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iPhone Likely Set to Launch in the UK Next Week
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNet, the iPhone is likely to be launched in the UK next Tuesday. 'Yesterday we were invited to an Apple press conference to take place next Tuesday — and we think it's most likely going to be the UK iPhone launch. Apple, as always, is keeping tight-lipped but there are several clues that point in the iPhone's direction'. No word yet on a UK operator, pricing or whether or not it will have 3G."
For a good first estimate, simply take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol.
In the U.K., we're well accustomed to paying an awful lot more for tech goodies than do Americans. We'll complain a lot, but only to each other (or like me, on Slashdot), and nothing will get done about it.
Congratulations to the UK. What about us poor Canadians? I haven't even heard a rumor about when we might get our hands on one of these little gadgets.
Merit is in the eye of the beholder.
The artificial restrictions are a definite merit as far as shareholder value and suitability for media from the perspective of the MAFIAA is concerned. Most MAFIAA members are making funny noises about going elsewhere with their wares. So, I would expect Apple to show itself as even more compliant and more determined to deliver obscene market models. They want the MAFIAA members back onboard and they do not care about the consumer in the slightest.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Selling a device like the iPhone in a market like Europe without 3G support is destined to failure. 3G is a much bigger deal in the UK than in the US.
I have the nagging feeling that Apple will try to clone what they did in the US in the UK ignoring the differences in the market. The UK is big on all the things the iphone can't do or does in a restrictive manner. People want to download ringtones, wallpaper and games. Picture and video messaging is something people expect from expensive phones as well, the UK is big on messaging in general. As far as I know the iphone doesn't support this kind of messaging and doesn't even notify if you've received one you can't view. Other major point is the price plan. People simply won't pay £399 and have a £30+ 18 month contract. You could get a prada phone AND an N95 for that price.
hurray , i can now buy a phone that has less features (no SMS, no MMS, no video calls) than my old Nokia did in 2001
I was referring to merit in the eyes of the consumer. Any successful publicly traded company has pleasing its shareholders as an aim, but there are more ways to do this than simply earning more custom - you can also make it harder for existing customers to leave you.
Precisely, and Apple locking iPod to iTunes is nothing to do with pleasing the MPAA - it's an act of self-preservation in the knowledge that, indeed, labels are thinking about going elsewhere. If they did go elsewhere, labels would prefer that you could use any online music service to buy their noise and put it on your iPod - so restricting an iPod to using iTunes is ultimately harmful to the MPAA. (As for pirates, yarh, they can still add DRM-free tunes to iTunes.)
I'm guessing Apple's planning went something like: competing music/video sellers will over time integrate their store with the iPod. We'll make this difficult. This will mean more people stick to iTunes. We can then argue our statistics to record labels as demonstrating that end users prefer iTunes, so they're less likely to leave us.
It's legitimate but fairly lame as business practice goes. If it were merely a problem of "not supporting alternative platforms", the hash could be employed as part of a reference to supply when calling technical support to confirm you're only using Apple software; but no, it's specifically used to disable functionality. That is weak.
the OpenDarwin project has been shut down
... both because of the iPhone and because of the problems exposed in developer releases. Just like the last time this happened. Frankly, I was honestly surprised to see them put up ANY Intel releases at all, I had expected them to quietly drop the open source effort then given the obvious advantage it gave to people porting OS X to non-apple platforms.
That was not Apple's decision, and they have continued releasing Darwin updates since then.
macosforge has seen no posts since November 2006
I know, and it's annoying that this seems to have been a PR response to the last time this came up... but on the other hand it may have been a matter of testing the waters. Remember, that means nothing from Apple *and* nothing from the rest of the open source community either. If they were testing to see if the FOSS community would respond in kind, well, I think that's failed.
requests on the darwin mailing list have been responded with "it's ready when it's ready"
If this continues long after Leopard is out I'll be complaining too, but Leopard is a big push-up for them
A delay, as around the time of the initial Tiger Intel release, is not the same as a complete dismantling of support structure.
The only part of the support structure that was both under Apple's control and was around back then that you've indicated is missing are the build instructions. Opendarwin was not Apple's, and macosforge came out after the LAST brouhaha.
By all means yell at Apple if things don't improve after the Leopard release. But while they're not keeping up with your expectations they're still doing about as much as they've ever done.
The point is that it's nicer as far as developer productivity and uniform user experience goes to be able to use published APIs than to have to write your own custom hack.
I'm not talking about a new API. I'm talking about maintaining an API that Apple has removed, like Unsanity did with Menu Extra Enabler. Unsanity could release an Input Manager Enabler that maintained the same API the same way. I wold be surprised if they didn't.
iPods play MP3, which while not open is almost as-good-as
MP3 is an open format, with patent encumbrances, yes. But then AAC is an open format as well - it's just MP4 audio. The only non-open music format on the iPod is Fairplay. But that's not what I'm talking about.
The iPod plays open format music, but you can't put that music on it using an open systems interface, and it doesn't have an open API. THAT is why it's not an open device. For a Linux user, it's not open in any way that matters if you actually want to use it as a music player. Even if you can get in through a backdoor that backdoor depends on undocumented features so it can be closed anytime without warning.
I never implied I was "buying an iPhone";
This is a general question, though. I didn't ask "why are you buying...", I asked why ANY Linux user would buy any iPod or the iPhone. For the Linux user they're clearly a really bad choice of device, and yet many have obviously done so despite Apple repeatedly demonstrating that they consider these devices to be appliances and that they have no intention of supporting any third party music software in any way.
I'm illustrating what Apple would have to do in order to gain this geek's appreciation and custom.
Apple has many geek's appreciation and custom. Apple even has many Linux Geek's custom! My question is why they've got Linux geeks appreciation and custom. It's like people buying Mac desktops and notebooks to run Linux on. Apple's hardware isn't anything to get excited about. It's got lousy ergonomics and its design is all about style... not functionality. If you want a Linux notebook the Thinkpad is a far better choice.
I like what Apple create
Why? The only thing that Apple has created that I particularly like is O
"The iPhone does support SMS (and always has.) It also has real email (which is far more useful than MMS has ever been)"
Yes, if you have a laptop or PC with a proper keyboard in front of you, however SMS excels over e-mail at putting together and sending quickly small messages, which is what people want on their mobile phone. Email is simply too cumbersome for a phone and 99% of europeans realise this hence why they use SMS over e-mail.
"a real web browser"
Just like just about every other mid to high range phone and every PDA that's been out in Europe for the last 5 years then? How innovative.
"a high-quality video player"
Just a shame there's no high quality camera to go with it, like say, the Nokia N95s with it's ability to film DVD quality video at 30fps. The iPhone's camera is equivalent to that of pre 2003 European mobile phone cameras.
"and arguably the best music player ever on a phone"
Arguably not also, I suppose it comes down to whether you're a biased Apple fanboy or well, not.
"It has also become very easy to install third party software [fiveforty.net] on and has a rapidly growing community of developers. Someone has even managed to implement video chat [macdaddyworld.com]!"
I'd rather be able to install applications without voiding my warranty thanks. Again, just like every mid to high range phone in Europe for the last 6 years has allowed.
"The iPhone isn't about having a ton of features though. Its about having a phone with a UI that isn't really really shit and having the features that it does have work very well. These are the things that differentiates its from your Nokia."
Yes, because Nokia's UI's are so utterly hard to use, oh wait, no they're not. Seeing as just about everyone between the age of 4 and 90 in Europe/Asia owns a mobile phone and quite happily has done and has used it for the last 5 to 10 years the current UIs are clearly not that bad, nor a barrier to using the device. You're suggest a whole paradigm shift in mobile phone useage from the existing UI's is somehow going to not confuse people who are more than happy with their existing phone's UI? Fact is the iPhone's UI is gimmicky, it looks fancy and that's about it, when it comes to it's simply not anymore usable that much is certain.
As usual, Apple's products are 99% hype, 0.5% quality and 0.5% features.