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Steve Jobs To Keynote WWDC iPhone Announcement
Stoobalou writes "Apple's worst-kept secret will be revealed on June 7. A press release from Apple HQ has made it almost certain that the company will announce the new iPhone 4G on June 7, in our opinion, at least. The missive from Cupertino simply states that Steve Jobs will kick off the Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 with a keynote address. The thing is, Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce that will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'."
Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce which will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'.
Really? According to Wikipedia, Jobs has done the keynote every year since 1998, except for last year when he was out for health reasons. But hey, who cares about facts, let's just poke fun at those stupid fanbois!
For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.
A 3% global market share is your idea of a "large majority"?
Whatever you're smoking, it sounds like some powerful shit.
Living With a Nerd
Now see, I gave data to support my point (that others have higher sales). Do you have any data supporting that Apple has higher profits/revenues?
Just look at the revenues and profits of the companies listed on Wikipedia:
As you can see, every single company is making less money than Apple, except for HP. And I'll bet you that when you look up HP's annual financial reports, it will show they're not making that money in the PC-market.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
They're selling a gazillion iPads
I thought the number is closer to 1-2 million at this point. I've read expectations for about 7 mil over the course of 2010. Certainly decent number, even without the hyperbole or fictional units. Might as well get it right. Just to provide some perspective, there were 5.2 million Android OS devices sold in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2010.
cell phone providers
I'm confused, do you mean service providers, cell phone manufacturers, or OS authors? Apple is the last two, but definitely not the first. I'm going to assume that you mean the last one (an operating system author), the one that most people here care about.
Apple is gaining grounds on the higher ranked cell phone providers
Android OS phones beat iPhone OS sales last quarter in North America (source). As that article states, there are several reasons that this was inevitable, but most of those factors will still be in play in a year. More interesting than the fact that Android pulled out a small victory is the fact that it increased its market share so quickly. It didn't get a serious hardware contender until Fall 2009, and they already overtook iPhone OS in sales domestically.
"the lay people" are clamoring for more as far as I can tell
The above information should show that this isn't entirely true. There are a ton of "lay people" who have honestly become sick of Apple and their buffoonery. Merely as an example: my father has a 1st gen iPhone. He regularly has to use USB flash drives as apart of his job, and liked the idea of using his iPhone instead for USB file transfer. The iPhone, magically, does not have Mass Storage capability out of the box. One has to download an app to make it work, an app that wasn't around since day 1 of the iPhone. Even now, this probably isn't an app that an average "lay person" even knows to look for. My father knows that my mother's phone (an ancient blackberry) and my phone (a G1) both do this without a problem. Moreover, when he asks whether the brand new iPhones can do this simple task out of the box, the answer will still be a resounding "no". He has expressed to me that for this and several other reasons, he will not be wanting another iPhone to replace his current one when it dies. In conclusion, I agree that many of those annoying Apple issues that us FOSS people complain about will mean nothing to the average "lay person", but there are more issues than you think that are visible to your average smartphone user.
Android is accumulating an impressive list of features, but I still can't help feeling that it's coming at the phone platform in a wrong-headed fashion. I've been an iPhone user since the 3G first came out and have come to appreciate its simplicity. I go to Google I/O every year and each year I've tried to use the free phone(s) they give us as much as possible. And every time I come away feeling like Android would be a great OS on a larger form factor where the increased power it gives makes more sense, but not so great for a phone. Conversely, I have no interest in the iPad, but I'll probably get an Android tablet when it comes out.
Comparing Android and the iPhone OS is somewhat like an apples-to-oranges comparison (no pun intended)...the iPhone OS isn't really an OS, it's an application launcher whereas Android feels much more like a real OS. And I've realized I don't want a full OS on my phone, though I'll continue to give Android a chance to change my mind. I don't want to manage running applications on my phone so that the battery doesn't die after a couple of hours. At a minimum, I need Android to give me the ability to easily quit an application when I leave it rather than just dumping it into the background where I'll need to launch a task manager application to finally get rid of it. At I/O, I used both my iPhone and the Droid they sent us prior to the conference. When I'd get home at night, my ~2 year old iPhone would still have plenty of battery power whereas the Droid never made it through a full day at the conference without needing to be recharged. For me, empowering the user can't come at the cost of sucking the power out of the device.
On a purely feature-per-feature basis, Android does beat the iPhone. But it feels like those features have come at the cost of ignoring the little things that make using the phone pleasant. In addition to the clumsiness of task management, something as simple as the on-screen keyboard is an entirely frustrating experience when compared to the iPhone. Still, after using the EVO 4G they gave us, the hardware bar has been set and the new iPhone has to be pretty impressive to keep up, or I think we'll start to see Android take off based on the strength of the hardware alone.
And I want that to happen as much as anyone. I'm a Slashdotter...I like open rather than closed. And I've developed professionally in both Java and Objective-C and found Java to be significantly more pleasant to develop with. And I hate AT&T with a passion and would love to be able to switch back to T-Mobile or Sprint. Android would give me all of these things and yet I still can't get past the actual experience of using the devices. I want to, but I just can't agree with Gizmodo on this one...Android won't have leapfrogged the iPhone until it's at least as enjoyable to use as a phone.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"