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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.
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
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?
...there are rumors that they have purchased another vowel?
The uTouch sounds a bit creepy and ... mmmmmm that feels good...but this is wrong... don't stop...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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).
After all the rumoured name of the product: is-Late
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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?