader and make my playlists on the phone (which, granted, does suck).
In clear line-of-site, I've not seen it push more than ~500Kbps and their website pretty clearly states expected performance is 300-700kbps--basically, speeds that EDGE was already supposed to support. I spent half an afternoon flipping settings around to make sure it
Thank goodness the "insightful" Steve Jobs has let us know about this problem. I'm sure that other people will realize that the iPhone doesn't surf the web fast enough only now that steve has let us know that he doesn't think it's fast enough. All hail Lord Steve Jobs!
I find it hilarious the news stations are calling this "the Jesus phone". I, for one, am going to wait for the second coming.
-50 DKP for lame post!
When we're talking about "the future" let's talk about faster wide area wireless networks, and not wifi capabilities.
I don't understand the draw of wifi on mobile phones. I'd rather have one high-speed single connection that is as broadly dispersed as EVDO currently is. For mobile use, when I had a PPC 6700, the evdo was nearly as fast as wifi and switching back and forth was a hassle.
JP
I had a Dell Axim x51v with a fat wireless network pipe and the thing is still kinda slow... The hardware is nice or seems really nice. I would like to know if the slowness on windows mobile devices is because of the OS (winsock) or the driver or or the dinky little wireless circuit? Would the Linux based n800 browse faster? Does the iphone browse faster given the same sized pipe? Hmmmmmm?
You're confusing 3G with W-CDMA. EDGE is a GSM "upgrade". A significant portion of US cell users are on CDMA networks (Verizon/Sprint/...). For 3G those users are using EVDO, which "degrades" to 1x. You can think of EDGE and 1xRTT as 2.5G, at least relative to data transfer rate.
So the progression is something like this:
2G -> 2.5G -> 3G -> 3.5G -> 4G
GSM -> Edge -> W-CDMA(UMTS) -> HSPA -> LTE
cdmaOne -> 1xRTT -> EVDO -> EVDO Rev A -> UMB/OFDMA/WiMAX
Sprint has already rolled out EVDO Rev. A in some locations, which is "bitchin fast" for both download and upload.
I've had an EVDO Rev. 0 card in my laptop for a few years, and while I wouldn't say it is quite as fast as WiFi, it is really great and I get 5 hours of battery life.
In conclusion, your statement that the country is "EDGE ready, not 3G" is inaccurate in several ways. Not meaning to flame.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
Ah yes, ad citatum, the ultimate in slashdot retorts.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
If you want faster surfing on EDGE or GPRS, get Opera Mini. It slims down the HTML and graphics substantially before it gets to your phone. It breathed new life into my Sony Ericsson P910 (GPRS only), making it faster in use than Pocket Explorer my wife's EDGE phone with the AT&T network. The inability to use alternatives like Opera Mini is part of why I'm not as excited about the iPhone as I thought it would be.
Thanks will try that this evening. If it works I'll gladly post about it. Other than that the phone works ok. But that was a frustrating deal breaker for me.
Isn't that illegal or is it legal to unlock it? She paid for the phone, it's her property. In my eyes, it's like a ISP telling you what to do with your computer (You can't run java on your computer) because we have locked that feature, despite what the hardware and software can do.
It loads on the phone, so it must be compressing/fiddling with the page after it has downloaded.
How can that give you a faster download?
It might render what it downloads faster, but that is not the network, it's the phone.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Mod parent up! EVDO = 3G, EDGE = 2.5G EVDO networks have been rolled out by Verizon, Sprint and Alltel all over the country. Sprint Mobile Broadband uses EVDO. It's nice and it's fast; not quite WiFi but it's fast. EDGE is slow. That's my whole point.
My blog
Why are we still screwing around with slow technology? Oh that's right, GREED. Well, while the telco's lobby for profit, America's intelligence, defense, and fourth (or should that be fifth now) estate are suffering, it will probably take another 911 event to wake up. But then it will be too late!
If you go through the apple demo of how to activate your iPhone, it says the time will vary "depending on your provider".
On the face of it, that seems absurd, since there is only one provider.
Are they leaving room for international providers with that commentary, or are tehy referring to all the little sub-providers that AT&T has swallowed over the years. If this, they why can't they integrate HSPDA along with EDGE, and just get the benefit of the higher speed when you're in an HSPDA area?
The problem is that the WiFi part of the phone isn't unlocked until you've bought the AT&T unlimited data plan. While this is clear fraud on the purchaser, who might only be planning to use wireless access through WiFi points, AT&T gets their money regardless of how you use the iPhone. In fact, they'll want you to use WiFi as much as possible, to keep traffic down on their own networks.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
ATT Wireless (before being bought by cingular) was rolling out UMTS nationwide. But cingular took over and changed its schedule, putting 4+ years delay in its launch.
Oh, and switched vendors, vendors with former ATTWS employees. I believe investors got soaked for millions. Lets not even go into the merge of the networks, what a fiasco that was.
How is it legal for a service provider to lock you out of feature for a product you buy that is not their product? Again that's like buy a computer then looking for an ISP, then the ISP tells you you're not allowed to play games on your computer or use piece of software on it. Service providers have no right to tell you what you can't due on your own hardware, a phone is essentially a piece of hardware. You are not leasing or renting a product from them. You are buying a piece of hardware from another vendor and using them as a service provider. If anyone had that right it would be the manufacturer of the product you're buying.
Ah no... This one http://www.samsung.com/ch/products/mobilephones/mo bilephones/bsgh_f300.asp
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Guys, you're all missing the point. The iPhone would have had 3g, but Qualcomm got their 3g chips tied up in court, so what was probably a drop in upgrade for the iPhone, never materialized in time for production. So you have a last generation set of Qualcomm chips in there. Thank the US justice system and the jacked up patent office for your slow arsed iPhone.
Since the Mac in 1984 brought us the mouse and bit map displays and folders and icons, there really hasn't been much except for the evolution of that in the last 23 years.
That would be either "The Xerox Star Office System" in "1981" or at least "Lisa" in "1982", Steve.
They can lock whatever they want on the phone. The only restriction that I know of is that they can't prevent you from unlocking the phone (though they don't have to help to unlock it, either).
Hmm, orly? Can you point to a URL that verifies this?
>What you FAIL to understand is that iPhone combines ALL of these features into one sleek package. It doesn't just do wifi as well as the Origami. It doesn't just look better than the Samsung. It doesn't just play my iTMS music. It isn't just the simplest smart phone with the best UI. It doesn't just have ground breaking visual voice messages, or multi touch inteface with no clunky mini-buttons. It does ALL of those things, really well, all packed into a normal sized cell phone package.
You see this is the gotcha! While geeks and such may think that this is what they want, the reality is quite different. People actually want multiple devices. People want best of breed. They might complain and hate having multiple devices, but they want them none the less. The way to go is speciality devices like the Blackberry. The Blackberry does extremely well because it does that one task extremely well (email.) Notebooks do extremely well because notebooks do their single task extremely well. When you try to marry everything into a universal device you are constantly complaining because nothing is ideal.
I can't wait to see how quickly people will drop this device when they start typing longer messages. The iPhone is great read only device. I can't see how it is going to do well in a read-write scenario. Again this is why the Blackberry does SO WELL.
Simplest smart phone? Hmm, from what I read in the reviews it takes six steps to make a phone call. Yeah that's the simplest smart phone!... ROTFL....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"BASICALLY," as in "not a great deal superior to."
Christ.
Hrmmm...I don't buy it. My Hermes is 3G, and I can go three days between charges easily (over the weekend, for example, when I don't dock it). I'm on GPRS where I live, which does suck donkey balls, but the ability to run UTMS (is that right?) in the bigger cities doesn't seem to cause drain problems when I'm in the sticks. I will say that battery life seems much less when in 3G areas (maybe 50%), but that could be becuase I'm just so damned tempted to surf when I'm getting 400-500kB/s and I don't shut down the data connection when I'm done (lack of a habit). I still managed to have half a battery after a day in Winston-Salem with UTMS, with a good bit of surfing and BT turned on the whole time so I could use my GPS.
I don't envy anyone trying to use their iPhone under GPRS rates. I practically never use the web because of the speed, and when I do I try to hold exclusively to monbile sites and the google mobile gateway. Everything else is just too damned slow.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Is there anyone out there besides me who couldn't care less about this thing? I guess I'm really barking up the wrong tree by asking this on Slashdot--maybe the library would be a better place--but I mean, jesus h christ people, it's just a phone. You call people with it. It sends e-mails, so you don't have to wait until you're at home or the office. Woop-de-doo. Oh, and you can read the NY Times on a slow, cramped web browser. I just totally don't see the point of it all, other than to close off the last few remaining channels of your life where you might have had some uninterrupted personal time to be alone with your thoughts.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
We obviously thought about VoIP. You still need a cellular phone because you're not always going to be in a Wi-Fi hotspot. One you have a cellular phone plan, it costs you zero incremental dollars to use it when you're making the next phone call. VoIP, while an interesting technology, didn't seem to be a big breakthrough to us. But others might feel differently, and others may make Web-based VoIP clients available for the iPhone - I think someone's already working on that.
Not on AT&T's network... they explicitly prohibit VoIP.
I'm also a little disturbed by the implication that web applets would have access to the microphone. That sounds like a great opportunity for privacy invasion.
The WSJ guy seems pretty confused about the iPhone in the following paragraphs. Applets on the iPhone have nothing to do with apps on OSX. Of course that confusion is exactly why Apple's been promoting the idea that this kind of thing is an "iPhone API" for writing iPhone applications, rather than a web API for writing web applications that are styled to resemble the iPhone.
I've noticed that *some* people writing these apps are deliberately checking if they're running on an iPhone or not, and refusing to run if you view them in another browser, but the ones that don't work fine for me in Camino. This is the counterpart to the old problem of websites that checked for IE or specific versions of other browsers, and it's just as daft an idea now as it was then.
On the other hand, Verizon Wireless has horrible customer service, cripples their phones (to the extent that, for instance, you can't even get your pictures off of them and onto your computer without using some proprietary service), doesn't use GSM...
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
and you'll need to surf for jobs to pay for it...
Do you really want to associate yourself with 13 year old, eyeliner-wearing, wannabe vampires? If not, don't use the word "sheeple". It isn't edgy. It isn't funny. It's just dumb.
You mean the LG KE850 that was launched before anyone had seen the first glimpse of the iPhone? I can see, based on that, why you'd call it a copycat - because Apple must be the innovator, right?
Let's not let the laws of physics get in the way of bashing companies for copying Apple by releasing a similar product (in design, if nothing else) before Apple's launch, huh?
I suspect Verizon turned down the iPhone deal, as much as anything else, because Apple wasn't interested in selling Verizon's "V-Cast" crap and all that. In the mind of most carriers, buying a phone and a service contract isn't enough. They want you to buy ringtones and over-the-air music and all sorts of other services and products where they get a cut.
The fact is, most carriers would probably be weary of the iPhone because iPhone users will probably only pay the carrier for the phone/data service, and nothing more. AFAIK it's not even clear how ringtone purchases will work on the iPhone, and whether at&t will get a cut. As it is, carriers usually get something like 50% of the gross from ringtones, and believe it or not that's a lot of money.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporat enews/2007-06-28-jobs-stephenson-qa_N.htm is another interview with the two of them, which includes this gem:
Um... Randall? If you're using the term 'game changer' a lot, that probably means you don't know what a game-changer is. If they were all over, they would just be the game.
- The Amazina Llama
How about sheep-people? Does that work for you, sir?
I have never ONCE had an issue that Verizon customer service didn't resolve to my satisfaction. They have been very good to me over the years. They don't cripple their phones more than any other provider does. I've never had problems getting pictures from my treo to my computer. Nobody of consequences uses GSM in the US besides T-Mobile and AT&T. The other major players in the US Cell market (Sprint, Verizon and US Cellular) use CDMA. It's not some bizarro protocol, it's just not the protocol that the rest of the world adopted.
There are problems with every major US carrier. They all want to sell superfluous crap that people don't want or need.
The iPhone can't even play mp3s without a contract.
I really don't know what you people are talking about with 3G not "being ready in the US" or "only working in a dozen cities." I live in a town in Connecticut and have perfect 3G reception on my Blackjack. My 3G has come through in Beverly, Mass as well as Hillsdale, NJ, and most of the Connecticut towns/cities I visit.
Yes. Gizmodo reported that it's called Operation Fine Edge.
Looks like asshat AT&T only bothered to upgrade their network for the iPhone, not the rest of us.
Thanks Jobs for busting their balls.
300-700Kbps is what is disclosed for expected performance for HSDPA on AT&T's network. When EGPRS is spec'd at 236-473Kbps, you're talking a floor difference of 22% and a ceiling difference 33%. Yes, that is significant. However, the spec for the HSDPA deployment by AT&T is 1.8-3.6Mbps. When throughput is consistently 500Kbps, you're talking differences of 300-700%.
So, let's recap. We have three scenarios:
1. EGPRS SPEC average 354.5 Kbps
2. HSDPA actual: 500.0 Kbps
3. HSDPA SPEC average 2700.0 Kbps
Now, would you say that #2 is more appropriately considered a close performance to #1 or #3? You know, #1, which on average is only 30% slower, or #3 that is 540% faster?
It's an interesting move making the touch screen the only interface. We have an O2 Atom floating about at work which is similar - you basically do everything through the touch screen. This is fine indoors, but outdoors you can't see shit on it. Which makes it pretty much impossible to use anywhere there's too much glare.
Not a problem that can't be solved with a decent anti-glare screen and bright backlighting though, so the iPhone might be fine with it.
Even so, there's some functions that are begging for tactile controls so you don't have to look at the damned thing to use it. Especially true if they're touting its music-playing capabilities - I'd fine it annoying to have to take my mp3 player out of my pocket just to skip a track, which you would need to do with the iPhone.
Of course it's too slow. He probably has gigabit in his office, fastest available residential service to his home, dedicated 802.11g or 802.11n wifi access points for any mobile platform he uses, then he has to drop back to sharing an Edge link with rates of 200-300kbps... By comparison it would seem slow as hell. He's not known to be patient.
Actually hadn't seen that, but just anticipated that there was profit to be made in duplicating the form-factor and interface.
Information wants to be Free. Useful Information will cost you.
I don't envy anyone trying to use their iPhone under GPRS rates.
The thing is, a lot of the time people will not be because WiFi is in many places now. And WiFi is even faster than 3G.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're all camping out in front of the apple/cingular stores.
Not having Flash is a feature.
Apple yanked all of the Flash from its corporate website and redid it all in standard Ajax using scriptilicious and other plane jane tools, demonstrating that anyone can. It's even more interactive and functional (check out Apple.com search) and no proprietary plugin for Flash required.
Adobe isn't happy about it, but do we really need to convert the web from open HTML into closed FLA? Apple even convinced Google to start putting all of its FLA On2 videos on YouTube into standard H.264. That makes is much easier to deliver standards-based hardware acceleration for mobile devices that optimizes YouTube type sites.
With this kind of progress, the web is headed back into open territory after a long captivity in proprietary hell. That's good for Linux users, DIY site builders, and levels the playing field in hardware.
The web shouldn't be hostage to anyone's plugin just to render pages, particularly a plugin tied to a proprietary and industrially uncommon video codec that doesn't appear to have any hardware acceleration features. Anyone can license H.264 or get cheap dedicated processors.
Internet Explorer on the desktop PC doesn't make any attempt to support CSS3, and doesn't even try hard to do 2005-era CSS. The Pocket version is even further away from being remotely useful for the modern web.
Yes, this has enlightened me! I should so obviously spend the n*100$us I could spend in getting a new computer with double the power of my current box ON a PHONE! Yeess! Steve Jobs is a pioneer!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
While everything you say is true, I have to wonder why Apple has so little PC market share. All the desirable OS features you describe should make Macs fly off the shelves - but they don't. Why would the iPhone be any different?
that you don't 'subscribe' for service at the retail store where you would get an iPhone, but instead all you do is buy the hardware itself and then 'subscribe' or 'activate' it, via iTunes, and I've got a few questions.
1. Is the sale of the phone itself completely cash-and-carry? Eg, can you pay cash, not sign anything, and walk out with the device in-hand and no further obligation?
2. Can you use the 802.11 and browsing capability of it *without* signing your life away to AT&T?
3. Would it be possible to run a SIP client on it, which would function like any other SIP phone, using the 802.11 to access the SIP peer?
You have a Treo. Not allowing transfers to or from smartphones negates the whole idea of a smartphone. If you have an ordinary cellphone from Verizon, they most certainly do block picture transfers.
"Nobody of consequences except half of the major carriers" is still half of the major carriers. (US Cellular isn't a national player, just a regional one.) Whereas GSM is a standard in the rest of the world, allowing someone with a GSM phone to travel worldwide.
I'll tell you about one issue--I got a bunch of "roaming minutes" charged to my phone, despite making those calls from the exact same room that is supposedly within Verizon's "extended network", and which I had never been charged "roaming minutes" for in the past, despite whether or not my phone said "roaming" or "extended network". It took multiple calls to Verizon to resolve this. I recall one representative telling me that he had experienced similar billing anomalies in the past, trying to play it off as no big deal. I was tempted to ask why on earth he worked for this company, since I would never work for a company that screwed me over like that. Ultimately, when I learned the magic incantation "floor manager" to speak to customer service, I was able to resolve a problem that Verizon created out of whole cloth for me to solve to begin with.
On other occasions, representatives have been rude to me, have presented me with contradictory information, and have in general been unresponsive. I guess, technically, they've "resolved" my issues, but never to my satisfaction. (One exception--awhile ago there were news stories about phone companies giving out records to the NSA. I called Verizon Wireless and received the authoritative statement that "Verizon Wireless isn't giving out phone call records to the NSA." from Michael Manalo, an "Executive Consultant". Knowing Verizon's past history, however, I have little reason to believe they weren't flat-out lying.) Not to mention the entire .02 cents debacle--not my problem, but from my 5-6 years of experience with Verizon, it seems completely in character.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Well, I'm thinking of comparing the iPhone more to the iPod, and in that case, Apple totally does own the market share (for portable music players) And that's because of style and user interface features. You could debate PC market share reasons forever (and Apple has made serious historical mistakes) but portable electronics are really a different market.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
Technically, EDGE meets the ITU's definition of what a "3G" standard is, if it's using all 8 timeslots -- that gives EDGE a theoretical maximum of 473.6kbps, and the 3G requirement is 384kbps or above. AT&T's network doesn't meet the ITU 3G qualification currently, although I'm not sure there's any (theoretical) reason it couldn't if they were willing to sink sufficient money into it. I suppose whether the more likely reached speeds of 150-200kbps for the iPhone are a "deal breaker" really depend on what you're coming from. My current phone, a Sidekick II, uses GPRS, with 40-60kbps speeds more common. While I could bemoan that switching to a first-gen iPhone will give me only a four-fold speed increase instead of sixteen-fold, personally, I can make do with that for a while.
Bah humbug. Who the hell said that if you use a 3G capable phone you wouldn't be able to get good battery life. I would expect that if you were paying 600 dollars for a phone and getting raped on the service you'd think they'd at least spring for the ability to use 3G. For example take a look at the Sony Ericsson W850i. It has both UMTS capability and a talk time of 11.5 hours. I would call that excellent by anyone's standards.
Btw the iPhone will demand you increase your internet usage. Gigabytes? I dunno maybe. But the reason you get an iPhone is because of the capabilities of the machine. You wanna use Google maps, you need the internet. Want to use widgets... more internet. Youtube, email, safari... these are the things that you'd use if you want the iPhone to be anything more than a pretty phone. I really don't know anybody uses their phone but the only time I want to use my phone to do those other things(I have a macbook for wifi usage) is when I'm away from starbucks or home or anywhere else. So yes in the iPhones case 3G is a requirement if they are gonna charge you an arm and leg for it.
Hmm, slow internet access on a client for which you pay for internet access by the minute.
Oh, I'm real sure an honest, reputable company like AT&T wouldn't have done this on purpose.
There's a link to a coverage map elsewhere in this thread. It is in most major cities.
My blog
Apparently not.
Yes, they're calling it the Jesus-phone. You're just figuring this out now?
Lies about crimes
On the other hand, Verizon Wireless has horrible customer service, cripples their phones (to the extent that, for instance, you can't even get your pictures off of them and onto your computer without using some proprietary service), doesn't use GSM...
Ya, and with Verizon you can't use your own MP3s as ringtones on some phones, and Bluetooth is crippled on SOME phone, oh wait, you can't do either of these things on the iPhone either. Talk about Vendor lock in, and then defending ATT and Apple? That is just insane.
Of course I have had a 3G phone from Verizon for almost 4 years, and been able to use it to even play MMOs in my car with my phone as my uplink, but that is too fancy for Apple Fans. (Did I mention even my old phone has removeable 4gb RAM for movies and audio, and no iTunes needed?)
Oh, and I can put on a bluetooth headset, and press a button on my ear and say "Dial 8005551212" and it dials the number, or phonetically any name in my address book. But this is an OLD phone, and I'm sure the iPhone is superior to USABILITY like this. Oh wait, it doesn't do any of this 'simple' crap phone users are use to using.
I am so tired of the iPhone. The UI is pretty, but looks like Vista development applications from 3 years ago, Album flip, etc. It is so cool, people have already made copies of the UI for the Windows Mobile platform, just in case the people with real 'computer phones' feel left out of the buzz of Apple.
Oh and the touch screen is nice, but I would rather not have to use the buttons on my phone and just use voice commands, you know as in 'science fiction star trek stuff' that has been around for YEARS now on phones.
There should be a mandatory term for people the defend the iPhone for what it isn't, as it does have some good things, but people argue that it is 'everything' and it IS NOT. iPhone = cheap phone + cheap iPod all in one great package.
With a nod to Mencia, I suggest 'iDeeDeeDee'.
Here are the "six" steps: Turn on iPhone, unlock screen, "summon home screen" (whatever that means; it goes straight to the home screen when you turn it on, unless you've left it in your email or web browser, in which case you'd have to back up), choose Phone, choose person, dial.
Here are the steps of a normal cell phone: Turn on phone, unlock keypad, "summon home screen" (if you've left it in some other mode like the inept iPhone reviewer), choose person from address book, dial.
You saved one step comprising a single tap of the screen. Hardly an extra complication, and you can more than make up the time in the address book scrolling speed (Motorola, I'm looking at you).
Here you go:
The Xerox Star 8010
Sold in 1981. Features:
Menu-driven, icons, mouse, high-resolution graphics on a 17 inch monitor, built in and external storage devices, Ethernet
Expensive as all hell at $16,595 but impressive.
So yes you could in fact buy one but no it really wasn't a home computer.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
(1) It's not widely deployed (a few dozen cities
A few dozen, a couple hundred... but who's really counting. HSDPA coverage isn't *that* bad.
the chipsets that support it presently consume too much power. Apple apparently wants a lower power chipset so that battery life of the iPhone isn't adversely affected.
Reminds me of the old joke:
Nokia, when faced with the same dilemma, included a battery door.
;-)
Interestingly, most people describe their PC in similar terms: it does this, this and this for them. It takes less space than a typewriter and is nicer than a WebTV for browsing. However, they all know that software compatibility would prevent a Mac from conveniently filling certain rolls using mainstream commercial software.
IMHO, this is what stops Macs from flying off the shelves. God forbid that this mindset afflict the iPhone. Certain people will work overtime to spread the meme that "you just can't use the iPhone in a corporate environment due to lack of exchange/MS/whatever compatibility," with the intention of casting a shadow over its many other features - just as we've seen time and time again with Apple's desktops.
Nonetheless, if I could write my own software for it & run 3rd party software, as I do on my OS X boxes, I'd buy an iPhone this evening. However, I can't and I know there will be other things that the iPhone wouldn't do for me, so I wont. Honestly, the compatibility demon afflicting Macs has a far more malicious cousin in the iPhone, and neither I nor a great many early adopters can see past such a terrible limitation - regardless of the product's other advantages. Sorry.
And these are all valid points about the limitations of the device. Still, I'm holding one in my hand right now, and it's cooler than I ever imagined. Swear to God.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
The problem with html in general is that too many websites use 20 to 100 tiny images to do their tricky visual effects.
.MHT format. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML)
.html file is sent via .gz compressed mode (most sane servers support that, and browsers do too, they request a html.gz) would make those
If HTML had the power to render small objects it would cut out those 100 TCP connections with overhead of http headers and connects.
This could be solved if you could use ONE animated gif and say img src=image.gif#5 for the frame number.
Or if you could embed images into the html, such as when IE saves webpages as whole in
The fact that a whole
90kb html files more likely to be 12kb.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
What market is that? Microsoft is all over the US smartphone market.
And 5.6% marketshare is "all over" the market? Methinks with that logic, Apple has a monopoly on the PC laptop market, with their latest marketshare figures. Consider that in the same article Ballmer is talking about trying for 60-80% marketshare. Think that'll work when they've got the iPhone for competition? I think I'll work about as well as the Zune has so far...
That's what I call social responsibility.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
According to Cingular/ATT, they were rolling out their 3G service last year and expected it to be available in all service areas. I am somewhat surprised that at this time, the 3G just plain isn't there. When I was considering a 3G card for my notebook, cingular was very clear about how the serevice would be available soon to upgrade the EDGE service. I am glad I didn't buy it on the basis of the promise.
Steve Jobs didn't say it isn't fast enough, as the title infers. I believe there is a huge difference between "not fast enough" and "it is good enough". God, stop with the iHate already lazy journalists.
Then why are Blckberry plans $20 more for data than the iPhone?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nope. Why don't you come up with an original term? I mean, seeing as how you're so independent and non-conformist and what not.
Thought so. Now I am sure this is original, but not sure you would go with "Steve-Jobs'-wet-dream" either.