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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.
Symbian and Android have 60% of the smartphone market? What? Where?
I'll give up the shiny UI for the ability to install any app I want and a hardware keyboard.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
... 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.)
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
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.
More proof /. needs a (-1, wrong) mod.
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
I have an HTC Pro with ATT. The hardware itself is cool.
However, Windows Mobile is frustratingly slow, disorganized and unreliable.
Press a softkey and you can get GUI feedback that the button was pressed without the OS or app actually taking that action. That's bad enough, but when button presses can take 1 or 2 seconds to execute because of all the bloated WM overhead, then you don't know if you need to press the button again or wait.
If you do press it again and WM was just lagging, then you get two presses. Nice design feature.
WM is designed first as a Microsoft platform, then as a phone. The phone features integration on WM on the HTC Pro is terrible. The phone screens are miserably organized for quick / easy use. The contacts features have inconsistent use of buttons and softkeys. The dial and phone buttons change meaning. Even the volume functions are poorly designed for quick changes. The Touchflow GUI that was poorly integrated on top of WM is pretty - pretty useless. After one or two superfluous menu levels, you end up in the original balky WM GUI, which is what they were trying to cover up anyway.
I haven't loaded any extra apps on it that might destabilize it, but I have to reboot it at least once a week.
Yeah, the HTC Pro with WM is wonderful. <gag>
Only on an Apple article would an ad hominem get +5 insightful.
Care to explain why the UI is better than all other phones, using evidence, reasoning, and objective examples, as opposed to ad hominems, vague subjective claims, or the "But You Just Have To Use It" claims that we typically get? Or will my honest question just be hidden by the mods so the reasonable questions don't even have to be answered?
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,