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Rumors Flying About New iPhone Capabilities
Jumping on the completely unconfirmed rumor bandwagon, it seems that there have been photos leaked for the new iPhone, which include things like an auto-focus camera, video capture, and a compass. The photos were originally displayed (and then quickly removed) on a Chinese forum, and quickly spread to many other sites, including a complete human translation on the MacRumors forum. Looks like Apple security may have to break a few more pocket protectors to keep employees in line.
iM waiting for the rumored iNexpensive iPhone with the new lower iPrice and no long-term iContract.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"things like an auto-focus camera, video capture, and a compass"
You mean they're gonna release a G1?
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Apple themselves leaked the pictures, after all they are the masters of "media" manipulation.
/. :-)
After all's said & done; it's just made the front page of
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Where did those chinese people get the phone from? When manufactured, the phone's firmware is just a dummy bootloader to prevent those ridiculous chinese people from stealing the firmware. So how could these guys get their hands on a new iPhone?
I thought the iPhone already had an autofocus camera in it, and that it had a GPS (thus making a compas possible). Either I'm thinking of something else, (maybe a smart phone? I can't keep up with phones nowadays), or none of this is anything more then cool app-work.
The new software also supposedly makes you re-buy apps that you've already purchased, just so they can allow multiple accounts on one phone (have people really asked for this?).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/165834/apple_thwarts_app_piracy_ahead_of_iphone_30_release.html
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
"... including a complete human translation on the MacRumors forum" What are you saying about the Chinese?
I also heard somewhere that the new iPhone will come with a free puppy. It will also water my lawn, clean my house, and walk the puppy for me.
Can I join a PR agency now?
I am officially gone from
Symbian and Android have 60% of the smartphone market? What? Where?
People bring their Sybians with them in public? Can they only recieve phone calls when sitting down?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Now my goal is obvious - to be more excited about the new iPhone than the Chinese! Thank you Apple for the fake leak to help me gauge my interest!
... it will be less than capable of the respective Nokia N-device but as always the Apple marketing and fanboyz
There have always been products competing with both the iPod and iPhone that have a longer and more impressive bullet list of features. The problem being, the average person doesn't enjoy using them and half those features are so poorly implemented they are just painful to use. Many geeks are happy to work around poorly designed interfaces for the sake of overall functionality.
Is Apple becoming the Microsoft of the mobile world?!
The problem with Microsoft is that they use a very large market share in one market to destroy competition and innovation in other markets, thus slowing progress. Apple doesn't have dominance in any markets, so their locked down products drive innovation by providing real competition. When Apple has a monopoly o near monopoly and ties to other markets, then "ll lump them in with Microsoft.
I don't know... but I'm telling you something guys: this is 2009 and we have Symbian & Android which together reach some 60% of the mobile smartphone market...
Yup, that's very cool and I have high hopes for Android, which have not really panned out yet. I still wonder if Android would exist or if it would have the level of functionality it does if Apple were not providing such strong competition.
So let's not pull are eyes out with our own hands and choose iPhone NOT.
For many people the iPhone is still the best offering. Since we're not dealing with a significantly broken market for smartphones, people should pick what works best for them, be it iPhone or an Android or some other phone. This drives developers to work hard and try to make better products. I don't see the point of picking a product that is not as well suited to my tasks based upon the underlying OS. All that does is provide incentive for developers of that OS to not work harder to meet my needs and not compete as strongly. (Note: I don't own any kind of smartphone, iPhone or other.)
iT flies!?!
The iPhone camera is fixed focus and can't shoot video (at least not out of the box). And there is no compass. A compass is handy for turn-by-turn navigation and other neat-o things like street view on the G1 making use of the built-in compass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PRfVKzuUJ4
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Give me the ability to run non-apple background services and customizable alerts. Until then, it's just "Pretty but Dumb".
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
Symbian has about 49% market share and linux another 8%(source).
Mr Gadget points out that Gizmodo's report on these new screenshots are actually screenshots from months ago of iPhone 3.0 OS running on an ordinary iPhone 3G. http://www.mrgadget.com.au/gadget/2009/gizmodo-gets-it-wrong-just-iphone-30-os-screen-grabs/
Would you kindly, sign this contract.
Would you kindly, pay these fees.
That this will do everything Apple claims it will.
Seems unlikely though.
Sure it can. I mean it's not gonna be the quality of a camcorder, but it's decent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0A2tMTEI7M
And you can upload it directly to YouTube from your G1, which is handy.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
You are, as is usual here, missing the point about Apple products.
They frequently don't have the raw capabilities of their competition, but they are reasonably stylish and very easy to use. You and I may be able to efficiently handle complicated interfaces, but most people have a great deal of difficulty with them. They will learn what they have to, and no more. The average smart phone is used only for a very few things.
The iPhone is easy to use. It's easy to figure out how to do things. There are darn few glitches or gotchas. There's a fairly thick manual, which nobody has to read. This is important, since nobody but us actually reads the manuals. It's easy to extend the functionality, now that the App Store is there. It has never been easier to make a telephone generate its own fart sounds, or do a variety of other things, some of which are actually useful. I find this attractive, since I've long since tired of learning complicated things that aren't actually important to what I want to do. (For example, why would I want to learn Microsoft Word's more arcane features when vim and LaTeX already do what I want?)
If this makes no sense to you, or if you think Apple's popularity is due to nothing but marketing and fanbois, please do not do any interface design for end users.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Brings new meaning to the term "bone conducting microphone"...
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
That's a funny iPost you've got there.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm pretty sure there is already an app that serves as a compass. What did Apple do steal it and make standard on the phone?
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Are we not men? We are Apple.
Is there an app for that?
Will it look like an ancient Palm, with a black-and-white screen, a writing area, and only a dozen apps on the homescreen?
SLASHDOT, FFS, GET SOME NEW ICONS!
And WTF is up with the MacBook icon on this iPhone story? I guess I need to change my request to "new and accurate icons."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Please, there has to be somewhere in the world that doesn't start fondling itself whenever Apple leaks garbage to the press to remind everybody how much people go crazy over any news related to their products. An entire post over the RUMOR of a POSSIBILITY that the new iPhone will have an autofocusing camera, video capability, and a compass? Is that really exciting? Actually, doesn't the G1 do all those things already?
Being available for Verizon is the only iPhone feature I'm looking for. No chance I'm going with AT&T - period. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, or maybe the lure of the iPhone is enough for other people to make the switch. Meh.
Those pictures are just from an iPhone running OS 3.0, they were taken by a Chinese blogger demonstrating 3.0's capabilities. According to this site: http://www.mrgadget.com.au/gadget/2009/gizmodo-gets-it-wrong-just-iphone-30-os-screen-grabs/ the blogger says (in Chinese) that the pictures were taken of an iPhone 3G with iPhone OS 3.0. This is why you shouldn't spread rumour...
Stating "Autofocus Camera" is pretty redundant at this point.
Do you know of any cameras that don't have autofocus?
If this has already been stated, then I am as redundant as the parent.
Do cars shipped to China have trip, km and other english words on the dash instead of the equivalent Chinese? The reasons for the fuzzy photos don't wash as the photographer brandished the phone in public in a car. Seems to me better photos could have been taken easily.
It has never been easier to make a telephone generate its own fart sounds...
Well, here you go! These are the "killer appz" that make the Apple fanboyz go mad. This is 90-95% of all available progies for iPhone.
...or do a variety of other things, some of which are actually useful.
Fair enough. I admit there is this 5% of some really cool applications for iPhone. But my initial post (which I find ridiculous that had been moded as "flamebait", this was NOT my intention) wanted to stress a point.
Both Symbian and Android can do what iPhone does and even more. And developers can leverage the WHOLE underlying technology. So the iPhone Store story is only a stupid buzz. The developers need to wake up and port their useful apps to Symbian and Android as soon as possible. Because it CAN be done and actually their apps will probably even look and run even better!
As long as we have a 50-60% market share for open source mobile OSes we are ok. I'm afraid of what will happen if Apple somehow prevails and becomes the Microsoft of the mobile OS market.
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Ok, ok. I read the article. You can choose where to autofocus. That is something additional to standard autofocus.
No matter what features they will or won't include, it is not going to be as feature-rich as it be will when I jailbreak it. It's sad that I have to void the warranty to make this device (that is running a kernel invented and intended for the Open-Source world, BTW) what it should be.
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Will it finally have buttons? ^^
(On the back, side, top or bottom does not count. Non-tactile does not count too.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Mr Gadget attempted to be smart. Unfortunately the screenshots show an iPhone with compass and autofocus features which are not possible on an iPhone 3G.
which include things like an auto-focus camera, video capture, and a compass
an android phone? Sounds like the G1 spec sheet.
Is Apple becoming the Microsoft of the mobile world?!
The problem with Microsoft is that they use a very large market share in one market to destroy competition and innovation in other markets, thus slowing progress. Apple doesn't have dominance in any markets, so their locked down products drive innovation by providing real competition. When Apple has a monopoly o near monopoly and ties to other markets, then "ll lump them in with Microsoft.
Short answer to the question is, yes, Apple is becoming the Microsoft of the mobile world. Name me a portable music player other than an iPod that anyone you know owns.
Lump them in.
(On the back, side, top or bottom does not count. Non-tactile does not count too.
What are you, a lawyer? It's like the subtext at the bottom of a contest that disqualifies anyone who could actually enter... you are basically asking "Does it have buttons* * = all possible buttons excluded from answer".
The real answer of course, is it has infinite buttons since on-screen buttons are perfectly usable. The answer you might possible accept is one, since there's a button on the front, which means you are still wrong...
I like real buttons as much as the next guy but only when the buttons are appropriate to the purpose at hand. I find all mobile keyboards with real buttons dreadful for typing, and most mobile keypads kind of poor for dialing. I'd way rather use the huge number buttons on an iPhone to dial than the tiny number buttons included on a full keyboard, or even the hideous keypad of the RAZR (which I owned for a few years) which made it as hard as possible to tell where you really needed to press to get a number.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The rumor I heard flying is that the new iPhone can, in fact, fly. It's a full levitation device and can allow a 250 pound man to hover. The TV ads will feature Criss Angel.
I read it on Crazy Apple Rumors so I know it must be true. It transforms into a bisexual ninja sexbot that serves pudding and other snacks on demand. It will telepathically extract that hot new tune stuck in your head to use as a ring tone.
If you order one now, the man, the legend, the *god*, Phil Schiller himself will deliver it to your home personally and give you a foot massage.
Note: the above claims are true only for certain values of true.
The iPhone version 3 is finally getting all the stuff that other cellphones have had for 10 years ? And people will still blindly pay through the nose for these "exclusive features" ?
Not sure about the compass though, I'd have preferred a pair of nail clippers, a corkscrew / bottle opener, and a pair of scissors ... wait, we're talking about a Swiss Army Knife right ?
We can only hope that the iPhone version 4 will at least upgrade the camera to 1.3 megapix.
*ducks*
Uhm... you're a nerd posting on an internet tech site. Blame you, shall we?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's sad that I have to void the warranty to make this device (that is running a kernel invented and intended for the Open-Source world, BTW) what it should be.
Jailbreaking doesn't void the warranty since it is completely reversible. If you need to send it in for work just un-jailbreak. If the hardware is so broken you can't unjailbreak it, they can't tell it was jailbroken...
I don't think it's sad at all, I think it's exciting to live in a time where so many devices that would otherwise be half usable can be made to do what the users really want - just look at the PSP or DS homebrew scene for other examples. I don't care how much a device is locked down so long as there is a good community around extending it, because no lock will hold against someone determined.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Short answer to the question is, yes, Apple is becoming the Microsoft of the mobile world.
MS's market share for desktop OS's is about 98%. Apple's share of the portable, digital music player market is about 70% if you don't include phones that play music, in which case their market share is fairly negligible. Not counting phones I know people who own Toshiba, Sansa, and Creative brand players.
The EU recently looked into the iPod with an eye towards antitrust abuse. They seem t have concluded that within the EU at least, consumers consider media playing cell phones as alternatives to the iPod when making purchasing decisions. As such, Apple does not have dominance in the market and is not undermining free trade. In the US the situation is different, in that cell phone contracts make competition less elastic, but with Apple's move into the cell phone market, it is clear the two are largely converging. Basically, Apple might, barely have too much control in the portable player market to be legal, but every day that goes away as cell phones become the norm for playing music on the go.
You know what would be awesome new features?
The ability to run whatever software I want, and the ability to operate on whatever phone network I want.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Do you know of any cameras that don't have autofocus?
The iPhone 1G and 3G phones don't. They have a fixed focus camera, which is not the same thing.
Actually, yes, I do.
Neither Leica M8 nor Leica M8.2 have got AF.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
> The problem being, the average person doesn't enjoy using them and half those features are so poorly implemented they are just painful to use.
My Motorola phone had a browser. I tried to use it once.
Once.
Maury
If you have a GPS, then you also have a compass, because any GPS can compute North.
This is untrue. A GPS can tell you what your coordinates are but not which way your device is facing relative to north. If you're moving it assumes the GPS is facing the direction of travel, which is not always the case. When you aren't moving it gets quickly confused.
No, actually it is true. You just need multiple antennas in a known orientation.
Sources:
We all know what the difference is between a GPS and a compass.
Apparently some of us are confused about the relative capabilities though.
In context of the iPhone, no, calculating attitude from the GPS data isn't possible due to its size. But calculating attitude using GPS is quite possible and has already been done.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
> Both Symbian and Android can do what iPhone does and even more.
And vice versa. The intersection is not the universal set.
> And developers can leverage the WHOLE underlying technology.
You don't know the same developers I do then.
> So the iPhone Store story is only a stupid buzz.
And 37 million installed base. It's the platform, stupid.
> I'm afraid of what will happen if Apple somehow prevails and becomes the Microsoft of the mobile OS market.
Why? Their stranglehold on the music player market seems like it's improved the entire market. Do you remember the suckage that people used to sell before the iPod got rolling?!
Maury
Excuse me while I hack out a filter to skip over all Slashdot stories that have "apple" and "rumor" as keywords. Because the editors don't seem to realize that most Apple rumors are bullshit. That company attracts more lame rumor-mongers that a convention of conspiracy buffs.
You're right, Apple should have probably learned their lesson about taking their time and getting features correct rather than trying to have the most features on the block after the whole iPod thing blew up in their faces. "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." (2001)
Steal my band's record! Seriously,
Maury,
And vice versa on the vice versa. The difference of Symbian/Android is that it's open source and developers can actually shape the future of their platform or fork it to their needs. Try that with the iPhone.
The platform is bull by itself. It's the developers and the customers when they are not blinded simply by "fashion". If the developers decide to target another lucrative market (as the one we will see when the Nokia N97 will be finally launched... btw, watch for the upcoming Slashdot story!) you will see similar platforms take off. Android Store and Ovi Store have much more potential because of the tools and underlying tech they can provide to the developers.
I only hope they can provide some fine credit mechanism to sweeten the deal with the developers. That's what got the developing frenzy for iPhone afterall!
As for the iTunes market. You know there ARE alternative shops that help the entire market as well. Perhaps you simply don't know them. Be my guest!
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
I'm not dyslexic, I just don't always sentences read properly.
And, once more, you completely miss what Apple has going for it.
Nobody (and by that I mean fewer than 5% of the market) cares what the theoretical capabilities of a platform are. The easy-to-use capabilities are far more important. iPhone apps are easy to get, inexpensive, easy to use, and often fun. The iPhone lends itself to impulse purchases: I spend a dollar, wait three minutes for a download, and I've got a shiny new toy that I can just use.
If you think that's "a stupid buzz", you have completely failed to understand why Apple is a success, and you will almost certainly fail to come up with a strategy to compete. Exhorting people to buy and support products you think better, for your own reasons, is not going to work.
Developers are going to write their apps on whatever platform they choose, for all sorts of various reasons. The App Store is a relatively hassle-free way to market and sell apps (yeah, it isn't perfect, but it's better than trying to sell apps independently), and there isn't any obvious counterpart I've seen in Symbian and Android. Moreover, the iPhone is a defined target platform, so there's no need to worry about odd phones that may or may not have certain capabilities.
I'm not particularly worried about a monopolist in the smart phone market (there will be a lot less network effect there than in the computer business), but the best way to avoid Apple dominance is to understand what Apple is doing well, not to blame it on marketing and fanbois and bears.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There have always been products competing with both the iPod and iPhone that have a longer and more impressive bullet list of features.
Ah yes, it's the "Grumpy Featurism" hand-wave. Let's brush all the objective, reasoned, based-on-evidence arguments aside, and claim they are trumped by my personal claim of "It's better".
Well you're both wrong, I might as well claim that the Motorola V980 is the Best Phone Ever.
The problem being, the average person doesn't enjoy using them and half those features are so poorly implemented they are just painful to use. Many geeks are happy to work around poorly designed interfaces for the sake of overall functionality.
What a load of weasel words. Citations, please?
Based on hard sales figures, the "average person" most certainly prefers Nokia phones in general to Apple phones.
Apple doesn't have dominance in any markets
I am in full agreement.
I still wonder if Android would exist or if it would have the level of functionality it does if Apple were not providing such strong competition.
The rapid and continual march of technology in the billion dollar mobile phone market has been going on for a decade or so, but Google would've only took interest in response to a Johnny come lately that, as you agree yourself, is not the dominant player in the market? Please...
For many people the iPhone is still the best offering. Since we're not dealing with a significantly broken market for smartphones, people should pick what works best for them, be it iPhone or an Android or some other phone.
Right. Which, again, based on hard sales figures, the overwhelming majority of people do. But it's just a shame we never hear about this technology on Slashdot. Reading Slashdot, you'd think that the mobile phone market considered of Apple as a dominant player, and only Android coming along afterwards to provide competition (and based on some of the "But hey, you can read a website on the Iphone!" comments, I'd say that many readers here do think that that's the case - in fact, I recently responded to a poster who actually thought that Apple were the market leader in mobile phones). It would be like Slashdot only covering OS X, giving a brief mention to Ubuntu, and never mentioning a major player like Windows at all. That would be fine if it was Apple-dot, I suppose.
...troll someplace else?
Or do I need to go and get a golf club?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Just what can an IPhone do that the G! and or a top of the line Symbian phone can not?
I think the iPhone looks like a great platform. Android does as well. I have no looked at the Symbian SDK but I don't see thing that the iPhone can do that those other platfroms can not.
Buy apps and media at the iTunes store is one but I put that down to branding. Sync with iTunes? Also a branding thing IMHO.
The G1 right now can record video and has a compass. So those are two things that it can do over the current iPhone. A lot of Symbian devices come with FM radios which is something that the iPhone lacks. Is it worth having? I am not sure.
But you said that the iPhone can do things the other platforms can not. Outside of iTunes what can it do that they can not?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Hey, new iPhone, meet my BlackBerry Curve 8900.
Mmmm... Apple's dominance includes not only portable music devices (iPods) but the actual distribution of music (iTunes).
In any case, it's not illegal to have a dominant market position; it's only illegal to use that dominance to stifle competition. Fortunately, Apple hasn't demonstrated any significant tendency to eliminate competition in the markets they do dominate.
The HTC Apache (Sprint PPC6700\Verizon XV6700) has a manually adjustable focus on it's camera.
God made man....but he used the monkey to do it!
great song.
If you don't have an apple restriciphone, then you can install CyCorder, which takes quite nice video on my 3G without requiring any new hardware.
Which is probably a major reason why Apple WON'T ever open the phone in that manner, because then they can't sell new "hardware' with software enabled to emulate new functionality...
Depends what you mean by "the Microsoft". You might mean that they have a large share, you might mean they act like a bunch of wankers. Maybe if you actually wrote in english terms, we would understand what the fuck you are trying to say.
Did anyone else read the head line as
"Rumors About New iPhone Flying Capabilities"?
My first thought was that they were attempting to
take over some of Microsoft's flying chair market.
You forgot to mention those of us that can manage complex interfaces but have better things to do.
But does it have a tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew, can opener, bottle opener, .flat-head screwdriver, phillips-head screwdriver, nail file, scissors, saw, file, hook, magnifying glass, ballpoint pen, fish scaler, hex wrench w/bits, pliers, and key chain? Also... it is HD ready?
You wouldn't have mentioned it if you weren't thinking about it.
The problem is... developers sometimes are not informed well, mesmerized by the media attention Apple gets and fanboyz deliver. It's paradigmatic that in this very thread, a guy (in a parent comment) was asking where in the world Symbian/Android have 60% market coverage. Go figure!
Rest assured that both Symbian and Android give multiple tools and easy ways to design and deploy a mobile application. The only real winner (not anymore) has been the iPhone Store, which is a 100% marketing and convenience tool. Nothing more.
Concluding, my hopes go to those curious developers who really want to push their creativity to the limits while delivering the best available app to the customer. This can only happen if they get informed.
No informed person will ever decide to build an app to the worst platform possible.
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
I find this rumour hard to accept. Because there is nothing mentioning any new great feature that would want people to buy the latest generation iPhone. Who is gonna buy a new phone to have a better camera and a compass??? Anyone?
Vrijgezellenfeest/Teambuilding klik hier
Developers are not always well informed, but, frankly, I don't think you are either. The developers I know aren't all that impressed by media attention and fanbois, and a lot of us have iPhones.
If you don't understand why that is, then you are not informed, and therefore you are not in a good position to try to inform others.
Your characterization of the App Store shows this: you seem to think that convenience isn't all that important. However, there are a whole lot of busy people in the world, who don't want to have to deal with complexity in something that isn't their primary focus. Moreover, inconvenient things generally aren't fun (code something in the 1966 version of COBOL to experience it yourself), and many people find the App Store fun. If the App Store wasn't quick and easy, "There's an app for that!" would not have a chance of becoming a meme.
If something is long-term successful, and the iPod and iPhone are certainly that, there's reasons behind the success. Marketing has distinct limits, and normally isn't the main reason for success. Again, you need to understand Apple's success in order to strategize around it, and you appear to completely miss the point. You seem to think that convenience and clean interfaces are frills and therefore minor, which in the real world is completely wrong.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
MS's market share for desktop OS's is about 98%. Apple's share of the portable, digital music player market is about 70% if you
How can that be when Linux market share is roughly 5% and Apples is roughly 13%?
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I prefer to find convenience ON my device, not on the market that sells it. Convenience is important. So are looks. And both Symbian (Ovi Store) and Google (Android Market) are getting there.
But my initial point, which you have missed completely since you repeat to me ad nauseam that "I don't get Apple's strategy" is that it will be too late if one day Apple becomes Microsoft for the phone OSes. We live in magnificent times in the mobile world. The two biggest platform producers deliver open source operating systems. We (both customers and developers) need to monetize on this momentum!
That was my initial suggestion (aka "flaimbait" by the Cupertino fanboyz that modded down an innocuous observation). I'm not trying to convince you, david, you already admitted you have an iPhone. I don't have an Android. :)
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
MS's market share for desktop OS's is about 98%. Apple's share of the portable, digital music player market is about 70% if you ...
How can that be when Linux market share is roughly 5% and Apples is roughly 13%?
You're confusing market share and install base. Market share is relevant for both antitrust law and for the economics of undermining free trade. The average desktop OS buyer is a company like Dell who buys it as a component to pre-install on their desktop computer systems. The number of companies using Linux in this role (as opposed to individuals who install it later after a copy of some other OS was already purchased) is quite small. Most estimates place it in the 1-2% range. The overall Linux share is higher, but mostly on servers and appliances, which is not considered the same market. Apple does not sell OS X into the desktop OS market, instead bundling it with their Mac computers and bypassing the desktop OS market entirely (except hackintoshes) so it does not even figure into the relevant market.
Mmmm... Apple's dominance includes not only portable music devices (iPods)
I don't think this will stand up legally due to the numbers you cite not including music playing cell phones, which make up a significant portion of the market. This, of course, depends upon how the market is distinguished.
...but the actual distribution of music (iTunes)
First, the ITunes store and the iTunes application are in different markets and it is important to distinguish that you're referring to the former not the latter. Second, while Apple may well have dominance in said market, it is a problematic market, since it is already compromised by the illegal actions of a cartel, convicted multiple times of undermining free trade. Personally, I think Apple has had a net positive impact on innovation in the market, but it is so broken already the issue is quite muddled.
In any case, it's not illegal to have a dominant market position; it's only illegal to use that dominance to stifle competition. Fortunately, Apple hasn't demonstrated any significant tendency to eliminate competition in the markets they do dominate.
Elimination of competition is not the only issue, simply undermining free competition in a way that artificially increases their share is sufficient to damage free trade. Some of Apple's actions in said markets certainly qualify as tying in the eyes of the law, if they are ruled to have dominance in either of those markets. The issue being, they probably don't in the first market and the second market is so broken any tying is fairly immaterial or even positive. There is a lot of room for debate on it though.
Okay, so that's your main point. I'm not as worried about it as you are; for one thing, I don't foresee the nasty network effects that keep Microsoft so firmly on top, and I don't think Apple is as able to pull the same dirty tricks (please note I'm not talking about willingness). However, I do agree that I don't want an effective monopoly on phone OS.
This brings up the question: what are we going to do about it? You seem to be more concerned about it, so I assume you're more interested in stopping Apple from becoming dominant.
That means that you really do need to understand Apple's strategy, and the reasons why it works. It's a matter of tactics for you: if you don't understand why Apple is succeeding, you will unable to do anything effective to stop it. If, as you continually repeat, you think it's marketing and fanboyz, you'll be completely ineffectual.
To summarize, know thy enemy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There have always been products competing with both the iPod and iPhone that have a longer and more impressive bullet list of features.
Ah yes, it's the "Grumpy Featurism" hand-wave. Let's brush all the objective, reasoned, based-on-evidence arguments aside, and claim they are trumped by my personal claim of "It's better".
I'm not sure I even understand what you're trying to say here. You can certainly look up bullet point lists of features of various music players and smartphones. A significant number will be longer than Apple's offerings, they certainly were last time I looked. They certainly were when the iPod debuted as per the famous "no wi-fi less space than a Nomad" dismissal. I'm sure not going to bother doing a bunch of research to prove it though.
The problem being, the average person doesn't enjoy using them and half those features are so poorly implemented they are just painful to use. Many geeks are happy to work around poorly designed interfaces for the sake of overall functionality.
What a load of weasel words. Citations, please?
Do your own research. There have been plenty of usability studies over the years that agree with my position and personal experience.
Based on hard sales figures, the "average person" most certainly prefers Nokia phones in general to Apple phones.
First, Apple doesn't compete in the general cell phone market, but the smartphone market, which has been fairly distinct, although the lines are now blurring. Apple does not have the largest share of that market either, but they are certainly an up and coming contender based upon the rapidly increasing popularity. Second, market share is not a measure of individual preference because in the US phones are tied to providers and because phones and service are not free, so individuals have to choose a phone they can afford rather than one they want.
I still wonder if Android would exist or if it would have the level of functionality it does if Apple were not providing such strong competition.
The rapid and continual march of technology in the billion dollar mobile phone market has been going on for a decade or so, but Google would've only took interest in response to a Johnny come lately that, as you agree yourself, is not the dominant player in the market? Please...
We're talking about the smartphone market not the regular phone market. Based upon the huge number of phones that are designed to look like iPhones and the number of smartphone features designed to clone iPhone functionality, I think you have to be pretty oblivious not to see Apple as having a huge impact and pushing other developers to start adding functionality to compete. Multitouch and the Android Market, are good examples.
But it's just a shame we never hear about this technology on Slashdot.
What are you talking about? There have been dozens of articles about Android on Slashdot. The last one was three days ago!
Reading Slashdot, you'd think that the mobile phone market considered of Apple as a dominant player, and only Android coming along afterwards to provide competition
Umm, Android was released after the iPhone, but articles on Slashdot appear to discuss cool new technology and things nerds like to discuss. It is not reflective of market share. We often discuss technologies that have little or no market share because they are cool and innovative, even if they never become widely deployed.
It would be like Slashdot only covering OS X, giving a brief mention to Ubuntu, and never mentioning a major player like Windows at all.
But Slashdot certainly discusses both OS X and Ubuntu in much greater frequency than their market share would indicate, compared to Windows articles. That's because that is
The problem is... developers sometimes are not informed well, ... my experience is that Developers are extraordinary well informed.
That is what you think
mesmerized by the media attention Apple gets and fanboyz deliver. It's paradigmatic that in this very thread, a guy (in a parent comment) was asking where in the world Symbian/Android have 60% market coverage. Go figure! Don't get what you want to say with that.
Rest assured that both Symbian and Android give multiple tools and easy ways to design and deploy a mobile application.
Do you like to mention one? I assume you talk about vi and emacs here?
The only real winner (not anymore) has been the iPhone Store, which is a 100% marketing and convenience tool. Nothing more. Would you care to point out what the (not anymore) is supposed to mean? I as a developer like to have a store like App Store, son I don't really get your "noting more" point either.
Concluding, my hopes go to those curious developers who really want to push their creativity to the limits while delivering the best available app to the customer. This can only happen if they get informed.
No informed person will ever decide to build an app to the worst platform possible.
True that! And that is why serious mobile developers chose OS X on an iPhone.
All other deployment platforms: MS Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian, WebOS, Palm OS are 20 years at least behind (having a GPS driver does not cut it) OS X on the iPhone.
I don't want procedural APIs on the level of a std C library to code against. I want true frameworks to develop my apps from. If you feel different, fine! However it seems it is you who is badly misinformed.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Name me a portable music player other than an iPod that anyone you know owns.
iRiver IFP-390T
It does a lot that my iPodTouch 1G does not do.... and of course the IPod can do things the the iRiver does not do.... they are very complementary devices for my purposes.
You must have missed the part of the grandparent's post where they specifically asked for tactile buttons.
Yes, I read it and dismissed it.
Because as I said so called "real" buttons with tactile sense can still be worse to use than on-screen buttons. So the qualification to add tactile sense is simply a way for him to discount all buttons, no matter if in fact they are more useful.
And of course, also as noted there is in fact one "real" button (by his definition) on the front... so he wasn't even right in that regard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Uh, how does that work exactly? You can still use your eyes, but... oh wait! you can also use this whole other sensory input in case... say... you couldn't use your eyes.
Wrong.
I use muscle memory all the time to type on the iPhone. That's how you type fast. You can't use your eyes much anyway as your finger obscures the keys...
And that's the issue with physical keyboards on mobile devices too. Your finger covers up a good many keys, you rely on muscle memory to get a keypress right.
At least with the iPhone the keys in vertical are larger than most mobile keypads, and you can turn it landscape for much larger keys.
You make the common mistake many other people make in thinking because you can feel the keys that tactile sense is important in typing. But you're wrong, it's secondary to learned position. Small keys feel a lot alike and you cannot rely on that to press the key you need.
Thank you for allowing me to provide you with this teaching moment, you'll never look at a keyboard the same way again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley