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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."
Europe and most of the rest of the world has GSM and GSM alone. You can take a SIM card from any carrier and put it in any phone. It has always been like that.
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Verizon announced that it plans to go GSM in the future, and if they completely phase out CDMA, pretty much only Sprint/Nextel would be the only CDMA provider in the US.
I'm not sure how serious Verizon is about this, although I do know that both AT&T and T-Mobile cross-license their towers, so it doesn't matter what brand of GSM tower is near someone. If Verizon also cross licenses, it wouldn't mean a big expenditure outlay on their part at first (although they would have to build towers to hold up their part of the deal, most likely.)
Maybe this is good -- if the US goes completely GSM, it might allow providers to bring 3G as a standard (instead of EDGE), and perhaps Super3G/4G soon after, but who knows.
Carriers are learning that the right phone even a pricey one can win customers and bring in revenue - they have known it for a long time. What they have been missing that a POS designed and built by HTC which crashes every time you change a cell is not the right phone despite all the marketing push behind it. Marketing reality distortion cannot compensate for product being crap (which is what the ROKR fiasco proves nicely as well).
Similarly, Nokia has been playing this game all along on this side of the pond though I have to admit - it has never ever been so sadistic in its relationship with the carriers. As far as commercials - jobs is jobs nothing more to be said to this regard. So any changes to this regard in the market are American specific.
Europe has been there, seen it. This also probably explains its lukewarm reception over here. There are plenty of competing devices. They are not as good, but they do the job nicely and most of them are not totally operator bastardized (unless you go for Voda UK or Orange). For example I recently got a new Nokia E65 on O2. It took 3-4 presses of a button to tell the O2 customisation to go fish. 10 minutes later it was running VOIP calls on my home wireless networks, browsing the web and reading emails off my imap server. It may not be as shiny as an iphone, but it does all the jobs it does as well as VOIP and does it well.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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Those carries have been open for a long time: I've been using unlocked GSM phones on them for years. The iPhone is a big step backwards: it's carrier-locked and non-programmable. Far from moving the industry forward, Apple has been taking it backwards.
If you want a nice phone, get an unlocked Nokia N95-3; you get 3G speeds, a 5Mpixel camera, stereo speakers, GPS (works with Google maps), a Safari web browser, and lots more. You aren't locked into a contract or carrier, and you can put in a different SIM card when you travel.
...or with the spate of news articles about how revolutionary and paradigm-changing the iphone is, is anyone else expecting to start seeing an "iphone = chuck norris" meme?
"the iphone is so cool, the ISO is creating a new temperature scale based around it."
"the iphone is so powerful, it can cure cancer...once unlocked."
"the iphone is so versatile, it can not just play music, be a phone and browse the web, but imagine a beowulf cluster of them!"
is it just me? i mean, i think the iphone is pretty darned cool, myself, and i don't even own one. but there's been a great deal of fawning over it. not that apple doesn't deserve accolades for it, but jeez guys...haven't we collectively crossed the threshold of justifiable praise into fanboyism?
ed
1. The headline is horrible. iPhone didn't contribute to wireless networks that are open by some means.
2. iPhone won't open the market. Android will. Reason: Android is fully customizable. Soon or later Skype[1] or any other VOIP/instant messenging app will be available. Data traffic will become more important than regular POTS calls. Eventually one carrier might step out of line and get out of the entrenchment by offering reasonable data traffic packages. The game theory for this is a prisoners dilema, and we know that all participating players will lose at end. But that's just good for the customers. Technology will dictate it at the end, and it's Google Android that will take the lead here; not iPhone that is tied to carries by contracts.
[1]Skype itself is a total horrible vendor lockin, but hopefully the protocol gets reverse engineered one day and we will all enjoy open clients. Everyone that uses a multi-protocol client with MSN/ICQ/AIM/JABBER knows that suddenly a single protocol becomes quite easy to replace and hence its power to dictate the rules (as it so for skype at the moment) vanishes.
Close, but not entirely true. Verzion has agreed to use the GSM LTE standard for it's 4G implementations, not 3G, so it doesn't appear they would be running to cross license anything. They are still committed to CDMA EV-DO for 3G. http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/11/pr2007-11-29.html
I love how Apple has managed to sell the phone at their apple stores, and all you need to do is pick it up, plug it into itunes and fill out a form and you're all setup on at&t very easily.
The setup is a very nice experience. No need to go to some at&t store for anything. If you dont have an apple store, you can order from apple online, have it shipped to your house and you can turn on the at&t service yourself through itunes. Its just a nice way to do things.
The iphone is awesome, but its not everything it could or should be. Apple has created a great platform but they have fallen short in features. It looks as if Apple is going to continue to support the iPhone by adding more applications thanks to the upcoming SDK, and they will be adding new features to existing phones as well as future versions. The iPhone looks like a platform, rather than a phone.
Right now, the iphone is lacking a lot, but it does somethings extremely well. Whats interesting is how people are willing to look past the shortcomings just to have an iPhone. In my case, and in many others, we werent aware of the shortcomings. I mean come on, how can it not have cut and paste?
Apple isnt being aggressive enough in adding features that the iphone lacks. Copycat phones are showing up, they're stealing a lot of ideas from Apple, and they are adding more functionality faster than Apple is. Granted these copycat ui's arent as elaborate or graphical, but they a made by the known players in the cell industry... and they can move very fast.
As much as I hate Verizon Wireless for crippling their phones, if Verizon had 62.1 million subscribers in June 2007 and 63.7 subscribers as of January 8th, 2008, how can they be "hemorrhaging" customers?
AT&T may be clobbering them, adding new acquisitions to 67.3 million lines (from 63.7 in June 07), but Verizon has a turnover rate of less than 2% and they've increased the total # of subscribers since the iPhone release.
The fact that the iPhone shookup the wireless industry and forced others to innovate and improve is true, but Verizon isn't dying. They DO need to play catchup with AT&T though; AT&T is widening their lead.
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...
Android is fully customizable
Are you sure about that? The OpenMoko is fully customisable because it is a fairly standard embedded version of Linux and you are the root user. I'm not sure Android is like that. As far as I know (which is not far), you can customise one layer i.e. what runs inside the Java sandbox but that's it. For me that is no more interesting than Symbian (i.e. not interesting at all really).
I'm waiting for the OpenMoko
My little Linux and tech blog
if they did that a lot of the mobile phone networks would go out of business pretty fast
If that is the case then good. They will be replaced by better ones.
I think it is ridiculous that if you go between two EU countries, you either have to swap out the SIM cards every time you cross a border (meaning different phone number) or pay to receive a call. Paying to receive calls is stupid.
However, I think if roaming charges where abolished completely then overall they would make more money, as people would make more phone calls. When I am at home I make several mobile calls a day, when outside of my own country I do not make any at the moment because of the receiving calls problem.
My little Linux and tech blog
The thread about whose phone is open and whose is not has no effect on the point of the article. The impact of the iPhone was that the phone maker got to set the rules instead of the service provider. This is a major change in the behavior of the service provider.
Verizon, conversely, expects that everything you would do with your phone should include a network service function. They own services for pictures, video, music, even your calendar and address book. As a result, they have disabled many of the features provided by phone equipment providers. Furthermore, you cannot buy a phone from an equipment provider and then sign up for Verizon service. This is a really terrible situation for the customer and not likely to last once the market starts to gravitate to separate smart phones and configurable services.
Lastly, don't assume that GSM is the solution to all phone service problems. The sim card is a good idea so that phone service is portable. It is a difficult standard to adjust to higher data rates where CDMA is easier. I suspect the GSM folks will get it figured out, but the phone you have today might not be the one you need in a few years. The battle is not yet fully played.
"If all the American people want is security, let them live in prisons." Eisenhower
Handwriting recognition is for the birds. Using a stylus sucks. I have had two Palm OS devices and an iPhone. Now, no one understands better than I that Graffiti sucks. Hard. But handwriting creates certain problems that can't be solved by any software. Lost styli. The need to always use two hands. Difficult editing. (How do you backspace?) Okay, maybe that last one has a software solution. But you see what I'm saying.
I've had my iPhone since release day, and it took me about two weeks to really get comfortable with the soft keyboard. I haven't taken any measurements, but I am quite sure that I can type accurately on it faster than I can write legibly with a pen and paper. And I can get by one handed.
On top of all that, multi-touch is awesome.
Maybe the iPhone isn't for you, but if you haven't gotten one in your hands and tried it out, do it. I couldn't go back to a traditional touch screen. And anyone who tries to foist a stylus on me is going to have to dig it out of his sinus.
-Peter
I live in Switzerland. Every phone I've ever bought (from different carriers) has been sim-unlocked. I think it's possible to get SIM-locked phones, but you can easily get them unlocked. When I leave the country for any significant amount of time (which is often, as you can't spit in Switzerland without hitting three other countries), I buy a local pre-paid SIM card. A few months ago, I went to Cuba for two weeks, and my Swisscom SIM card actually worked, including Internet access (which is kind of a joke - my phone had faster Internet than the local, foreigners-only Internet cafés).
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.
I'd argue the "lacking" features are what makes the iPhone good. The copycat phones which look like iPhones b ut offer all the features of Windows Mobile are missing the whole freaking point of the iPhone: It's simple and easy to use.
... if what you say is true. Here's the part that makes OpenMoko flawed (again assuming it is accurate) ....
"you are the root user"
This makes it a great "GEEK" thing, but normal users (bless their hearts) will screw it up.
What most geeks forget is that they are geeks, not normal people (bless their hearts). Being a geek is seriously not "normal". Being a geek, there are things I like to do that my wife would never do. She is not a geek. She doesn't even know what root is, or what that really means. I can assure you that if my wife had anything with root, she'd either wouldn't use it (too hard, complex, not user friendly etc) or really screw it up.
This has been the long term problem with Linux, and many other Geek toys. And unlike other people, I don't look down upon non-geeks because they don't understand that one can buy an MP3 player for less than iPOD that has more of everything. They don't care if they don't want to use it, because it is too complex.
And the geek market is much much smaller than the market for "normal" people(bless their hearts).
OpenMoko may end up being a geek's best friend. Normal people (bless their hearts) just want a _____ that works, easily. We as geeks tend to look down upon anything that isn't a bitch to get working, and thus establishing our geek cred when we finially get it to work.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It'd be more like talking about the United States and meaning "contiguous United States" ignoring Alaska (which is roughly 1.7M sq. km.) and other assorted states and territories.
Most Americans (this is anecdotal) seem to live in a 50's world where "Europe" means the western portion of Europe that was never part of the communist block. Basically, England, France, Germany, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Scandinavia. We generally don't consider Poland, Ukraine, or other Slavic/Eastern Block countries part of "Europe" even though I'm sure most Europeans do. And probably most Europeans who talk about "America" are talking about the contiguous U.S, forgetting Alaska, etc.
Anyway, leaving aside what exactly we think about when we're thinking about the "other" place, it's pretty hard to get a grip on just how large the contiguous U.S. is without actually driving across it. From Los Angeles California to Portland, Maine is a drive of almost 5,000 km.
None of which makes the U.S. better or less backward in any of the ways we're backward. It's just amazingly vast.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Who are you, Edward Stylushands?! How do you do multitouch with styli? Hold the thing with one hand, use one stylus with the other hand, and use a finger on your third hand?
-Peter
I would like for multi-touch to continue to function as it does, while in addition to that, it would be an _option_ to use a stylus for HWR, inking &c.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Apple demanded? Apple gave up potential iPhone sales to people who may have wanted an iPhone but didn't want AT&T. Apple is bricking phones that have been modded to work with different providers or attempt to use 3rd party apps instead of AT&T services. Apple is taking all the heat for this nonsense while AT&T sits back and collects the revenue. From where I sit, it appears that Apple's lips are firmly affixed to AT&T's backside.
The whole "we're opening up out networks" crap is just that. Cingular/AT&T's network has always been 'open' so long as you are willing to supply your own unlocked phone. I know. I've been doing that for years. The iPhone is a move in the other direction. Once you spend big bucks on one, you are much less likely to switch away from AT&T. In my case, when I travel abroad, I re-chip my phone (a RAZR) with a local account. An iPhone would be useless to me. I wonder how many other sales to people who travel a lot and want such features (typically higher income) Apple lost.
Have gnu, will travel.
Nobody talks about Helio, but they did most of the iPhone things before the iPhone, and better.
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3G networking - Helio has it, Apple doesn't.
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Social networking integration - Helio has it ("Myspace integration"), Apple doesn't.
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GPS/map/social networking Helio has it ("Buddy Beacon"), Apple doesn't even have GPS.
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Video camera Helio has it, Apple doesn't.
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Music downloads Helio does them over the air, Apple doesn't.
They both have music, video, phone, camera, etc.Helio also has much more Web integration (IM, POP email, RSS, etc.) than the iPhone. The problem is that they had to put a pop-out QWERTY keyboard in the thing to deal with all the web stuff.
I did find this amusing (emphasis mine): Funny choice of words because you have to crack the iPhone to unlock it for use on other networks.
the Lisa (with its "borrowed" GUI design courtesy of Xerox labs)
No.
Apple licensed some concepts from Xerox and greatly developed others. Jef Raskin was an Apple employee who, more than just about anyone, developed the GUI concept from the ground up.
Have you ever seen a Xerox GUI in action? It's not pretty and it's barely usable. Apple brought a lot to that metaphor but they'd already done a lot of work on the Mac and GUI. For some reason people like yourself either don't know that or forget it, preferring to believe that the Mac GUI sprang fully formed in Xerox and was cruelly stolen by Apple. It's a lie, often repeated but that doesn't make it any less a lie.
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