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Dvorak Says gPhone is Doomed
drewmoney writes "Speaking with his usual frustrated crankiness John Dvorak rants his way through an article explaining why the gPhone will never work. 'First of all, it wants to put Google search on a phone. It wants to do this because it is obvious to the folks at Google that people need to do Web searches from their phone, so they can, uh, get directions to the restaurant? Of course, they can simply use the phone itself to call the restaurant and ask! I've actually used various phones with Web capability. They never work right. They take forever to navigate. It's hard to read the screens ... I also hope that people note the fact that the public has not been flocking to smartphones of any sort.' "
So it's a guaranteed success then?
Man, ever since he came out with that keyboard, he's a know it all.
Google has possessed this 'aura' of innovation for a long time - one of the reasons its stock price is so high. I don't see this move as innovation at all: it's more capitulation.
Stop trying to rehash the old and make something new.
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His first arguement is that the gPhone is like Itanium, with wide industry support. Well, that depends on a few things:
1) will it arrive years late?
2) will it perform as promised or be lackluster?
3) will it shoot google's existing product lineup in the foot?
I don't think these three will occur.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
It kills me that we are constantly subjected to the drivel of this mindless idiot. Why do you care Zonk? Why???
Internet navigation works perfectly fine on my Nokia N73ME, is easy and readability is good. I use it all the time for directions, because spoken instructions aren't the same as having a damn map on your screen. Before my Mobile Opera Trial run out, it was even easier.
or does every time Dvorak speak about something, it sounds like the ramblings of an old crazy homeless man...
- Aetheral Research -
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right? So "public has not been flocking to smartphones" - yeah if you live under a rock somewhere that may be true...
The iphone's screen isn't hard to read. just because Google wants to make a phone doesn't mean it has to be the same crap we have right now. In fact, I'd say Google has the innovation potential to make a really great phone the likes we haven't seen yet.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
I see that one of the tags for this story is "noob". And it occurs to me; we need a disparaging name for someone who is just no longer in the loop. noob doesn't do it because that implies that the person is just new to the game but may get there with time. Dvorak often seems like someone who was there but isn't with it anymore.
I also hope that people note the fact that the public has not been flocking to smartphones of any sort...
I don't know, but I think there's over a million iPhone owners who might disagree with you, Mr. Dvorak. That said, I suspect there's more than just iPhone owners who would also disagree with him but that's par for the course.
Isn't Dvorak the guy who talks down google, open source, and anything he can sensationalize?? I'm sure people would like the features of smartphones if they weren't 500$ and/or excessively crippled on a cheaper phone.
...Get off my lawn you damn kids!...
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Has Dvorak ever predicted that *anything* would be a success?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Ever since I got my Samsung i607 (Blackjack), I've used Google search through the internet maybe 2-3 times per day minimum. With 3G, or even EDGE, it's reasonably fast... and very helpful in a lot of various circumstances.
If Google can streamline the internet experience, as well as create a Linux-based platform where I could sync my PIM functions with Google services and Thunderbird/Evolution via the internet, with little difficulty, I'd jump on it in a second, and so would thousands of other people. Tens of thousands more would follow because they'd want the latest gadget.
So John says nobody is flocking to smart-phones, ergo Google is d00med to failure. Gosh. Maybe it's because the other smartphones didn't have something Google's will. I seem to recall many phones which played music and did a variety of other tasks not going anywhere until Apple launched the iPhone.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
smack this guy in the head with a heavy blunt object and get it over with already. There is a good reason that people don't flock to smart phones in their droves. The north american cellular market is so manipulated that it really can't be called a market. When you can get a GSM smartphone that you can transfer from one carrier to the next as you see fit, it will be worth spending 300+ dollars on a PDA. So long as you can get a 0$ phone for the same contract (more or less) there is no perceived value in getting a smart phone. What a putz.
If the gPhone fails, it will be for the same reason that any phone fails, CARRIERS in North America SUCK. I personally use the SideKick, and for several years now have yet to see anyone say that it is a waste, and not cool. Many of my friends have smart phones and use the PDA functions regularly. When carriers start marketing them to the average joe (see the new sidekick) it will begin to be more common than it already is. There will always be people that buy cheap, utilitarian devices only. See the throw away cameras in the grocery store still? Why? That is how people spend money.
Yes, there is a reason for search other than getting directions... I can disply a MAP also. I have used it to look up exotic drink mixes when a bartender did not know the recipe (no comments on that one) as well as many other uses that don't even touch on the value of a qwerty keyboard when replying to an SMS or email.
Sorry to Dvorak fans, but this guy is a putz.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Phoogle would be a big success.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
you can make what seem like authoritative, or insightful statements with absolutely zero information. By the time the gphone comes out (or flops) no-one will remember what this guy, or the hordes like him, have said. Even better, no-one will care except maybe his mother. Until then it's a slightly entertaining way to spend a minute or two - just don't take anything he says seriously, it's just another form of entertainment.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
It's about paying $2 for a ring-tone I don't even get to preview. It's about not paying 411 $2.50 to tell me a number each time I need it, because it's not in my redial history. It's about $.002/minute VoIP over WiFi/WiMax. It's about not viewing sites that are not "news" or "sports" but 1/2 sentence snippets you have to pay above your data plan. Do you really care about what "interface" the rapist uses?
As far as I'm concerned, I would love this ability. Google in a nice mobile UI would be sweet. When on the move I often wish I had google plugged into my brain to help me find my way around, answer random questions that just pop in my head, or whatever. We are Borg. Or soon will be.
Privacy Statement: We value your privacy! It is very valuable. That's why we try to sell it whenever we can.
...well, do *you* have the number? I don't. Oh man, I wish we could google it and then call them! [1]
oh, right.
Thanks Dvorak, you missed the point.
[1] If you haven't tried 1-800-GOOG-411 ; it's pretty awesome for getting said phone numbers, and automatically connecting you if you like. Tied in to a phone with Google Maps and GPS/e911? Beauty and ease. My only concern is how Google will monetize the cell phone space; even sponsored text ads would be seriously annoying being read to you by a machine voice, slowly, on Goog411, and would take up even more valuable screenestate on a phone.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
We can do better flamebaits and trolls than John. And we have a better handle on tech issues. I am sure even the most flamebait/troll modded asinine juvenile here has better grasp of tech issues than John. Given the pagerank of /. the flames here have wider readership than his articles. So why bother reading what he is blabbering about?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
From the blurb: "Speaking with his usual frustrated crankiness John Dvorak rants..."
Is "frustrated crankiness" the new corporate-speak for "stupid jackass ways"?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
i jest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just can't help myself .....
In Soviet Russia, gPhone says Dvorak Doomed.
One can only hope anyway.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Thats funny, I've actually stopped into Apple stores to look up movies and restaurants on an iPhone.
Go figure.
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right?
At last count 1.4 million bought at $400 or $600. And that is just the US.
Text messaging costs the average user $.10 per message, and generates $50 billion in revenue for the phone companies. This is for a service that takes virtually no network or system resources to support, and should be free.
If Google can create an open platform and include great services like GMail, the SMS scam will die. Google stands to become very successful, just from this.
Hi Dorkbot,
The public doesn't want smartphones? Well, then they want whatever you want to call the killer appless Iphone and the "doomed keyboard" or whatever you called it.
I didn't plan on getting an Iphone, but I got one for free and now I will never go back to those dumbphones! Actually, if I lose or break this thing I'll be paying for a new one, it works too damn good (gsm, wifi internerd, outlook sync and IMAP features) and is fun to hack! I won't pay for ATT service though... Tmbobile works a-o-k! And yes, i've used all the other major types of smartphones...
-fattmatt
. . . and by "finest" I mean "stupidity as usual".
Duh. What did he think Google would put on it? Microsoft's search engine?
Ok smartass, what's the phone number of the restaurant? Oh, you mean you have to search for it? Or better yet, just get directions yourself.
Says you. My browser (Blazer on Treo) seems to work adequately. So does the browser on my friend's Symbian phone. If you believe some iPhone user's, Safari is the second coming.
What smartphones have you actually used, mister I write about technology so I should probably try out a wide variety before writing about it.
Which is why of course we rarely see people with Blackberries, Treo's or any of a dozen other smartphones. The iPhone alone has made such a quick entrance into popular culture that I've already seen it on two TV shows (Mythbusters and The Colbert Report).
Nathan's blog
What? How does that compute? And why would he compare programming Windows smartphones to the Google phone? First off, the phone does not exist yet -- Google is just trying to create buzz and stir up interest. I think they already have a pretty good start on this, and won't roll it out until they've worked with a few other companies to stack the phone with features/functionality. As he does far too often, Dvorak is blowing smoke. He's not to be taken seriously as a technology predictor.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yeah. They can just call the restaurant and ask for directions. Because that's what they do all day in rastaurants: wait for people to ask for directions from any little street in a x-mile radius to their location. They're all just taxi drivers doing their second job.
And that's assuming you have their number en route. What if you don't? What if the restaurant doesn't have someone that can spend the time to turn-by-turn guide your drive for the next twenty minutes?
Know what would be good? Having some sort of Google or Google Maps function on your hand-held doo-hickey that lets you request all the restaurants in the area, or by type, or whatever. Then you could map out driving directions to the one you want. Maybe even get real-time traffic information to plan your journey better on the way.
Nobody would ever want that. Just like you said. Of course, Goldman Sachs says they expect 14 million of these things to be sold by the end of 2008. That's a lot of nobodies. And that's just for the iPhone.
Opinions [REDACTED], everyone has one.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Gee, Microsoft has seen enough potential in the smartphone business that they've even been perfecting Windows Mobile. I've got a T-Mobile MDA and am pretty happy with it. Kind of sucks to have a phone without real buttons, but to have the portable internet is genius. I can surf the web while waiting in line or while sitting on the john, so there's no need to carry newspapers or magazines around if I know I'm going to be a while. Integration with Outlook works, and i can create word and xl files and (powerpoint if i *had* to). Never got the FileMaker Mobile product to work quite right but now Apple's nixed that product. Anyway I spent almost $500 on this so I'm not planning on swapping it for the Wing (running Windows Mobile 6) or the iphone for another couple of years.
Dvorak isn't just a crank, he's a hack and it's getting harder and harder to listen to any danged thing he says because he's been so wrong since, oh, 1990 or so.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
... people might actually use it as a telephone, instead of a web browser?
Sure, that makes sense.
I guess...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Useless in the same way that the Google Maps application I installed on my Blackberry is useless. Can't remember a name, number or address of a person or business, but know general things? "Pizza Moston MA". "Oil change 54935". "Nose job 90210". Then look at the results, and click on them to dial.
Yup, totally useless. Doesn't save me money on 411 calls that might not work AT ALL.
You are not the customer.
so what the hell does he know?
I don't think so.. Google maps rocks.. the mobile version is killer if you have a java enabled phone..
If you are on Verizon that means you are screwed since they Hacked out java.
Maybe all he's used is yahoo maps on his phone.. Thats about as painful as hacking your arm off with a dull butter knife.. it sucks!
I use my Windows Mobile phone all the time for doing web searches, looking up addresses and all kinda of other stuff.
If the Gphone has a good browser like Mini Mo,GPS, can sync Gmail it'll be good..
If it can't do active sync with exchange over the network it'll never catch on with big business..
Not a huge deal there.. the Iphone is doing quite well without them.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
and you get the number for the restaurant by googling for it -- more conveniently on your phone than at home, before you leave. Besides, even if I had a portable phone with numbers to my favourite restaurants, many of these don't speak English as a first language. Looking it up on a map is pretty easy and unambiguous.
Goddamn, he even said he is one himself. Why is that fucktard repeatedly featured here? It's not like he has any significance.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I too use a samsung phone on the web daily. I use it for reverse phone number lookups, directory assistance, google maps, Calendar schedulizer, email checking, news reading. I have a $10/month unlimited web on Bell Canada pay as you go.
The PIM synching for phones sux! Not all are functions or phones are supported, with BitPIM or DataPilot. I did find a googlesync app which does not resolve duplicate events, but seems to be the only hack that almost works. Bluetooth is an option, but usually you have to send contacts or appts one at a time. The manufacturers and carriers have shown almost criminal ineptness or intent when it comes to actually using the features of these devices.
An as far as iPhone and iPod, I was doing most of that with my Compaq/HP iPaq PDA 5 years ago. The problem was the lack of easily accessable apps for majority of non-techno users. Then the PDA market never really matured properly due to poor designs/marketing, and even todays PDA is only marginally better than the early devices.
The amount of "carrier" brand web content that gets pushed to users is enough to make anyone doubt the usefulness of it. It takes some downloading and hacking service codes to get proper filesystem access so that cool apps, etc can be easily installed.
Dvorak's Law: If John C. Dvorak makes a prediction, expect the complete opposite.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Dvorak has an atrocious, mind-boggling track record with regard to prediction. I wasn't sure about the gPhone platform, but now that I know Dvorak is against it I know it will meet some success.
1. I use gMaps for directions all the time, especially when lost, on my Treo650.
2. Black Black gum is seriously caffeinated!
3. ?????
4. Profit.
gPhone is doomed? I guess it's time to buy more Google stock.
Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
Apple's iPhone does not allow you to install the software of your choice
Since lots of people have third party apps loaded on iPhones today, the only conclusion it is possibly to reach is that you are an idiot. No, I take that back - a blithering idiot. Or should that be blathering, since your sort keeps talking about how you can't load apps in the face of clear evidence you can in every single story that mentions the iPhone, no matter how tangentially?
Either way, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dvorak seems to be missing some pretty elemental things. A search engine is, among a number of other things, a repository of information made (get this..) searchable. I don't know how many times I've been out, running errands or otherwise away from my computer and wanted or needed a piece of information (is besan flour toasted chickpeas?). Maybe it's a generational thing, but I like having a question and being able to access the answer. My phone is a networked computer, to say that that makes it a 'clunky gizmo' shows he's completely missing the point.
Quack, quack.
I certainly don't know anybody who's owned a visorphone, 3 treos, a blackberry, an HTC Hermes and an iPhone in the last 6 years. In fact, nobody's even heard of any of those devices, because nobody's buying them. Clearly, we're all still using whatever the free base model is that wireless providers were "giving away" (contract notwithstanding) back in 1997. And that million-units-sold-in-the-first-week iPhone is just a flash in the pan - a million units amounts to nothing compared to the 6.5 billion people on earth that haven't yet bought one!
...)
(I can't believe anybody still publishes his drivel, much less pays him to write. I regularly read more enlightened discussion while skimming at -1 on slashdot
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
Karma: NaN
Why do they suck? Because they're not open, they're not platform-independent, and their ability to perform normal webpage browsing is almost nonexistent.
It's called supply and demand. Despite what Dvorak may think, there's no supply of QUALITY smartphones that the public can actually appreciate and use. Address this, which is what the whole ANDROID thing is trying to do, and the demand for quality smartphones will suddenly become very, very apparent. It's a lot like what people used to say about notebooks: who would pay for a device with reduced functionality that costs more? Uh...everyone, if it at least has COMPARABLE functionality.
The last issue, as many others have pointed out, is the suckiness of the wireless carrier 'market' in the United States, which, if Google has its way with the 700Mhz spectrum, may very well be solved also.
This isn't just Google making a half-hearted expansion into the mobile market; no, it's end-to-end (with the possible exception of hardware), and it's well planned. I can only hope that Google will stick to their general philosophy of keeping things open and functional, and allowing the massive size of the userbase to fill out the bottom line.
Apple solves the lack of any official SDK in January and the earliest we can expect to see gPhone devices is the end of next year. You think Apple might also have a few other updates by that point? They've even said that lower power 3G chipsets will be around late next year (perhaps that's what Google is waiting for as well?). In the meantime if you are really interested, you can develop homebrew apps for the iPhone today if you like.
Remember that carrier portability simply does not matter to that many people in the US, and abroad Apple will offer it (at least in France). If people were more used to it here it might matter, but all that happens is it delays some people switching for a year or two as contracts expire.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Hi. I can't find your restaurant. Where are you?"
"33 Washington Street"
"Okay. How do I get there"
"Well, where are you now"
"Uhmm.. On a street. There's some houses along there"
"What street"
"Dunno"
"Are there any landmarks"
"No"
"Any shops at all?"
"Oh, wait. There's a sign. It says I'm in 'Brigston'"
"I never even heard of that town!"
I google things on my phone many times every day. In social settings, I am frequently asked by friends and family to google things on my phone (to settle an argument, what was the name of that movie, etc).
I agree that the interface can be a problem. My current device, a Blackberry-like Nokia E62, is painful to use for most things, and googling from scratch takes far far far too many clicks and keystrokes. However my old device, a Hiptop2 (no longer available in Canada - damn you to hell Fido/Rogers!), is absolutely brilliant for googling (and with only one little tweak, would be perfect).
"I've actually used various phones with Web capability"
WOW he is truly one of the technorati!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"the public has not been flocking to smartphones of any sort."
Only seems that way (if you ignore today's smartphones that people are actually using) because yesterday's smart phones are today's dumb phones.
I have to question Dvorak's masculinity. He doesn't understand why a guy might rather download directions via Google Maps on his shiny new tech-gadget than call and ask for directions?!
Steven Palmer Peterson
The wireless industry in the US is inefficient, because the carriers have set things up to protect income from sources that are sort of artificial.
:)
A phone might be crippled so that you have to buy ringtones from the carrier, for example, or text messages might be priced in a way that has no connection to the cost of delivering the service.
Google's platform will be open. It will be like the Internet. The competition will be mostly closed. More like AOL was in the mid 90's (if anyone remembers that).
The open system will provide much better value, and it will allow people to introduce great services. People won't have to wait for a cell company to decide something is worth doing -- they can just do it, and if it's cool, they can share it.
Google wants to do this because they win in an open world. They're winning on the open internet. They'll probably win in an open wireless world too.
It's true that MS has a solid platform, and so do other companies. But those platforms are designed to collaborate with the carriers against the end users. The problem isn't that they're not good, or that they don't do what they're designed to do. The problem is that what they're designed to do is less attractive to people like me than what google's platform is designed to do.
Which is to kick down the phony and unnecessary walls the carriers have erected for their own benefit.
This whole thing makes perfect sense to me. I can't guarantee that it will work. But I don't think it's a stupid move by any means.
Also, as a business play, it's probably super cheap for google. They're releasing open source code. It's not like they're building factories to crank out zunes.
Lot's of devices have had needed a few iterations to go from "kind of cool, but..." to indispensable. TVs, Radio, Walkie Talkies, Remote Controls, etc.
Why would mobile internet be any different?
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Seriously. This guy's been Chicken Littling everthing for years now. When was the last time he was actually dead-on 100% right about something?
I personally care nothing for the gphone - I don't use cel phones and google as a company makes me nervous. That just means I'm not in the target market - all this thing has to do is be better than the microsoft phones (not hard) and cheaper than Apple's quite nice but stupidly expensive iPhone (also really, really not hard). Yet it's going to fail because some pundit who probably thinks the sky is green says it's going to?
Naw.
Why is /. still posting this dreck? Dvorak is a troll, pure and simple. The sooner we start ignoring him, the sooner he'll go away.
....about 15 years ago.
Symbian did 34.6 million units in Q2 2007 (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/5812_346_million_Symbian_OS_handset.php).I beleive they have estimated better than 20 million in Q3 and have done more than 100 million units in aggregate.
That's just Symbian. Throw in the iPhone which Apple expects to surpass 10 million units in 2008. Windows Mobile has done better than 30 million units (I'm having trouble tracking down the exact number right now).
The point being that there are hundreds of millions of smart phone users in the world. That sure sounds like a flock to me.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Quit posting Dvorak articles! You only encourage him. If you'd just ignore him, he'll wither up and die like a 'roid-abuser's nads.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If they want it to be wildly popular, embrace third party developers. The iPhone is capable of so much more of Jobs would just step out of his reality distortion field and notice.
Unfortunately, Google will probably go the other direction and record your conversations that way they can display periodic "target" adds as your wallpaper.
I have seen the future of the "telephone", and Google searches feature highly. We're 21st century people. We don't just talk on a telephone, we do everything that needs the Internet. Web browsing easily exceeds voice use. Where can I eat? How do I get there? What show do I watch after? What's the history behind the show? How do you spell salacious? These questions you answer on your telephone, but by browsing, not by talking. Voice is so 20th century. (See Nokia's Internet Tablet for a fine, early example of a modern "telephone")
How many people owned an Apple Newton?
But hey, Dvorak is an idiot because he doesn't pronounce the "profound historical impact" of a product mere months after it is introduced (sarcasm).
Multi-function-do-everything devices have a history of failing spectacularly, especially when made / backed by companies entering the market for the first time. Knowing this and the odds of it failing isn't rocket science.
He is so clueless, that all his so called griefs are inspired by the troubles within his faithful Windows ecosystem.
He's looking in the mirror folks!
--------
* Sigh *
People buy smartphones purely for the geek factor. There are may people who are passionate about mobile technology.
Sure you can ring up the restaurant, suppose you don't have the number? someone may ask you to go somewhere while you are on the move. How are you going to look up the number?
Call ahead and ask for directions? Sure - why not. Of course you need to be able to hear them, write them down, and hope they're acurate enough to get you there - instead of say - using google maps to bring up a satelite image of your directions so you can spot roads and landmarks. The only reason I have web acess on my verizon account is on-the-go directions. I hate being lost - I love being able to fix that MYSELF without having to get out and ASK. Does anyone enjoy asking for directions? Placing yourself in somebody else's hands - hoping the guy running the gas station is competent enough to know where you're going - yeah - thats better than googlemaps.
That's why I wish I could do the whole Iphone thing - for that matter, screw the phone part, I'll use a flip phone - we need mico-handhelds. With the inclusion of a cell link for internet access, their day has finally come.
As usual, those who are paid to watch what's hapening now can't see what will be hapening then.
-GiH
See this within the totality of what Google's trying to do. Right now, the American cell market is locked down by the providers, such that most phones are tied to a contract. Americans can't just buy a new phone and swap their SIM cards particularly easily. And even then, it wouldn't get much since all the providers suck anyway.
This situation hampers Google. It's hard for them to develop for the mobile environment on another company's system because the stuff's locked down. So if they're going to do it, they pretty much have to do it themselves. Add in the spectre of broadband companies demanding ransom not to throttle Google's traffic (absent net neutrality legislation), and Google is at the mercy of other companies who are between them and their users.
So first, Google liberates the phone, and makes it an open platform, not locked down. Then Google buys a whole lot of 700MHz spectrum and builds a network that they can use, possibly for the phone but also new efforts. Probably wireless data, possibly a means of distributing other content as well. Also consider the portable data centers Google has been designing.
One could begin to see how Google might be on the verge of doing something very big. Google already has the content and useful applications for exploring the content. Now they need to be able to find better ways of getting that content to their users. Developing a phone, wireless capability, and backbone capacity would allow them to completely cut out the middleman.
Yesterday I was at the mall and I used to my sidekick to look up which department store had my cosmetics. Though the page wasn't particularly pretty, it was really handy.
So, yeah, Dvorak is wrong.
Tautologies, they are what they are.
If google pumped out the features, and they fit nicely into a plan, I'd be all for a gphone. Why?
My current cell has a decent screen. It's not great for high-res graphics, but it could probably do well enough for a small map that one could scroll and zoom around. So tie this with some of the google maps offerings, and allow customers to pull up maps on their phone with the directions or even common routes. This would be *really* convenient for me. How about a feature that pulls up the area info based on what cell tower you're connected too, even better (except for those that worry about cell tracking, but the ability is there regardless).
There are a lot of things I don't want in my phone. I like my battery life, and keep my mp3 player, PDA, etc separate. For navigation though, I'd much rather have a mapping system and search engine at my fingertips. It won't really be a drain on batteries, and google can surely make money off the ads. Want to grab some shoes or pizza. Check your phone based on the entered or triangulated (from the towers) location, get a listing of local resources (paying customers first, so that's money to google), and a map.
Sounds like this could be a good sell for google, so long as they don't actually pop up banners etc to steal the real-estate on my phone, but google isn't really known for obtrusive advertising anyhow.
You might want to try Opera Mini. Version four which zooms in and out just like the Safari on Iphone just came out of BETA and it's free.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I think more people bought into the iPhone because of who produced it and the fact it looked pretty and Apple marketing did their job very well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Himself.
As long as someone is still reading/listening, he's doing it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Don't click the link to Dvorak's log--that is unless you WANT to make him more money for mouthing off. He gets paid to write flamebait to increase traffic the site.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Just occurred to me I know one of the researchers at Google who has spent a considerable amount of time on the study of mobile phone interfaces. I expect his work will have some influence on Google's interface. Pitfalls to avoid and such.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The mobile device market is ~3 billion people strong, 3 times the PC market IIRC.
;)
IMO this is what is driving Google - a chance of quadrupling their market.
Currently if you own a mobile/pda/smartphone you are locked-in in more than one way, making it virtually impossible for you to take control.
This Google initiative will force, hopefully, the mobile providers to provide communications services the same way you have with internet access today (on second thought, better than we have today).
You will end up with a device you control, capable of transparently adapt to the available communications providers - the micro communications provider will become widespread (e.g. http://www.fon.com/en/ already points the way). It can be a thin-client device and use google services (mail, docs, etc) or it can be fat-client and use google services and/or google mobile desktop
Google will profit from it, you will profit from it, the mobile and fixed communications providers will also profit and a new market is open for local micro communications providers - your restaurant, coffee shop, bus, subway station, ferry, municipality, etc.
Looks like he's taking note of George Costanza and saying the opposite of what he really thinks?
Dvorak is turning into a cranky old man who can't read the small type anymore.
"Goddammit when I was your age we didn't have gPhones. We had two rocks tied to a string. That's the way it was and we liked it!"
Yeah, but a phone with GPS and access to a database of restaurants, bus stops, gas stations, and grocery stores, among others, is particularly useful.
... John Dvorak seriously needs to remove the sand from his vagina.
I predict Google will fail horribly at this. They'll do something like "Google Pack" and incoherently cram a bunch of features together, slap a rubber band around it, and say "ta da!"
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWDYaWAVQQ
-- Boycott Shell
So "public has not been flocking to smartphones" - yeah if you live under a rock somewhere that may be true...
Quick, make a list of the ten most popular current mobile phone product lines. If your list doesn't contain "iPhone", "Treo", "Blackberry", and "Sidekick" -- as Dvorak's apparently does not -- then your grasp on technological culture is tenuous at best.
Dvorak needs to be put out to pasture.
Folks, Dvorak admits it in the clip link below - he writes to get reaction. I don't think he cares if he is correct or not - it's all an exercise in pot-stirring. And maybe he's got an advertising revenue side-effect to go with it ... but he's been doing it so long that I don't think he's strictly in it for the money.
He just digs driving people crazy and the public profile that comes with it. He's not even afraid to say so out loud:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWDYaWAVQQ
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
doesn't DVORAK translate to TOOL in many languages? I used to think that guy was cool or at least insightful. please don't flame me. it's been so long since he was right about anything that wasn't painfully obvious that i'm amazed he still has a job. i still read his crap just out of morbid curiosity. his column reads like a lame blog most of the time.
Just because existing implementations have been all hype and little substance, that doesn't make an idea inherrently flawed. In the 1400s, very few people could read, books were for the rich and they were made by monks. Fortunately, Gutenberg didn't listen to the Dvoraks of his time who dismissed the existing print techniques and took engraving plates and advanced it to movable type. In doing so, he massively advanced printing and set in motion events that let to the literate world we live in today and all of society's advancements that likely would never have happened without a literate population with access to affordable reading material and a means to record their ideas.
gPhone may or may not be the breakthrough to finally make smartphones a reality. On the other hand, saying something can't be done - or shouldn't be done - simply because it hasn't been done well yet is pretty ignorant.
Doof - adj, Short for "Doofus" - a colloquial term for an inept or stupid person.
Stupid people, generally, are "out of the loop", therefore this name would be most befitting of Dvorak.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
"Moving from computers to consumer electronics is dangerous for Apple. It's especially dangerous if the company thinks that MP3 players and its variants are the future."
+5, Flamebait
Dvorak is a moron.
He says this stuff all the time and it always makes front page here at Slashdot.
I strongly suggest that we consider him to be what he is, an idiot, and ignore him and hope he dries up and blows away.
Consider his track record of things that wouldn't work/last/sell and you will see that he is completely out of touch and merely a blowhard selling more newspapers.
Respectfully submitted
Jack of Shadow
My not responding to your flame is in no way indicative of my submission to your statement, it just means I don't have t
Dvorak, apart from being a moron, has clearly never even seen an iPhone (or, I assume, and of serveral other decent smart phones, but I have a iPhone, so it's what I know), let alone use one:
...
>I've actually used various phones with Web capability. They never work right.
The iPhone works perfectly.
>They take forever to navigate.
Navigation is incredibly intuitive. It's almost even fun.
>It's hard to read the screens.
The screen is large, high resolution, high contrast, and incredibly crisp and readable.
>If there are a lot of images, the page may never load.
The page always loads.
>No matter what browser you use, there are issues.
Safari on the iPhone works as well as Safari on a Mac.
>In short, the experience sucks.
The experience is awesome. I use my iPhone for the web more then I use it for a phone. Hell, I almost use it for the web more than I use my laptop.
So right off, he's completely misunderstood the potential for smartphones, and obviously never used a good one. And Google is not staffed by moron's I'm fairly sure they can get this right, or at least not completely screw it up.
In addition to completely misundestanding what's available and possible with an smartphone, he's obviously completely people, and what they want:
%gt; o what is Google trying to do with a phone? First of all, it wants to put Google search on a phone. It wants to do this because it is obvious to the folks at Google that people need to do Web searches from their phone, so they can, uh, get directions to the restaurant? Of course, they can simply use the phone itself to call the restaurant and ask!
Seriosuly? You want people to call 411 to get the restaurant's number, call teh restaurant, ask for direction from someone who doesn't really understand where you are, copy them down, hope they're right, and then call again when they get lost of the way? I use my iPhone for web-based directions all the time. In fact, it was one of the major selling points. II just click on map, seach for where I want to go, and hit directions. I instantly have directions in an easy to read list and accompanying map. If I miss a turn on the way, I can look at the map to figure out where I am. And I never have to have an awkward conversation with someone I don't know who doesn't know where I am or the best way to get to the restaurant from my house.
Dvorak in a complete moron.
>There are no Google fanboys. There are no Google addicts
Seriosuly?
>... Google is actually not a charismatic company
Seriously??
Blargh! My head is going to explode with how stupid this column is! Has Dvorak ever even been online? Or ever talked to a person? Or ever used any kind of technology ever? Ackkkk! The Mind boggles! He's made me overuse exclamation points he's so dumb!
Stupid like a fox!
Dworak is wrong.
Look at me. I'm surfing the net at the toilet! That's what I use the mobile for. My everyday life consist of hard work and no time for surfing news, which makes the daily toilet visit the only time I actually have time for surfing.
1. Buy a java-compatible phone
2. Install Opera Mini (www.operamini.com)
3. You can now surf the net, google and do almost 90% a fully browser can do.
Good luck!
Consider, the newest CSS specifications for mobile are almost in recommendation form. So I as awise developer using the mobile specs can develop useful apps -- that perhaps don't have to be hosted on a single provider's app stack.
What I guess I am say is if Dvorak and Cringeley were put on the short list of beta users and they were impressed, then folks like me might actually be ready to buy when the thing is released to the wild.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
idiot dvorak tool fool moron troll dvorakisalwayswrong
I mean really, the man has been right, what, twice in 20 years? He was right about Apple switching over to x86. Everyone knew it would happen sooner or later.
Like a fortune teller, if you spew enough BS, sooner or later you'll be right. However, he's wrong about the gphone. The gphone will be a hit.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Why does /. still even give this guy headlines? He is a complete idiot. The few solid points he makes are far over shadowed by idiotic ones. It's like giving money to bums or feeding a stray you are only encouraging them. I say we just stop reading this guys blogs and anything else he puts his name on and maybe he will crawl back under his rock.
WTF?
Yeah, because Dvorak definitely knows how to market a product
Google came right out and said it will be up to carriers and device makers how much they want to lock the devices down. They hope that they won't lock them down, but they're not going to do anything to stop them.
Who uses Google's SMS-based service somewhat regularly? I don't have a phone that's capable enough to run Google Maps/Local well, but I can text Google with the name of a restaurant and a city, and get back the address and phone number, or get the latest Yankees scores, movie showtimes, flight status, stock quotes, or the value of the Yen.
Exactly why everything Dvorak says turns up on /.?
Shorter Dvorak: "Altavista sucked, so Google will suck, I will never search again, YAHOO! FOREVER!"
--
make install -not war
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Web browsing is nearly unuseable on my Nokia 9300 with Opera Mini. I want a nice phone with terminal, bash, vim, links, and pine! Wait, Putty (ssh, works so I guess I have all the above. I just need glasses to see the little screen.
The gPhone is doomed? You mean like those re-arranged keyboards that nobody uses?
The world would end.
Sorry my bullshit sensor overloaded.
there's over a million iPhone owners who might disagree with you
The key problem with this logic is that the iphone is not actually a smartphone. It is a dumbphone in pretty drag. Maybe in a couple of years, after its putative SDK has enbled people to write some applications that Apple has seen fit to bless then, and only then, could it be called smart.
Until then it's really just a fancy Helio with lamer social networking.
Da Blog
I very rarely was able to do all of that on my old Treo, since web browsing was such an atrociously clunky experience
Couldn't you run Opera on your Treo? Anyway, I find, for quick results, that 411 is faster.
Da Blog
"Speaking with thier usual fucked up wankiness Slashdot users rant at Dovorak over an article explaining why the gPhone will never work."
C'mon folks, it's a tradition here at Slashdot, a Dovorak article link gets posted, gets slammed and we get a lot of +5 funnies to read through.
Keep 'um coming Dovorak, one day, you'll be right, until then, we'll be giggling away on our swanky new handsets...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
"I'm certainly not going to be a happy camper if I have to switch to a Mac or Linux system full-time, yet that is exactly where this scatterbrained company seems to be sending me."
I propose a blanket ban on allowing Dvorak to use Mac or Linux. I propose we alienate him from the Herd (chuckle) and let him be the sole Windows user. Running Windows ME. Oh wait. One better. Running Windows Vista. Ouch, aaaw, now that is nasty.
I am serious. Dvorak, you are publicly BANNED from using Linux or Mac, you stick with you Microsoft and your senile ramblings, you do not use another OS. Live in your own hell you freak.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Americans can't just buy a new phone and swap their SIM cards particularly easily.
Actually, they could, if they wanted, buy unlocked phones with no carrier subsidy and plug in contract or pay-as-you-go SIMs. However, the vast majoirty have not because the US mobile market has generally seen a much lower average per-device price point than other markets. One good thing about the pseudo-smartphone from Apple is that it has encouraged manufacturers to market high-end, high-price phones for the US market.
What I find amazing is that so many people proved themselves so willing to pay so much to AT&T for apple's phone, accept a lock-in, yet received no real carrier subsidy from AT&T for this. Apple's phone is about on a feature level with a Helio or a Sidekick so it should have been $100-$200 with contract (or even free). Kudos to Apple for convinving people to pay so much!
Da Blog
I think we've found one of Dvorak's ancestors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE
At least half a dozen times I've called a restaurant and the "bright" people that work there had no clue about how to give me directions to their place of employment. The usual response is "I don't live around here, I only drive directly to work here from home". One place was on a major highway intersected by another highway a 1/4 mile away that connected to the interstate about 5 miles away which I was on. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's encountered this.
Dvorak is an idiot and anybody with at least one brain cell knows this. Stop posting his comments, your waisting our time.
Moron.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
This guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about at all!
"we are told it's going to be great! Why is it going to be great? Because Google said so."
Everytime I use a Google product, it turns out to be a great tool, because Google put effort in it, not because they advertised it as great.
"People buy phones because they are phones and not because they are half-baked Game Boys, GPS navigators, or Web browsers."
Says you! And you clearly still live under a rock!!
Everyone I know uses the web-browser on their phones. Others use 3rd party applications for chat (MSN or Skype). Ones bought newer models because they have GPS built-in, which make traveling easier.
Smartphones are the booming business, not because "people" are asking for them, but because "newer generations" demand them. And if you're going to stick to the "just phone" idea, you're limiting yourself to customer-base that's literally dying!
If you don't really understand technology NOR people, why are you even writing???
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
I went shopping for a phone the other day. Sprint has been gouging me for years for not having a contract, and now my phone's battery is dieing. I have a short list of features that I need, but all the phones are marked "supports sprintTV" and crap like that. Phones come with a dozen of the most obnoxious ringtones possible because they want to sell you a better one. A cellphone is not a product - it's a vehicle for selling more products!
Anyway all google has to do is make their phone suck less than the competition - not a particularly difficult challenge these days!
Hehe, I think I really nailed it there! How he ever got started in the news business is beyond me. I suppose he might have had something credible to say once upon a time, when the world was young, back in 1986.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Step 1) Examine reality Step 2) State something complete contrary to reality Step 3) Profit! Step 4) Purchase underpants Seriously, can the editors please make use of their judgment and reject further submissions about Dvorak comments until he says something that actually merits discussion? Satire is fun to read but his stuff ain't funny, it's just annoying.
Cringely backs you up wrt the service and most of what you speculate about. But he doesn't think the actual phone hardware is a necessary piece.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
I've been using Google Maps on an iPhone in the exact way that Dvorak says people don't use phones! You can put in "Pizza Hut near 666 River Styx Drive, 77666" and it'll give you the several nearest options. Press on the ">" and you get more info, including the phone number and an option to dial.
Even before the iPhone, I used Google SMS in pretty much the exact same way. (iPhone is better with the map, however!)
Try this scenario, John, as it's one I've found myself in many, many times. I'm standing on a city street corner in an area I'm not very familiar with, and I want to eat. What places are there to eat at in my immediate vicinity? I'd like to know what they serve and what they charge so I know which one I'd like go to. Reviews would be an added bonus. I can't *call* the bloody restaurant, because I don't even know what restaurants are there, let alone which of them I want to go to!
Chris Mattern
1-800-GOOG-411 + Google Mapping translated to voice might look something like this:
411: Which business or address
User: 123 Main Street, Anywhere USA
411: '123 Main Street', wait I'll connect you, you can also say 'Get Directions'...
User: Get Directions
411: Which address or city center are you at
User: 456 Center Stree, Anywhere Else, USA
411: Continue 2 miles, turn right at Smith Street...
Text messages or voicemails would work even better.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Personally i never believed a single vowel that came out of Microsoft's advocate Mr Dvorak...Call me a troll, call me whatever, the man speaks only for those who pay him...
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
He gets paid to make ridiculous, outrageous and often times completely asinine claims based on speculation for the purpose of attracting viewers so ads can be sold.
In other words, he's somewhere between Fox News and World Wrestling Entertainment.
-kgj
-kgj
He makes a lot of predictions about a lot of things and I have yet to recall anything he has predicted to come true and his analyses are invariably wrong even when he has a good collection of facts to start with. This guy need to be drummed out of journalism for being stupid and worse than useless. He is actually damaging to IT.
What if a complaint campaign were launched to the editors of the publications in which he appears listing his huge list of false predictions and the damage it causes IT?
Maybe he should get on a passenger airliner. I fly 2-4 times a month, and even back in coach I could probably count the number of people that don't have Treos, CrackBerries, or iPhones on both hands. On a plane that probably holds 120-200 people.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Stop submitting Dvorak's articles.
Stop accepting Dvorak's articles.
Using the web on a phone has always sucked. At least until I installed the dedicated Google Maps application on my Treo 650. It's fast, brilliant to use, and better yet-- can quickly deliver me the phone number I would need to call if I wanted voice directions instead.
Google is the first provider I've seen get this right, and they did it on somebody else's generic, crappy hardware and OS. If google's phone platform is anything like their existing mobile app, I don't think they'll have any trouble. With a GPS receiver to save you the time of punching in where you are, it's a killer app.
There are special mobile versions of many Google apps. I routinely use both maps and Gmail on my windows mobile phone. These are perhaps the only web applications I use on my phone. They're both pretty simple and responsive. In any case, I'll be happy to trade in my Windows Mobile phone for a Google-based phone when they come out.
I guess that means I'm "stealing" from Dvorak right? Seems like a fair exchange to me.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Cellphone users, and the phones they use are gradually being fractioned into groups.
Some folks just want to talk on their cellphone. Even these folks don't actually dial phone numbers any more. Calling someone is unlock-uparrow-uparrow-greenbutton.
Some folks want stupidly-easy to buy camera phones with lots of ringtones and other crap on a 2yr commitment plan.
Some people want Appley goodness on their phones, and don't care much who provides the dialtone.
Non-phone-call communications capability are creeping onto the device. Walky-talky service, instant messaging, location awareness, VOIP, retarded outlook email, etc. I would argue that they do a piss-poor job of handling real phone calls. (Dropped calls, poor fidelity, lag, echo, etc.) But people's expectations are very low, so no one does anything about it.
In the longer term, the cellphone is likely to morph into something with more sophisticated semantics. Why can't I enter the command "please connect me to my friend, when my friend is available and willing to talk three minutes about dinner, or before 4pm at any rate"?
My friend's phone should know when my friend is available, in service range and willing to talk. And exchanging this state info should cost me a fortune.
The value of a free OS is access to the tech, methods, and knowhow that is embodied in the OS. Value is not always a function of what you pay for something.
In the same way, Google may see that there will be more value in a very capable phone, even if the traditional carriers don't stand to get much out of it. It will be a very disruptive technology, as long as there is a not-too-scared audience to take advantage of it.
The traditional telcos are all busy selling us out to the NSA. If Google gets into the game, at lease we can add end to end encryption to the phones. Incoherent rant off.
He's apparently never been to (or heard of) Japan, where the normal everyday mobile is supplanting the home PC for both web-browsing, email, sms, and even games to a lesser extent. Of course, my base-model NTT DoCoMo that practically came with the plan is better than most of the overpriced trash I could get in the US (It even has a Kanji dictionary and 1 GB internal flash).
RTFM
whats with these new fangled phones! these will never work why thats like a man on the moon!
once again dvorak makes us wonder, how does he still have a job?
Is it possible for vaporware to be doomed? I mean, we can easily say Duke Nukem Forever is doomed, since it's never coming out. But doesn't "doomed" mean "doomed to fail", which implies something which can actually have a chance to fail is released?
The gPhone is just an attempt to grab headlines and boost Google's already overly-inflated stock price. I'm sure they would LIKE to compete with Windows Mobile, but seeing as how Google has failed to make money from anything other than advertising, they don't really have a good track record.
And besides, the iPhone already has the hardcore MS-hater market cornered. Seeing as that's the only group which would actually care about the gPhone, it seems like a lost cause.
So I guess I can agree: it's probably not going to be released, and it's doomed if it does. So realistically speaking... it IS doomed.
Opera Mini is great for looking stuff up.
Dear Mr. Dvorak,
*YOU* are doomed. Headlines like this are a pathetic attempt at remaining relevant in a world that is simply no longer interested in you. You are a muckraker and nothing more. And hey, that reminds me, what ever happened to that "Apple Computer" that you said was going out of business? Oh thats right, their stock is up like 500%.
Do us all a favor and retire. Or maybe just shut the fuck up. The internet has moved on, old-timer.
I think the real problem Google faces is that they aren't planning to make an actual device but merely define a platform for other device makers. The problem you run into is that you end up having to cripple yourself to make it work for the least powerful, smallest device and thus make it suck ass on a more powerful bigger device. Windows Mobile 6 proves this in spades.
The advantage Apple has with the iPhone is that they control the entire platform. They've got custom built hardware running a custom operating system with their custom software. It is all built from the ground up to work as an integrated phone, and thus it works pretty damn well. It also does a lot to mitigate some of the major form factor issues that make most smart phones a pain to use. But mostly it's good because it's all meant to work together.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
My GPS enabled Blackberry lets me quickly and easily navigate to customers and restaurants by name, address, or whatever using Google maps now. I don't call the restaurant because the typical 18 year old hostess' directions are notoriously unreliable.
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
"but his gripe about not able to read web content on phones is really just a problem of people not generating format for phone use"
So which phone do we format for? The IEPhone or the FirefoxPhone?
I'm waiting for Netcraft to confirm it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Can we please please PLEASE give Dvorak his own category on slashdot so I can f'ing block his bullshit out???
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
So tomorrows tech hardware will same as todays. Is that his point?
He's like one of the guests on the Jerry Springer Show.
A "smart" phone deals with data integration and extended functionality. It simply offers a greater level of service than a simple phone with voice and text functions.
Your point has a great deal of merit, and we could engage in trading definitions of "open" vs "smart" for a long time. For example, Windows Mobile is most definitely a closed system, yet the ease and plentitude of development environments for it means that it has a mind-bogglingly wide array of applications and games available for it (or greatly varying quality!). Compared to the alternative "open" phone systems available, it seems to have an undue edge in application availability. This is some sort of paradox.
However, what the iphone does, it does well considering how rushed Apple seems to have been where many of the canned applications lack integration or that sense of "finished". However, how easy is it today to actually *buy* a phone with just "voice and text functions"? Pretty difficult. Strip away the UI glitz and Apple's phone has a set of applications about equal to a mid-range non-smartphone from Verizon or AT&T, and lacks certain taken-for-granted phone features like MMS, TV, and video. It's contacts/calendar synchonisation is also nothing to write home about. In terms of data integration, it can't hook up easily to BB or Exchange servers, and it has no on-device database browser to parse SQLite or other formats. And I can't simply copy, say, a CSV spreadsheet or a PPT presentation to it for quick viewing.
Maybe with the SDK things will improve...
Da Blog
Doesn't matter whether you call them PDAs, handheld computers, smartphones, gizmos, or wakalixes, they're bloody useful. I haven't gone more than a day or two without using some capability of my gizmo since I bought my first gizmo in early 2000.
The iPhone is ludicrously successful and it's not even much of a smartphone. I personally want more of a gizmo than the iPhone gives me, and I'm not sure I want my gizmo and phone in one package so long as my phone's tied down to a contract with a carrier so I have to change gizmos (which is a daunting exercise) if I change carriers, but that just means that if even as expensive and limited a gizmo as the iPhone can take off like it has there's a hell of a lot of untapped demand.
What else does Dvorak bring up? The klunky Sidekick hardware! Google isn't designing the hardware, so what does that matter? Let's go on...
I've actually used various phones with Web capability. They never work right.
Much as I hate to praise Microsoft, Pocket Internet Explorer in 2000 was a killer application. Enough of IE to be useful, and enough of the net was still display-independent (or beginning to provide PDA-firendly displays... though Slashdot's had occasional regressions there, hem hem), that it was completely reasonable to use for casual searches, and a couple of years later I got a chance to try it out on a phone. It was brilliant when I had access, alas T-Mobile's service in Houston at the time sucked so it wasn't even very useful as a phone... and the rest of the software really wasn't up to the quality of Pocket IE.
Now if Dvorak's talking about one of those Java based browsers on semi-dumb phones rather than a real browser on a phone running a real OS, well, I can see where he could get that impression. But then his experience has little to do with Google's Linux-based plans.
Finally...
When all is said and done, Google is actually not a charismatic company
I can't come up with a coherent response to this one. He's clearly in some other universe. Hopefully they don't have a gizmo to teleport him back.
http://slashdot.org/palm
OMG google is going to make a web phone; I dislike web phones because I refuse to use the "mobile" version of webpages; therefore web phones suck and will fail. Dvorak OUT! Someone needs to cut this guys pay by about 100%. My ten year old nephew could come up with the same argument (He hates using web on his phone). How he uses this to support his argument is mystifying. Using his logic I could argue that cars are doomed to failure because Miata's are too small for me to fit in.
I absolutely could not live without my camera, internet access, GPS, and file/music storage on my phone. Sure the screen is on the small side (I have a "regular phone", not a smartphone or anything with a giant display) but I figure it will get better in time. It's not hard to read or any inconvenience to me whatsoever, though. Hell I pull up directions as I'm driving, it's quick enough so there can be an exit coming up on the interstate about half a mile away, and I can fire up the app and find out if I should take it or not in plenty of time....
Dvorak shows once again that he's an old man getting cranky with new technology. He used to be on TWiT (he still COULD be, Leo Laporte can be strange himself) and all he ever did was scream "get off my lawn".
Hang 'em up. You're getting trounced on by the blogging generation.
I don't know about you guys, but I personally enjoy being able to SSH into work from my phone. HTC Mogul FTW.
20/20 and 60 Minutes are using the "in Soviet Russia" meme now?
Have you ever noticed that these idiot FUD spewers never allow commenting on their sites? Is it maybe because the world is able to call them out on their senseless, fact less dribbles? Pity more people read Slashdot and Digg than his pathetic columns.
...he criticized Apple's inclusion of a mouse with their computers, saying "There is no evidence that people want to use these things." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak
Because if some piece of technology does not work optimally, no one should ever try to create a better solution?
All of those arguments against browsers in phones sound a lot like opportunities to me.
Guess google might have another hit. This article is where Dvorak said apple should drop the iphone.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Guess he hasn't tried iPhone for maps yet. Mine works great!
Someday perhaps he'll catch up with the rest of us.
I question whether a gphone can catch iPhone as
the horse is already out of the barn and running fast.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Is it just me, or should they move the Dvorak column to BBSpot ?
Seriously, squelch this tard.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Shame on Slashdot for feeding the biggest (and probably best paid) troll in the history of the internet.
If Dvorak has ever had an interesting or useful insight I'm unaware of it.
Why does Slashdot continue to post them? That's what I want to know. We universally lambaste them every time.
Zonk posted the last 3 of them: this one, The Downsides of Software as Service and Web 2.0 Bubble May Be Worst Burst Yet.
Zonk?
.
. hmmm
Dvorak is Doomed.
Has this man never heard of the iPhone? Just because he has the same last name as a really smart guy who made keyboards, doesn't mean he can decide that Google will fail. For some reason, John has an insatiable appetite for pissing all over Apple, and since Google and Apple have some of these business deals going (GMaps in iPhone, et cetera), he's gonna be pissing all over Google, too.
It's very easy to sign up a bunch of companies for a press release when you're a hot company like Google. No one has to follow through on this stuff, it's completely non-binding to through your hat in this ring. His Itanic example is the perfect case of this. The only company that had to follow through, really, was Intel.
For gPhone the only company that really has to follow through is Google... and they have no cellular network and no handset manufacturing division! What does that amount to? A mobile software platform that no one is bound to EVER release on a handset. That really doesn't bode well for this project. I want it to succeed too, but I am very curious if it really can.
there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 million cellphone users in the US. So, 1.4 million is a lot of sales - but compared to the total market, it's not very impressive.
;-)
That is a pretty naive interpretation. You are comparing one model from one manufacturer against all other models from all other manufacturers. You are comparing a phone that was sold for $400 to $600 against phones that were essentially given away for free in most cases. You are comparing a phone that has been around for months with phones that have been around for years. You are also ignoring the disparity in functionality between the phones. The Motorola Razr was $500 when it first came out, you didn't see many at the time, you think Motorola sold 1.4 million at that price? 1.5 years ago I got one for $50, they are common now. The iPod classic was $400 to $500 when it first came out, now they are $250. What do you think will happen when an iPhone model gets to that $250 point? When cell phone plans include a subsidized iPhone as they do with all other phones?
Be generous to the Razr, assume 10% of the market and $50 rather than free, count all iPhones as $400.
Razr: 18 million * $50 = $900 million
iPhone: 1.4 million * $400 = $560 million
So $900 (generous) over years vs $560 (understated) over months, care to alter your appraisal?
The numbers say to me "the iPhone has been widely adopted by the trendwhores, but not by the general public".
You may not want to be accusing others of making ill-informed emotional decisions.
Doomy doooom ......ect....
"I also hope that people note the fact that
the public has not been flocking to smart phones of any sort"
I work in 2cd level Technical support for a very well known wireless company. Day in and day out, all I deal with are "smart" phones. I do not understand how anyone can make a statement like Dvorak. It seems everyone owns a "smart" phone. Even the pre-paid crowd has adopted them. I really wish he would do a little research before posting such garbage.
*Also, I would like to add 76.996% of all statistics are made up on the spot and have no basis in fact.
If you would like to know where I got the number.....read above*....
He's starting to make sense recently.
For those who havent seen him describe his 'way' :
:')
:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWDYaWAVQQ
Love those tags
He _does_ get 400+ replies though, so who's the morons one might wonder (myself included obviously
I got lost somewhere in Bergen/Germany a few days ago, it was about 10pm, streets were empty and I had to give directions to a friend to come pick me up with his car. It took me less than 30 sec to load Google maps on my phone, find exactly where I am (I was actually a bit off, in Muhlhausen). In 2 minutes, my friend arrived.
Welcome to the 21th century, grandpa.
I read half of TFA just to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Excellent, now I know I can ignore anything he ever writes again. Below, the (contiguous) passage I choose to rebut with facts.
Regarding his idea that there is no point using google on the phone:
- I have been using a 1 and 2 year old Sony phones running on DoCoMo's Japanese infra. I use Google all the damn time, it is tied for 1st place in frequency with "norikae annai" which lets you type in two station names and gives you the top three fastest train routes to get there with near exactness, and I use it more frequently than R25.jp (a news blurb site for train riders covering all topics from science to scandals) and much more than i-mode which is how DoCoMo got rich.
- Google also pages all sites for memory challenged phones, I've read books on it (like from infinity plus sci fi) - though nearly everyone does not read books on their phones.
- I look up phone numbers and addresses on the phone for places I'm going. Why? because it also gives you context in particular a precis of the event, it is very useful if a film festival is going on, and most useful you can get a street address and then put it into a map site (I use mapion) which will then help you get to where you are going. Even better if you have gps in your phone (all the new ones have it).
- I use gmail on my phone (I have my mail accounts forward to gmail, which has great spam filtering and is accessible online, plus being in a paged interface for small memory phones), even though the old Sony I have now can't run the Java applet and even though it wants to make a new ssl connection for every darn page. It is STILL useful, for when I really need to check something that was in an email.
- I want to buy a bigger screened phone, or if possible the new Softbank phone with keyboard if it ever comes out, so I can have a full browser and run Google MORE.
- Heavy PC google users must obviously bring their habits to their phones, I know I do.
- Google obviously knows by referer what phones people are using to access their site. They have more data than TFA's author.
Regarding [2]:
- How stupid. Images make your bill go through the roof unless you are on a good plan with FOMA maybe. I keep images turned off on my phone unless totally absolutely necessary. Doesn't everyone?
- The experience does NOT suck compared to lugging a pc with you outdoors. It sucks perhaps compared to having a phone with a full keyboard and big screen but while available they do not I think generally have GPS and lots of other stylish features, are expensive, etc. I conclude this guy must never leave his basement. Idiotic comment.
- The rest of the comments seem to be based on experience with shitty infrastructure. TFA's author says he actually has tried the web on different phones. Where I live any child can say the same fucking thing. This guy should retire, I don't think he can embarrass himself more.
- In conclusion, Google's current search and mail services, and its automatic paging of all data for mobile terminals, are already the most fucking useful things about my phone, and I will demand it on any future phone. If google can make them work better, perhaps getting google maps to integrate with gps and browsing, I will jump on it! It's a no-brainer. Oh yeah, and it costs money and takes time to dial information, and then you have to remember an address or phone number unless you have a notepad out, whereas on a modern phone you just hit the big button in the middle and it dials for you. That they will also improve the front-end input processor for Japanese is also an awesome freebie, and if it reduces phone rates it will gain a massive following among any gadget savvy people who don't use it yet on their phones.
[1] So what is Google trying to do with a phone? First of all, it wants to put Google search on a phone. It wants to do this because it is obvious to the folks at Google that people need to do Web searches from their phone, so they can, uh, get directions to the
The problem wasn't the phone, but the provider. Verizon nickel and dimes for everything, as you found out. Why should you have to PAY to move YOUR data over YOUR Bluetooth connection? What wEaSeLs! Stay away from those crooks.
Windows Mobile is the epitome of an OPEN mobile platform.
Thanks, that was my point.
Most of what makes a smartphone lies in the UI and how it connects the user to his data.
That is a new definition of "smart", and is impressive. It reminds me of how Apple used increasingly byzantine definitions of their product niches through the 80s into the 90s during reviews of marketshare.
A smartphone goes beyond content delivery to content integration.
What you've described sounds very like the Helio. Is that a smart phone?
Da Blog
I use my iPhone with my Exchange server seamlessly without any third-party applications
Really? You got push working, and you can schedule and adjust appointments on the server? Your calendar also updates in real-time when other people make changes? You can do directory lookups and browse shared folders? Impressive. I had heard that the iphone did not have an Exchange connector. How did you configure this exactly, without any third-party software? Or are you just downloading POP/IMAP files from a central store?
Da Blog
The Helio is a smartphone? If that's true then the iphone seems still a little overpriced for its category. Or do you disagree that it should be cheaper given its profile?
Reconcile that with your "Windows is a closed system" statement.
It's called irony. Most people would call Windows Mobile a closed system because MS only provides source under controlled situations to special partners under NDA.
Connectivity is not a binary state
Actually, for those kind of environments, it is. It is like a vaccination - provoking an antibody response that seems qualitative but is in fact massively quantitative. But don't worry, I am sure that if Apple doesn't do it, another company will manage to rig up real groupware connectes for Apple's phone sometime next year.
I have yet to understand the fuss over push email
Yes, how could those tens of millions of people who depend on it be so wrong?
tell me how I'm supposed to do the things you mention using the Outlook client on Windows Mobile.
Well, you'd probably load the Blackberry client! People are also excited about the new IBM client for Notes, which promises to be a bit tighter than CommonTime. There are also an impressive array of custom Java apps out there - I even know one place that codes data integration applications for some of their mobile users with APL.
the editing features are a complete joke
Yes, they could be better. But you know what's worse? Having NONE AT ALL. And with my bluetooth roll-up keyboard I can at least type faster in a jiffy!
nothing so time critical should be bounced around corporate email servers with the hope that it is delivered within a minute or two.
Yes, that's why there's also secure IM.
Da Blog
There's no way "tens of millions" of people even USE [push], let alone "depend" on it.
I see I am dealing with faith-based computing here. I'll stick with the reality-based computing, thanks.
Da Blog
Find me someone who would actually be disadvantaged in a meaningful way by an email arriving 30 seconds later and we'll talk.
I've worked in industries that agonise over relocating datacentres away from MANs based on how many more milliseconds of latency will be introduced into transactions. Believe me when I tell you that any communication medium within these arenas is judged chiefly by how rapidly it can blast messages to specific people or sets of people. Getting an email delivered within a minute versus waiting for your subscriber to poll a server after 10 or 20 minutes can be the difference between failure and success. Again, this is reality versus faith-based computing.
Da Blog
find someone who is disadvantaged in a meaningful way by receiving an email 30 seconds later.
I have led you to the water but you will not drink.
Da Blog
Times have changed and he hasn't. He used to be incisive, insightful, and funny. Now, he barely qualifies as funny, and there are plenty of better places to get high-tech humor.
The only way he can get page hits now is to say something so mind-blowingly ridiculous that people will spread it around with a 'silly' tag attached to it. Which leads me to the question "what the hell am I doing reading this?".
Nothing useful, so I'm exiting this discussion. I know better than to click on anything with Dvorak's name on it.
Tech Public Policy stuff