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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.
...it had a GPS (thus making a compas possible).
A GPS and a compass are two different things, with slightly different and complimentary features. A GPS tells you where you are. A compass tells you which direction is north. Together they can tell you to turn around and go the other way even if you're not moving. Together they can tell you the building in front of you is the library and the one to your left is the brothel.
Symbian and Android have 60% of the smartphone market? What? Where?
A GPS "compass" is just a heading indicator; the direction of travel between 2 samplings. This new compass supposedly is magnet (earth's core) sensing - presumably if you hold a magnet nearby you could see which pole is facing the device and on what edge.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
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.
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.)
Read the article you quote. Which says that Apple will require people to rebuy in order to REDOWNLOAD, and only if you're downloading from a phone. It does not require a re-purchase just for the new phone.
This requirement, btw, is because otherwise people will be able to purchase on one account, pass that account around and every person would be able to download to their phone.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
I own a G1, and since the 1.5 update, it -can- capture video.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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/
The OS you are looking for is called Windows Mobile. Its been around a pretty long time and does not restrict anything you put on it.
As for hardware, I am using an HTC Touch Pro on Sprint. Sprint has the cheapest, fastest internet and pretty good coverage as well. The also don't seem to mind if you tether your phone to your laptop.
There is also several great communities of developers and users devoted to getting all you can out of windows mobile devices. Then have gotten to the point where you can download a "kitchen" with a bunch of precanned programs that you pick and choose from. You then create your own customized firmware with the apps you selected. Its great. Or create you own applications.
Check out http://www.ppcgeeks.com/
"Why the hell would Apple leak it when it can just as easily make the front page of Slashdot next week"
Because now they've made the front page twice. Or more, knowing Slashdot.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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
If you have a GPS, then you also have a compass, because any GPS can compute North
Umm, what?!?!?! That statement makes absolutely no sense.
It knows *where* north is, but unless you're moving, it has no way of relaying that information to you, because it can't know the direction it's facing (which is what a compass does.)
We all know what the difference is between a GPS and a compass
Evidently you don't.
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.
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.
Hence, because he thought the iPhone had a GPS, he didn't understand why they were "adding" a compass.
The iPhone does have GPS. They're rumored to be adding an internal compass so the iPhone will also know what direction it is facing and can use that to accurately point out objects and give better directions. Most commercial GPS units include a compass as well these days.
We all know what the difference is between a GPS and a compass.
Apparently some of us are confused about the relative capabilities though.
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.
If we can put a man on the moon (or could, at one time), I say that now is the time to have brothel libraries (and librarians, of course). We do not do this because it is hard... um, ok, actually, we do do this because it is hard.
I drank what? -- Socrates
More proof /. needs a (-1, wrong) mod.
We do not do this because it is hard... um, ok, actually, we do do this because it is hard.
That's what she said.
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
"The OS you are looking for is called Windows Mobile. Its been around a pretty long time and does not restrict anything you put on it."
Not always, like many other mobile features, this can and often is also disabled by the carrier. I've had HTC and moto smartphones (winMo) that flat out refuse to install apps OR require the app to have a certificate. At least with the iphone, if it's on the store, it will install and work.
the kind of people willing to "create your own customized firmware" for a winMo phone are the kind equally comfortable jailbreaking an iphone. The average joe is NOT comfortable with either of these and for them the issue of "restriction" is largely a non issue. The kind of apps that require a hacked handset are probably not what they're looking for anyway.
my only real gripe with the apple app model is the cost of entry for devs. I don't have mac and I'm not going to buy one just to write an app. At least on a winMo device, I was able to load up visual studio and write an app. Yes, VS costs money, but you can get cheap copies of VS all over the place. Cheaper than a mac anyway.
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,
UI design is largely a subjective field. However, there is a significant body of research that states that aesthetics do play a key role in usability. Other aspects such as typeface selection play a big role as well.
That said, we can do objective analyses such as counting the number of clicks or keypresses required to complete a certain task, or using a stopwatch to track the amount of time that it takes a novice user to figure out how to use the UI to perform a given task. Apple are notorious for performing formal UI testing and QA on all of their products. Most phone manufacturers are....not.
It's fairly easy to see how moving every aspect of the UI onto the touchscreen would approve Apple's rankings in these objective analyses. Virtually any function of the phone can be accessed with 2-3 "clicks." Apple have also gone through considerable lengths to avoid the use of any sort of "menus" for common tasks in their applications. There are no hidden options or features. Multitouch is also another big plus, and is extremely intuitive.
For starters, the included suite of applications is fairly comprehensive. You could be quite happy without ever visiting the app store. (I know this is subjective, although I do think it's important to mention that Apple *have* covered all the bases here -- things such as the built-in weather and stock quote apps are nice touches, considering that many users will check them frequently. It would reflect poorly upon the UI if users had to resort to the web-browser for the most common tasks)
The maps application is, in all honesty, probably the high point for the iPhone (and yes, it's almost *exactly* like Google Maps, which is widely regarded as a quality application with a good interface). The multitouch interface works particularly well for viewing maps by panning, zooming, etc. There are also a few 3rd-party applications for viewing subway/mass-transit maps in a similar fashion (I'm not sure if Google Transit has been integrated yet). This alone makes the iPhone an invaluable tool to many. I can say from experience that a simple map search (say for the nearest Pizza place) takes me under 30 seconds on an iPhone, as opposed to a little over a minute with a Blackberry.
Visual Voicemail is another feature that showcases the UI. Voicemail is indexed, retrieved, and managed via the UI, rather than by calling in. It boggles my mind why Apple were the first ones to think of this, given how obvious it is.
Most applications work in portrait and landscape mode. The iPhone automatically senses which way you're holding it, and adjusts itself automatically.
The web browser faithfully renders pages according to standards (most phones don't). Once again, the multitouch interface makes it easy to scroll, pan, and zoom, while the orientation sensor allows you to hold the phone in either orientation.
Recognizing the trend that SMS is frequently used for continuous chats, conversations are grouped and threaded (a la GMail)
The music player preserves the essence of the iPod UI. This is familiar to many users, and has been studied and discussed ad nauseum elsewhere. Most people seem to like it.
Music purchased "over the air" is DRM-free, and may be synced back to your computer. I don't know of any other provider that allows this.
On the more mundane side of things, Apple clearly put a lot of effort into their predictive keyboard. Although this is once again subjective, many people (including those with big hands) find that it works much better than the average touchscreen keyboard.
Is that subjective enough for you?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose