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The Speculative Pre-History of the iPhone
harrymcc writes "The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors about 'iSlate,' Apple's supposed upcoming tablet. It's constructive to look back at coverage of the first iPhone in the months before it was announced. A high percentage of what was reported turned out to be hooey — as I remembered as I reviewed stories that said the iPhone would have a click wheel, a slide-out keyboard, and two batteries, and would run on an Apple-branded wireless network. I'm guessing that much of what we 'know' about iSlate is similarly off-base."
The only way to know for sure *IF* Apple will ever release a Tablet device is to wait for it. All of the rumours and "opinions" really get annoying after awhile because they all contradict one another.
Five minutes passed, it's time for another Apple story.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
I remember when Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in Jan. 2007. For laughs, he showed a modified iPod with a rotary dial instead of the click wheel before he showed the iPhone. Really if it's one thing that we've learned from Apple is that nothing is true about their upcoming products until Apple announces it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
How much do we know about the ways in which Apple uses rumors to gin up interest in new products?
It seems likely to me that they leak stuff to keep us all talking, but I don't have any proof of that. It also seems likely to me that if they're going to be leaking stuff, they might not always leak accurate information.
There was a story awhile back that quoted Yoko Ono as saying that the Beatles were coming to iTunes. Does anyone ever bother to dig into those stories to see what happened? Did Yoko actually say that? Was there a deal that fell apart? Did the reporter just make it up? If so, why? Was Apple trying to get us talking?
Despite all of my suspicions about leaks and promotion, I'm really excited about the tablet. It will be really interesting to see what they do with the interface.
They are launching a whole new branch of products and phasing out the "i' product all together in the next 3 years.
Just thought I'd add to the rumor mill.
--SJ
"Blogosphere?" Is this 2004?
Anyway, the so-called iSlate is probably a real product, but it might just be a larger version of the iPhone. Like every Apple release, the rumor hype will excite people to impossibly high standards, and when the actual product comes out, forums will be filled with sarcastic bitching, even though all of them will buy it anyway. Also, someone will post a link to the Apple rumor cycle.
>> All of the rumours and "opinions" really get annoying after awhile because they all contradict one another.
To be frank, most of the apple (iphone/tablet/whatever) stories are already annoying. It's nothing but a huge fanboi echo-chamber or a giant fanboi orgy.
...to pull yet another Apple article out of your asses, even when there is absolutely nothing to report anymore and we’re all already stuffed to the top with it.
I wonder what Apple pays for this...
Just remember: Every new story about it, makes me want it less and block it more.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
1. Removable battery
2. Free upload of unsigned software and drivers, not locking the user in to any sort of "app mall."
3. Full physical keyboard since everyone knows software keyboards are annoying
4. Full and open support for third party hardware
5. An affordable, low price-point that even Apple's harshest critics cannot bring themselves to complain about
6. Copy and paste functionality at launch
Unable to obtain 100% accuracy, now optimizing for 100% inaccuracy.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Obligatory Onion article.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/apple_unveils_new_product
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Regardless of any functionality this tablet will have, it only takes a very short time to come up with the "is-late" pronunciation of iSlate. I can't imagine that Jobs would let anything that could be turned into a such an obvious mockery of Apple be released. I have no idea what the table will be called, but I am betting heavily against "iSlate" - and yes I have been following all the reports on companies being purchased etc.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Are you saying they closed down the old one?
No, the answer is quite simple, the same answer it's been for ages. People don't like Apple because they can't afford their hardware. There is no other reason than that. I'm not trolling, this is actually what I've been told by a few people who adamantly bash Apple. They bash them non-stop but if I bring my MacBook Pro around, they will then proceed to say "I wish I could have afforded a MBP." The ironic part is, if you can afford a mid-range HP laptop, you can afford an Apple laptop. Maybe not Everyone, but with student discount, or developer discount if they apply, you get a Better deal than a plastic laptop.
Note that this, however, only applies to Aluminum MacBook (Pro's). I've never used another Apple product so can't really say about the costs of those.
So what's with the virulent, rabid anti-Apple hyperbole and the (getting very old and boring) claims (presumably in the interest of a kind of sledgehammer humor) that Apple products don't actually work at all, and that there is therefore something offensive about people that use Apple products?
Surprise -- so far there have been no such comments... except yours.
BTW, I don't own an Apple anything, although I'll probably get an iPod pretty soon.
Free Martian Whores!
...there are rumors that they have purchased another vowel?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
1. Removable battery
Ha Ha. Of course the battery will be sealed, it gives you longer battery life.
2. Free upload of unsigned software and drivers, not locking the user in to any sort of "app mall."
50/50
3. Full physical keyboard since everyone knows software keyboards are annoying
They are on full size devices. On smaller devices the physical keyboards are more annoying. Or why does the Google Phone not have a physical keyboard...
A larger slate size device will have a detachable keyboard.
4. Full and open support for third party hardware
Yep, USB/bluetooth/network. Not open enough for you?
5. An affordable, low price-point that even Apple's harshest critics cannot bring themselves to complain about
Ha Ha.
6. Copy and paste functionality at launch
Oh hilarious. Probably mutli-touch too, which Android couldn't bother with at launch. Which was more important to have out of the gate?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cue the "Oh wait..." jokes.
Apple is reportedly close to launching its long-rumored ____. It could be Apple’s latest billion-dollar jackpot.
Analyst speculation says the ___ will be launched in September and be in the shops by Christmas. A new mention of the ___ crops up on Twitter around every eight minutes.
christ, we should all know better by now. See here and fill in the rest yourself. Illustration: the new iPod shuffle.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Just an OT question here: Since you are a Linux user, how do you sync, charge and update your iPhone? iTunes via Wine? Or a full-fledged VM solution like VMWare? I have several Macs along with my Linux boxen, and I've tinkered with using my iPhone with Linux, but it's just plain easier to plug it into a Mac and not worry about the rather troublesome iTunes installation via Wine. Or is there some solution available to jailbroken iPhones that allows syncing without iTunes?
:q!
Fast forward to now; I work and have a toy budget. Mac hardware is nice, but still very expensive to the point where I wasn't going to pay the premium.
I have a Dell Mini netbook which has a very nice design with sleek smooth lines, light weight, portability, etc. but an OS that I'm fed up with. I was fine with XP, but Vista and now even Win 7 are just painful to use and maintain anymore. I found a way to get snow leopard on it, and I'm very satisfied! So satisfied in fact that I bought a full sized MacBook Pro; a friend of mine has an older (circa 2007) MacBook Pro that he tried to sell but apparently all the consumers aren't interested in MacBooks that don't have the new unibody design, at least consumers in the NY area.
I think I'm sold on Mac now as I'm just tired of dealing with Windows. Ubuntu 'works' but it too is a hassle to get things the way I like, and to expect my non-technically-minded relatives to use it. Your best bet is to look for deals on used equipment, especially stuff that isn't from the current generation. Apparently there are a lot of consumers who have $$$ to spend on the latest Apple toys.
Surprise -- so far there have been no such comments... except yours.
There most likely are plenty of them, but they are all sitting down at -1 Troll and will remain that way.
Slashdot has been anti-technology for quite a few years now (Note how the first 1-3 posts on every new technology story is along the lines of "Pfft this is teh dumz0rs!" or "Why bother? That won't make money"
My personal observation is that less than 1/10th of slashdots current and active community are in any way interested in new technology for the sake of technology (aka Computer geek)
The other 9/10ths either have zero curiosity about how things function, and quite a few are actively against new technology.
Apple, being one of the more public facing R&D companies around in the computer biz, of course deals with creating lots of new technology. This is the main reason they are hated on by most current slashdotters, and why those of us that DO like technology for the sake of technology get modded off as trolls and off-topic.
WTF are you talking about? The Nexus One or Android phones?
Obviously the Nexus, since none of the others you list are made by Google.
The Nexus does not have a physical keyboard (as per a source who has used one).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sadly, I fear you're right. It does seem that there are quite a few non-nerd noncompos here.
Free Martian Whores!
There's a lot people are bandying about that's off-base, no doubt. But IMHO, there's really only one off-base thing about the iSlate that matters: the assertion that it exists at all.
There will be no second coming of Newton, folks. It failed. So have pretty much all other tablet initiatives, of which the one we currently call "tablet computing" was not the first. They sound neat and shiny on paper, but they just aren't practical, and Apple -having tried it before, keep in mind- knows this.
However, your attempt was marred by the blatant apple fanboyism in your post
I don't see how feeding you details of what will be is "fanboyism". It's called "prognostication".
Personally I have always expressed doubt for the whole tablet form factor, even ones from Apple, which is why I think in the end any Apple tablet to be marketable is going to be essentially a touchscreen laptop. Even then I'm not sure well.
I'm sure in your little tiny Hater mind you can find someway to spin that into "fanboyism", but the rest of us can read that for what it is...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...And games, Apple is not game friendly(outside of WoW, and a very few others).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That actually does look feature-wise something like what the tablet might be. The main issue I see though, it it doesn't seem like the keyboard detaches at all (looks like it just folds behind the screen?)
There are some other differences I see though:
1) Apple device would have screen going closer to the edge.
2) Apple device will probably have stylus in addition to accepting finger input.
3) Apple device would have much better processor specs.
Basically, I am thinking the tablet is really an evolution of the Macbook Air (possibly even a replacement), with removable keyboard (or possibly also one that folds behind the screen).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
5. An affordable, low price-point that even Apple's harshest critics cannot bring themselves to complain about
Oh, that's where you're wrong. Unless the price point is under $50.
The way this works is that the Apple critic picks some set of features that phone X has had for months if not years. If the iPhone doesn't have all of those features at the market price for phone X or less, it's time to start talking about the deceit of shiny design and how Apple is actually a fashion company.
Given that the Nokia 6820 had features 1-4 (plus tethering and additional bluetooth magic) and now goes for under $50, Apple's harshest critics will only be happy with that price point.
Tweet, tweet.
This pre-history is fairly entertaining in that it exposes the low-effort groupthink of these tech bloggers/pundits/opinionators. The limited imagination is evident by most just putting together the iPod and the iPhone in the most obvious of ways: click wheel iPod with phone dialing functionality. Oh wait, how do you dial? Let's propose a slideout keyboard, yeah, that's it! And half those interface mockups look like a PocketPC screenshot with an Aqua theme.
Imagine if Apple did actually put out such an iPod + clickwheel + keypad combo, behaving like an iPod + dialing features or behaving like a PocketPC/Windows Mobile phone of the era. It would be a flop in comparison to how well the iPhone actually sold.
The moral of the story is that it takes critical thinking to truly innovate (that, and a massive design effort that's focused on user experience and not a feature list).
Was the iPhone created by Steve Jobs in 7 days or was it a project that developed naturally during the course of time, by adapting to it's environment? Who knows...
I think it's more likely that they'll go without the "i", and just call it Slate. The Times editor said "slate." Yeah they've registered islate domains, but companies defensively register domains near their product name all the time.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
A high percentage of what was reported turned out to be hooey
... I'm holding out for the iHooey.
Have gnu, will travel.
And my grandpa's IBM laptop is still running strong, and it has had quite a bit of use. My laptop has no issues either, and that thing has been to hell and back.
SSC
It was affectionately called the Newton.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
My guess is that all of these people have great curiosity in how things function. We all like technology for technology's sake, but Linux/OpenBSD/Apple/Microsoft are just not our style.
Because the entire smartphone market hasn't been pushed towards releasing useable products since the release of the iPhone, right?
I agree that often Apple gets a whole lot of credit for improving on already existing ideas, but smartphones really sucked before the iPhone came out, and the rising tide lifted everyone's boat, and everyone is better off 3 years later.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
This time is going to be different though! This time Duke Nukem forever will ship with the iSlate.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Apple makes products that are, to my eye, of a generally better design, quality, and level of attentiveness and integration than your average Dell or HP or Motorola, etc.
My experience (admittedly anecdotal), has been that Apple makes products that seem, when you touch them, to be of higher quality, but they eventually break. Of all the computers I've had, the two macs lasted the shortest period of time before getting bricked. In both cases it was apparently a common design problem. I am really coveting the 27 inch imac right now (hideously overpriced for the specs, I know), but I honestly am not sure it's worth buying something that will probably break down in the next few years.
After all the rumoured name of the product: is-Late
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
All the stuff I care about syncs with the web (calendar, mail, notes+photos+voice memos app, task manager) so I don't much care about syncing with Linux.
iPhone syncs with Google everything and my Google everything can then sync with Evolution.
It's the first phone I've been able to get to do it that seamlessly, by the way. Others make all kinds of claims, but there are hiccups or unexplained issues or things just aren't updating or whatever.
With iPhone, everything is in sync and I never have to "sync," and to me that's everything.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Actually I think you mistook the subject I was speaking of, however reading back over my post (and using the main article as context instead of just the parent poster, as I was doing when I wrote it) and I can totally see how I would be misread.
I was not referring to the Apple vs Microsoft people nor THAT opinion being stated as fact.
I was actually referring to the people who literally post to every research article and say the same "This can't be used to make money, so those scientist guys are wasting all their time and money", and to the ones who post to every article on any new piece of technology (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Billy Jim Bob Soft, _anything_) as "I wouldn't like that so this product is pointless and should not exist" and such.
Personally I own and love my iPhone (jb of course), however most iPhone articles here are guaranteed to get a larger percentage of posts that *insert non-iPhone phone* is better and how it is... I have no complaint with opinions, and even don't mind (actually prefer) to know the weaknesses of the things I own.
Um. The iPhone is the only phone I've ever had that I didn't want to grind into the pavement with my heel. It's the only phone that I haven't actively hated. It's the only phone that was honest about what it could do well and what it couldn't do well. It is a great phone. A great phone.
The iPod was the only MP3 player I've ever had that wasn't a total piece of cheapo plastic Chinese junk. For some reason Slashdot people seem to want to drag folders to their MP3 player, which is fine for them, I guess, but I, like most people, really like having a nice piece of software that facilitates syncing what I want where. This is especially important when I have multiple family members going off of the same library. Add a music store that is now great (having a good bitrate and no DRM), and I'm a happy camper.
Whenever I see these bah-humbug posts about Apple's innovation, I just can't get my head around them. This is a company that--yes--has developed very little from scratch, but that's not the point. They've taken the theory of others and put them into useful practice. This is much, much harder. The phone I had before my iPhone had a way longer feature list, but many of those features were either such a hassle to use that I never did, or whenever I tried to use them, it crashed. In the iPhone, Apple created a phone that actually worked. In fact, they created one that "Just Worked," in a market where working at all was hard to find.
It isn't fanboys who have propelled Apple to the top of the heap in the markets they've entered in recent years; it's average people who just know that their products work well and are easy to use. It's sad to say, but that right there is innovation in a world where companies often push garbage out the door that isn't really ready to go.
Rather than deride the leader for not being technologically innovative, I wish people would scrutinize those who are technologically innovative, yet somehow manage to have their collective rear ends handed to them time and again by a company that skips a lot of the technological aspect in favor of QA and testing. What is wrong with everyone else?
I'm 100% in agreement with you about how great the iPhone is for keeping everything in sync. I sync with MobileMe and my company's Zimbra server--it's so great how everything "just works" (to borrow a tired Apple cliche, but it's really true here. I've been through Treos, and a couple of HTC models (8525 and Tilt), and they were nightmares in this regard.
But, it looks like you have no way to get music on to your iPhone (apparently not a big deal for you, and not for me either. I've got iPods for that). But what about firmware updates? AFAIK, there is no way to get them without tethering to iTunes.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions...competent and thoughtful users are one reason /. still rules over Digg :-)
:q!
When I bought my phone (HTC Touch HD) it was somewhat more expensive than the iPhone 3G. I still went for the former because looking at the features and at the freedoms, iPhone sucked in comparison. I never regretted that.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Though lately iMacs had great screens for the price. If you wanted to get the same panel "stand alone", it ended up at around the same price as whole iMac, supposedly.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Bullshit. Apple is perfectly game friendly. Game developers are not Apple friendly. WoW doesn't work on Macs because Apple did anything special, Blizzard just bothered to write a Mac version.
Oh definitely; as far as I can tell the 27 inch imac has a screen resolution you can't get in any other 27 inch monitors, anywhere.
don't excite me too much unless something seems broken.
I haven't had a single dropped call since going iPhone (despite Slashdot conventional wisdom, and in comparison to my Centro which dropped calls all the time) and I haven't jailbroken my iPhone or anything so I'm not too worried about security until I see a story on it.
I haven't worried too much about firmware.
With that said, I did install iTunes in my existing VirtualBox XP installation and as far as I know I have the most current firmware.
But it wouldn't worry me if I didn't and I don't sync often. I've done it maybe twice in a year, because everything is already "just working" and thus it doesn't occur to me to "sync" manually with iTunes.
I already had about 4GB of the "most important" music from my Centro (which was on a 4GB microSD card in that phone) that went into the iPhone with the first sync. I'm old enough that I already "have" all of my music; I haven't made a music purchase/addition in years (I ripped them all and LAMEd them up maybe 10 years ago) and that's that, I have all I need.
Despite the anti-iPhone rhetoric here, I've gone through a bunch of phones (Nokia models, LG flips, Motorola flips and smartphones, one Blackberry whose interface I wasn't in love with, and a series of Treos and a Centro) and the iPhone to me stands head, shoulders, knees, and toes above the rest for the "just use it and forget about it" factor.
It is integrated into my life in a way that none of the others ever were. I was always TRYING DESPERATELY to integrate the others into my data and scheduling and navigation life (especially the Palm devices, which seemed to have so much potential) but it was a perpetually unfinished project that took hours of my time every month and that I was always having to babysit (delete duplicates, see why X and Y weren't syncing, remember to sync regularly, blah, blah, update all of my sync stuff when I upgraded my Linux distro, etc.) and within 2 hours of getting the iPhone everything was set up to work perfectly and has been working perfectly ever since, total integration with zero babysitting.
I see people here saying "you can do all that with any phone" and all I can say is "Maybe YOU can, but I never could and I can with the iPhone and that's enough for me."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
your retarded, mac cares more about creating a machine for the "elite" and does not care about market share. Without that most major developers will lose money making games for the mac and retailers don't want to waste the shelf space. Mac would rather have the photoshopers that think they are gods gift to the universe, than go after mass market. So yes the hardware can handle games but Apple corp is not going out of their way to secure game titles on their system. I believe that makes them "not game friendly"...
i have to agree. But here's my rant first. skip to the bottom to get to my point.
my first experience with apple was in the public school system, i think we had apple II's. the interface was unwieldy and slow, there was no right click, i could navigate easier in DOS. Of course since then Mac's have improved, but the interface is still goofy. Easy there fanbois, i'm talking stock interface, not custom. The dock at the bottom is entirely useless, it doesn't close programs, only minimizes them, and doesn't display the active programs clearly at all. Plus the control bar (start bar, whatever) changing to the open program saves about 10 pixels of space, but takes extra hotkeys to return to the desktop and/or filesystem. This all on top of the fact that just about every aspect of the OS is held tightly under lock and key. So if you have any issues whatsoever with a program, your only recourse is to sit on it and spin. Give me Ubuntu or give me death.
On the other hand, apple makes amazing hardware. The iphone is slick, solid state, and speedy for a phone, with a pretty much intuitive interface (not perfect, but it works well enough) Likewise, the macbook pro's are just about the best built laptops you can find, with the best balance of battery life, performance, weight, and the aluminum chasis is just sexy.
If the tablet is even a fraction of what the rumors claim, (at least a multi touch, monolithic, solid state slate) it'll be a new market, and a huge one at that. I'll put up with apple interfaces if they keep delivering on the hardware.