iPhone Forcing Open Wireless Networks?

fermion writes "Wired asserts that the iPhone blew up the wireless industry. This article argues that because Apple demanded the opportunity to control their own phone, and ATT née Cingular agreed, other companies are opening up the networks, and Google now has the opportunity to make Android a reality. There are other tidbits. Allegedly Verizon turned Jobs down without even listening to his pitch, a decision they may well regret now that they are hemorrhaging customers. Also, that Motorola and the networks were responsible for the fiasco dubbed the ROKR, something which I believe given how damaged the American version of the RAZR was compared to international version. It also estimates that the iPhone cost upward of $150 million to design, and earns Apple about $200 profit per phone."

Comments

Nokia phones are open, not iphone

[weave]

I own a Nokia N95 *AND* an Iphone (using t-mobile and at&t respectively), so I think I can judge these fairly.

First, I love the iphone in so many ways. The user interface rocks, web is better than the Symbian one (although they both do real web pages, unlike Apple's claims to be first), and the iphone's email app is much, much faster than that crap on Symbian (I have an inbox of several thousand messages so that might be part of it, but the iphone handles it like a breeze, and quickly)

With that said, I really like how I can do what I want with my unlocked Nokia. I use gizmoproject to do VOIP on it, I can pop in a prepaid overseas SIM when I travel, I can even load putty on it for pete's sake. Bluetooth options are endless including tethering with a data plan.

iphone is crippled in many unforgiveable ways, like crappy bluetooth support (what, I can't send a photo over bluetooth or tether my laptop?), no MMS, lack of WPA enterprise WIFI support (horrible), email app "helpfully" scales down the pics for you to VGA, and on and on.

These are all software design issues, which makes it even more intolerable.

Hopefully Nokia learns some lessons and adapts its software and Apple addresses the shortcomings in a future software update. At least let me use the iphone at work on the wifi network there. Sigh...

Re:Very american-centric article

[rbanffy]

I think this internet thing mostly did away with that other thing of national borders and geography.

In the end, every article and every discussion here and on every other discussion-centric site has different demographics.

I use Ubuntu and I don't think of it as American, European or African.

For the rest of the world, it's interesting to note how the stranglehold of the telcos (due to probably insuficient consumer-protection laws) has held the US back in respect to mobile telephony.

Re:US, welcome to the world

[Pantero Blanco]

Europe's like what...the size of Texas? If we had that many folks living in such a small area, then different types of coverage wouldn't be an issue.
But for that vast amounts of rural area the US has, CDMA makes providing service that much easier. Even where I live, wedged between two metro areas 50 miles in each direction, CDMA is much more reliable than any of the other protocols.
Your comment displays your ignorance of America (much like most American's ignorance of Europe is so frequently pointed out.) The country is freaking HUGE.

Spain is about the size of Texas. Europe is a bit bigger than US...4 million square miles versus 3.5-3.7 million.

Your point that the large rural areas in the US affect telcommunications there is valid, but your first comment was nuts.

Jobs Considered Linux?

[wchatam]

From TFA: Engineers looked carefully at Linux, which had already been rewritten for use on mobile phones, but Jobs refused to use someone else's software.

Really? That never stopped him from using FreeBSD or Mach in OS X.

My guess is that it was the GPL that kept Linux out of the iPhone and OS X. This is not meant as a flame against the GPL or Apple, but I am curious if OS X or the iPhone would be based on Linux if they could have gotten it with a BSD license.

Re:is it just me?

[Admiral Ag]

It's a game changing device, same as the original iPod was. There were mp3 players before the iPod, but they weren't the sort of thing the ordinary person would buy. The vast majority of users like the iPod/iTunes combo because it takes about 10 minutes to learn almost all of the features. The iPhone is the same for smartphones. I have a Samsung smartphone. I live in Korea, so it does TV and everything else, but the manual is over half an inch thick. Anyone who watches Apple's 15 minute iPhone movie already knows how to use it. How many people have a PDA or a smartphone? Not that many, and the main reason is that the learning curve is too much for many people.

The most important thing is that the iPhone isn't primarily a phone. It's a Newton that happens to have phone capabilities, and solves a lot of the problems with the original Newton devices (like input).

Unless you've seen a jailbroken iPhone/iPod, it's hard to appreciate how much potential it has as a portable computer and gaming device. Some of the jailbroken stuff is cool (like the etch a sketch simulator). The SDK is the equivalent of releasing iTunes for Windows. It's the thing that will put the iPhone over the top. For example, the touch screen and accelerometer will make for some awesome games. Apple should really hire Nintendo to write some, owing to their success with the DS and their ability to make cool games for it.

Jobs made the right bet on the interface. The versatility of a portable device is proportional to the flexibility of its interface. While people are correct that it is slightly easier to type on a proper keyboard, the versatility more than makes up for that. My PSP is a great device, but it is never going to be as versatile as my iPod Touch. I can't wait to see what 3rd party developers will do with it.

Of course, the iPhone won't suit everyone, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for not using one, or for waiting for the 3G version/software updates, or waiting for a rival product, but that doesn't stop it from being a game changing device. I seriously doubt that in 5 years it will be easy to find a portable smart device that doesn't have a multitouch interface.

Re:iPhone Owner here.

[Tom]

but they have fallen short in features. Which doesn't have to be a disadvantage. I'm reading "The Design of Everday Things" at the moment, and can very much recommend it. It's a few years old, but it's still very much true - more features doesn't mean a better product. Not if you don't get the user interface design right and your cool features are unuseable - as most of the "smartphones" and more and more of the normal mobile phones are.

To me, what makes the iPhone special is that it's the first mobile phone where you can actually use all the features it has. Setting up a phone conference recently was simple and straightforward. Someone later tried to explain to me how I could've done the same on the old Nokia company cellphone, but he couldn't remember all the proper steps. That is the difference that counts for me, and even though there's one or two things I'd like my iPhone to be able to do, it's more important to me that what is there is useable.