iPhone Tops Windows Mobile Share; MS Releases iPhone App

walterbyrd notes that new data from Gartner indicates that the successful launch of the iPhone 3G was enough to push iPhone market share over that of Windows Mobile devices — the entire range of them. And reader Spy Hunter writes: "Seadragon Mobile is Microsoft's first iPhone application. Seadragon is a technology for streaming zoomable user interfaces, and this iPhone incarnation allows viewing huge collections of gigapixel-sized images over WiFi or 3G. If you don't have an iPhone, you can also try Seadragon in your browser via Seadragon Ajax."

Comments

Innovation pays

[alain94040]

When Apple launched the iPhone two years ago, they announced that their goal was to ship 10 million iPhones by year end. Frankly, no one had any clue how many or how few would sell. It was just a guess on the part of Apple management (really!).

And somehow, they hit the number and blew past Microsoft smartphones, Nokia and blackberry. For once innovation pays, I love it. In he last 5 years I was involved as an engineer with some of the companies designing cell phones. Ground-breaking innovation is not in their DNA. Instead, they take last year's technology and make it 20% better and faster. Middle management has no clue how to foster innovation.

You need those companies around because they drive down cost and make technology accessible. But you also need a few Apples that forego incremental improvements and shoot for the moon.

--
French iPhone Apps review site applicationiphone.com looking for contributors

Re:Innovation pays

[Midnight Thunder]

Yup, it really is amazing. I don't think anyone could have guessed it would have done so well.

I wonder how much this says something about the iPhone and how much this says of the competition. Of the competition, the way I see them:
  - For me Windows mobile suffers from the fact it feel like a desktop OS shoe horned into a mobile device.
  - Palm lost focus and the separation of hardware into two separate companies that caused more problems than it solved. Then there was the fact they decided to go with Windows mobile.
  - RIM is still the better contender, but maybe purely focusing on a business solution limits the potential size of the market.
  - Android suffers from the fact they don't control the hardware, so the quality of the experience depends as much on the device manufacturers as the work Google does.

Re:Innovation pays

[Cyberax]

Android has good chances, but it has arrived a bit late. For most practical purposes it STILL has not arrived (G1 device is too 'niche').

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

"For once innovation pays"

Funny you say that. There is nothing the iPhone does that an old WM6 phone can't do. iPhone sells due to marketing. Same for iPods. Other MP3 players do more for less, but can't market like Apple can.

Re:Innovation pays

[digitalchinky]

Apple fanboy? Dude, at least read the summary. Nokia are still leaps and bounds ahead of Apple. It's doubtful they'll lose that spot anywhere in the next few years. If you were 'really' involved with any cell phone company, particularly as an engineer, you'd know that almost every hardware function of either of the two iPhone models thus far has been a knock off of stuff Nokia (and many others) have been doing for several years already. So it has a cute little finger sensitive display, this is not new either, but what else is actually innovative? Everything it does is simply following spec sheets that others have forged long before them.

Wake me when they come up with technology that really does forego any incremental improvements, and actually does consist of stuff that nobody else has already done 4 years ago.

Re:Innovation pays

[boredhacker]

somehow, they hit the number and blew past Microsoft smartphones, Nokia and blackberry

I would *love* to see something that backs up this assertion.

Last I checked, Nokia has way more overall market share AS WELL more 'smartphone' market share.

Re:Innovation pays

[dogmatixpsych]

There are two types of creativity (innovation) - thinking up things no one has done before and taking what a bunch of people have done before and putting it all together. Apple does some of the first but mostly does the second type. They not only put it all together, they do so in an attractive package that usually works well.

Re:Innovation pays

[SCHecklerX]

What's so innovative about the iphone? Not trolling, I really am curious what is so innovative about it.

Re:Innovation pays

[Ash-Fox]

I don't think anyone could have guessed it would have done so well.

What? Beat one of the most niche market shares (Windows mobile) in the mobile phone market?

I could of guessed that, it's got a Apple logo.

Re:Innovation pays

[jaxtherat]

I'm not sure I agree. Every mobile interface I've used before wasn't intuitive and felt rushed and unpolished.

The iPhone's interface is nice, so for those who can afford the whopping price tag, and don't mind the stigma of "ooh you've got an iPhone, you must be a Mac guy", it is an nifty phone/pda.

Everything else is either a phone trying to have PDA features (and failing), or uses windows (crash city).

Re:Innovation pays

[Lars T.]

Well, there is one (physical!) button to put it in "quiet" ring-mode - judging from many rings where there shouldn't be any, that must be a real tough one on other phones.

Re:Innovation pays

[LibertineR]

Well, I am no Apple Fan-boy, but I'll say this about the iPhone.

I have never come across a device that allows me to use it how I LIVE, more than the iPhone does. Most every device forces you to adapt to how it works, make changes to how you like to do things in order to get productive use out of the device. The iPhone just seems to fit like a glove to how I like to do things with a smartphone.

I dont have to compromise, I just use it, it works, especially the GPS feature.

Re:Innovation pays

[jrothwell97]

However, the execution is better. It's more polished, and the touch screen actually works well, which is more than can be said for any other smartphone I've used.

Re:Innovation pays

[konohitowa]

I've had numerous cell phones over the past 15 years from a variety of manufacturers, as well as a few PDAs. The iPhone is the first of them that I really use regularly for a variety of tasks. The interface is relatively easy to use, the applications perform well, and updates and syncing are straightforward. This isn't about any individual component in the mix, it's the overall integration.

As to the innovation, Apple is the first company to tell the US wireless carriers that the cellphone vendor is defining platform. In the past, you never really knew what features you were going to get and what features would be removed so that the wireless carrier could charge you to use the feature. I can't imagine that Verizon would have agreed to network changes in order to support visual voicemail without having it disabled by default and then charging on a per message basis (or some other equally obnoxious plan). In fact, Verzion probably would have required that all of the interface buttons be reordered or some other silliness like they seem to do with so many of the Motorola phones they carry. Apple also worked to ensure that the data plan was unlimited so that you would be encouraged to use the device without fear of bandwidth charges.

Certainly there are improvements to be made - it's not as if it's perfect by any means - but at least I know that I can get upgrades as they come out, rather than getting a device that gets little or no improvement over the course of my 2 year contract. Or one that requires me to go track down a kiosk and hope for the best.

Re:Innovation pays

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yup, it really is amazing. I don't think anyone could have guessed it would have done so well.

Some of use knew right from the moment we saw the demo that it would become incredibly popular. Of course, many of us also get ignored when we start ranting about how important usability is and how there is more to design than aesthetics.

Re:Innovation pays

[geekmux]

Apple fanboy? Dude, at least read the summary. Nokia are still leaps and bounds ahead of Apple. It's doubtful they'll lose that spot anywhere in the next few years. If you were 'really' involved with any cell phone company, particularly as an engineer, you'd know that almost every hardware function of either of the two iPhone models thus far has been a knock off of stuff Nokia (and many others) have been doing for several years already. So it has a cute little finger sensitive display, this is not new either, but what else is actually innovative? Everything it does is simply following spec sheets that others have forged long before them.

Wake me when they come up with technology that really does forego any incremental improvements, and actually does consist of stuff that nobody else has already done 4 years ago.

Ah, in case you hadn't noticed, people are buying up this "stolen, recycled" engineering in droves. Do you think I really give a rats ass who invented the shatterproof coating on the windshield when I'm shopping for my new car? Hell no. Do I care who invented the fuel injector design? Hell no. Speak to me in things I DO care about, like a quality product, which is exactly what Apple has delivered, and they're reaping the rewards from it.

Wake me up when you've found that mind-bending design you keep holding your breath for. With todays ADD fashion, you'll find more "innovation" coming from the Marketing department than the Engineering "recycling center".

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

The web browser is a really big improvement over anything I've used before on a phone. From the way it handles zooming (with the "pinch" gesture) to the way they implemented "tabs"... very nice given the low amount of screen real estate. Don't get me wrong, I love Opera Mini on my Sony Ericsson - it's just much smoother.

Visual voice mail is pretty cool - though I don't get enough messages to make it worthwhile. I'm not aware of any other phone that had it.

Ditching the keyboard led to a really nice, thin phone. I don't know of another manufacturer that sold a keyboard-less device - much less one with the other features of the iPhone.

The integration of the music/video player with the other phone functions is pretty top-notch. Other phones get this right, but not combined with the above.

The interface itself is very useful and, dare I say... fun? Things wiggle and vibrate and smoothly slide around. The gestures are simple and intuitive. Everything is well-integrated. Nothing feels "alien" to the phone.

The on-screen keyboard is the best I've seen. It takes a little while to hit it accurately, but it is usable. I'd still choose a blackberry for heavy email, but to be honest you really need to just wait until you are sitting in front of a computer :)

All that said, I didn't get one. It's not really what I'm after and it requires an expensive plan. The cost of the phone is not really significant, since the plan dwarfs it. It would also consume me, since I can't help but dick with stuff. Say goodbye to a week of my life as I jailbreak it.

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

My PDA has a phone in it. The interface is clean, simple and familiar. It does everything the Iphone does, and a HUGE list of things the iphone will NEVER be able to do.

Treo 650 if you were wondering.

I'm not bashing the Iphone, I don't have one, don't want one. I've used them though.

It's cute, but it's a really long way away from being a smart phone. There is no office software, there is no remote desktop, there is a pretty interface though. That is nice, but it's a very long way away from matching the feature set of my 6 year old phone.

So what makes the Iphone so awesome? Nothing. What makes it popular is the apple mystic and excellent marketing, but there is a reason serious business users shy away from it.

Re:Innovation pays

[aztektum]

Oh I know, the iPhone will always and forever be the greatest phone on the planet. The smartphone market will shrivel up and die except for iPhone sales. It was the same with the iPod! The iPod has forced every other mp3 player maker out of business! Nothing else could possible sell now.

No matter how long it takes Android to mature, there will always be a market for alternatives. Thus far Microsoft has not provided one (coming from a WinMo user) that works.

They won't remain the only show in town forever.

Re:Innovation pays

[ssstraub]

The interface of the Treo is borderline terrible. Familiarity != intuitive. If you can hand your Treo to your 65 year old grandmother and she can figure it out without you walking her through each step, I'll eat my hat.

The fact that I never have to use a stylus or navigate an extremely poorly thought out menu bar at the top of the screen makes an iPhone so much less aggravating as a portable device.

I've used a Treo, and I'd rather keep my old Motorola V300 than use one of those daily.

Re:Innovation pays

[ssstraub]

Verizon DID add visual voicemail, and yep, they charge a monthly fee for it

Hilarious.

Re:Innovation pays

[mixmatch]

The iPod has forced every other mp3 player maker out of business!

Yeah, all the other makers except for Microsoft, Sony, Creative, SanDisk, iRiver, Archos, Toshiba, and a dozen generic Asian manufacturers...

Re:Innovation pays

[absoluteflatness]

According to a recent article, you may be suffering from dementia.

Re:Innovation pays

[mixmatch]

Whats the obsession with overloading old people with technology? How useful is a PDA/SmartPhone if you cannot read the screen? I'd wager that any 65 year old lady that truly needed a PDA or SmartPhone is probably innovative enough to be able to figure it out, regardless of which model or manufacturer you give her.

Re:Innovation pays

[x102output]

Um....implementation of said features?


Also, Nokia (or anyone for that matter), has not designed capacitive touch in the same way Apple has. Apple has patented the technology (this is why all other touch-screen phones suck compared to the iPhone) and no one can really use it. Kind of like how they wouldn't allow synaptics to make a circular touch-pad for any other mp3 player. Anyway, lots of engineers in the industry really were blown away by the way Apple implemented capacitive touch. It was "innovative"

Re:Innovation pays

[cgenman]

The iPhone was the first phone I haven't wanted to throw out the window immediately. A touch screen interface to a phone works much more intuitively than a pen or small trackball, and the multi-touch allows you to really maneuver around oversized data without too much hassle. The e-mail / phone / internet / ipod integration is simple and straightforward. And how phones had gotten by without Google maps prior to the iPhone is befuddling.

Really, what makes the iPhone good is how all of the steps of the process comes together. Tap the camera icon, get a screen with the camera feed and the camera button. If someone you don't know calls you, you can just click the arrow next to their call in the recents list and create a new contact. Further, click the blank spot where the photo should go, and pick from a screen full of photos. Comparatively, on my old LG you had to hit the guide button, click around on an old joystick to get to the camera function, choose target data storage and a couple of photo styles, take the picture, name it, etc etc etc.

Really, the iPhone was a break with the interfaces of old, with nearly all of the annoying or confusing components removed.

There are a lot of problems with the iPhone. A real keyboard would be nice, or at least a bluetooth keyboard connection. Copy / Paste is sadly missing, without an obvious way of integrating. And then, of course, there is the sad lack of GPS turn-by-turn.

Now that someone has created a sample platform, I suspect that other developers will extend and push the paradigm forward. I hope they do. There is a lot of development left to go, and I hope nobody simply ceeds the space to Apple.

Re:Innovation pays

[recharged95]

Huh. Who cares about MS creating an iPhone app. I'm more interested in that Visa Mobile ad just above this post (mobile/micro payements)

And it's only available on the G1!

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the third type of innovation, which is to do what others have done before, but a little bit worse, and a few years later.

By this measure, Microsoft is a very innovative company.

Re:Innovation pays

[644bd346996]

I guess that, as they did for the mp3 player marker, Apple has shown the world that customers do care about quality a lot more than the established manufacturers give them credit for.

Once the competitors take that into account, Apple's market share will start to decline. But it may keep going up for quite a while before the competition catches up.

Re:Innovation pays

[cgenman]

Nothing. What makes it popular is the apple mystic and excellent marketing...

If that was enough, we'd all be watching Apple TV's while jotting notes into our Newtons. Heck, Apple was one of the first Digital Camera manufacturers and had a video game console.

Apple's "mystic and excellent marketing" is clearly not enough to sell any old box. Really, you might want to look into why the iPhone is so popular. I'm sure Palm as we speak is adjusting the Treo line with the lessons learned from the iPhone.

Full disclosure: I'm a prior treo 600 owner. It has a much better keyboard than the iPhone, but for everything else I prefer Apple's little machine.

Re:Innovation pays

[KanSer]

Uhh, dude. There are not only multiple versions of remote desktop clients but also a smattering of Office clones.

Don't worry, we will see a real office suite soon. (I want one too!)

Saying there is no remote desktop is ignorant as balls. http://www.mochasoft.dk/iphone_rdp.htm

Re:Innovation pays

[Achromatic1978]

When Apple launched the iPhone two years ago, they announced that their goal was to ship 10 million iPhones by year end. Frankly, no one had any clue how many or how few would sell. It was just a guess on the part of Apple management (really!). And somehow, they hit the number and blew past Microsoft smartphones, Nokia and blackberry.

Pardon? They did what? From TFA:

Nokia, meanwhile, maintained its number 1 spot with 42.4% in market share. iPhone market share jumped up to 12.9% during the third quarter of 2008

Yeah, I guess they really, uhhh, blew past Nokia, selling one iPhone for, uhhh, ummmm, every 3.3 Nokia smartphones being sold.

The RDF is strong in this one...

Re:Innovation pays

[kklein]

SoftBank here in Japan charges a monthly fee for it, but I don't actually pay for it because I get maybe 1 voicemail a year and don't mind paying 20 yen to retrieve it. It's less than 315 yen a month.

Re:Innovation pays

[Achromatic1978]

If anyone else had had all of it in one place and implemented it properly they would be where Apple is you idiot.

You mean selling a third the smartphones Nokia^H^H^H^H^H Apple is? Cool!

Let's see, Nokia N95, out in March 07, versus iPhone v1, released June 07. N95? Missing touch screen, missing hi-res display. iPhone? Missing: 3G (added a year later). Still missing: real GPS, MMS, 5mp camera, optical zoom for same, video calling, integrated VoIP, PTT, TV Out, stereo Bluetooth audio, hardware OpenGL 3D acceleration. You mean all these kind of things?

And it's always just so cute to see iPhone users raving about their accelerometers (funny, the N95 has that), Bluetooth 2.0 (same), and things like that.

Re:Innovation pays

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

What's so innovative about the iphone? Not trolling, I really am curious what is so innovative about it.

They made it work like a phone with web functionality, as opposed to making it work like a PDA with cell phone functionality.

It's difficult to explain until you've sat down and used it. It's not about feature comparisons, it's more like comparing a regular coffee cup to one of those fancy thermal mugs that have a thicker handle, a lid, and a flap to close it. They both do the same job but the latter was a little more thought out for a coffee drinker. (It's also more expensive and lots of people find ways to make due without it.)

Re:Innovation pays

[DrgnDancer]

As former Treo, now iPhone user all I can say is "Huh?". Blazer is all but useless as a browser, Opera never worked right on the PalmOS version of Java. Push e-mail never worked right unless you paid the fortune and a half for "Good" and had an Exchange back-end for it. The screen was fairly awful, and I was constantly replacing the little screen protectors. It was tremendously uncomfortable to use as an actual phone, it has no wifi or GPS support (without expensive add-on cards), it's 2G and doesn't even seem as fast as a first gen iPhone at that (I have a first gen and my wife has a 3G so I've experienced both). It constantly asked me if I wanted to make another call while I was talking on it, because my cheek would brush the button on the screen. It had really bad support for encryption, and my SSH app told me every time I used it that I was using dangerously poor encryption algorithms because the processor couldn't do any better.

I'd say it did perhaps half of what the iPhone does if we define "do" as "do well enough that I want to use it regularly". As to the things it can do that the iPhone "will never do", the only ones I can come up with are tethering (which was such a painfully slow way to access the Internet I never really used it any way, and it got expensive quickly with 5 GB data limits), Copy/paste (which I still hold out hope on), and multi-media text (which I also hold out hope on, but wouldn't mind so much if I could copy/paste).

Office documents are viewable with downloaded apps, and there are SSH and VNC clients on the app store as well. Most of the apps are a good bit cheaper than PalmOS apps were too. There are a few phones out there that really are more capable than the iPhone, but the Treo line is totally NOT among them. My wife rolled her Truck a couple of weeks back and lost her Treo, We considered it the only good part of the experience, and bought her a 3G.

Re:Innovation pays

[initialE]

Well the iPhone didn't stand a chance against Windows Mobile, because there were apps and apps for WM. There were apps for every kind of conceivable thing you could put on a mobile device. It was like... windows... You know you don't want it, you just don't have a choice because you needed your apps supported. Never mind it crashes all the time. Never mind you might miss important calls and never know it. It had app support.
Then what happened? Apple releases an SDK that enables rapid app development. They produce a storefront that enables you to hang out your hat almost immediately. They even provide back-end infrastructure for apps that need to do background communication. Once again, they are a major contender. And in record time.
My question is this: Do you see this happening for Android?

Re:Innovation pays

[cthellis]

Huzzah! "Sarcasm detector" has a new meme!

Re:Innovation pays

[mini me]

They even provide back-end infrastructure for apps that need to do background communication.

Coming in September, 2008!. Oh wait...

Re:Innovation pays

[mini me]

My iPhone has office software and remote desktop software. You might want to have a look at the app store.

Re:Innovation pays

[cthellis]

Ugh... I like Verizon's network, but hate just about everything else. (Their prices and options were certainly why I didn't get a Treo to begin with.)

I'm glad to be off for a while, as I was either going to switch to at&t for the iPhone, or switch to Sprint for "as much as I could get" out of a smartphone with the price savings.

Unfortunately the Sprint network in my area has always been a bit TOO crappy, so that tipped me over the edge. Not regretting it, since at&t has expanded their network in my area quite a lot as well, so there's pretty much no difference between it now and what Verizon gave me previously.

Re:Innovation pays

[jcr]

Middle management has no clue how to foster innovation.

That may be true of a majority of middle managers, but that's an awful lot of people to be dismissing in one shot. I'd say it's not so much middle management in particular, but the attitude of senior management that determines whether an organization will promote or inhibit innovation.

Motorola used to be a place where innovation was the way to get ahead. Pity how that company degenerated since the days when they invented the cellular system.

-jcr

Re:Innovation pays

[jcr]

Apple has shown the world that customers do care about quality

One lesson I take from Apple, Snap-on, Vice Grip and Virgin, (just to name a few that spring to mind), is that no matter how crowded a market is, you can still compete with higher quality instead of lower pricing.

-jcr

Re:Innovation pays

[jcr]

iPhone sells due to marketing.

The key to Apple marketing is the quality of the product.

-jcr

Re:Innovation pays

[gad_zuki!]

I cant think of a less reliable piece of electronics than the ipod. Ive taken mine in several times. The original mini was a hard drive crash waiting to happen. The worst was that the 12 month warranty only lasted 6 months. After 6 there was a fee. So Apple cant even guarantee these devices for a year? Incredible. The photo ipod was my last ipod. I learned quickly.

I think what you meant is that aesthetics are more important and the illusion of quality is paramount in the minds of consumers. Afterall, white plastic coated in clear plastic is a whole lot of plastic. It feels like quality because its shiny and has some weight behind it. Metal feels more firm than plastic. Other than a simplstic UI, there's really nothing else to offer. Well, I guess there's the DRM and itunes store lock-in to look forward to.

Re:Innovation pays

[iCEBaLM]

Still missing: real GPS, MMS, 5mp camera, optical zoom for same, video calling, integrated VoIP, PTT, TV Out, stereo Bluetooth audio, hardware OpenGL 3D acceleration.

MMS is stupid when everyone has email. You can get VoIP clients for the iPhone. The iPhone has hardware accelerated OpenGL.

The iPhone really does have GPS, it won't tell you to "turn right in 100 meters", but it will tell you where you need to go. The camera, meh, it is kinda crappy by I don't care, only used it a couple times.

Video Calling? Are you kidding me? Who the hell uses this?
PTT? What?
TV Out? It's a cell phone.

Re:Innovation pays

[cthellis]

You do realize the same GPU that's in the N95 is in the iPhone, right? (At least a slightly different MBX permutation.) Only difference right now seems to be that the iPhone is getting it USED, while Nokia is trying to resurrect N-Gage across a broad swath of devices, and doing so pretty slowly and shruggably.

Same with the iPhone's "not real" GPS. (Though seemingly the n95 added that "fake" A-GPS later on to boost quality and positioning time.) What does it get used for other than their not-nearly-as-good mapping software? (That you have to pay for upgrades to, and pay to use voice navigation...)

Other things you somehow think the iPhone lacks that it's had since launch include: TV Out

Other things that somehow you think matter only if it's "integrated" and not "better in every way, from multiple different apps" include: VoIP

Meanwhile, who in crap "raves" about Bluetooth 2.0? o_O The accelerometer is only mentioned because if it's USE, not it's "being there." The n95 used it only for photo stabilization and orientation in the beginning, but opened it up later, and had a handful of apps take advantage. It doesn't appear still to do much by default in the firmware, and doesn't appear to be as sensitive. (Though that might itself be between the firmware handling and the app support, rather than the hardware.)

Re:Innovation pays

[rsborg]

I have never come across a device that allows me to use it how I LIVE, more than the iPhone does. Most every device forces you to adapt to how it works, make changes to how you like to do things in order to get productive use out of the device. The iPhone just seems to fit like a glove to how I like to do things with a smartphone.

I have to disagree with you here. I have had to change a few things to compensate for my iPhone (having previously used an iPod for music and Treo for a smartphone)... it's not as good as the two discrete devices at the things they did best. Despite that, my iPhone is the one device that I use incessantly throughout my day. Podcasts while driving (hooked up to my old iPod connector for the car), phone and email (IMAP FTW!) during the day, a little gaming or browsing while waiting at meetings or at the docs office, and video for the tot when we don't have any toys or tv around to keep her busy.

Now if AT&T only upgraded their voice network so it didn't suck so much :-)

Re:Innovation pays

[Breakfast Pants]

Uhh didn't Apple acquire those patents when they bought fingerworks?

Re:Innovation pays

[Ethanol-fueled]

I hope that fanboi was joking. I just picked up a 2GB Sansa for 40 bucks at a Radio Shack sale.

It's like a cheaper, better version of the iPod shuffle(it's almost identical except that it's black and has an excellent 2-color backlit screen with neat animations and tons of configuration options) which costs much less than 2 gig shuffle($70) and it uses the mass-storage protocol(caveat: you must first set that option in the menu) so that I can copy and paste my music directly into it without having to install that godawful iTunes(and by extension Quicktime and other crappola.

My girlfriend bragged about getting an ipod shuffle and itunes gift cards for Christmas and I had a good chuckle before I explained to her the benefits of non-apple hardware...seeing people's eyes open is truly a beautiful thing.

Re:Innovation pays

[digitalchinky]

Maybe it is a little creative, but not that much. What is really creative is a company like Alias wavefront (or whoever bought them out) writing Maya, and then having pixar (or anyone) come along and use that software to make films like Cars. Be realistic though, what apple have done is not exactly rocket science, they took existing off the shelf tech and wedged it in to a piece of plastic. Having a computer draft up a circuit diagram for interconnecting things like a bluetooth chip, a wifi chip, a CCD, a 3G chip, a GSM chip, LCD, and some assorted electronics, then wedge all that together - this is lego, slightly more expensive lego, but definitely lego. It's not innovation when sony ericsson, nokia, LG, samsung, and a whole host of others were already building stuff in the same way.

Don't get me wrong, I think their interface is kind of cool, it definitely shook up the existing players, but the technology is neither new, nor as profound as people are saying. Even the multi-touch is not new, I was using military hardware in 1995 that did this. I'm not American, so my view is perhaps not the same as yours, the iPhone may well be unusual in your (their) markets, but in my stores, it's kind of crippled up against what I can get at a cheaper price point. (I live in Asia)

Re:Innovation pays

[MoreDruid]

Well, my SO got an iPhone, and she has had the following issues:
- no easy way to import contacts
- importing contacts from SIM caused contact info to be LOST
- sending vCard over bluetooth doesn't work (tried with Nokia, WinMobile 5 & 6)
- importing vCard from Gmail doesn't work

The list is longer, but you get the idea. We were discussing this yesterday actually, and I'm very disappointed that Apple doesn't get this right. Every mobile phone I've owned over the past 8 years was able to transfer (either through a connection suite or bundled software) the contacts reliably. It's a basic requirement, especially if you have over 400 contacts (this is a business phone for my SO).

It does have very nice features, feels sleek and very responsive, but it does have its limitations and quirks.

Re:Innovation pays

[duane534]

By "niche", I believe you mean "expensive".

Re:Innovation pays

[Man On Pink Corner]

Even the multi-touch is not new, I was using military hardware in 1995 that did this.

On the one-in-a-thousand chance that your entire post isn't one long exercise in juvenile puffery, you could do the world a big favor by elaborating on this. Right now, other vendors aren't able to use multi-touch because Apple has patented it out the wazoo. If their patent(s) could be invalidated by prior art dating back to 1995, that would be great for everyone else.

Re:Innovation pays

[dangitman]

I had a good chuckle before I explained to her the benefits of non-apple hardware...seeing people's eyes open is truly a beautiful thing

What you experienced is generally known to others as something called a "hallucination."

Re:Innovation pays

[dangitman]

Vista Mobile... now there's an oxymoron!

Re:Innovation pays

[dangitman]

Be realistic though, what apple have done is not exactly rocket science, they took existing off the shelf tech and wedged it in to a piece of plastic.

So, why is it that so many multi-billion dollar companies fail to do this successfully? Why aren't you doing it?

Re:Innovation pays

[dangitman]

Afterall, white plastic coated in clear plastic is a whole lot of plastic. It feels like quality because its shiny and has some weight behind it. Metal feels more firm than plastic.

The "original mini" you were complaining about was cased in aluminum, unlike every other MP3 player on the market at the time. iPod Nanos are still made with aluminum, unlike... that's right, every other MP3 player on the market.

Re:Innovation pays

[digitalchinky]

Juvenile says Mr infantile. Perhaps you missed the bit about patent law whereby the military get to use whatever they want, whenever they want. Aside from this, there are a whole plethora of devices ranging from touch pads (think mouse pad on laptop or keyboard) through to the more traditional fingers on screen.

Perhaps you would be wise to do a little research of your own before hitting the keyboard. There have been numerous plasma screens, LCD panels, and other devices that are capable of sensing more than one pressure point. Your American patent matters to me in Asia how exactly?

(At the time I used these devices I was in the Australian Military doing electronic warfare, I then went on to work for the Defence Signals Directorate, but this is immaterial, many people far better than I have said similar things right here on slashdot every time the whole multi-touch thing comes up.)

Open your eyes good man.

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah - he's just not accustomed to anyone taking his opinions seriously. You can't expect him to recognize the feeling the first time around.

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Apple logo is trademarked.

Re:Innovation pays

[pwhysall]

The iPhone 3G has a "real" GPS receiver in it. It also has A-GPS, which will attempt to use other things (cell towers, wifi data) to triangulate your position in the absence of satellite visibility.

Re:Innovation pays

[Serious Callers Only]

Don't get me wrong, I think their interface is kind of cool, it definitely shook up the existing players, but the technology is neither new, nor as profound as people are saying. Even the multi-touch is not new, I was using military hardware in 1995 that did this. I'm not American, so my view is perhaps not the same as yours, the iPhone may well be unusual in your (their) markets, but in my stores, it's kind of crippled up against what I can get at a cheaper price point. (I live in Asia)

You're missing the point. No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.

Design is what makes this device better than any alternatives I've seen, in Europe or Asia. It's nothing to do with spec and wedging things into a piece of plastic.

Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.

Re:Innovation pays

[Serious Callers Only]

You have of course tried plugging it in and syncing contacts from your computer?

Works from OS X Address book or Outlook (since Windows doesn't have an address book).

Re:Innovation pays

[HonkyLips]

I always felt like most of the hype around the iPhone's launch missed the point. The hype was deserved, but everyone was hyping the wrong part.
What I saw was Apple not launching a cell-phone, they were launching a new mobile computing platform that could also be used as a cell-phone. It's a fundamental paradigm shift. Even now when I read rumours of Apple launching a netbook I think to myself that they've already done it- the iPhone. Back then journalists scoffed at the price and laughed at suggestions that Apple might worry giants like Nokia but they simply didn't get it. The iPhone isn't simply a phone, it's the first of the next-generation in mobile computing.
Comparing Apple's market share to Nokia's or other established phone manufacturers misses the point, because they are simply making phones. Even RIM just makes phones - call them smart phones if you prefer, but the basic way in which RIM have approached the Blackberry is the same as the way Nokia approaches the design of their phones. They do different things in different ways, but they are, first and foremost, phones. The parent poster is spot on when he refers to a new phone simply being the old phone but 20% faster etc etc etc. It's like car manufacturing, where many of today's cars are just the result of decades of incremental improvements on an old and outdated design.
In some ways the iPhone is a technical trojan horse but with a sophistication beyond Sony using the PS3 to get BluRay players into living rooms. The iPhone is getting real mobile computers into people's hands, with the 'real' internet (ignoring the Flash issue), and a real operating system. If people think it's just a phone that can play games, or a combination of a phone and an iPod then fine- Apple have done their job. They've made a mobile computer that is so easy to use people take it for granted...
I always thought that the iPhone deserved every bit of hype it received when it was launched, but not for the glossy interface or slick design. It was taking on industry giants such as Nokia and instantly making their corporate model obsolete, and offering instead a new paradigm in regards to mobile personal computers.

Re:Innovation pays

[MrAngryForNoReason]

or Outlook (since Windows doesn't have an address book).

Windows does have an address book, it is called Address Book and can be found in the Accessories folder on the start menu.

Re:Innovation pays

[xouumalperxe]

Funny, I don't have a single DRMed piece of music in my iPod. I just have my CD collection ripped to MP3, and copied over to the iPod. Using the device does not mandate using the store, you know? And of all the DRM schemes around, the one that freely lets you exploit the "analogue hole" by burning to CD and re-ripping (yes, I know, you lose quality) is "less evil" than most anyway.

Re:Innovation pays

[MrAngryForNoReason]

I think the major reason the iPhone has gained a larger market share than other smart phones is that Apple aren't selling it as a smart phone. Nokia, Blackberry and most other smart phone manufacturers target their smart phones to business users on the basis that email and office integration aren't what most consumers want.

Apple has marketed the iPhone as a desirable consumer phone which is a much bigger market. Other phone manufacturers have a lot of phones that target this market and outsell the iPhone but they aren't smart phones.

Most people don't want or need smart phone functionality so are happier with a cheaper non-smart phone. Bragging that the iPhone is the best selling smart phone is meaningless when the people buying them probably don't know what smartphone means.

Re:Innovation pays

[marsu_k]

Video calling is somewhat gimmicky, granted. The TV-out can be used if your phone supports recording video (or to display photos), but that's not so essential. So how about some real missing features?

• Tethering. Seriously. Every phone I've owned in this decade (including cheap "dumb phones") has supported this, initially with cables which were a nuisance, now via Bluetooth which is very convenient. If I'm paying for unlimited data I will use it as I see fit.
• Proper Bluetooth support. Not just tethering, and while I guess some people will use A2PD, I mean things like OBEX file transfer and wireless syncing.
• Ability to use something else than iTunes with your phone. Ok, so no OBEX. Now how am I supposed to use the iPhone, given that I have no computers that run OSX or Windows?

The iPhone is nice, and I can see why some like it, but it's no $DEITY-phone. Personally, once my S60 phone dies or is lost, I'm going to get a regular S40 phone and use my N800 for browsing (tethering via Bluetooth) on the move. A N800/N810 (or a netbook) with a regular phone is more ideal to me - no matter how much you can "pinch" web pages, bigger resolution helps when browsing, plus you can run whatever software you wish on your tablet/netbook (not only those sanctioned by Apple).

Re:Innovation pays

[iCEBaLM]

I can run whatever software I wish on my iPhone, and I have a tethering app installed on it.

Re:Innovation pays

[marsu_k]

With jailbreaking, and tethering via WLAN, right? It's nice that both your phone and the device you wish to access the Internet with use WiFi instead of Bluetooth, since Bluetooth drains batteries much quicker, right?

Re:Innovation pays

[Man On Pink Corner]

Perhaps you missed the bit about patent law whereby the military get to use whatever they want, whenever they want.

Pretty sure I'm not the one who's in the business of missing things here. :-P

Prior art is prior art, regardless of who developed it.

Re:Innovation pays

[Cyberax]

No. G1 is not more expensive than an iPhone.

However, not all people want or need full keyboard. And iPhone is just so much _slicker_ than G1.

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you want to install an application outside of the App Store or do anything else which requires jail breaking.

Re:Innovation pays

[Alioth]

A computer doesn't just "draft up a circuit diagram" and connect chips like Lego. PCB design and layout is a real engineering discipline that takes real engineers to make a real working product. The computer tools are just that, they provide tools to make the engineer's job easier, but they don't magic up a circuit diagram automatically. It takes a real engineer with real experience to make a high speed digital design work properly. It is much more tricky than writing software because the real world (which includes things like parasitic inductance and capacitance, trace impedances, RF interference) heavily impinges on high speed digital design. There are almost books written on the subject of using decoupling capacitors alone and tomes of information on innocuous subjects that to the untrained eye look simple, like power and ground planes. In a high speed digital design, a PCB trace isn't simply a wire linking A to B to the engineer who is deciding where it should go on the PCB.

It takes a significant amount of time and effort, and a significant amount of knowledge to put together even relatively straightforward high speed digital designs. With the iPhone you also have to cram it into a very constrained amount of space, too. You can bet the engineers who laid out the PCB spent a great deal of time making sure that not only it would fit, but the resultant device would work and pass FCC testing.

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fundamental paradigm shift"? It's the PR drone mating call! I've never seen an Apple PR spokesman reproduce in the wild, this could be interesting.

Re:Innovation pays

[dwpro]

What? You just did a feature comparison between the coffee mug and the thermal mug, why can't you do it for the iphone and any other comparable mobile phone? Many of us are honestly interested.

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

What? Beat one of the most niche market shares (Windows mobile) in the mobile phone market?

I agree. I'm not sure why you got modded down - this statement is to the point of the matter. The other day, there was an article where people were saying how great the Iphone because it had sold more than the only just released Android. I don't know if it's true that the Iphone is more popular than Windows Mobile - if it is, then that's bad for Windows mobile, but comments on this story are as if people think that these are the only two phones that exist!

Wake me up when they're competing with the likes of Motorola and Nokia - why don't we ever get stories about them?

(Trying to claim that the Iphone is a "smart" phone, and then restrict the market they are looking at, doesn't really help - most phones these days can do the things that were once the domain of smartphones; other new phones by major manufacturers such as Nokia have just as much right to claim the "smartphone" label as the Iphone does.)

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

What I saw was Apple not launching a cell-phone, they were launching a new mobile computing platform that could also be used as a cell-phone.

Welcome to the 21st Century. This has been the case for years. I hardly ever use my phone to actually make phone calls - and this isn't some expensive "smart" phone, it's just an ordinary mobile.

The iPhone isn't simply a phone, it's the first of the next-generation in mobile computing.

Rubbish - this sounds like it's taken from an advert! Smart phones have been around for years, and now that functionality has filtered down to all but the very cheapest of phones. (And what exactly does that statement mean - "first of the next"? You mean actually it's just the "next"? Every new phone that someone releases could be deemed to be the "first of the next"!)

Comparing Apple's market share to Nokia's or other established phone manufacturers misses the point, because they are simply making phones.

Okay, I'll bite - what does Apple's phone do that Nokia's don't?

You're right about the hype though. Maybe using a phone for playing music and Internet access is new to Iphone users (and I suspect this to be the case - I can imagine there being many geeks who've never thought to get a phone, but check out the Iphone because it's Apple, and are amazed at what it can do - blissfully unaware that this has been the state of play for years), but not for the rest of us. There are billions of phones in the market. And people use them for all sorts of things, without even thinking of it. Which brings me to:

If people think it's just a phone that can play games, or a combination of a phone and an iPod then fine- Apple have done their job. They've made a mobile computer that is so easy to use people take it for granted...

That's true for other phones, but I'd argue not for the Iphone - where doing these things is not viewed as normal, but seen as something special or new.

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

There are two types of creativity (innovation) - thinking up things no one has done before and taking what a bunch of people have done before and putting it all together.

I presume when he said that Nokia have done it for years, he meant that they didn't just think it up, but they also put the phone together in order to sell it.

And I confirm that with the phones that I've seen around for years. They're not just ideas, they're phones that are out there, and just work.

They not only put it all together, they do so in an attractive package that usually works well.

Well, all my phones were put together too, but I have no idea how pretty the box they came in was...

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

It's harder because taste is involved. I think a better analogy would be web browsers. They all have more or less the same feature set... some have more of one thing, some are a bit faster in certain areas, some make things a bit easier - but they all do pretty much the same thing. Yet, people get into holy wars over them.

Similarly, just about any phone will do internet - and who knows? You may even LIKE the built-in browser of your phone. Opera Mini is pretty nice, too. But the iPhone browser, IMHO, is just plain done better. It's ability to render a site just like on the desktop is, AFAIK, unmatched. It's so good that people whine about lack of Flash - as if that's usually an issue on a phone!

The other "features" of the iPhone are not unique, but I know of no other phone that combines them in such a way while still having a slender form factor. The G1 would be close if it were half the size and a bit more graceful - though to be fair I've played with iPhones a lot more than the 10 minutes I spent with a G1.

There's a lot of room for improvement... cut and paste, MMS, louder ringer, battery life, etc... but it's a very well-executed product and they did a pretty good job in choosing their tradeoffs.

Re:Innovation pays

[Midnight Thunder]

Nah, I think he meant "Visa Mobile": http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/visa-mobile/index.html

There is no reason it should be tied to one platform though.

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

They are doing it, and they are successful - probably why they became multi-billion dollar companies in the first place.

I'm not doing it because I don't personally have the same resources as Apple or those other companies. No one is claiming that making phones is easy or that we shouldn't give Apple a pat on the back for bringing a product to market - good for them - the point is that every company does that too, and they don't get free Slashvertising on here.

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.

We are in agreement then.

Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.

If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?

I'm honestly confused here - the Iphone is the best, because although it doesn't have any special features, it at least works? Is that the best you can say of it?

Is it that you are unaware of the billion dollar market of mobile phones that has been growing over the last decade or two and mistakenly think that the Iphone is the first of a new generation of devices that allow people to communicate without the aid of wires, or are you seriously claiming that other manufacturers ship broken products?

I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.

Re:Innovation pays

[intheshelter]

If you think iPhones or iPods only sell due to marketing, thus negating the entire ease of use and user experience, then you're either a hater or have your head stuck in the sand. You must be a high level product manager?

Re:Innovation pays

[intheshelter]

Show me one Nokie phone that is as easy and fun to use as the iPhone? Just one? They didn't invent the touchscreen, or camera phone, etc. but they made it consumer friendly and fun to use for the first time. If you really think the experience is the same then you obviously can't see the forest for the trees.

Re:Innovation pays

[GnarlyDoug]

Okay, I'll bite - what does Apple's phone do that Nokia's don't?

The iTunes store.

Re:Innovation pays

[SoulGrind]

I really have to agree with this. I was previously using a Motorola V551 prior to the purchase of the iPhone. I was fairly comfortable with the interface, albeit, the only thing I truly ever did with the phone was send/receive calls and text messages and on rare occasion, I used the limited calculator when grocery shopping.

Once I purchased my iPhone, I began realizing that I hadn't purchased a phone so much as I had purchased a 3" palm-sized computing platform. To this day, the iPhone is my personal organizer through the use of the calendar app. I've replaced the default calculator with a snazzy programmer's calculator. Since I'm a the non-3G iPhone, GPS means nothing to me at this time, but the map app and it's locate me function have served me well. After adding BeeJive, I now have the full range of IM tools I need. Having Webster's Dictionary and American Heritage dictionary onboard rim my web use way day - but wait - I do use the onboard Safari web browser extensively. The camera, which everyone complains about - well, it is what it is and it works fine for my needs. And of course, the contacts/address book is a gem in itself.

On a more technical side, with the various email connectivity methods, VPN, and 3rd party apps that allow me to SSH/Telnet, RDP, BNC, and ping, I have some decent support tools in the palm of my hand no matter where I may be geographically located.

Of course, the iPod functionality is a nice thing too. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - it's a phone too.

However, the best feature (for me) has been the interface. The moment I first laid my hands on it, I found it extremely intuitive. So much in fact, that when I recently tried to assist my wife with her Nokia and I felt like pulling my hair out after about 2 minutes of trying to navigate through menu after menu via a smaller-than-a-chicklet sized keypad. After using an iPhone, I'm not sure I could ever (comfortably) go back to a regular cell phone.

Re:Innovation pays

[SoulGrind]

My PDA has a phone in it. The interface is clean, simple and familiar. It does everything the Iphone does, and a HUGE list of things the iphone will NEVER be able to do.

A HUGE list of things the iPhone will NEVER do? Careful there. Many people have had to eat crow after using the "never" word. With iPhone's extensibility via 3rd party applications, it's truly hard to define the boundaries of the iPhone. Sure, for the time being, Apple has locked out certain features from 3rd party developers, but remember, in the beginning, the only way to get 3rd party apps on the iPhone was to jailbreak it. What happened? Apple opened the doors to developers. Jailbreaking still happens, but in all honestly, I hear less talk about jailbreaking from colleagues now than I did before Apple allowed 3rd parties to play in Apple's sandbox. I'm sure as time pushes on, we'll see the iPhone grow and mature in ways many people NEVER thought possible.

It's cute, but it's a really long way away from being a smart phone. There is no office software, there is no remote desktop, there is a pretty interface though. That is nice, but it's a very long way away from matching the feature set of my 6 year old phone.

As one other poster mentioned, office software on a PDA is fairly limiting. The iPhone will let you view Word, Excel and PDF documents. That's typically enough for most users - the ability to view. So you can't make a direct change - big whoop. Besides, who wants to work an excel spreadsheet on a 3" screen anyway? Albeit, with the iPhone's zoom ability, it can be done, but I don't know that I'd ever go there myself.

As for Remote Desktop - You are DEAD WRONG. I've been using RDP on the iPhone for months now. I connect to my corporate servers through VPN and I can establish an RDC connection to any (Windows) server/desktop I have access to. I also have SSH/Telnet abilities for accessing my Linux/UNIX servers too. And of course, there's also a VNC client for accessing anything else (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). I even have a green-screen terminal app for accessing IBM AS/400's (just in case). No my friend - you are sorely mistaken - the iPhone has many methods for remote connectivity support.

So what makes the Iphone so awesome? Nothing. What makes it popular is the apple mystic and excellent marketing, but there is a reason serious business users shy away from it.

Maybe to some extent this is true. But I don't believe that it's the final answer. I am not an Apple fanboy myself - well, maybe a little. Honestly though - prior to OS X, you couldn't pay me to use a Mac - I HATED Macs with a passion. I thought the interface was butt ugly to look at, the OS felt really chaotic, un-structured and clumsy to me and I felt encumbered by it. I was also a DOS/Windows junkie until OS X hit the scene with a touch of UNIX/Linux for flavor. Nowadays, my home-office has Windows to my left, OS X in the center and Linux to my right. My Mac is my primary machine of choice - it's best of both worlds. My Windows box is there for "compatibility" purposes only. The Linux box is there for me to do whatever with. So far, none of this has anything to do with Apple's mystique or marketing. It has to do with the fact that I like products that work well and get the job done while accommodating my personal style.

You are right however, business user's have not truly embraced the iPhone -- yet. The Blackberry has the dominant footprint - with it's backend server technology, integration into the corporate world, etc. The iPhone was a late adopter of MS Exchange integration. And for all the "effort" Apple has put into the iPhone's "speakerphone" abilities, the iPhone still sucks as a speakerphone. The other caveat is the ability to manage several blackberries (access, right's management, etc.) through the blackberry server. At this point in time, the iPhone has no such capabilities (that I am aware of). Technically, if you wanted to do something similar, you would have to

Re:Innovation pays

[EvilNTUser]

"Wake me up when they're competing with the likes of Motorola and Nokia - why don't we ever get stories about them?"

Every news story I've seen about the iPhone makes these same ridiculous assumptions. It's like the journalists are completely stuck in the Windows vs. MacOS mindset and completely ignoring the really big players in the cell phone market. Bad, bad reporting.

Even this one says that "the iPhone is still the top phone in terms of user interface, and features/price ratio". They've obviously not compared prices at all. Most phones have *vastly* better feature/price ratios. Most recently the Nokia 5800, which sells for about 300-400 euros unsubsidized and has better hardware (and is flying off the shelves).

The 5800 has excellent features, lets you install your own code, connects via USB mass storage, and has a slightly less polished user interface. Rather than a fair review, all you hear from the press is "it's no iPhone, doesn't even do multitouch". Go figure.

Re:Innovation pays

[hotdiggitydawg]

What you experienced is generally known to others as something called a "hallucination."

The part where he thought he had a girlfriend? Or the part where he thought a female would voluntarily be in his vicinity with her eyes open?

Re:Innovation pays

[brian.reading]

While I certainly favor the iPhone's OS, I have to disagree with you about how their approach to the iPhone was revolutionary. You see, I was using Windows Mobile back when it was just "Pocket PC 2000", and that had nothing to really do with cell phones. It was meant to be a standalone, PDA OS. The Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional of today is the newest version of this. Pocket PC phones (touch screen) rather than Windows Mobile Smartphones (non-touch screen) are mobile PCs first and foremost because that's what they originally were.

Re:Innovation pays

[renoX]

I disagree, this wasn't only a lucky guess, remember the controversy when they slashed the price of the iPhone after a few weeks only?

Re:Innovation pays

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I just went from a Treo to an iPhone last Saturday. I'm happy to share that experience with you, but it is a bit early. (on the flip side, I've had an iPod Touch for several months...)

If you're still interested after knowing that, I'm happy to share.

Re:Innovation pays

[hkmwbz]

Wake me up when they're competing with the likes of Motorola and Nokia

Is any single Nokia smartphone/high-end model selling more than the iPhone?

Re:Innovation pays

[hkmwbz]

But does any single high-end phone from Nokia sell better than the iPhone?

Re:Innovation pays

[Hijacked Public]

I've yet to see a better solution to presenting web pages and other documents on a small screen. You can lump it under user interface, which most people who aren't zealots will admit Apple always does well, but the pinch-zoom on the iPhone almost makes reading normal web pages on a cell phone sized screen not suck. Nokia doesn't have anything that does that remotely as well.

And your chagrin at the less cell tech oriented people thinking the iPhone's other features are novel actually reveals a big reason why it does so well. Apple designed the phone to appeal to these people and marketed it to them well. That pisses off a lot of people on Slashdot but normal folks seldom do featurewise comparisons on spreadsheet programs before they buy a phone, they watch TV and see someone doing something cool and they go buy the phone they did it with. Slick marketing is an unavoidable reality of doing business.

If I went back to the corporate world and needed quick email I'd probably go back to Blackberry, and the iPhone does lack in some important areas, but every other smartphone lacks even more.

Re:Innovation pays

[pnutjam]

I hate the fact that you can't use a stylus with the iPhone. I suppose you don't have any problems hitting they right spot with your slim boyish hands?

the iphone is mostly hype, but so is everything else in the tech world...

Re:Innovation pays

[bandmassa]

I'm an Apple fanboi of at least 20 years loyalty, but I can't see how scaling OS X back so that it can't cut and paste, fitting it with an sms tool that doesn't even do a character count and sticking that in a mobile phone so expensive it's twice the price of it's feature equivalent competitors is innovation. Even multitouch was just a race that any of about 10 suppliers could have won. Apple stopped innovating when they went Intel inside.

Re:Innovation pays

[Serious Callers Only]

If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?

I didn't say I don't care about features, I said I don't care about having the latest features no one else has and 'innovation'. I do care about the way it's designed, the UI, the ecosystem that goes with it, how it syncs with my computer etc. All other phones I've tried before have had an awful design and confusing UI (Motorola Razr, various Nokias, etc), and syncing with a computer is an afterthought. Their software is appalling, and obviously tacked on to hardware which was the main focus. Nokia is the best of a bad bunch.

I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.

I really couldn't care less if it looks cute. Your confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what design is (hint, it is not making things look nice).

Re:Innovation pays

[Kalriath]

Maybe Visa can't afford the iPhone developer program cost?

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

That's sad. So now you look like the cheap boyfriend who recommends generic crap.

Meanwhile she can keep bragging because who's going to ask you to show them your Sansa!

LOL.

Re:Innovation pays

[NateTech]

Yep. Congratulations to one of the few American companies that still gets how to build a quality product.

This is a nice segway into my thoughts for the Automotive "sector" and their bailout BS:

"Build something better than a Honda."

Maybe they could go visit Apple HQ and see how it's done.

Re:Innovation pays

[iCEBaLM]

Yes with jailbreaking, yes also to wlan for the most part, because it's convenient. But not always.

Re:Innovation pays

[lidocaineus]

Except... most people don't want cut and paste. They WANT iTunes to manage their music for them. They WANT their stuff to be automatically transferred to their Shuffle without thinking about playlists or what to transfer or anything like that.

This is the reason people like you don't "get" the iPod, or other products that seem to sell well despite a perceived wall of difficulties. Most people want things to work without much fuss; they couldn't care less what "mass storage" is or how that might be better (or worse!).

Re:Innovation pays

[Anonymous Coward]

(And what exactly does that statement mean - "first of the next"? You mean actually it's just the "next"? Every new phone that someone releases could be deemed to be the "first of the next"!)

Stop being obtuse. It is obvious how the ordinality is supposed to bind. The first of (the next generation in (mobile computing) ).

Re:Innovation pays

[ssstraub]

Whats the obsession with overloading old people with technology? How useful is a PDA/SmartPhone if you cannot read the screen? I'd wager that any 65 year old lady that truly needed a PDA or SmartPhone is probably innovative enough to be able to figure it out, regardless of which model or manufacturer you give her.

True enough. I should've said hand that Treo to any non-computer person and watch them fumble around. Hand them an iPhone and they'll be using 75% of it's functionality in about 10 minutes. And I'm not talking about "advanced functionality the iPhone will never have," I'm talking about basic call management, email, calendar, internet, etc.

Re:Innovation pays

[ssstraub]

Mod parent up! Smart playlists for the win, especially on as little storage as 2 GB. I'm going to want to clean and retransfer stuff on there all the time and I certainly don't want to have to mess around with selective copy/paste all the time.

Re:Innovation pays

[mixmatch]

Except... most people don't want cut and paste. They WANT iTunes to manage their music for them.

Most people want to be able to cut and past AND have any media player installed on their computer be able to manage their music for them, they just don't realize it because they are caught up in the iPod craze. It will happen eventually, and people will love it.

Re:Innovation pays

[mdwh2]

Well my Motorola phone has an excellect design. Had it years before the Iphone came about, too.

Re:Innovation pays

[lidocaineus]

Laughable at best. Tell me, how do you listen to all the songs you haven't heard in four months but you like (you've rated more than 3 stars) and have the words 'puke' in the title? Oh that's right, you can't, unless you write some insane script that no normal person could ever hope of doing. Meanwhile, the iPod user can do it in less than a minute.

Let me tell you something - the iPod was not the first media player, nor is it the only media player. Why does it dominate? Sure, Apple has a good marketing campaign, but more than that, if the usability was crap, these things wouldn't be practically throwing themselves off the shelves. Meanwhile other hardware manufacturers spit out great media players with better specs and cooler features... yet they go nowhere because for all of them (yes ALL), their interfaces and way of managing large music libraries is crap.

Oh and the difference between mass storage and library management? Instead of dragging the music to the drive, you drag it to... get this... THE LIBRARY. Oh my god, it's so hard to understand! Just like you people and your complete stubbornness in looking objectively at library management and realizing that a flat, non-relational file based structure is primitive at best.

Re:Innovation pays

[dangitman]

They are doing it, and they are successful - probably why they became multi-billion dollar companies in the first place

But usually the end results aren't very good, compared to what Apple does.

the point is that every company does that too, and they don't get free Slashvertising on here.

Again, they don't do much that's interesting or outstanding enough. Hell, many of these huge companies manage to sell products that could almost be described as defective.

Anyway, you have to admit that Apple changed the face of computing. The Mac set the standard, and all of our GUI systems today have been influenced by Apple's choices. The whole field of digital publishing was defined by Apple, Adobe and Xerox. You can't say that about your typical PC company.

Re:Innovation pays

[Bert64]

Windows mobile suffers from the same issue as android, in that they don't control the hardware... But android can be more easily tailored by the hardware manufacturer to their hardware.

RIM has a good product in itself, but it's too proprietary for my liking, you need to run their closed source server side app, and connect it to one of a small set of supported mail systems. Their consumer oriented offering is lousy, and it seems artificially crippled so as not to cannibalise sales of the proprietary server based solution... They also suffer from being dependant on microsoft products, it's never a good idea to be dependant on one of your biggest competitors.

Fully agreed about windows mobile feeling like a desktop os shoehorned into a phone, and aside from that it's windows only by name, it isn't even source level compatible with desktop windows apps, unlike osx or linux based phones where some things will port simply by recompiling. Calling it windows really just misleads potential customers.

congratulations

[larry bagina]

You can complain about cut and paste or how the iphone is locked down or too expensive or doesn't run linux, but it's been a real donkey punch to the industry, and even rival companies acknowledge (and applaud) it for raising the bar (at least in the US).

Re:congratulations

[Anthony_Cargile]

Well they ported some portions of Linux(sorry fanboys) to the iPhone, apparently enough to at least boot it and use it without sound, touch, wireless or any other major iPhone pluses.

And as far as it being a 'real donkey punch' to the industry, MS actually writing an app for it pretty much confirms this, although they have also written ads in Flash despite marketing Silverlight :p.

Re:congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

You can take the company I work for as a small example of what a groundbreaking change it has been.

We had about 8 treo 700w's (WM5) as our first mobile platform for our small firm. They were buggy and a total PITA. We decided that we would wait for 3g on the iphone, and compare it to whatever WM had, and upgrade then. It was no contest. WM 6.1 still is a dog of a mobile platform, and we not only upgraded those 8 people, we added another 5. Half our company is on the iPhone, and there was very little training or expense outside migrating from Verizon to AT&T. I can't see us ever considering WM again.

Re:congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

You can take the company I work for as a small example of what a groundbreaking change it has been. Half our company is on the iPhone, and there was very little training or expense outside migrating from Verizon to AT&T. I can't see us ever considering WM again.

That migration cost was exceeded only by the loss of the other half of the office, whom were outsourced to afford the shiny new iPhones overcharges for using it as a data modem...

Re:congratulations

[roc97007]

> You can complain about cut and paste or how the iphone is locked down or too expensive or doesn't run linux, but it's been a real donkey punch to the industry, and even rival companies acknowledge (and applaud) it for raising the bar (at least in the US).

Yes, I can, (except, who cares if it runs linux?) and also complain about 3G/Edge issues, dropped calls, and lack of MMS and flash and java. But despite all that it demonstrably kicks Windows Mobile's butt. (In fairness, from a technical standpoint, it was an easy butt to kick.)

The biggest lesson the industry needs to take from this is: People use Windows Mobile devices because they have to. People use i-Phones because they want to.

Microsoft promotes the "have to" mentality by selling interoperability and similar look-and-feel with Winders and Winders-related services. As more and more people (and corporations) realize that the Start button is not a good paradigm for a phone, and sufficient interoperability can be achieved without having to put up with the Windows Mobile code base, Windows Mobile will diminish to an also-ran and, like Disco, we'll all look back and wonder what madness made us think we liked it.

However, these other issues still need to be fixed. Here's hoping that Apple isn't so arrogant to believe that they can innovate *once* and retain the market. Nokia and RIM now have offerings that are similar in concept, without the drawbacks. Apple set the bar -- now they need to show us how to rise above it. Merely increasing the memory in the next model will not be good enough.

Personally, I'm still clinging to my old beat-up Palm-based phone whilst I see how Apple fixes the problems enumerated here in the next release. Or if someone catches up to them in the meantime.

For example, my daughter is a rabid user of MMS with her Blackberry Curve. On an i-phone, I'd not be able to receive her messages. That is not acceptable. Having a cool interface is not an acceptable substitute. Apple, give us the features we really want, instead of the features you think we should be using, and there will be no stopping you.

Re:congratulations

[gutter]

However, these other issues still need to be fixed. Here's hoping that Apple isn't so arrogant to believe that they can innovate *once* and retain the market. Nokia and RIM now have offerings that are similar in concept, without the drawbacks. Apple set the bar -- now they need to show us how to rise above it. Merely increasing the memory in the next model will not be good enough.

Judging from their actions with the iPod, I don't think you'll have to worry about them standing still. For all the talk about about people catching up to the iPod, Apple generally improved it faster than the competitors caught up, improving capacity, form factor, and interface at an impressive pace while keeping prices flat or decreasing them.

Considering that they did the same thing from the first iPhone to the second, I think it's unlikely they're going to stand still and wait for the industry to catch up. As far as I can tell the other companies are copying the concept, but from the reviews they aren't even close on the execution.

My guess is that like the Zune, they'll get there eventually, but by then the iPhone ecosystem will be too entrenched to lose, like the iPod ecosystem is now. Sure, other players are available and even competitive, but all the accessories will be for iPods and iPhones.

Re:congratulations

[kklein]

Just as an n-size of one, I'd like to say I've had no connection problems at all here in Japan on SoftBank's 3G network. None at all. I really suspect that its an infrastructure problem in other countries. Japan's had 3G the longest of anyone, and I live in the Tokyo area.

The lack of copy/paste is the only thing that has irked me.

Re:congratulations

[KanSer]

Sorry to be a prick but why doesn't your daughter just e-mail you instead? I'd rather e-mail than MMS, but I'm not much of an MMS'er so I'm mostly clueless.

Re:congratulations

[AmberBlackCat]

...apparently enough to at least boot it and use it without sound, touch, wireless or any other major iPhone pluses.

That sounds like Fedora 10 on my laptop right now...

Re:congratulations

[roc97007]

> I really suspect that its an infrastructure problem in other countries.

It is not an infrastructure problem. It just isn't. The company for which I work is an AT&T customer, and we have access to many different types of phones on that network, including Palm, Nokia, RIM, Motorola, and most recently, the i-Phone. When it became available, it was very popular, but we rapidly found that it had a serious problem with dropping calls.

Side-by-side, with a phone from any of the other brands listed above, at the same geographical location, where the i-phone would drop calls, the other phone would work reliably. For instance, I have a Treo 680, my associate had an i-phone. Same network. Right in the middle of downtown, where he could not make or maintain a connection, I could. I know Apple has tried to blame this on AT&T, that they didn't build out enough transmitters or some such, but I can state from personal observation that this is at best wishful thinking.

Why haven't you seen any problems? I haven't a clue. Different batch of silicon? It's not up to me to tell you *why* it happens, but I can tell you that it does.

Re:congratulations

[roc97007]

> Sorry to be a prick but why doesn't your daughter just e-mail you instead? I'd rather e-mail than MMS, but I'm not much of an MMS'er so I'm mostly clueless.

I don't think you're being a prick. She uses MMS because that's what all her friends use. There doesn't need to be any other reason. That's the point, really. It's not up to Apple to change in what way we communicate with each other. They can provide a different, more positive experience, and have. But that doesn't give them the right to dictate in what fashion we share content.

Re:congratulations

[Rockoon]

oh come on now, Microsoft is no stranger to writing software for a product which competes with their own. Its one of the reasons that they are so successful. Its a software company, so I honestly don't see how writing software confirms any sort of 'donkey punch'

Re:congratulations

[dunkelfalke]

windows mobile isn't as locked as iphone. you actually can use lots of different interfaces with windows mobile.

Re:congratulations

[abjbhat]

Q. What's the biggest selling software on Apple computers? A. Microsoft Office Q. So why the surprise? A. MS, Slashdot..do the math.

Re:congratulations

[roc97007]

> windows mobile isn't as locked as iphone. you actually can use lots of different interfaces with windows mobile.

Yes, I know, and I experimented with this that dreadful 3 months in which I owned a Treo 750. I came to the conclusion that the interface wasn't the real issue, it was the bloated code base beneath it. The "Start" button is the tail -- the code base is the horse. People are sold on the idea that every widget they have should have the same look and feel, and that locks them into an unmanageable piece of software. That you can braid the tail and put ribbons in it is true, but you still have to deal with the horse.

It's worse than that, because every look and feel change I made decreased it's reliability. The best results are had by not changing *anything* -- not even the default ringtone, because the audio driver tends to become stuck and then the damned thing won't ring on incoming calls.

Re:congratulations

[dunkelfalke]

treo 750 sucks, but not all windows mobile devices do so. i've used a whole bunch of pda phones (htc wallaby, himalaya, blue angel, universal, touch pro). some of them are quite stable, some of them are not. different ringtones never were a problem, though.

all of them were very useful as pocket size personal computers as long as you have this in your mind. if you use them only as phones, they tend to suck, though, because the phone function is only a practical feature on top of the pim, alongside of many others, not the primary function.

Re:congratulations

[roc97007]

> treo 750 sucks, but not all windows mobile devices do so. i've used a whole bunch of pda phones (htc wallaby, himalaya, blue angel, universal, touch pro). some of them are quite stable, some of them are not. different ringtones never were a problem, though.

Yeah, you know, like most companies, (and against all reason) our cellular department is enamored of Windows Mobile. The HTC slider with the full keyboard? Really popular. But oddly enough, same problems. Needs daily (or more frequent) reboots to recover performance, and occasionally just stops making sounds. Or maybe you meant a different model?

Windows breeds the expectation of periodic reboots. It's all about expectations.

For instance, you see a Windows Mobile device as primarily a PDA, and don't appear to care that the phone function sucks. I expect a phone to work as a phone, which is a whole 'nother set of expectations, which Windows Mobile devices can't generally meet.

Re:congratulations

[dunkelfalke]

The HTC slider with the full keyboard? Really popular. But oddly enough, same problems. Needs daily (or more frequent) reboots to recover performance, and occasionally just stops making sounds.

you mean blue angel? worked fine for me, works fine for my mother nowadays, never crashes. needs a reboot once in a couple of months.

there are different firmware versions for all those devices, though, some aren't that stable. for example, the unofficial wm6.1 firmware of my universal crashes daily, but then again, this version wasn't made for my device, it is a hack of the htc athena windows mobile. or maybe your device had some bad memory chips.

For instance, you see a Windows Mobile device as primarily a PDA, and don't appear to care that the phone function sucks.

well, it does work as a phone for me - calling works, call answering works most times, sms works great, ringtone always works. even bluetooth headsets often work so this is a phone good enough for me.
it is not the primary function for me, though, i just don't want to carry two devices and keep them both synchronized to a PIM.

Interesting

[boyter]

The most interesting thing is that Seadragon must use Javascript or something similar but not Silverlight for the deep zoom it provides.... I just came out of a Silverlight presentation and deepzoom was hailed as its party piece... hmmm

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a Silverlight, AJAX, and iPhone version

http://livelabs.com/seadragon-ajax/
http://livelabs.com/seadragon/silverlight/
http://livelabs.com/seadragon-mobile/

Re:Interesting

[boyter]

Ah so there is. Odd... the MS representative was trying to sell us on Silverlight because of its implementation of Deepzoom. I didn't even know there was a javascript version avaliable.

Re:Interesting

[ceoyoyo]

Why must it use Javascript?

Seadragon on the iPhone is a native app. I suppose they could have made it work through one of the existing web-oriented interfaces, but they certainly didn't have to.

Re:Interesting

[mgblst]

Don't know a whole lot about computers, do you? Seadragon is an application, written in obj-c.

Re:Interesting

[The Cydonian]

The unfortunate reality about Silverlight is that Microsoft's own reps arent entirely sure about what it does, or when its features will be released.

We were doing a prototype on SL 2 Beta 2 two months back, and attended a MIX session where we were pointedly asking the rep for any possible dates for the RTW version. The rep specifically said at least a month. ScottGu announced SL 2's final release 12 hours later.

Moral of the story: listen to the community. They know better than MS's sales-drones.

Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[whoever57]

According to several reports, Microsoft released a broken app called Seadragon. Apparently Microsoft achieved its expected quality goal.

Re:Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[whoever57]

Apparently pointing out that MS's first app to be released for the iPhone is broken is trolling. Well done MS fanbois!

Re:Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[Kalriath]

It is when the source is an obvious Apple fanboy (a column called "Apple Ink"? Duh!) and is needlessly trollish ("Apparently Microsoft achieved its expected quality goal") rather than simply being a statement that there is broken functionality.

Re:Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[KanSer]

I just downloaded the app. Photosynth works perfectly fine.

You quoted one source, not multiple. Did you try it for yourself?

Re:Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[whoever57]

You quoted one source, not multiple

How about if I quote MS's own Live Labs team? Or perhaps another source or yet another one? or one more?

Just because you may not want to hear the news does not mean that it does not exist.

Re:Microsoft releases iPhone app FAIL!

[whoever57]

Yeah, mod me troll, MS fanbois. Apparently, MS and its fanbois can't face the truth!

Google Maps

[TD-Linux]

Somehow, the Seadragon Ajax demo seems oddly familiar...

Re:Google Maps

[batkiwi]

Google Maps shows you... googles maps. You can't use it to zoom around that map of your pants you have, or to create a navigable an zoomable web display of a huge panarama shot you made.

Seadragon lets you take any gigapixel photo(or photo grid) *YOU* have and create a "googlemaps" type thing out of it.

SeaDragon is an SDK + 3 end user apps (silverlight, ajax, iphone).

Hmm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Remember, remember.

Now, the iPhone isn't my cup of tea at all; but I believe the term is "p0wn3d."

Re:Hmm...

[IorDMUX]

Now, the iPhone isn't my cup of tea at all; but I believe the term is "ph0wn3d."

FTFY

Re:Hmm...

[2nd Post!]

Not "ip0wn3d"?

Old, dying turgid software ...

[hattig]

Is it surprising?

WinCE was originally developed as a PalmOS competitor/beater, running on fat Psion 5 look-a-likes with dire keyboards, snail-like interfaces and the stability of Mount Etna.

Since that time the platform has remained the same. The browser is still ancient, and their best promises for the next version are "IE 6" quality, i.e., irrelevant. Sure, there are new interfaces, the software is a little more up to date, the kernel has been switched to a more modern variant, it does wireless, bluetooth, 3G, etc, but it's still the same at heart. Rubbish.

Microsoft - you could sell iPhone Office for $99 and make a mint. Or you could sell licenses to WinMob+Pocket Office to manufacturers for cents. Microsoft have always said they'll develop where the market is. If the iPhone and iPod Touch ecosystem continues to grow, surely it is but a matter of time before they develop iPhone viewers, and then editors, for their file formats - before the formats become irrelevant... Pocket Project for iPhone would result in many a fevered brow in managers' offices around the world.

Re:Old, dying turgid software ...

[MMC Monster]

I'm pretty sure my iPhone can open MSWord .doc files without any added application installed.

Re:Old, dying turgid software ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft seems to have adopted Computer Associates' software upgrade strategy.

since they are the market leader

[mevets]

can we expect an onslaught of viruses? It is much easier to attack a single platform, if I understand the virus marketing info properly.

Re:since they are the market leader

[d34thm0nk3y]

can we expect an onslaught of viruses? It is much easier to attack a single platform, if I understand the virus marketing info properly.
No, that is the reason Apple won't let you run an iTunes competitor. If I understand the Apple marketing properly...

Re:since they are the market leader

[cgenman]

We've never had a properly secured platform as a monolithic target. It will be interesting to see whether or not the iPhone can prove or disprove the old addage that the #1 platform will inherently be virus prone, or if that was just excusing poor programming.

Re:since they are the market leader

[ceoyoyo]

Sure we have. Apache has approached 70% of all webservers at various times. It seems to have fewer in-the-wild exploits than the underdog IIS.

Re:since they are the market leader

[shutdown -p now]

Neither Apache nor IIS are consumer platforms, and thus are not a viable virus targets (note: a virus is not the same as a generic exploit; it requires user interaction). iPhone is more interesting, as it gives the possibility to trick the user into opening "hotpix.jpg" with (for example) a buffer overrun payload, or something similar. Always running as root will also help there.

Re:since they are the market leader

[ceoyoyo]

I suppose if you're going to use "virus" correctly, to mean a program that infects other programs, then web servers might be at a disadvantage. There are relatively few viruses around though. What you're describing (clicking hotpix.jpg) sounds more like a trojan anyway.

If you talk about exploits in general, webservers are a prime target because they're high profile, easy to find, always on, and often have big pipes.

Simple?

[Gothmolly]

Where can I get a phone? You know, something that lets me talk to anyone, anywhere? Not a camera, not a pda, not a music player, not a videogame, but a phone. Anyone?

Re:Simple?

[Anonymous Coward]

For $5/mo the local phone company will rent one to ya. You might try your local Wal-Mart, they have, Phone. For $10 bucks you can get one that has push buttons. If you want to get fancy they have Phone that are cordless on the ghz spectrum.

Re:Simple?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of simple phones out there, and they out sell smartphones by several orders of magnitude.

It's just that they're not sexy enough for people to talk about.

Go buy a Nokia 1200 or something and leave us alone.

Re:Simple?

[threephaseboy]

Yeah, it's too bad they don't exist. Anywhere. For any price.

Re:Simple?

[Goaway]

Yes, technology can be pretty scary and unsettling, but there are plenty of simple phones for those who think technology isn't really for them. Such as http://www.dorophones.com/.

Re:Simple?

[T-Bone-T]

I'm not sure you can, but no one is forcing you to use the "Menu" button.

Re:Simple?

[maxume]

Walmart.

Re:Simple?

[Anonymous Coward]

why is it every time something about cellphone anything comes up one of you bitches comes along and says this bullshit and everytime someone points out the tons of no frills cellphones out there? just buy one already you stupid fucking fag.

Re:Simple?

[onefriedrice]

JitterBug. This phone also has an am/pm clock built in, so I hope that doesn't overwhelm you.

Re:Simple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the applications on cellphones aren't generally available during talk time, making them practically useless for people who get lots of calls.

It's best to SEPARATE telephone and PDA/etc where you can do BOTH. Might be a bit cumbersome, but fuck, it's better than trying to do something important and being bothered by a call (one important enough that you can't just put it off).

This is the problem with the marriage of phone and PDA, and modern society is too dumb and enthralled by gee-whiz technology to realize it.

AC because I know everyone here is too dumb and enthralled by gee-whiz technology to do anything but mod me down.

Re:Simple?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Where can I get a phone? You know, something that lets me talk to anyone, anywhere? Not a camera, not a pda, not a music player, not a videogame, but a phone. Anyone?

I like how you came into a smart-phone thread to ask about how to get a not-smart-phone. "...but I was
only in there to get directions on how to get away from there."

Re:Simple?

[flerchin]

You're just wrong on that, and if you don't know it, it's only because you're too stubborn to think about it.

You can't buy a smartphone (eg, a phone/pda combo) without getting a wired or wireless headset so that you can operate the PDA while taking a call.

Re:Simple?

[Free the Cowards]

Several orders of magnitude? Several means at least 3, so you're saying that simple phones outsell smartphones by at least a thousand to one. Are you sure?

Re:Simple?

[Achromatic1978]

Given that Nokia alone sells more phones every 3 days than there are iPhones in existence, quite feasibly so.

Re:Simple?

[Free the Cowards]

More phones every 3 days than iPhones in existence? Really?

Let's actually inject some numbers into the discussion, shall we?

As of October 21, 2008, there were 13 million iPhones sold. Let's be as charitable as possible toward your position and assume that not a single iPhone has been sold since then.

You state more Nokia phones sold in 3 days than 13 million. That works out to at least 1.58 billion Nokia phones sold per year.

According to Wikipedia, Nokia's sales in 2007 were about 440 million. So they would have had to increase by over a factor of 3 in 2008 for your numbers to be correct.

Furthermore, Wikipedia claims that this 440 million was 40% of global phone sales in 2007, meaning that global phone sales in 2007 were around 1.1 billion. So for your claim to be correct, Nokia would have had to sell about 50% more phones just from Nokia in 2008 than everybody in the entire industry combined sold in 2007.

Is that really the case?

Now, let's take that 1.1 billion figure, assume it's gone up a bit, and call it 1.5 billion phones sold per year at present. Three orders of magnitude give you 15 million smartphones sold per year in the entire world. That barely accounts for the iPhone, let alone Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm....

So again, three orders of magnitude? Don't think so.

Re:Simple?

[DrgnDancer]

Actually the iPhone and the Treo can both multitask their "phone" apps and keep you talking while you look at contacts and notes and such. I'm sure any other modern smart phone can too. You need a headset of course, but the iPhone comes with a really nice one and I'm sure other smart phones have something decent. Bluetooth headsets are aquireable for $30-$40 these days too. The iPhone (and I'm sure any other wifi enabled smart phone) can even use the Internet through WiFi while you talk on it. It obviously can't use AT&T's network for Internet and still talk since the chip is in use already, but it works fine as long as you have WiFi. I've only ever made regular use of Treo and iPhone, so I can't speak with certainty of other models, but for these two at least, you're totally wrong.

Re:Simple?

[Achromatic1978]

I'll grant you that, it's a fair call. That being said, the phrase I heard was a while ago, which would make it more feasible (maybe 6 months, not sure?), or, for the same reason, may have been 3 weeks. Either way, it substantially negates the validity of the quote at this point in time, I shall admit, but Apple is nonetheless, well behind the 8 ball.

Re:Simple?

[Free the Cowards]

I'll certainly admit that Nokia sells a hell of a lot of phones, and that the smartphone market is pretty small compared to the entire thing. However the fact remains that three orders of magnitude simply isn't true. Furthermore, "well behind the 8 ball" is completely nonsensical. They're doing extremely well in the smartphone market. Yes, they're not selling nearly as many units as Nokia, but considering that their phone costs $600 this should not be a surprise. Obviously at that price they are not even trying to compete at that level.

Re:Simple?

[FrkyD]

Nope, dont even need a headset. Just put it on speakerphone and get on with whatever it is you need to do.

Mr. Sid part deux?

[Foldarn]

That Seadragon stuff is old. When I was in the Marines, it was a technology called Mr. Sid. It was pyramid-based layers of an image that allowed you to zoom seamlessly all the way down to the natural resolution of an image... and could be handled on a 500 MHz Pentium 3 with easy. My PC here at work was kinda struggling with the Seadragon bit.

Re:Mr. Sid part deux?

[samwichse]

I don't know how long ago you were in the Marines, but just a year ago I used a lot of MrSID imagery on my thesis. It's really quite a nice format. I tried exporting one of the images as a tiff, just to see how it compared in size, but the XP crashed when it hit 48GB. The MrSID image was ~300MB.

As far as I know, it's still the standard for GIS aerial photographs.

Re:Mr. Sid part deux?

[Foldarn]

About 8 years ago was when I was in. I was a topographic analyst. We had a MrSid plugin for Erdas Imagine. Worked damn well, too.

tops?

[ignavus]

The iPhone is not at the top of the Windows share, it is a non-Windows mobile phone that exceeds the Windows share.

If I top the class in a subject, I am the best student doing that subject. So if the iPhone tops the Windows share, it would be the highest-selling Windows-based mobile phone. Which is false.

So the title is misleading and/or confusing.

Re:tops?

[Kickersny.com]

So the title is misleading and/or confusing.

Welcome! You must be new here!

Re:tops?

[petershank]

The iPhone is not at the top of the Windows share, it is a non-Windows mobile phone that exceeds the Windows share.

Yeah, it's a misplaced modifier. Perhaps more clear would be:

Apple surpasses Microsoft in race for share of smartphones.
or
iPhone surpasses Windows Mobile in race for share of smartphones.

I presume all of the flavors of smartphone OSes from Redmond (Windows CE, etc.?) are all lumped together, and iPhone still has the lead?

Re:tops?

[2nd Post!]

What English are you using? "Tops" is a verb that means "bests" or "surpasses".

And in this case, the usage is perfect. The iPhone surpasses Windows Mobile Share; or, in other words, "tops".

Re:tops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to quote, idiot.

iPhone achilles' heel

[caywen]

I think the iPhone has one major achilles' heel which is Apple's ludicrous approval process. Developer frustration is beginning to boil over as many go weeks and months without so much as a peep as to where their hard work stands. And then after waiting for so long, they get notified that there's a misspelling, or that Apple doesn't like your icon. If they continue to alienate developers like this, and if Google, RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft provide a far more open experience, I think you'll start to see this juggernaut start to slow down. Other factors include just how much stupid stuff an AppStore user has to wade through to get to the good apps, and the extreme fragility of the Xcode code signing / deployment system is (sudden 0xE8000001 errors with the SDK 2.2 update, anyone?) iPhone is a good platform to develop for, but Apple's inability to get its SDK tools solid and its completely confusing, inconsistent, and nebulous approval system are just plain painful.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

the thing about a lengthy approval process is that it's kept up the quality of applications into the app store... but the moment that it looks like some other application marketplace can take over, they can relax the approval process literally overnight to compete. Associating your product with other products that work isn't a dumb idea really.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Gordo_1]

Well, you know you're probably right to an extent. But the flip side to the arrogance shown developers is that Apple has managed to centralize, simplify and ensure a certain quality of apps for users. Apple has the upper hand right now because they've attracted a lot of eyeballs by addressing problems that no other cell phone company seemed able to address. Time will tell whether their arrogance will hinder them.

As a dedicated Blackberry Bold user myself (who regularly plays around with his girlfriend's iPhone 3G) I am left with a distinct 'last-generation' feeling when it comes to finding, installing and using apps designed for the blackberry. Of the ones that I manage to install (typically OTA via sms-sent URLs), many are designed for last-generation low-rez BBs or are converted java-midp apps that don't map navigation keys the same way RIM does... Or they're very buggy, or cause the OS to crash. Don't get me wrong, it's a plenty usable email device and good mobile phone, but it's missing a certain attention to detail when it comes to end-to-end user experience that Apple seems to have achieved with the iPhone and App Store.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea...because I as a consumer really care about the developer relationship. Granted, if Apple doesn't start to pay attention to good business practices now that they have a chance to compete fairly, they will shoot themselves in the foot again- just like they did back in the 90s.

If Apple has one problem, it is that they do not understand how to foster business relationships. All they care about is the fact that they create the coolest stuff that people want.

They could care less about the people who are writing apps, distributing hardware, repairing hardware, or providing third party support.
Figure it out Apple.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[prayag]

the thing about a lengthy approval process is that it's kept up the quality of applications into the app store...

It has nothing to do with quality. Its plain business. If you are making money off Apple, they want a cut in it. And want you to know who the boss is !!

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Corporate Troll]

who regularly plays around with his girlfriend's iPhone 3G

You're doing it wrong! (Sorry, couldn't resist) :-P

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? We've just released an iPhone game and it seemed to get approved and "manufacturered" (put online) way faster than Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, various other companies.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[rirugrat]

Pull my finger...

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, congratulations on comparing Apples and Oranges

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[ivan256]

Centralize, yes. Simplify, yes. Ensure a certain quality of apps? Sorry, no. There are many, many shitty apps in the App Store. Some crash. Some crash the phone's OS and require a restart. Some just look and feel like crap. The certain level of quality they ensure is "The developer has paid the $100, and the App doesn't get us into trouble with AT&T". That's it. End of story.

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't they do the same thing, though, by offering the applications they approve of in the App Store without locking out everything else?

That is to say, the App Store is fine, but why do they insist that you can't go elsewhere if you don't like what they have to offer there?

Re:iPhone achilles' heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, because developers are the big market that apple is aiming for. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the people buying the phones (the people giving apple $) just don't care about how hard it is to develop for their phone. And as long as apple gives them a product that they want to use, they'll keep buying iphones.

I've seen this argument a number of times here and I don't understand it. I respect and appreciate the work developers do, but you need to realize that you are not the customer. Doesn't matter how difficult the developing environment is to use, customers don't know and don't care. Maybe some developers will jump ship, but that will just leave more opportunities for those willing to put up with whatever difficulties are there.

M$ Apps for iPhone = cute

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised Microsoft is allowing iPhone apps from their research division to spring forth into the wilderness. At a point years ago, software for Apple was Microsoft's #1 revenue stream. At least this admits they're iPhone-curious.

Re:M$ Apps for iPhone = cute

[Anonymous Coward]

i see it more as microsoft isn't the bunch of bitches that apple is and doesn't have a bug up their ass about 100% control. that's my take on it.

what's cute is a little faggot like you defending apple. you're a shit stain on the underwear of humanity. fucking queer.

Re:M$ Apps for iPhone = cute

[Anonymous Coward]

MS is like Britney Spears? They're both i-Curious?

Seadragon?

[onefriedrice]

Seadragon, huh? Mozilla called and they want their naming scheme back.

Re:Seadragon?

[mini me]

Microsoft used Phoenix for their new compiler technology as well. They must browse mozilla.org to come up with their product names.

Re:Seadragon?

[DSmith1974]

Along with their logo..

I have to laugh at myself a little bit

[DJRumpy]

I originally laughed at the folks who stood in line days before the release to be sure to get the first ones out of the store. I thought it was insane to pay that much for a phone or to treat it like the latest Star Wars movie. That is until I got curious and watched a few demos on the apple site a few months after it's release. I had no idea that touch technology had gone so far, or that the folks at Apple had done it so well. I was simply floored.

The techie in me took over shortly after that, and I began losing sleep until I chose to go to the store and buy one (1st gen 2G).

It's been an odd journey for me. I was a Windows guy. Not a fan by any means as their pricing and licensing infuriates me, but I didn't use any other OS as a primary.

Since my iPhone purchase, I have since purchased my first Macbook Pro, and bought my second 3G iPhone. Don't get me wrong. I see the same sort of corporate headedness from Apple that I saw from MS. Maybe not as extreme in most cases, but it's there. That being said, Apple does do things in a very polished manner which makes the attempts to lock you into Apple much less 'painful'. I just don't know how else to describe it.

All because I had to get curious about what the fascination was all about.

Kudos on what has to be one of the most innovative and most duplicated pieces of tech for the last few years running.

Re:I have to laugh at myself a little bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Kudos on what has to be one of the most innovative and most duplicated pieces of tech for the last few years running.

care to tell us what you're talking about? and please don't say the iphone... just because that kind of thing is new to *you* doesn't mean the rest of us were that clueless.

Re:I have to laugh at myself a little bit

[ColdWetDog]

That is until I got curious ... It's been an odd journey for me ... Not a fan by any means ... or that the folks at Apple had done it so well ... The techie in me took over ....

Man, the Reality Distortion Field got to you bad.

More tinfoil.

Proves that 'innovation' is not just tech

[Bearhouse]

Oh how we bitched and mocked about the iPhone V1, (me included). Locked down, no 3G, GPS... 'Geeks' users I know were all disppointed by their purchases.

But the market is not geeks; it's my wife, teenage kids and other technical 'don't care' or illiterates - I think the iPod is poor value, (and don't get me started on iTunes) - but they all rejected the (cheaper, more functional) mp3/4 players I offered them and wanted iPods. (Although they do prefer MediaMonkey to iTunes).

So the market did not listen to us geeks, and bought a shitload. As Apple knew. They were in no rush for 3G, because they knew they could still sell a bundle, and still keep something back for the next generation to boost demand further. Wonder what the saturation point will be? What's the next compelling updgrade?

The Apple advance continues, based around smart brand marketing and ease of use. Lessons for linux there, eh? Geeks may prefer BSD, Red Hat or whatever, but Ubuntu shows where it needs to go. When/if it gets like OSX then it finally will be the 'year of linux on the desktop'.

Steve Ballmer called it

[nilbog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo

'nuff said.

Microsoft's only foray into WinMo was

[Anonymous Coward]

Voice Commander. It worked extremely well, provided you spoke decent English. MS stopped selling it several years ago and now makes it available only to OEMs. Piracy killed the voice commander star. No one bought it but it was all over the place. It didn't work in later WinMo versions, so that was the end of that.

more apple nonsense, suprise....

[timmarhy]

the stats released compare phone sales, not the under lying os. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=827912. how do they arrive at the conclusion when the "other" category shows 7000k units sold vs the iphones 4750k? what os is the other 7000k phones running do you think?

Re:more apple nonsense, suprise....

[timmarhy]

oops that'll teach me not to scroll down. 4720k to 4053k. my mistake

Re:more apple nonsense, suprise....

[INeededALogin]

Motorola. Basically, Motorola hadn't reported the amount of devices that they had sold so they couldn't be broken out from the other category. Note the -20% growth in the other category. That is all Motorola too.

Great...

[Rycross]

I'm seriously debating whether I want to stick with the iPhone myself. Its a great phone... when it works. I've already had to have it replaced by Apple four times for myriads of issues, including the negative black problem, dead zones on the touch screen rendering menus unusable, and consistent lock-ups during boot that would make my phone unusable for 12-hour stretches of time. I'd really like a phone with a great interface that just worked.

It doesn't help my opinion of Apple that my MacBook's internal fans are making an exceptional amount of noise. I really want to love these products, because they're neat, but I don't want to dump my cash into unreliable stuff.

Re:Great...

[abigor]

You have incredibly terrible luck. My Macbook has taken a beating, including being dropped onto cement and accidently left inside a smoking hot metal trunk, and not a peep. Not one iPhone that I use or that anyone I know owns has failed for any reason, and some of these things see massive usage (movie industry people). And my iPod Nano has been through hell and back due to my travels - dropped more times than I can remember, left lying in super hot direct sunlight, buried in sand - and it works fine, although it's pretty scratched up. Maybe I should buy a case for my next one.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we have Mr A. He's had an iPhone since it came out. No problems.
Here we have Mr B. He's had an iPhone since it came out. He's had no end of problems, even with non-iPhone Apple gear.
Where's the problem?

Re:Great...

[jkoke]

If only there were some way to objectively judge these things.

Re:Great...

[Rycross]

I don't know what you imagine I'm doing to my Apple gear, but its been normal use. The iPhone in question started locking up literally right after I left the Apple Genius Bar with a replacement. FYI, its a 2G iPhone, not the 3G, so first revision. The other myriad of problems happened randomly during normal use. And if you remember, the negative black issue was fairly widespread, due to a manufacturing defect. The Genius Bar had to go through two separate phones before they found one for me without the issue.
As far as the MacBook goes, it was two months old when the fan started making noise. Its spent most of those two months sitting on a table. I'm not sure how you think I could mess with the internal fan, but I'd be interested in hearing the logic behind that one.

As the other poster said, its probably just terrible luck. But that terrible luck does give me pause before I consider slapping down another wad of cash for Apple products.

I used to be an iPhone fanboy. Now.. meh...

Re:Great...

[Rycross]

It probably is bad luck. It seems to be a trend for me. Linux pretty much never installs cleanly on any of my systems, I've had video cards arrive defective, and myriad other problems. Its lucky I'm pretty handy with computers, because I think I'm cursed or something. About the only thing that's worked perfectly for me is Vista - proof that some evil deity is toying with me.

Seadragon isn't an app

[EmbeddedJanitor]

it's a technology! So says their website!

Microsoft seems to be less about programmers and more about wordsmiths. Technology instead of application, innovation instead of stealing an idea...

WRONG !!

[Anonymous Coward]

MS sells ce for $3 a pop but that's the basic OS. Windows Mobile is a lot more, and you have to commit to 100k units, and that's just one OEM. There are a whole lotta OEMs doing Windows Mobile, nevermind CE6 itself (a different product). Given the iPhone apps at iTunes AVERAGE about ONE dollar, and only a few more than $25, it would seem reaching to suggest MS could sell anything there for anything close to $100. They get about $30 for Windows Mobile, per unit, and all the end-user support (co$tly) is the onus of the OEM, or end seller.

The interface matters

[sjbe]

There is no office software, there is no remote desktop, there is a pretty interface though.

If you think the iphone interface is just pretty you haven't really used it despite claims to the contrary. While the iphone is hardly perfect it is a HELL of a lot more usable for most folks than any Windows mobile, Palm or Nokia phone I've ever held - and I've used a LOT of them. Seriously - a LOT.

As for remote desktop you are wrong, they do exist.

Regarding office software, I'm quite sure it will come for whatever it's worth. I've never seen anyone actually do anything genuinely useful to a word, excel or powerpoint file on a PDA or smartphone - and I'm pretty geeky about this stuff. It's a nice checkbox feature that never actually gets used. I had the ability on my last PDA and I never once used it. I can't even think of a situation where I would use it. Maybe you actually do but that would make you very unusual.

That is nice, but it's a very long way away from matching the feature set of my 6 year old phone.

My Nokia E70 has roughly the same feature set as my wife's iPhone. But you know what? Only on paper are they comparable. Other than the physical keyboard the interface on the iPhone is vastly superior - and the virtual keyboard works well enough. Yes I can often get the same stuff done but it's way more of a pain in the ass on the Nokia. Same with the Treos I've used in the past - some Windows mobile, some PalmOS. There is more to a mobile device than just a feature set - it has to actually be usable.

So what makes the Iphone so awesome? Nothing.

There are millions of folks who actually use one that would probably disagree with you, myself included. I've heavily used numerous smartphone and PDA devices from RIM, Nokia, Palm, and a bunch based on Windows mobile. For most (not all - most) people I'm not aware of a device I could honestly recommend as better than an iPhone. If you have particular needs, yes there are other good devices that might suit you better. But the iPhone isn't selling so well because it is mediocre - it actually works pretty darn well. I can't say the same for a lot of other "smart" phone devices.

What makes it popular is the apple mystic and excellent marketing, but there is a reason serious business users shy away from it.

No, the reason business users don't use it is because Apple hasn't created the back end security and administration features corporate IT departments REQUIRE and RIM currently provides. Apple has recognized this and made some moves in that direction but it will take time to develop. It has nothing to do with any inherent superiority of blackberries as devices. I've used plenty of them and they are fine but corporate types don't use them because of the device itself - they use them because of the infrastructure.

Re:The interface matters

[kklein]

Thanks. I get so tired of the grumpy "featurism" of Slashdot posters. My old phone did everything and more than what my current iPhone does... on paper. In truth, I never got the music player to work anywhere near as well as my iPod, the display of Office documents was illegible, I couldn't find contacts worth a damn, every time I installed a program, it didn't work, and even though it had a 2 megapixel camera with optical zoom, the pictures from my iPhone look as good or better.

You can't judge a product by reading a feature table. You have to try to actually use it. What Apple did is what they always do: Take a product that someone already thought of, and made it actually do what the original people promised.

Re:The interface matters

[644bd346996]

Regarding office software, I'm quite sure it will come for whatever it's worth. I've never seen anyone actually do anything genuinely useful to a word, excel or powerpoint file on a PDA or smartphone - and I'm pretty geeky about this stuff. It's a nice checkbox feature that never actually gets used. I had the ability on my last PDA and I never once used it. I can't even think of a situation where I would use it. Maybe you actually do but that would make you very unusual.

I frequently find myself away from a computer but wanting to refer to some piece of information out of a Word document that's attached to some email I got. Often, it's minutes from a meeting. Being able to read (and preferably search, too) Word documents is pretty useful. I've never felt the urge to compose or edit a Word doc on a phone or PDA, though. Simple spreadsheets occasionally, but I usually am better off using a clipboard and typing the data in later.

Re:The interface matters

[Nixoloco]

Fortunately, the iPhone natively lets you view Word/PPT/Excel documents, even directly from email attachments.

Re:The interface matters

[cthellis]

That was pretty much his point, though. The iPhone can already read Word documents and most of the common formats you'd need. (And some other apps bring more to the table. I use Air Sharing for most of my needs.)

The only thing the iPhone doesn't have innately yet (or app-enabled, to my knowledge) is the ability to modify said documents on the fly. Hence why he was only talking about modifying them.

Re:The interface matters

[cthellis]

Amusingly, I checked on app updates just after posting this, and Air Sharing just had one which added support for viewing TCL, SQL, and VB text files. Not that I have much need for those, but they keep sticking more in. ^_^

Re:The interface matters

[644bd346996]

I guess I misread "useful to" as "useful with". Subtle point.

Re:The interface matters

[AaronLawrence]

The one most obvious and simple example of where Apple gets it, and NO OTHER MANUFACTURER does, is the clock.

On Apple's iPhone screen is a big, nicely rendered, white, TEXT clock telling you the time.

Without exception, ll the other developers are completely blinded by marketing or geekery and think that the clock must look cool, so they damage it's function almost to uselessness. They have some wanky simulated LED, LCD or analog clock, with shiny gradients and 3D edges, some of them moronically without numbers, or in tiny fonts. My own cheap Nokia 6234 got a shiny looking analog clock with no numbers, not even any hour marks!

Yet, when the backlight goes off and you want to quickly read the on-screen clock at an angle, the Apple one is 10x as easy to read. The others' gradients just reduce contrast, the 3D look makes them incomprehensible, the fake real-world look makes the numbers harder or non-existent.

And many people don't wear a watch anymore, using a phone instead, so this happens A LOT. The most commonly used function EVERY DAY, and everyone but apple gets it wrong. This tells you how out of touch phone developers generally are.

Re:The interface matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Change your clock to digital using the "settings" tool.

Re:The interface matters

[peppepz]

You should compare apples to apples, in this case, smartphones to smartphones (6234 isn't one).

Even Nokia's cheaper smartphone will let you choose between an analog or a text clock (you can even fully customize their appearance with your own theme).

When the backlight goes off, the clock will be displayed in black over a white strip of pixels to let you read it easily. There's also a bar with the current date, and icons telling you anything you should know about the status of your phone (incoming messages, missed calls, quiet mode...) at a glance.

Re:The interface matters

[Serious Callers Only]

I frequently find myself away from a computer but wanting to refer to some piece of information out of a Word document that's attached to some email I got.

I'm mystified as to why people still think storing important stuff in formats that can only be read by one program from one manufacturer is a good idea.

If I made a document in (say) InDesign, Quark, Wordperfect or Illustrator, and then complained I couldn't view it on the road or others couldn't view it, people would rightly suggest that I just saved it as something the recipient program could understand - pdf, rtf, jpg, png, or even txt.

However for word documents people seem to have this idea that everything must open word, and if it doesn't, it's somehow not capable enough. It's a masterstroke by Microsoft really, because if those are your expectations, you're going to be unhappy with anything but Microsoft products, for the rest of your life.

I would honestly reconsider why you store/interchange documents in a format that nothing but MS products can read fully. It may be a reality that colleagues send you stuff in that format, but it is worth trying to shift the status-quo sometimes.

PS The iPhone does read word attachments to emails (probably falls down on complex docs, I haven't tried it much). There are also some third party programs for reading docs.

Re:The interface matters

[AaronLawrence]

I think you missed most of the point of my post. 6234 was just an example, and I know it's not a smartphone.
Yes, I'm aware that the 6234 has a text mode clock (although it's rather small, and the one displayed normally on screen uses spindly fake LCD characters so it's hard to read). The point is that the developers obviously thought they were adding a great feature in making this hard-to-read, but cool lookng analog clock.

Re:The interface matters

[AaronLawrence]

Thanks for the tip, but the digital setting illustrates the problem in a different way: it's in a tiny font that uses about 1% of the screen, and thus is actually harder to read.

Re:The interface matters

[mdwh2]

So let's have examples - something that is easier to do on the Iphone, compared with all other phones? I'll give you an example for other phones - copy and paste, a fundamental usability requirement, is, so I hear, not even implemented on the Iphone?

All I hear are the same claims as with Mac OS - it "Just Works", it's "easier but I can't explain how",

Only on paper are they comparable. Other than the physical keyboard the interface on the iPhone is vastly superior ... There is more to a mobile device than just a feature set - it has to actually be usable.

Come on, I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent discussion forum. If I wanted buzzwords, I'd read the email ads that Apple spam me with. Let's hear what makes it better?

Yes, we know that you with your extensive experience think that the Iphone is the best ever, but that's no better than others who think otherwise. Can we have a debate a little more intelligent than "Iphone rules!" "Iphone sucks!"?

And then we get to the classic:

It's a nice checkbox feature that never actually gets used.

Anything that the Iphone can't do is a "nice checkbox feature", whilst the Iphone apparently beats all other phones on unspecific features, that despite being so vague, are apparently not "checkbox features".

There are millions of folks who actually use one that would probably disagree with you

If we can make judgements based on sales figures, then there are billions of people who don't agree with you.

Re:The interface matters

[mdwh2]

Well, in that case, my 10 year old phone is better than the Iphone. Oh sure, it's not as good on paper, but that's just "grumpy featurism", right?

After all, now that features have been declared unnecessary in comparing products, it's fair game for everyone else. Vista versus OS X? Doesn't matter that there are far fewer viruses for OS X on paper. And claims like being easier to use are just "grumpy featurism".

Similarly, my Commodore Amiga 4000 is much better than the latest Mac. You can't judge a product by reading a feature table.

Re:The interface matters

[mdwh2]

Nope. My phone (bog standard Motorola V980 - I don't see any stories to Slashdot about it) displays the text clearly. Personally I don't have trouble learning to tell the time from an analogue clock, but for those who need digital, it's there. In fact, I've never come across a phone that had the problem you describe.

My phone also displays the time in clear lettering on the display on the outside of the phone.

Of course, even if your claim was true, that would only be something that was better on paper, and to claim it made the Iphone better would be just "grumpy featurism". As long as I can claim that my phone is better than the Iphone because it Just Works, and it's the "first of the next generation", that's okay, right?

Re:The interface matters

[DrgnDancer]

This comment makes no sense. If your point is that you'd rather use your old phone or your Amiga because you feel that they are better integrated or work better for you, then good on ya. Use them away (though if they ever break you might feel the lack of qualified service or replacement parts), you've just made GPs point, sometimes, for some people, a better feature list does not make a better experience. If you're point if that ALL things with shorter feature lists are by definition better than things with longer feature lists (as if to disprove GPs point by "reductum ad absurdum"), that wasn't the GPs point at all. He was saying that sometimes the way a feature is implemented is as important or even more important than it's actual presence.

I used to have a Treo. It could surf the web. I never used it to surf the web because the rendering engine was awful, nothing worked right, I could hardly read the pages most of the times, and links were usually rendered so far out of place as to make them all but useless. I now have an iPhone (I've also play with G1's and my point stands there too). It can surf the web. I use it to surf the web all of the time, the interface is intuitive, the pages render as they were meant to the links are places where the designer intended, and I can zoom in to read smaller print. Both phones can "surf the web", check box checked, but one them actually get USED to "surf the web".

Re:The interface matters

[colourmyeyes]

I agree. I have a crappy Motorola flip phone. Most of the time, the one-line display on the outer shell has the time, and it's really convenient. BUT, when I have no service, it instead says "No service."

This is SUPER annoying e.g. when I'm underground on the metro - I know I have no service, I just want to see the time. Why not keep the clock and just use the bars indicator to tell me I have no service?

Actually, for Sprint/Nextel they may just want to alert me to the rare moments when I have service. But I digress...

Re:The interface matters

[DrgnDancer]

Really, have you been reading the thread? First, some things are just not quantifiable. I can tell you that I use many more of my iPhones features than I did my old Treo because it's easier to use them. I can tell you that pages render more correctly and are easier to navigate in Safari than they ever were in Blazer. I can tell you that my e-mail app works with POP, IMAP, and MAPI and is a single app that came with the phone, whereas the Treo could only handle POP with it's default app and did that poorly. I can tell you that the user interface works better for me, and I like sliding my finger to see the next page of apps rather than tapping a scroll bar. I can tell you lots of things that I like better, but what it all boils down to is that the phone works better for me.

I never used Blazer if I could help it, the app was barely capable of displaying a page of straight text, but anything more complicated looked like trash and was unnavigable. The only decent mail and contacts app I ever had on the Treo was "Good" which cost the company I was working for at the time $150, and after I left that company eventually forced me to completely wipe the phone because it had taken over my contacts app and didn't work anymore once I was no longer connected to the old corporate exchange server. I found the screen hard to read and both the resolution and poor font design conspired to try to make me go blind. Real Player mobile sucked as a media platform and I never found anything better (granted I didn't try that hard, the mini-headphone jack and unreliability of most of the adapters I found made music listening on the thing uncomfortable anyway). I did like having copy/paste and that's the one thing I miss. Not nearly enough to go back though. It's not like it was a function I used daily or anything.

Those are my experiences with switching from one particular smart phone to the iPhone. There are several points in there you might argue with: "well I use copy and paste a lot and don't care to surf the web on my phone", "I LOVE Good and bought my own copy, so that's really an issue for me", "How can you think the fonts on the Treo sucked? I have 20/10 vision from the eye muscle exercise my Treo gives me!", "I already have an MP3 player, why do I want my phone to do it?". Fine, great. That's way this stuff is objective. It's different for different people with different wants and needs.

I will say this though. Most of the people making positive comments about the iPhone in this thread? They use the iPhone, either their own or someone's close to them that they can play with regularly. Most of the people making negative comments? They've never used the phone or have seen one in a store and played with it a few minutes. They're objecting to features that are missing on a checklist that they think they might want or need, and don't see listed on the feature list. If you tether your phone to your laptop as a daily occurrence, the iPhone is not for you. If you copy blocks of text back and forth on a regular basis on your phone, the iPhone is not for you. Otherwise there is not much that it won't or can't do, and, at least in my opinion, do better than any similar device I've ever used before.

Re:The interface matters

[netsharc]

Another thing I noticed, in the clock app, the world clocks are analog, and the second hand is animated to emulate the real-world! Talk about attention to detail.

What I mean by that is, the second hand in a real analog watch/clock has inertia, it moves a second and stops again, and this braking causes the far-away end of the hand to vibrate. This vibration is emulated in the iPhone. When I first noticed this, I was amazed...

Re:The interface matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Businesses aren't using the iPhone? Really? Are we nearly out of 2007 or 2008? Where I work everyone is being switched over to iPhones "to save money." It may not be past tense yet, but Windows Mobile is being handed its ass.

Re:The interface matters

[Kalriath]

As for remote desktop you are wrong, they do exist.

That's not remote desktop. That's some sort of remote control application, with a ridiculous annual fee to use no less. Remote Desktop is the handy function built into Windows 2000+, with an official client even on Windows Mobile. Then, the client for a Microsoft protocol being on a Microsoft OS is no surprise.

That said, the poster you're replying to is still wrong, there is an RDP application (funnily enough, called "RDP").

Other than the physical keyboard the interface on the iPhone is vastly superior - and the virtual keyboard works well enough

Please tell me you aren't calling the iPhone's virtual keyboard "good"? I have an iPod Touch, and the one thing I hate most is the shitty virtual keyboard (second after that is Apple's insistence on charging for firmware upgrades... what the fuck is this shit?). I thought Windows Mobile had a crappy virtual keyboard, now I almost long for my WM keyboard on my iPod.

Re:The interface matters

[Kalriath]

I'm a little confused. They have to "add support" for text files? I hope that includes Syntax Highlighting!

Re:The interface matters

[mdwh2]

Really, have you been reading the thread?

Yes, yes I have been reading the thread. Which is why I roll my eyes when I see an Apple fan write for the ten millionth time a weasel-worded statement of:

First, some things are just not quantifiable.

Ah yes, the classic sign - "my BeBox is better than your Apple Mac - I can't explain why, it's just not quantifiable".

I can tell you that I use many more of my iPhones features than I did my old Treo because it's easier to use them.

"Old" being the key word. Obviously I would expect phones to get dramatically better over the years. Web browsing and email are bog standard these days - I use Opera, and it just works.

I will say this though. Most of the people making positive comments about the iPhone in this thread? They use the iPhone, either their own or someone's close to them that they can play with regularly. Most of the people making negative comments? They've never used the phone or have seen one in a store and played with it a few minutes.

But you could say the same about any phone. Have you ever used a Motorola V980 phone? If not, you don't get to dispute my comments. You're making the classic fallacy of insisting that users must use the Iphone before dismissing it. Have you used every phone out there on the market? If not, you don't get to say the Iphone is better than all of them.

With all phones, most users will say they prefer it to other phones. There's nothing special about the Iphone here. If the Iphone is so good, you should be able to tell me why - otherwise there's no reason for me to try it before any other phone out there. This also doesn't explain why we get story after story about the Iphone. I bet you haven't tried all other phones before turning them down, so why on earth should I have to try out the Iphone?

They're objecting to features that are missing on a checklist that they think they might want or need, and don't see listed on the feature list. If you tether your phone to your laptop as a daily occurrence, the iPhone is not for you.

Well the point is that if a phone costs lots of money, I expect to get something in return for that money. Surprising that. Yes, I guess if I expect something for my money, the Iphone is not for me.

If you copy blocks of text back and forth on a regular basis on your phone, the iPhone is not for you.

Crumbs, are you serious? I had to copy and paste this statement of yours in order to write this comment! If you can't see how copy and paste is a fundamental user requirement, then you're damn right, the Iphone is not for me. Having a good UI is the only good thing that people say of it, but it seems that even that isn't true. If it can't handle even basic computing technology, then why bother at all? I might as well pick up a dirt cheap phone for £20.

So tell me, who is the Iphone for? By your own admission, it's not for people who care about features.

Re:The interface matters

[mdwh2]

This comment makes no sense. The point is that if a product A is better than product B, then you should be able to tell me why. Quibbling about the length of the feature lists is irrelevant, you should be able to tell me why.

If you're point if that ALL things with shorter feature lists are by definition better than things with longer feature lists (as if to disprove GPs point by "reductum ad absurdum"), that wasn't the GPs point at all.

A straw man argument. No, that was not my point.

He was saying that sometimes the way a feature is implemented is as important or even more important than it's actual presence.

If that was his point, then it is a fallacy to then claim that the Iphone falls into this category - anymore than my 10 year old phone.

His claim was that features didn't matter. My response shows that dismissing features could be used in all sorts of arguments. With any other company, this would be considered absurd - but because it's ApPle, it's bizarrely seen as a valid argument.

If the OP meant to include an argument of why the Iphone was superior to all other phones, despite lacking such fundamental basic features, he forgot to include them.

I used to have a Treo. It could surf the web. I never used it to surf the web because the rendering engine was awful, nothing worked right, I could hardly read the pages most of the times, and links were usually rendered so far out of place as to make them all but useless. I now have an iPhone (I've also play with G1's and my point stands there too). It can surf the web. I use it to surf the web all of the time, the interface is intuitive, the pages render as they were meant to the links are places where the designer intended, and I can zoom in to read smaller print. Both phones can "surf the web", check box checked, but one them actually get USED to "surf the web".

So the Treo is shit. I browse the web just fine on my bog standard phone.

Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what the OP claimed. If one phone had a better browser than the other, then this would still be a better feature. You can look at more detail than a single "surf the web" checkbox - there are many more specific features that web browsers might have, that might make one better than the other. Perhaps you should check out one of the IE versus Firefox versus Opera threads sometime? There's more to web browsing than a simple binary Yes or No.

However, the OP's point was not that the Iphone had a better web browser. His argument was that the Iphone was somehow better no matter what features it did or didn't have - which is clearly absurd.

According to him, I should be able to dismiss your claims of better web browsing as "grumpy featurism". Right?

Re:The interface matters

[sjbe]

That's not remote desktop. That's some sort of remote control application, with a ridiculous annual fee to use no less. Remote Desktop is the handy function built into Windows 2000+...

OK Mr. Pedantic. Remote desktop is also a generic term and there are a variety of vendors with different solutions for the iPhone including the randomly chosen one I linked to after 3 seconds on google. There are numerous protocols available besides RDP. I have no idea if the particular one I linked to is any good and don't really care. I simply was pointing out that such software does actual exist for the iPhone when the previous poster claimed it did not exist.

Please tell me you aren't calling the iPhone's virtual keyboard "good"?

I believe the exact words I used were "works well enough" so please actually read what I wrote would you? If you don't like the virtual keyboard I have no argument with that - it's hardly perfect - but I've use it all the time and it works just fine. Great? No. Adequate? Yes.

I thought Windows Mobile had a crappy virtual keyboard, now I almost long for my WM keyboard on my iPod.

So get down off your cross, stop whining about it and go use whatever device makes you happy. No one really cares what you use so pick what you actually like. There are other fine choices besides the iPhone and iPod Touch out there.

Re:The interface matters

[DrgnDancer]

I can tell you that I use many more of my iPhones features than I did my old Treo because it's easier to use them.

"Old" being the key word. Obviously I would expect phones to get dramatically better over the years. Web browsing and email are bog standard these days - I use Opera, and it just works.

Alright, how about my wife's recently replaced Treo which was much newer and had just as crappy an interface? Opera-Mini never worked on PalmOS.

I will say this though. Most of the people making positive comments about the iPhone in this thread? They use the iPhone, either their own or someone's close to them that they can play with regularly. Most of the people making negative comments? They've never used the phone or have seen one in a store and played with it a few minutes.

But you could say the same about any phone. Have you ever used a Motorola V980 phone? If not, you don't get to dispute my comments. You're making the classic fallacy of insisting that users must use the Iphone before dismissing it. Have you used every phone out there on the market? If not, you don't get to say the Iphone is better than all of them.

But that's kinda the point isn't it? I'm not dissing your Motorolla, I've never used one, maybe it is better than the iPhone. I never mentioned phones I haven't used, but you're quick to heap disdain on one you haven't. I said "It's better than any phone I've ever used", not "It's the best evar!1!!1eleventy-one!!". My statements were quite reasonable. It is the the best smartphone i've ever used and I've used a few. Not all by any stretch, a couple models of Treo, a Blackberry, some weird AT&T branded thing, I played with a G-1 for a few minutes and it seemed less polished, but since I didn't USE it, I won't count it. The iPhone is better than the smartphones I've used, that's all I ever claimed.

They're objecting to features that are missing on a checklist that they think they might want or need, and don't see listed on the feature list. If you tether your phone to your laptop as a daily occurrence, the iPhone is not for you.

Well the point is that if a phone costs lots of money, I expect to get something in return for that money. Surprising that. Yes, I guess if I expect something for my money, the Iphone is not for me.

That's fine, but other people who have spent the money seem to like the product. Implying that they are simply fanbois because they do is simply unnecessary. I respect your right to buy and use whatever product you want. Implying that I am some sort of poor consumer or moron that just doesn't know what is good is what I object to. I've written about half a dozen of these 'why I like my phone' posts in the last several months; and it's never because I feel the need to advertise for Apple. It's always because someone decides that not only do they not want an iPhone, but since they don't want one people who have one or want one are somehow stupid or uniformed.

If you copy blocks of text back and forth on a regular basis on your phone, the iPhone is not for you.

Crumbs, are you serious? I had to copy and paste this statement of yours in order to write this comment!

And indeed I used copy and paste to write this reply; but not on my phone. I cannot, in fact, ever recall doing large scale editing of any sort of document on my phone. I can recall exactly three occasions since I've owned my iPhone (nearly a year now) when I thought... 'Dammit, I wish I could copy/paste' and in all three I was able to compensate with a few moments effort. Certainly it would be nice to have, but it's hardly a key feature for me on this platform. If my computer couldn't do it, that would be crippling, but I don't use my phone for general purpose computing. Your experience may vary, that fine, as I keep saying I don't really care what you use, I'm just tired of being called an idiot because I own and like the iPhone. It does what i need it to do more of the time that other solutions.

Re:The interface matters

[Kalriath]

OK Mr. Pedantic. Remote desktop is also a generic term and there are a variety of vendors with different solutions for the iPhone including the randomly chosen one I linked to after 3 seconds on google. There are numerous protocols available besides RDP. I have no idea if the particular one I linked to is any good and don't really care. I simply was pointing out that such software does actual exist for the iPhone when the previous poster claimed it did not exist.

However, it's unlikely that he wanted $GENERIC_REMOTE_CONTROL_APP. When someone's lamenting the lack of "Remote Desktop", they're either complaining it doesn't have an RDP client, or it doesn't have a VPN client.

So get down off your cross, stop whining about it and go use whatever device makes you happy. No one really cares what you use so pick what you actually like. There are other fine choices besides the iPhone and iPod Touch out there.

Actually, I like the iPod. Just not its keyboard, and I'd be much happier if (like Microsoft) Apple allowed you to install third party virtual keyboards.

What Gartner really said

[ClosedSource]

"The success of iPhone 3G sales in the third quarter of 2008 propelled the Mac OS X to the No. 3 position in the global OS provider rankings. For the first time, iPhone sales exceeded sales of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices worldwide and in North America."

So in the 3rd quarter of this year, iPhone sales exceeded sales of MS mobile devices in the same period. Unless you define "market share" in terms of the last quarter sales only, MS devices still have a larger market share than the iPhone.

Re:What Gartner really said

[mgblst]

Oh, don't get all technical on us now, trying to use the proper meaning of words to deflate our high is the worst form of haberdashery!

Re:What Gartner really said

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, that's precisely what "market share" means. The term you're looking for is "installed base".

Re:What Gartner really said

[Anonymous Coward]

Market share is always defined based on sales during a (somewhat arbitrary) time period, tending toward trying to characterize current sales volumes. Anything sold prior to the measured period is installed base. So yes, the iPhone had/has a larger market share (for Q308).

Apple FUD

[rtechie]

First, just because Gardner says it doesn't make it gospel. Gardner DOES blackmail companies to include them in their surveys and they have a bias towards US companies. I suspect this survey basically excludes the Asian market. So the results are highly suspect.

Second, the article on Edible Apple is highly misleading in implying the marketshare of the iPhone is greater than that of Windows Mobile. It is not. The marketshare of PHONES SOLD IN Q308 ONLY is 12.9% vs. MS' 11.1% in a quarter when Apple introduced the 3G and Windows Mobile had no significant product launches. Many people were waiting for the HTC Touch Pro.

Re:Apple FUD

[dangitman]

The marketshare of PHONES SOLD IN Q308 ONLY is 12.9% vs. MS' 11.1% in a quarter when Apple introduced the 3G and Windows Mobile had no significant product launches. Many people were waiting for the HTC Touch Pro.

What's really funny about this is that these are the exact same arguments that Apple fans would use to boost the marketshare numbers for Apple in the dark days, and now they are being used to enhance Microsoft/other numbers now that Apple is actually gaining marketshare.

Re:Apple FUD

[rtechie]

I should point out that Apple's gains are very impressive. It's just that Windows Mobile has been around a LOT longer than the iPhone and has a much larger install base because of that. Currently the market is dominated by Nokia, not Microsoft, and certainly not Apple who has little impact outside the US. The previous smartphone OS leader, Palm, has almost fallen off the map.

Re: Android

[Shag]

Android suffers from the fact they don't control the hardware, so the quality of the experience depends as much on the device manufacturers as the work Google does.

Totally. The Android phone T-Mobile is selling is kinda under-specced. One of my bosses at a MS-centric organization got one (because it's cooler than the Windows Mobile phones he had before, which he never talked smack about until he got the Android... and yet, very importantly for him, it is not from Apple, who he hates for reasons I don't know). MS-centric organizations of course have Exchange servers, and his Android can't do jack with ours (except Outlook Web Access, maybe)... funny, those of us who have iPhones find that they work fine with the Exchange server. And for whatever reason (under-speccing, I think) his Android can't run Google Earth yet, while the iPhones can...

42.4% + 12.9% = 55.3% so who owns the 44.7%?

[skidisk]

TFA isn't very helpful, in that it only quotes the market share for Nokia and iPhone. It says that iPhone is ahead of Windows Mobile, so I guess MSFT has around 11% or something. So can we assume that most of the other 33% is RIM? iPhone has a way to go to catch the leaders...

Not Innovation

[rxan]

For once innovation pays, I love it.

I'm sorry but I don't buy it. I'm not denying that Apple has remarkably outsold other cell/smart phone companies in a short period of time. It is truly an achievement. But to say they did it completely through innovation is naive.

Apple had two things going for them. The touchscreen phone market was relatively untouched (I'm not talking stylus) at the time the iPhone was released. The other thing they have always had going for them: Apple advertises like nuts and gets the young ones hooked on their products through pop culture mass media.

Yes, Apple innovated (a bit). But had the iPhone or its 3G successor been released later, it would not have made as much of a splash. The same would be the case if they had not advertised as much. Since iPhone's release, I have seen an advertisement for it at least half of each time I sit down to watch television. How many advertisements for Nokia, BlackBerry, or Palm did you see on TV before the iPhone's release?

Apple has had the luck of saturating this market at the right time. The pushed it with advertising. Their phone could have been crap and it still would have sold. Innovation was just a little thing they threw in as a bonus for us consumers.

Stop press: Article is misleading/wrong

[Xest]

The article linked in the summary is misleading and borderline outright false.

The suggestion in the summary, that the iPhone now has a bigger marketshare than the full range of Windows mobile devices is wrong. For starters, the stats available are only relevant to Windows mobile phones- this does not include say Windows mobile PDAs without phone features so to suggest the iPhone has outsold all Windows mobile devices simply isn't true.

More importantly though is the suggestion that the iPhone has a bigger market share than Windows mobile devices, this is only somewhat true. Apple sold more iPhones than Windows mobile phones were sold in quarter 3 2008 by 1%, it has not overtaken all time or annual market share yet. We'll have to wait until next year to find out of this is a continuing pattern, 1% is still a little close to call, but I'd guess the pattern will continue, the iPhone is popular and Windows mobile really has little new to offer.

Speaking of misleading though, in response to the parent post, I'm a little intrigued by this statement:

"And somehow, they hit the number and blew past Microsoft smartphones, Nokia and blackberry."

This doesn't seem to make sense, whilst they've outsold Microsoft Windows Mobile devices for the last quarter they haven't all time, but more importantly they have neither outsold all time or last quarter Nokia and RIM's devices. They're around 1.1million units behind RIM last quarter and 10.7million behind Nokia so it seems an awful jump to suggest they've blown past Nokia and RIM when they haven't surpassed them by any metric. I think the iPhone probably will overtake Windows mobile next quarter and make it a permanent thing and I think there's probably a good chance they'll overtake RIM too to be honest, although maybe a year or two down the road. I'd be surprised if Apple ever overtakes Nokia though either in monthly sales or overall marketshare- the gap just seems too big, although I could be proven wrong of course!

I don't disagree with the sentiment of either the article itself or the parent post, that Apple has done well and that innovation is good. What I do dislike very much is fanboyism distorting fact, isn't it enough that Apple has done well without having to blow it out the water and make it something much much bigger than it really is? I don't blame the people posting here, because I too am guilty of often not only not RTFA, but certainly don't research further, this time I did however and realised how misleading TFA actually is- perhaps it'll teach me to do this a little more often. It's a shame in a way the Slashdot editors don't do their job and check these things and temporarily or permanently blacklist sites if they continue to attempt to spread misinformation.

It only took a little further reading to see how abysmally fanboy infected the linked article is:

"Microsoft, in its zeal to get Windows Mobile onto as many phones as possible, is left with a phone OS that no one wants to use"

Really? there's still 4million+ out there last quarter that would disagree. The iPhone is only 600,000 units up, it's too small a lead to start making grand statements like that, one could equally say no one wants to use the iPhone when compared to Nokia's sales stats but it would be equally wrong, because 4.7million people clearly do.

"and more importantly, one that developers don't want to code for. Developers, who have long been getting chump change for their apps, are starting to see that they can make quite a bit of money developing programs for rival platforms such as the iPhone."

Again, I'm intrigued to know where they got this from- Windows mobile is a pleasure to develop for compared to some platforms, if Microsoft is good at anything it's developer tools. I'm sure a lot of developers want to or are happy coding for it but even the latter part of the statement that it's because of chump change seems odd in light of this article- http://www.the

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The 10th bolgia of hell...

[argent]

"The 10th Bolgia? Oh, young Dante, you do not want to know. It is reserved for ... we will call them 'the creators of proprietary web technologies'. No, no, be glad that you do not understand. Seven hundred years from now, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth..."

Point by point comparisons

[sjbe]

I'll give you an example for other phones - copy and paste, a fundamental usability requirement, is, so I hear, not even implemented on the Iphone?

That depends very much on how you use the phone. I'll concede it would be nice but on the other hand I have one and haven't missed cut-and-paste terribly and I use an iPhone regularly. I'm surprised at that fact but it really hasn't been an issue for me. I think my Nokia has the ability but I've never used it on the Nokia either.

Anything that the Iphone can't do is a "nice checkbox feature", whilst the Iphone apparently beats all other phones on unspecific features, that despite being so vague, are apparently not "checkbox features".

Because there are a lot of phones out there and it's kind of silly to try to compare one phone to every other phone on a feature by feature basis in a single post. You have to take it case by case (which I have) or you can simply try for yourself and see why I make that generalized assertion. It's based on experience. Can you say the same? It's OK if you need features the iPhone doesn't provide but clearly the iPhone does fit the needs of a large group of people. But you really just have to use the iPhone to understand the difference. You can't really just describe it or look at a feature list - you have to use it and see if it fits how you use a device.

Nevertheless you want specific examples? No problem.

Let me preface - I presently use a Nokia E70 and an iPhone. I've had plenty of other phones but I use those two right now because they best fit my needs. The discussion below is based on my personal experiences with both devices.

• It took me approximately 30 minutes to set up the first iPhone I touched. My latest Nokia with a comparable set of features took me 4 hours. Bear in mind that I've had extensive experience with Nokia S60 phones and have owned at least one Nokia continuously for the last 10 years and I have an engineering degree.
• The MP3 player on my Nokia phone makes it very difficult to search my music library, difficult to sync, and does not even remotely compare to the ease of use of iTunes/iPod. Seriously, Nokia's MP3 player in my phone sucks ass. Yes it can play MP3s but that is about all it does. It is incredibly frustrating to navigate my music library on my Nokia.
• The Nokia I have limits me to 5 icons on the main screen for important apps. Anything more and I have to navigate into menus. I cannot get the email or calendar off the front page despite them not actually being very useful there. Furthermore to change the icons I have to navigate to some obscure menu in the settings whereas with the iPhone I simply hold down the icon until it jiggles and drag it where I want it.
• The Nokia did not come with a keyboard locking application built in despite it being a candybar phone. I had to find and install one from a third party vendor.
• The Nokia seems incapable of reliably transitioning between wifi and GSM networks for email. It works sometimes but unreliably and has a tendency to forget settings. And the settings are in another obscure menu that is poorly labeled and hard to find. The iPhones settings are very easy to find and clearly labeled.
• Downloading third party applications is a very straight forward process on the iPhone through their app store. On my Nokia only a geek like me would bother.
• The web browser in the iPhone with it's larger screen and touch interface is a lot easier to use. I can zoom in and out relatively efficiently, orient the page, and effectively use more web pages than I can with my Nokia. It's bad enough on my Nokia that I don't bother with the web browser unless I desperately need it.
• My Nokia can use a MiniSD card which is nice but my iPhone has 16GB of storage built in. Since I never have a need to remove the SD card AND the Nokia doesn't support a card with 16GB of capacity the iPhone once again is more useful. I can

Re:"Vice Grip" (sic)

[mujadaddy]

"Vice Grip"? Woah! $100/hour or $20/pop?

...presumably you meant "Vise Grip"!!!

So give us Slingbox capability already then!

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a note from my "dish" provider about how they bought slingbox & what it can do. Got excited about slingbox. Went to read about it -- no iPhone compatibility! Drat! They'd better get with it before apple tv does...

Re:So give us Slingbox capability already then!

[ivan256]

I'll save you some time.

The video quality from Slingbox is crap. Not worth watching. And that's with the slingbox on a 20MBit symmetrical link. I don't even want to think about what it would look like on something like a cable modem with crappy upstream.

On a tiny Treo screen, it was *almost* watchable. Almost.

Amen, don't forget iTouch

[enjahova]

This is exactly what I saw. It's putting OS X on a phone, but in a way that doesn't feel like you are using a desktop OS. That's why I sprang for the iTouch. With the WiFi I essentially have a "netbook" in my hands!
Not to mention a development platform that shares a great deal of functionality with the iPhone.

Clock is a great example

[clay_buster]

I still carry an ancient LG VX6100 for one reason. The clock on the external black and white LCD is visible at all times without pressing any keys because it doesn't require a backlight. The font is large enough that I can read the clock without glasses. Its the little things that add up to a usable device. It is always disappointing when some new marketing feature reduces usability :-(

Re:"Vice Grip" (sic)

[jcr]

presumably you meant "Vise Grip"

I did, yes. I occasionally use British spelling accidentally.

-jcr