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'."

Comments

Great. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we'll get another two weeks of constant and blatantly stupid speculation about this announcement here at Slashdot and basically every other tech site.

Really, does it matter what he announces? It's going to end up being a locked-down piece of proprietary shit anyway.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

It's going to end up being a locked-down piece of proprietary shit anyway.

Yes, but it will be a shiny locked-down piece of proprietary shit, so people will still buy it :p

Re:Great. :(

[ColdWetDog]

Wrong again.

It will be a magical, insanely great, shiny, locked-down piece of proprietary shit.

Get it right.

Re:Great. :(

[Himring]

As Jobs said in a 2007 interview: "so far, software coupled with its hardware runs better than software decoupled from the hardware that runs it." He said this sitting next to Gates ... they were coupled....

Re:Great. :(

[rolfwind]

Yes, but it will be a shiny locked-down piece of proprietary shit, so people will still buy it :p

It mostly does what people want. Shiny is just a bonus.

Re:Great. :(

[jackspenn]

Exactly, until they don't.

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars. My phone has a better resolution, a better network, tethering app, cheaper data plan, better data service, supports Flash, can run multiple apps at the same time, works with Windows, Apple and Linux, backs up my data online, lets me put apps and icons on my home screen how I want, etc. etc. If Jobs wants to be a contender he will need to do the one thing he hates most ... give up control to users and outside developers. If he doesn't get on other cell providers this year, it is game, set, match.

Otherwise, if he keeps going the way he is, he will be left owning 2-6% of the smart phone market with his 2-6% being users obsessed with devices they believe to shiny beautiful and magical.

Re:Great. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars

CRY HAVOC! and let slip the dogs of war - actually, I thought Google had just done that...

Or did you mean "*lose* the smart-phone wars" ?

Re:Great. :(

[negRo_slim]

Yay! Good for you! You found a device that works great for you. The rest of the world also has devices that work for them and does what they want their phones to do.

For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.

I like how they are devices now.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

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.

Re:Great. :(

[characterZer0]

I bet you think people who bought bellbottoms and hammer pants bought them because they worked well for them.

Re:Great. :(

[DJCouchyCouch]

Steve Jobs might lose the smartphone wars, might not. But he's gonna make a poop ton of money in the process.

Re:Great. :(

[James_Duncan8181]

'The iPhone still has a bigger share, at 15.4 percent (up 5 points), but Android is catching up fast with 9.6 percent (up 8 points). All other smartphones lost relative share during the quarter, even RIM Blackberries, although they still grew in absolute numbers.' - http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/19/iphone-android-25-percent/

How is this a 'a large majority of people'?

Re:Great. :(

[jo_ham]

My iPhone has tethering (no jailbreak), and I have a choice of carriers (no jailbreak), a cheap data plan (unlimited 3G and edge included in my plan, which is cost equivalent to the blackberry/HTC/WinMob handset plans), lets me put apps and icons on my home screen how I want (although not with widgets - that is a very cool feature of Droid that I wish he iPhone had), and my phone also works on Windows, Mac and Linux (jailbreak required for sync on Ubuntu though if I want it).

It's really not all that different.

I wish I could get those Android widgets on the iPhone. Those and Google's turn by turn app (the Tom Tom/Garmin/etc apps on iPhone are nice but expensive) are making me look at Droid as my potential next phone, and my contract is up in July. Let's compare on actual differences. Of your list, the ability to multitask with third party apps, and the ability to use Flash and the screen res were the only things that set your handset apart - the others being the same or totally subjective.

Re:Great. :(

[0100010001010011]

Define loose[sic] the market. Mac has "lost" the PC wars, yet Apple remains very much in the black.

Apple sold 2.94 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The company also sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 131 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. iPod sales came in at 10.89 million units, representing a one percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

"We're thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year."

As of this year, they're in the Top 10 companies globally for Market Cap.

WHO CARES IF THEY AREN'T #1! Apple set out to make good devices and a good UI for people. They're profitable doing so.

Then again I guess Kia, BMW, Benz, Chrysler, Renault, and Fiat are loosing[sic] the Automotive Market because they're not Toyota (1), GM (2) or VW (3).

Re:Great. :(

[BUL2294]

I'd consider an iPhone--if I wouldn't have to sell my soul to AT&T.

Gotta love AT&T. Years ago, they mailed me a phone bill for 3 cents.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

Last time I checked, Apple has both larger revenues and larger profits than any other manufacterer of consumer desktop and laptop computers on the market. I'd be happy to "lose" like that too.

Re:Great. :(

[Em Emalb]

Dude, that's of the ENTIRE cell phone market, globally. That's a shitload of phones.

Where's the Droid at on that list?

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

You know what the funniest part of your post is? Because I spoke poorly of Apple, you assumed that I'm using one of Google's phones (which I'm not). On top of that, we were discussing features, and you changed the subject to information, an entirely different topic.

What's the matter? Got nothing to say about the fact that, good or bad, Apple goes for the "walled garden" approach?

Re:Great. :(

[godawful]

I know a citation is needed and a quick googling of apple mobile revenue percentage didn't provide what I was looking for, but, whilst only having a 3& global market share, apple makes something like 90% of the global.

That may not be the exact percentage, but it is something truly ridiculous like that.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Dude, that's of the ENTIRE cell phone market, globally. That's a shitload of phones.

You're right, it is.

Where's the Droid at on that list?

Irrelevant. Stop trying to change the subject; lets focus on what you originally said.

You claimed that the "majority" have chosen an iPhone. I gave you a link that shows Apple is sixth overall for worldwide cell-phone sales. Sixth place and 3% of total sales hardly constitutes a "majority".

Or are you going to convince me that 3% is a majority?

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

I know a citation is needed and a quick googling of apple mobile revenue percentage didn't provide what I was looking for, but, whilst only having a 3& global market share, apple makes something like 90% of the global.

um...90% of the global what? I think you left a word out at the end of that sentence :-)

Re:Great. :(

[VGPowerlord]

Last time I checked, Apple has both larger revenues and larger profits than any other manufacterer of consumer desktop and laptop computers on the market. I'd be happy to "lose" like that too.

I don't know about revenues and profits, but in terms of units sold, the top 6 worldwide are HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, and Toshiba according to Gartner's 1Q 2010 report released on April 15th.

Re:Great. :(

[Enderandrew]

McDonalds didn't become #1 by making the best hamburger. McDonalds became #1 through marketing.

Apple has the best marketing. Don't count them out. And this is coming from a guy who owns precisely one Apple product, that I both love and hate.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

The article you're referring to can be found here (Dutch text, but the attached image / graph is in English).

It's data from 2008 and shows that RIM and Apple together have about 3% of the market share, yet make 35% of all the profits in that market.

Even more telling is mobile data usage, which exploded since the release of the iPhone.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

I don't think there are a lot of car manufacturers out there who consider GM a winner anyway.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

I really don't understand the hate, the iPhone, FOR THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO USE SMARTPHONES, is a great product.

There you go again, using that word "majority". Unfortunately, even looking at just smartphones, you are wrong. Scroll down near the bottom of the article. Worldwide smartphone sales have iPhone pegged at 15.4% market share for the first quarter of 2010.

So, again, we arrive at that little word "majority". See that name at the top of the list? Yeah, the one that says "Symbian" with 44.3%? THAT is the majority...because it's the highest number. It doesn't matter how much it dropped in the last year, it doesn't matter if you think it sucks, nor does it matter how much the iPhone increased. The fact is, as of right now, the iPhone is not the majority of cell phones being sold, whether it's feature phones or smartphones.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

So these guys are shipping more computers and making less money doing so, which makes Apple the loser? That's an interesting view on business.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Last time I checked, Apple has both larger revenues and larger profits than any other manufacterer of consumer desktop and laptop computers on the market. I'd be happy to "lose" like that too.

Considering how small of a market share Apple has, if what you are saying is true...doesn't that just mean they are way overcharging for the hardware they are selling?

I'm not sure recognizing that you are being way overcharged and liking it is a good thing to do publicly...

Re:Great. :(

[DomHawken]

yes - but judging by most of the people in the office here it _really_ is the software (stupid) combined with a hardware interface that my grandmother could learn to use faster than the alternatives. Make a tube of toothpaste with a bigger nozzle, you'll sell more toothpaste...

What phone are you using by the way? Sounds lovely.

Re:Great. :(

[DragonWriter]

The rest of the world also has devices that work for them and does what they want their phones to do.

For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.

Only if you take a rather...interesting...view of what constitutes a "majority", much less a "large majority". iPhone is #3 globally in the smartphone market, and #3 in the US, as well. Globally, Symbian is way ahead of everyone, RIM is next, and iPhone is close behind RIM; in the US, RIM is ahead, Android is #2, and iPhone is #3.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

So these guys are shipping more computers and making less money doing so, which makes Apple the loser? That's an interesting view on business.

Actually, if they are shipping more units and making less money, that means Apple is just ripping you off more than the other guys.

Have fun overpaying for your products! I'm glad you like getting reamed and boasting about it.

Re:Great. :(

[VGPowerlord]

So these guys are shipping more computers and making less money doing so, which makes Apple the loser? That's an interesting view on business.

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?

Given that Gartner only lists the top 6 PC companies by units shipped (and yes, Apple is included, as they are number 6 on the US chart), it's not an educated guess that since HP sold at least 3 times as many units as Apple, HP also has higher profits/revenues than Apple.

Re:Great. :(

[Dishevel]

Quit making him stick to facts! You are just supposed to let him continue spewing out words and accept them as they are.

Re:Great. :(

[ebh]

"We're losing money on every unit we ship, but we'll make it up in volume."

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

I don't know if Apple's market share is so much smaller comparing to Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer or any other PC manufacturer out there. But the real secret is of course that Apple is all about the "premium price point". Almost all of the computers they sell are in the $1000+ category, while the rest of the market mainly focusses on the low end.

Apple tries to gain a competitive advantage by offering better products, not cheaper ones like most other companies. You can agree or disagree on whether Apple is succesful at this, but it does lead to massive profits and revenues for Apple Inc. So calling this "failure" is a bit... strange, to say the least.

Re:Great. :(

[failedlogic]

Jobs probably doesn't care about market share. Well he does, but not to the extent he must have 8% vs 10%.

What Jobs/Apple wants is to try an make themselves a tech hub of a person. Need a cell phone? Buy an Apple. Need a computer? But an Apple. Need an 'ebook' reader? But an iPad. Need an MP3 player ..... all the way down to need Music, Movies and TV well since you're already buying Apple everything else, go on iTunes.

It isn't that they are making a considerable profit off everything. But buying Apple everything sure does, especially since for every device they sell you can also buy stuff off iTunes.

Re:Great. :(

[Eponymous Coward]

I like how they are devices now.

Me too. I look at my phone the same way as I look at my dishwasher or microwave. Yeah there may be a little computer running things behind the scene, but if the things are made well, the abstraction shouldn't leak that information.

Re:Great. :(

[oiron]

Yes, it would be rather difficult to run software that's no longer coupled to the hardware...

Re:Great. :(

[AndrewNeo]

Nono, it's like with the Zune. "The Social"! So, they have "The Global".

Re:Great. :(

[whisper_jeff]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars. My phone has a better resolution, a better network, tethering app, cheaper data plan, better data service...

*YAWN*

Sorry. Drifted off for a second there. You were saying something about it having less space than a Nomad and how lame it was. Please continue.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

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:

• Apple Inc
• HP
• Dell
• Lenovo
• Toshiba
• ASUS
• Acer

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.

Re:Great. :(

[frnic]

And how many multi-billion dollar businesses have you built by following your advice?

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

My sentence was poorly written. You're right, instead of majority, I should have said "a lot".

Had you said a lot, I would have agreed :-)

So yes, you're correct, it is not a majority. But in this space...is there really a majority?

Yes. Looking strictly at smartphone sales, the majority is Nokia, with roughtly 44%. The closest to that would be RIM with their Blackberries, which holds 19.4%. After that is Apple, with 15.4. Here is the link again, if you want it.

Also, my question is...do the people who came up with these percentages consider the entire world to be the "global cell phone market"? Because I'd say that there is a huge chunk of this world where ANY cell phone is a pipe dream for the majority who live there.

They only count countries that actually have cell phone service, although I don't see how that is relevant...since these numbers are divided by company and not country, if a country didn't have any cell access, then by default it wouldn't be included in the numbers because their sales contribution would be zero anyway...

Re:Great. :(

[rickb928]

If Apple can make a comfortable profit with their market share, that is success.

Jobs doesn't NEED to give control to the users if Apple is profitable. Now, show me what phone out there beats iTunes, cause it's all about iTunes.

Let me repeat - it is ALL about iTunes.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

You're right, according to Merriam-Webster using "majority" to mean "the most" is somehow obsolete.

You damn kids, with your changing meanings! Seriously though...how does the definition of majority get obsolete? It's not like it's a freakin' MiniDisk player...

Re:Great. :(

[retchdog]

I'd be surprised if the majority didn't think the iPhone was a great product, even if they haven't bought it. I think the iPod is a great product, apart from the minor detail that I'm cryptographically locked out of using it last I checked... My Sansa Fuze is sort of in the same ballpark but no, not quite as good.

Anyway, many of them just don't want to spend the money; hate AT already have something from work; are waiting for the old one to wear out; can't sync with linux; don't like running iTunes on Windows; &c.

Re:Great. :(

[UnknowingFool]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

Well that implies that Jobs wants to win the smart phone wars. Although Jobs has never said it I would guess his position is the same as the Mac marketshare: He doesn't care that Apple is #1 in marketshare. He cares whether Apple is making money and making good products.

My phone has a better resolution, a better network, tethering app, cheaper data plan, better data service, supports Flash, can run multiple apps at the same time

Of that list resolution, Flash, and multiple apps are under the control of Apple. iPhones can be tethered but not on AT&T's network. The other two are highly variable to which carrier you use. If you live in the US, it's AT&T only. For other parts of the world, you have more choice.

If he doesn't get on other cell providers this year, it is game, set, match.

The problem is that you're looking at from a purely US-centric view. And this prediction seems to fall along the same predictions about how the iPhone would never be successful because it didn't have all the bells and whistles of other smart phones. For the most part, the iPhone has succeeded because it was the first smart phone designed for consumers. All other smart phones before it were business smart phones slightly modified for consumers. Consumers don't really care much about the list of technical features your smart phone has. For the most part, Apple has shown consumers care more about usability than technical features.

Re:Great. :(

[MBGMorden]

Wrong. McDonalds became #1 by pushing cheap assed burgers well below the price of a decent burger.

When push comes to shove a much higher percentage of people are willing to get something that works, even if barely so, at a significant cost savings. Same reason why Wal-mart is the #1 retailer. I haven't seen a Wal-mart commercial in YEARS. Sometimes I doubt that they even have a real marketing department. They're #1 though, because while they sell junk, it's CHEAP junk.

The same applies to PC's. HP sells a metric ton of systems because their systems are cheap. Same with the other top few manufacturers. Together, they collectively stomp Apple pretty good.

Apple itself couldn't even survive without their draconian tying of hardware to their OS. When clones were licensed and they came with cheaper hardware even Apple's customers FLOCKED to the clone makers, nearly bankrupting Apple, because what most of them wanted was MacOS. Most couldn't care less what hardware the OS ran on. This is the reason why Jobs immediately terminated the clone licenses upon his return to the company.

Apple has basically just managed to create an OS so good that they can con you into paying 3x as much for a plain old computer with a "Can run MacOS!" flag set (and they've also convinced users to rejoice in the fact that they're overpaying for this hardware).

Sure, you can claim that "They're a hardware company.", but that's misleading. Let them drop MacOS (software) and sell their shiny machines with Windows and see just how fast that company tanks. They're a hardware company as much as a strip club is an alcohol vendor - it might be what they make money off of but people aren't paying $5 for a bottle of Bud Light because they just like the way you pour it.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Apple tries to gain a competitive advantage by offering better products, not cheaper ones like most other companies. You can agree or disagree on whether Apple is succesful at this, but it does lead to massive profits and revenues for Apple Inc. So calling this "failure" is a bit... strange, to say the least.

It's a failure of intelligence on the part of their buyers. Think about it:

A) Apple sells less computers than other companies...enough to be number 6 by volume.
B) Apple brings in (according to you) more revenue than most of those five companies in front of it.
C) Apple charges a higher average price for their products that use similar internal hardware as that of their less expensive competitors.

All things considered, that tells me that they are overcharging you for their products.

Re:Great. :(

[MrHanky]

No, it makes Apple's customers losers.

Re:Great. :(

[Em Emalb]

I said...For the majority of the market, meaning the majority of the smart phone market, the iPhone is a great product. I even capitalized the smartphone part of that sentence. I didn't say it was the end-all be-all of phones. I merely don't understand slashdot's group-hate towards what is, in my opinion, a great product. I think the majority of "the haters" only hate it because they see others hating on it and think it would be nice to be a part of that group, for whatever reason. I really don't care that some developers "can't" develop for it (even though that's a flat out lie) or that everything has to run through the app store. I don't care about any of these things because I'm not a developer. When it comes to phones, I am a standard end-user, and for me, the iPhone (or Droid, it has some cool features too) does everything I want it to.

Anyway, based off your link, I went and looked up a few things myself. Does everyone who buys a cell phone buy a smart phone? No, obviously not. Of the smartphone market, Nokia has the largest marketshare, at 44%. Android is a distant fourth, behind RIM and Apple. Are they gaining ground? Sure. But between blackberries, Droid phones and iPhones, Nokia has decided to get out of the market completely.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones-to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-2011/ --This link is for when smartphones are expected to over-take "regular" cell phones.

http://gizmodo.com/5418797/nokia-to-halve-smartphone-production-in-2010-official-suicide-watch-starts-now --Nokia getting out of the smartphone market?

I went to look for percentages in the US just to see what was what. I gotta say, I was rather intrigued by the results:

http://www.androidguys.com/2010/05/10/android-edges-apple-smart-phone-market-share/

Relevant quote: The Android train keeps gathering steam as evidenced by the latest report from The NPD Group. According to their estimates, Android has eclipsed Apple for second place in the United States in market share, behind Research in Motion. Android sits at a 28 percent share while RIM commands 36 percent. Apple trails in third with 21 percent.

Everything I was basing this off of is that of all the people I know, and the phones I've seen them with, exactly 1 guy uses an Android phone. Everyone else either uses a non-smart phone or a blackberry or iPhone.

Anyway, thanks for the links and whatnot.

P.S.: I expect, when Android gets a huge marketshare, for slashdot posters to start hating on those smartphones too, because that's the "cool kids" thing to do. Apple used to be "a great little company" that built quality computers and devices. Now, since they've had such huge successes, it's suddenly cool to hate on them. It gets old. I'm suspecting the majority of slashdot posters can't code Hello World properly and wouldn't know vi from emacs if emacs pimp-slapped them. (FTR, I am not referring to you in the above response, merely saying in general)
 

Re:Great. :(

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

My sentence was poorly written. You're right, instead of majority, I should have said "a lot".

So yes, you're correct, it is not a majority. But in this space...is there really a majority?

No, there is not a majority share holder in the global cell phone market. But if we're going with 3% share for the iPhone, then for every person who chose the iPhone, there are 12 who chose Nokia, 7 who went Samsung, 3 for LG, 1.5 for Rimm, 1.5 for Ericsson, and 7 who chose "other". Q1 2010 citation.

Apple has great PR and marketing, but they are still a marginal player in the overall cell phone market.

Re:Great. :(

[NiceGeek]

I personally haven't bought an Apple since I bought my 2nd gen Mini (which is still going strong) but I don't think Apple is "overcharging" they're a boutique PC manufacturer who produce a custom PC with an excellent OS. Boutique vendors often charge far more than the generic PC suppliers like Acer or HP.

Re:Great. :(

[MBGMorden]

Yes. Looking strictly at smartphone sales, the majority is Nokia, with roughtly 44%.

Nothing against you (I pretty much agree with your ideals), but just to be pedantic (since that's what the last 3-4 levels of this thread has been about), to have a "majority" you have to exceed 50%. If Nokia has the largest percentage at 44%, then no manufacturer has a majority.

Re:Great. :(

[Karlt1]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

Well considering that Apple basically owns the high end of the computer market where the profits are and that the only aim of a corporation is to make money. I don't think Apple lost at all.

Also Apple is currently the most profitable cell phone manufacturer in the world, I don't think either they or their shareholders are crying right now. Yes, the iPhone generates more profits than every Nokia sold worldwide combined.

If he doesn't get on other cell providers this year, it is game, set, match.

Apple is on other cell providers. You know the world doesn't just consist of the U.S. don't you?

lets me put apps and icons on my home screen how I want,

But it doesn't let you put apps on a MicroSD card that you just bought. Even the new HTC 4G coming out has a paltry 384MBs to store apps in even if you do buy that $200 32GB MicroSD card.

Re:Great. :(

[qortra]

Then again I guess Kia, BMW, Benz, Chrysler, Renault, and Fiat are loosing[sic] the Automotive Market because they're not Toyota (1), GM (2) or VW (3).

Apple, the Kia of computer manufacturers. Best analogy ever.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

Or it just means they have invested in their products (in the form of industrial design, their own operating system etc) and that investment is now paying off. Apparently people are willing to pay more for an Apple computer than for another computer. You could argue that's because people or stupid, or it's because Apple's computer are worth their price or a little of both. Who knows? All we know is, buying some Apple shares might be a good idea, because as a business, they're doing a lot better than the competition, even without having a large market share.

Re:Great. :(

[huge]

good UI for people

This. I really don't like Apple products because of arbitrary lock down, but I do have to give you that they came up with the best touch interface I have ever seen.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Me personally, I don't want an iPhone because of my problems with Apples restrictions regarding development and your freedom to use your phone. In all honesty, an iPhone would likely provide a better experience than the phone I'm using now...but I don't care. The only way I can show Apple my dissatisfaction with their methods is by voting with my wallet, which is what I've done.

Re:Great. :(

[Enderandrew]

McDonalds was not always the cheapest.

In fact, Burger King centered their marketing for the longest time on the fact that they basically matched McDonalds price point, but offered more beef for the same money.

McDonalds is one of the prime examples of clever marketing over quality. The other thing that was critical to their success was consistency. They use the same recipe and equipment everywhere. They are obsessive over making sure your coffee, burger, whatever is the same anywhere in the country. It feels safe and familiar. People prefer a safe, consistent experience over the possibility of a good or bad experience fairly often.

Apple is likewise obsessed with controlling the entire experience and consistency. You'll find that it goes hand in hand with marketing, brand loyalty, etc.

Budweiser is the same. they make a terrible beer but market it amazingly well, and establish a consistent brand experience. It is gotten to the point where Budweiser is so ubiquitous that most people don't even seem to know what real beer tastes like. They've been brainwashed to accept an inferior product.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

I know, I already adressed that in another post. Obsolete? WTF?

Re:Great. :(

[Enderandrew]

BTW, Wal-Mart spend 2.3 billion on advertising in 2008. The largest in the world is GM at 3 billion for a comparison.

Wal-Mart (like McDonalds) focuses very heavily on advertising and consistency.

Re:Great. :(

[intheshelter]

Jeez, refuting you people gets tiresome at times. . . "Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars." - You mean like he lost the MP3 player wars. . . .ooops, he won that one. How about how he lost the digital music store wars. . . . dang, Apple won that one too! . . . .Maybe it's time you woke up and realized it is not the 80's and the war you are using as your reference may not have much relevance in the market you are discussing? There have always been multiple manufacturers, multiple OS versions, multiple form factors in the cell market and I don't see that changing, nor do I see anyone owning it all. "My phone has a better . . ." - 5 words in and I can already see YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! The iPhone's popularity has nothing to do with point by point feature list comparisons. If you think that is a valid argument in this market then you obviously have no idea why the iPhone is popular to the average consumer. "If he doesn't get on other cell providers this year, it is game, set, match. " - Really? Care to put a firm timetable on your prediction? Maybe wager some money? Don't bet anything you're not prepared to lose. As one person on here has pointed out, I'm not too worried about the doom and gloom prognosticators, Apple has been about to die for 30+ years not and not only are they not dead, they are stronger than ever. "his 2-6% being users obsessed with devices they believe to shiny beautiful and magical." - I'm sure this ridiculous statement allows you to sleep at night, but the blatant truth is that is not reality. It goes back to my previous point, YOU DON'T GET IT. . . . Which is fine, you don't understand the market appeals of the iPhone then you aren't the target demographic, but in your attempt to explain away your own ignorance don't be a simplistic fool and something so ridiculously stupid.

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

A 3% global market share is your idea of a "large majority"? (Score:5, Informative)"

Alrighty then, you guys can't cry "monopoly" any more.

Re:Great. :(

[DebianDog]

Umm Apples to Apples or Smart phones to Smart phones is:

  - double last years sales

  - total market share over 14%

  - #3 maker of smart phones

more impressive?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/23/smartphone-iphone-sales-2009-gartner/

Re:Great. :(

[An ominous Cow art]

For a couple of months after I canceled my AT&T land line, they mailed me a bill for 11 (or thereabouts) cents. I ignored it.

Re:Great. :(

[Macrat]

Really, does it matter what he announces? It's going to end up being a locked-down piece of proprietary shit anyway.

Locked down just like the Android phones the cell companies sell.

Re:Great. :(

[burnin1965]

Let me start some speculation here.

Apple took a bold move when they dumped their outdated and technologically inferior Mac OS and rather than starting from scratch they used open source (FreeBSD) at the heart of their new OS.

Another bold move when the Apple browser Safari was again based on an open source core (KHTML).

So I predict this new iPhone version will make the same bold and logical move and be based on ..... Android 2.2!

Go Apple! :) /me ducks for cover

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Jobs doesn't NEED to give control to the users if Apple is profitable.

You, good sir, using only thirteen words, explained why I will NEVER own an Apple product.

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

Dude, that's of the ENTIRE cell phone market, globally. That's a shitload of phones.

You're right, it is.

Where's the Droid at on that list?

Irrelevant. Stop trying to change the subject; lets focus on what you originally said.

You claimed that the "majority" have chosen an iPhone. I gave you a link that shows Apple is sixth overall for worldwide cell-phone sales. Sixth place and 3% of total sales hardly constitutes a "majority".

Or are you going to convince me that 3% is a majority?

Funny thing, the vast majority of the phones on the list don't allow you to install any app you want, they don't multitask, they have a lower resolution than the iPhone, they have a worse network, they don't support Flash - in other words, the vast majority doesn't have what you say a phone needs. Instead the vast majority of phones fart in your general direction.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

::shrug:: defend it however you want. The fact is, they are selling less numbers of the same hardware, but making more money. If you can't see that means they are charging more than their competition for the same hardware, I don't know what to tell you.

I don't think Apple is selling the same hardware as most other PC companies. For instance, Apple is selling a lot of all-in-one desktop computers, which isn't big in the PC-world at all. Also, Apple is selling laptops with very long battery life, without sacrificing on the looks, weight and performance too much. That's the sort of stuff people will pay premium for. And that's why Apple is making more money than the rest.

And besides, if it's the software that people like so much, why not just build a Hackintosh?

Because of the same reasons the year of the Linux desktop has never arrived.

Re:Great. :(

[yttrstein]

Yeah, it is what I want. I've been doing comp/net security for twenty years. I don't want to "fiddle" with things anymore. I just want them to work, and stay the hell out of my way when they do so.

It's awesome that you haven't hit the point in your life that I've hit in mine yet... the point where you're just tired of compiling kernels, writing wrappers and patches to make things work the way you want, etc... the point where you want your computational device to quietly cough up its functionality without wrestling it's user into an inescapable web-of-tweaks, but it would be more awesome if you tried very hard not to poo poo those of us who participated joyously on the front lines of GPL and other, better open source licenses, but who now really just want to see some tits and go have a sandwich.

Re:Great. :(

[hercubus]

... Have fun overpaying for your products! I'm glad you like getting reamed and boasting about it.

When I buy Apple, I buy an experience. I feel like I'm getting good value for money. They charge a premium for that Apple experience, which translates into higher per-unit profits.

I look at it as a win-win.

Clearly, it doesn't work for you. There are still plenty of commodity configs and components for you to choose from, so have at it.

But please, spare us "you are getting reamed" as if we don't know better. We do know better, that's why we buy Apple.

I could say "enjoy being a bottom-feeder and boasting about it" but I'm just too super-cool for that sort of condescension (that big word means talking down to you).

Re:Great. :(

[sootman]

Wow, you really think that McDonald's became #1 for one reason only, and that reason was marketing? Well, you're wrong. Marketing is part of it, sure, but mainly, it's because they're a well-run business that makes things people want. They grew naturally, over the course of seven DECADES. It's simple, really--what used to be called "good business": make a store, make good things at a decent price, become popular, invest profits into more stores, etc. Repeat until you've become a multi-billion-dollar company with 31,000 restaurants in 119 countries and 47 million customers DAILY.

From Wikipedia: "The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant." [Emphasis mine] So yeah, all they did was invent a whole new way of doing business, much like Henry Ford did. But no, let's just say they only became #1 through "marketing" so we can look down our noses at them.

If you would have said "they make moderately OK food, really cheap and fast" you would have gotten no argument from me.

Re:Great. :(

[thestudio_bob]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars. My phone has a better resolution, a better network, tethering app, cheaper data plan, better data service, supports Flash, can run multiple apps at the same time....

I love seeing post like this. Because it highlights why people like you don't get it.

It's not about what features a product has or doesn't have, it's not about how awesome the hardware is. It's about the complete package. I mean seriously, by your analogy you will be buying new "hardware" every couple of months because companies are going to continually make things faster and more powerful.

You might like to point out that us Apple users are only buying the "shiny and magical", but look at the items you just listed... seems to me your the one being seduced to buy the "shiny and magical"

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

Not really, their software and its integration with hardware IS worth more than Windoze + box. I never met a Linux interface I liked.

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

Yep, the OS should be free, right?

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

I don't think Apple is selling the same hardware as most other PC companies.

Really? So they AREN'T using Intel CPUs now? They AREN'T using NVIDIA graphics now?

Re:Great. :(

[BarryJacobsen]

So these guys are shipping more computers and making less money doing so, which makes Apple the loser? That's an interesting view on business.

Actually, if they are shipping more units and making less money, that means Apple is just ripping you off more than the other guys.

Have fun overpaying for your products! I'm glad you like getting reamed and boasting about it.

Or that the people buying apple products are buying more add-ons, which are more profitable...

Re:Great. :(

[debatem1]

I really don't understand the hate

The idea of being locked out of a platform that's pretty good but could be so much better is incredibly frustrating to people with the desire and capability to make it their idea of better. Slashdot has a high percentage of such people. Note that Slashdot is also poorly representative of the population in general.

Re:Great. :(

[uglyduckling]

Yes! Bang on. I have to say, I'm really grateful to the people who've put so much into FOSS, but after 10 years I'm right with you. I replaced my Ubuntu desktop and laptop with a Mac Mini 2 years ago, and since then I've upgraded twice and now have a MacBook Pro for me, MacBook for my wife, an iPhone each with calendar syncing between the 4 devices, and I'm really happy. It all works great, I've so far never had a breakage after running software update, and I actually enjoy using a computer again.

I'm just about to put an order in to replace my MythTV setup (backend in the outhouse, frontend in the living room) with a Sky+ HD hardware DVR. Every upgrade of Ubuntu breaks something, and MythTV still has random breakage. I never thought I would have a fully closed/proprietary setup, but in all honesty I don't have the time to spend my saturdays messing around with stuff any more. If there was a polished and rock solid semi-proprietary turnkey MythTV setup available I'd go for it, but I don't think there is.

Re:Great. :(

[Draek]

If we define "winning" or "losing" based on marketshare (and, therefore, control of the market), yeah, it does.

And if we define it by profits, then the only kind of comparison that makes any sense, from an user's POV, is whether they're making or losing money, to see the chances of them being around next year. And in that respect they're all 'winning', but comparing market cap and such BS that'd only matter to a large investor stinks of "my daddy is bigger than your daddy!".

Re:Great. :(

[vladisglad]

You keep stating that it is the same hardware, but it isn't. Although apple uses some of the same commodity components as other manufacturers, but they engineer their products quite differently from others with an overall greater emphasis on quality. A4 chip residing in ipads is not "same hardware" that's in other tablets(laugh) and netbooks. The claim that they sell the same hardware as acer, hp, or dell is ridiculous. Apple earns higher margins on their consumer items because their products provide higher value, this is because of software and hardware integration. Other pc makers slap windows on their boxes while apple tailors their software to each device. That's what people pay extra for and thats how apple makes good margins, by offering something no one else can.

Re:Great. :(

[dingen]

Yeah, because all computers are equal when the brand of the chips is the same.

Look, it's clear Apple isn't for you. And that's perfectly fine, as there is a whole world out there and loads of manufacturers offering loads of different systems. If you don't like Apple and think their products are too expensive, don't buy them. Simple as that.

But you just can't deny that business-wise, Apple is doing better than most other PC companies. So apparently, they must be doing something right, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to pull off their strategy. It's either this or you seriously believe that every single Apple customer is a brainless moron who doesn't know he is being ripped off.

Re:Great. :(

[joebagodonuts]

That's funny. And it is a CAR analogy, to boot.

Re:Great. :(

[hydromike2]

The following is mostly unopinionated and uses actual cited facts.

Of the total cellphone market the iphone is around the 3% mark, although I do not have a source for this. You specifically said *smartphone market*, which according to http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore_Reports_February_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share and http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/02/google-makes-biggest-gain-in-smartphone-market-share.ars Apple holds 25 % market share. Now android may be growing fast but it will reach a market saturation point. It is worth noting that at launch, iPhones were $600 and Droids were $200 http://blog.flurry.com/bid/31410/Day-74-Sales-Apple-iPhone-vs-Google-Nexus-One-vs-Motorola-Droid and they had almost identical sales figures in the first 74 days. Granted, that is just the droid and not all android phones, but as my previous citations indicate, the iPhone still has greater market share despite lower priced android based phones on multiple carriers.

As far as your data plan pricing goes http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/splash/plansingleline.jsp?lid=//global//plans//individual for a 3g 'smartphone' you will need the $29.99 a month, exactly the same as an iPhone data plan. Even with sprint http://shop.sprint.com/NASApp/onlinestore/en/Action/DisplayPlans the base plan with unlimited data is $69.99 a month, same as iPhone. Im not going to bother looking at tmobile.

Not to open up a flame war but I need to make a quick point on how useful the ability to tether, use linux and flash, I will keep it to a minimal here. I do not mean just on one smart phone, if you are using you laptop, you are sitting down somewhere which in all likelihood has (free) wifi, mainstream consumers(read: non technically inclined people) have little use with linux(not to fault distros like ubuntu which will serve most users needs but most people do not want to learn something new), and flash is a good way to heat up my computer.

If you want to give citations for your 'better' network, 'cheaper' data plan(inexpensive was the word you were looking for, which I still think would be inaccurate) and 'better' data service, that would be nice. That does not include tv ads demonstrating 3g speed differences, some form of 3rd least biased party, please.

Re:Great. :(

[bnenning]

I replaced my Ubuntu desktop and laptop with a Mac Mini 2 years ago

Mac OS X is a great OS because it both "just works" and lets you tinker when you want to. It's baffling to me that Apple has convinced so many people that they have to keep an iron grip in order to provide usability, when half of their product line is a counterexample.

Re:Great. :(

[medcalf]

For a marginal player, they are doing an exceptional job of both capturing outsized profits and driving every other company's cell phone designs and features. They have changed the assumptions about what a smartphone is and in the process they have dramatically grown that market, as people who used to use the inaptly-named "feature phones" started buying smartphones instead. They may not be large in total cell phone market share, but "marginal" is the wrong word to describe them.

Now let's hope that Android can push Apple and HP, and WebOS can push Google and Apple, and Apple can continue to push Google and HP. Competition is good, and we'll be better off if no one ends up with a majority share of the overall cell phone market.

Re:Great. :(

[TheSunborn]

No not really. Apples profit for their desktop/laptops are not really that much higher then the 6 mentioned top sellers.

It is the iPhone and music players which bring in the money.

Re:Great. :(

[medcalf]

So would you be willing to use OSX if it was just on non-Apple hardware? Would a Hackintosh suit your needs? Or is that glowing logo a necessity for you?

If a Hackintosh provided the same experience, yes, it would work. However, you might note that a Hackintosh does not provide the same experience, because first you have to hack it together to work (hence the name) and then you have to do without support from Apple.

Re:Great. :(

[hoggoth]

Because building a "Hackintosh" is the exact opposite of what Apple customers want. They want to buy something that just works with no hassle and no effort. They don't want to tweak settings, wrestle with cryptic error codes, or compile kernels.
They are willing to pay a premium for that experience.

Re:Great. :(

[cowscows]

Even with the general decrease in prices over the past couple of decades, for most people the price of a computer is still beyond the blind impulse buy range. People are not blindly throwing down $1000+, and they're not somehow being forced into buying Apple.

Everyone's used windows, they know there are PCs available for cheaper than the average mac, yet they're still paying the money and ending up happy about their purchase. There's nothing wrong with that. They aren't being taken advantage of, they aren't getting reamed. They're paying more money for a different product than you would, probably because they have different priorities than you.

I'm all for paying less for things in general, but there comes a certain point where quality costs money. Because people sometimes choose to pay for that quality doesn't mean they're getting ripped off.

Re:Great. :(

[Gilmoure]

I've only had to bring up diagnostics once on my dishwasher. Turns out a valve on top of the system was stuck. Good to know.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

But you just can't deny that business-wise, Apple is doing better than most other PC companies.

Nor would I, as that would be foolish.

It's either this or you seriously believe that every single Apple customer is a brainless moron who doesn't know he is being ripped off.

No, but many of their customers have their heads filled with misinformation (as evidenced by plopping people down in front of OSX on non-Apple hardware...and not being able to tell the difference.)

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

You keep stating that it is the same hardware, but it isn't. Although apple uses some of the same commodity components as other manufacturers, but they engineer their products quite differently from others with an overall greater emphasis on quality. A4 chip residing in ipads is not "same hardware" that's in other tablets(laugh) and netbooks. The claim that they sell the same hardware as acer, hp, or dell is ridiculous. Apple earns higher margins on their consumer items because their products provide higher value, this is because of software and hardware integration. Other pc makers slap windows on their boxes while apple tailors their software to each device. That's what people pay extra for and thats how apple makes good margins, by offering something no one else can.

You do realize that Apple themselves produces practically none of their internal hardware...right?

Tearedown of the 3GS

iPhone mainboard.

Re:Great. :(

[joebagodonuts]

If someone is willing to pay, it isn't over-charging.

And to your other point made previously - for me it's the OS, not the hardware. A hackintosh would be fine by me, except for one thing; I have to work at it to make a hackintosh run. Probably not a lot of work, but still work. If I'm gonna have to work at it, I'd rather run linux.

The large part of my reason to keep buying Macs is I haven't had to do much of anything, except turn them on. For the most part it just runs. I work on computers for a living, it's nice to have something that doesn't require much care and feeding. Nice enough that I don't begrudge the money spent.

So - from your point of view, it's dumb to spend the extra money for the similar hardware. Makes sense. From my point of view, I'm spending that money so I'm not hassled, and that's worth the extra cash to me. It would be dumb to spend less money but have more of my time taken up with computer management tasks.

When I factor in the discounts available to me, the price gap is not very large. I don't think I could get a hackintosh cheaper than my current iMac.

Re:Great. :(

[Gilmoure]

That People of Walmart site can't be that expensive.

Re:Great. :(

[hmar]

Thanks for informing us that CPU and graphics are all that go into a computer. I always thought there was more. Do only idiots buy Dell Precisions? Those are also Intel/Nvidia chips, but cost more than there similarly speced Dell Insperon and Dimension lines. Could it be that other people value things you don't? Are you really so arrogant that you think only morons can have a different opinions or values? What a sad, narrow little world you must live in.

Re:Great. :(

[Gilmoure]

Damn it! Now you're making Apple sound like a boutique, all concerned with quality and customer experience.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

He's a terminal cancer patient now, though. So will his mausoleum be made of solid gold? Who will care in a hundred years except the grave robbers with their hacksaws?

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

I would go so far as to allow that Apple is the Fiat of computer manufacturers.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

You could at least have sent them a check for, say, $2.11. It would have cost them considerably more than the two bucks to issue your refund.

Then you sit on the refund check for five months before cashing it.

Re:Great. :(

[gander666]

As to your Budweiser example. I have hand brewed beer. Small variances in quality and quantity of the ingredients can have a surprisingly large effect on the final taste of the beer.

It is truly amazing that the budweiser that comes out of each brewery is so consistent, batch to batch, site to site. Their process control must rival Intel's, albeit in a different industry.

Since I had my heart attack, I am pretty much limited to light beer, and "bud light" is usually what I drink. Consistent (watery too :-() but tolerable.

Re:Great. :(

[bnenning]

Almost all Android phones allow you to run apps from any source, and to deploy your own code to your own hardware without begging for permission.

Re:Great. :(

[jjb3rd]

XBox360 and/or PS3 do a bang-up job...I was thinking today about ditching cable...I'm either on the damned computer or I'm watching a Netflix movie on the 360. If it weren't for the History channel, comedy central, and the stupid news networks (so I can keep up with the rest of the sheep). Oh, and for the record, I just got a Macbook Pro (the new ones, and my first Mac) and I've been asking myself why, why did I wait so long to just have my damned computer work (with the exception of running out of memory which Windows actually handles better). It's really great, I love it. I'm going to get my son one for Christmas as long as he keeps his shit together. I just set up an Ubuntu server and I'm kind of wishing I spent the extra 200 bucks on the mac mini server..oh well, next round.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

Is Apple's product so bad that you have to rely on their tech support regularly?

It's been over a decade since I had to do the Tech Support thing with any product I've owned. I will say, however, that I got an iPod Touch a few months ago...

Re:Great. :(

[Overzeetop]

That's what I thought, too, until I bought an iPhone. If you think it's the useless, but cute, device they released ~3 years ago, you're dead wrong. Is it perfect? Hell, it isn't even close. But it's functional with VERY little setup time. I was going to address every point above, but suffice it to say that - short of tethering - none of the rest of it matters enough to, well, matter.

More importantly, most phones won't operate on all the US carriers - there are at least four different, incompatible high speed data options. The only difference with the iPhone is that there isn't a "similar" model for Verizon just around the corner. But you can't get an Incredible on AT&T, or a Nexus One on Verizon (at least not as of a few weeks ago).

Re:Great. :(

[hierophanta]

the meaning of the word 'majority' can change in relation to its measure -

in this case: if you are measuring against the percentage of [global] sales there is not a majority leader (as previously said Nokia is closes with ~44%)

if you are measuring relative to the other phone manufacturers then Nokia does have the majority of their market

yes, this is a silly logic game to turn the meaning of 'majority' into the 'most' - but i believe it is logically sound YMMV

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Thanks for informing us that CPU and graphics are all that go into a computer.

I never said that. What I said is that they use the same CPU and GPUs that "windows" PCs use. CPUs and GPUs (obviously) aren't all that makes up the hardware of a computer, but they are a part of the major indicators for overall performance (the other three being motherboard, hard Drive, and RAM...none of which Apple manufactures, either.)

From that point of view, Apple hardware (as in, the internal hardware, not the shell it sits in) isn't much different from its competitors. Sit someone down in front of OSX running on non-Apple hardware, piped through an Apple monitor, and they would never know the difference. That's my main point here.

Could it be that other people value things you don't? Are you really so arrogant that you think only morons can have a different opinions or values?

Right back at ya. People are free to like Apple all the want...just as I'm free to think they are idiots for doing so. They don't understand why I wouldn't want the integrated experience, and I don't understand why they want to spend more money for the same (internal) hardware.

We are both equally free to express our opinions...which is exactly what I'm doing, and exactly what you are doing. Yay, conversation!

What a sad, narrow little world you must live in.

I wish it was a little more narrow...I'm still carrying around that holiday paunch :/

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

For a marginal player, they are doing an exceptional job of both capturing outsized profits and driving every other company's cell phone designs and features. They have changed the assumptions about what a smartphone is and in the process they have dramatically grown that market, as people who used to use the inaptly-named "feature phones" started buying smartphones instead. They may not be large in total cell phone market share, but "marginal" is the wrong word to describe them.

See, now THAT I completely agree with. Regardless of my personal opinion on their products, the affect they have had on the market can't be denied.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

They aren't using SATA drives, and all the standard 'glue' chipsets now, either. Didn't you hear? SCSI is the best, better than all the rest. And let me tell you about a little secret: AltiVec! It's magic. Also RISC vs. CISC. It's a magical difference.

Let's not even broach the topic of one button mice.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

Shouldn't you be out on the sales floor trying to sell the shitty corinthian leather option to those Cordoba customers?

Re:Great. :(

[microbee]

but who now really just want to see some tits and go have a sandwich.

What, has Jobs reversed his policy of 'do no porn'?

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

However, buying a Hackintosh is exactly what many customers would want. Without the attached fucking lawyer dongle, of course, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Great. :(

[hawkeyeMI]

Funny, I recently switched back to Ubuntu (and Android/google web apps) from Mac stuff for largely the same reasons. It felt like OS X started being neglected once the iPhone became a big money-maker. Depends on your specific needs, I suppose. I'm still doing nixy things all day, so stuff just works better on a full-blown Linux machine. I switched workstations not too long ago, but before that I was running Linux on a Mac pro that formerly ran Leopard. Regardless, I don't see myself switching back to Windows any time soon.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

Yes, but their engineers wave magic wands over the design plans before they're shipped to the same board stuffers who do all the other pc clones.

I am old enough to remember the scandal when Apple started using IBM OEM hard drives. The Mac user community shit enough bricks to build a stadium. They'd been trained 'IBM Bad, Apple Good' for years.

Re:Great. :(

[ukyoCE]

It's funny how you keep getting stuck on the idea that paying more for a better product = overpaying.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

That's just it though, I personally don't think that it is a better product...hence my opinion.

Re:Great. :(

[Bing Tsher E]

tethering, a cheaper data plan, better data service... thos are 'shiny and magical'?

Well, it would be fucking magic to get that on an Apple branded cell phone. We appear to agree on that.

Re:Great. :(

[rickb928]

The point is, they won't miss you for a moment. Your freedom will not equal punishing or costing Apple in any measurable way.

And do go ahead, buy something else, like I do. You don't need to make them suffer to enjoy your choices. But railing against Apple (or any other successful company that diminishes you) is pointless. Get over it. They will do fine without you.

Now, I dare you to find a substitute that has a measurably better attitude. Google? Microsoft? Any cell company? Any call phone/player/netbook maker? All are compromised by profit.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

The point is, they won't miss you for a moment. Your freedom will not equal punishing or costing Apple in any measurable way. And do go ahead, buy something else, like I do. You don't need to make them suffer to enjoy your choices. But railing against Apple (or any other successful company that diminishes you) is pointless. Get over it. They will do fine without you.

Sadly true, but it's still the only tool I have to express my opinion on the matter (other than trolling slashdot, of course)

Now, I dare you to find a substitute that has a measurably better attitude. Google? Microsoft? Any cell company? Any call phone/player/netbook maker? All are compromised by profit.

True, but with my WinMo or Android phone, I still have control over my own device...not the other way around.

I can deal with being motivated by profit, that's totally fine. I can't deal with duping people into believing they have a good user experience while simultaneously restricting them. I especially can't deal with a company restricting people more and more and laughing all the way to the bank while they do it.

For some people, that restriction is what makes the experience good. I am not one of those people.

Re:Great. :(

[Macrat]

Almost all Android phones allow you to run apps from any source, and to deploy your own code to your own hardware without begging for permission.

http://www.androidguys.com/2010/03/28/att-planning-lock-android-handsets/

http://www.cooltechzone.com/2010/03/29/att-locks-down-another-android-phone-dell-aero/

Re:Great. :(

[yttrstein]

Precisely. Other famous #1's from the annuls of history:

Budweiser
Microsoft
Ford
Bose
Schwinn
AT&T

It seems to me that #1 doesn't have too much to do with quality of product, but of effectiveness of marketing.

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Alrighty then, you guys can't cry "monopoly" any more.

Define "You guys".

I may not personally like Apple as a company, nor do I like most of their products, but I have never once claimed they were a monopoly in any market, either online or in person.

Re:Great. :(

[uglyduckling]

Good stuff. By the way, what did you mean about running out of memory? I've never had that problem and I regularly have Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and Photoshop running with seriously large files. Did you mean hard drive space?

Re:Great. :(

[uglyduckling]

The thing is, I think something like the iPhone needs to have fairly tight control as it's limited memory, limited battery, limited processor power. It's usually fairly obvious on a general-purpose computer what is causing the crashes; my experience with the Palm Tx is that it was often not obvious what was causing crashes or draining the battery, so I'm very happy with a controlled environment on the iPhone.

Re:Great. :(

[VGPowerlord]

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.

Forgot the topic of conversation, did we? Here, let me remind you:

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

Last time I checked, Apple has both larger revenues and larger profits than any other manufacterer of consumer desktop and laptop computers on the market. I'd be happy to "lose" like that too.

The numbers you quoted are for all sales across all departments. And you apparently realize that with your comment on HP.

Sorry, but you still haven't shown Apple's numbers for their "computer desktop and laptop computers" business. You'd be hard pressed to, seeing as how Apple doesn't release those numbers, only how many units they sold and their total revenue / profits.

I'll still go through some of the numbers you listed, though.

According to HP, during fiscal Q2 2010, it made $10 billion (of their company-wide $30.8 billion) in revenues in its Personal Systems Group (i.e. Desktop/Laptop PCs) with a $465 million operating profit.

According to Apple, during fiscal Q2 2010, they made $13.5 billion in revenues (across the entire company) with a $3.07 billion profit. Did I mention this is across the entire company yet?

Having said that, Apple does have more details in their (PDF) 2009 10-K (Amended) form. According to it, across all of 2009, their total revenue on Macs was $13.9 billion. Which would be an average of $3.5 billion per quarter. However, I don't see where in this document they say how much the Mac division made in profit. Instead, they have the average price of Macs sold (which incidentally is $1,333; down 10% from 2008's $1,478). Side Note: These numbers includes their XServe server line.

According to Dell, during fiscal Q1 2010, their Consumer and Small Business groups made a combined total of $6.7 billion in revenues, with an "operating income" of 330 million (Dell doesn't list profit per department). This is not counting their Large Enterprise or Public (health care?) divisions.
       

Re:Great. :(

[Draek]

So do I, but that's why I got a regular, cheap phone instead. If you're buying a Smartphone then treating it as a mere appliance, well, I'm sorry but you're doing it wrong.

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Define "You guys".

I did. Re-read my post.

Re:Great. :(

[Draek]

And when you buy at Hot Topic you're not buying clothes, you're buying an image.

Re:Great. :(

[TrancePhreak]

"But it doesn't let you put apps on a MicroSD card that you just bought. Even the new HTC 4G coming out has a paltry 384MBs to store apps in even if you do buy that $200 32GB MicroSD card." It does if they update it to 2.2, just like the Nexus 1 has now and can put apps on the SD card. Even before this, some devs got smart and put their media on the SD card (the actual program isn't going to be very big).

Re:Great. :(

[gorgonite]

Well, if you are willing to shell out 100$ for the developer license you *can* develop whatever you want and you can even install it on 100 iPhones. You can even distribute the source code. You can't distribute the binary through the appstore, unless they are accepted by those censors. However, I'm not sure that RMS' favourite freedom is about distributing binaries.

Re:Great. :(

[jackspenn]

T-Moble: $21.25 is what I pay a month for data, it is the T-Mobile Android monthly plan $24.99 unlimited data (have wifi tether that works any wifi device (even your Ipad, works in parks and car which don't have hot spots)

Using Speed Test app for Android, here are the numbers it reports from when I have run it on cell network not wifi (all times are Central).

5/24/10 3:15PM 1241kbps / 114kbps
5/10/10 4:13PM 569kbps / 416kbps
5/03/10 3:16PM 1145kbps /111kbps
4/26/10 11:30PM 2779kbps / 309kbps
4/12/10 4:18PM 1574kbps / 95kbps
2/18/10 9:31PM 565kbps / 418kbps

Also your numbers don't prove or disprove anything, the Apple II was a huge hit, but in the end Apple lost. Just like with the PC wars, where you had Microsoft selling software to various hardware vendors and developers having more access and openness to Microsoft APIs then they did from Apple (who had the head start), the same will be true this time around with Google giving away software to hardware vendors and developers and Apple being just as closed as ever.

Also look at the app store, even though Apple claims to have more apps, it actually has less types of apps, you cannot have tethering apps or Flash apps or porn or background services, etc. See you have lots of similar apps but that doesn't mean you have more kinds of apps. If you want to write an app for your iPhone, you need to have an Intel based Mac. What is a big barrier to entry. When you can program on any OS for Android. You have to let Apple have access to your source code and they can deny apps for a slew of reasons, there is no such barrier with Android.

Apple is a fascist company run by a thug.

Course for the record I may be wrong and you could be right. There are a slew of idiots out there, it basically comes down to how many people want to pretend they are cool/hip and get an iPhone versus how many people out there want a phone they gives them freedom and choice like with Android.

Re:Great. :(

[jjb3rd]

No I mean RAM...I have 4GB on my MacBook Pro (Core i7). I have to run Virtual Machines for work...sadly Windows development. Anyways, I use VirtualBox because I'm cheap and I've had the best luck with it under Windows and Linux (i.e. it's faster than VMWare). But when I crank up 2 VMs with iMovie churning away and I've used up all 4GB...shit gets kinda ugly and it crashed my machine once, so I've been a bit timid since then to max it out. The 8GB upgrade comes tomorrow though :)

Re:Great. :(

[johnnyk126]

Are you sure that they have all that income from MAC sales? I can believe that DELL has, but definitely not apple.

So far it was well known that they almost went bankrupt selling computers and they survived on iPods and iTunes. And now they are mostly phone seller.

Actually there was article recently (unfortunately I don't remember where) saying that they just made more selling iPads than all MAC models combined.

I can agree on everything apple is, but not a successful computer manufacturer/seller.

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

Probably not since the only thing I've seen from the big box manufacturers is...what...no taste. Besides, comparable systems from outside Apple are not all that much cheaper. I upgrade about every 3 years at work and about every....oooo....10 years at home. I suppose I'm about due there.

And I'd be worried the integration isn't very tight and since Apple can make changes without consulting the box manufacturers, it would be subject to breakage.

Does this mean I'm locked in? Yep. Don't care, it does what I want when I want and seems to last forever. The only reason I upgrade at work is for fast machines, much like any PC person. Also, I've been on Macs since they came out. My research life is built around them by choice, I simply like the way they work.

How come you were marked down to troll? I don't agree with that. I thought you had a legitimate question about why someone like me doesn't switch. I don't switch because price isn't everything.

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It's baffling to me that Apple has convinced so many people that they have to keep an iron grip in order to provide usability...

Not to me, it's not. The iPhone is the first phone I've had in nearly 10 years that I can, for example, rely on as an alarm clock. Let me clarify what I mean by 'rely' on: I mean that I set it a year ago to wake me every weekday and it has done it without fail. My previous phones, Treo, Windows Mobile, Motorola POS, all failed on me in one way or another. Either they'd forget to actually go off or, and here's the best bit, they'd freeze. I could never get rid of my alarm clock because of those stupid things. (Boy I love waking up early on Saturdays.)

After having used the other phones* I am not the least bit surprised that Apple severely restricted what gets published on the phone. It wouldn't take more than one or to fuckups for me to say 'fuck it' and go back to just having a plain old phone. Look how quick ppl jumped off of Treo and Windows mobile to go Apple or Google.

* ... except Android and Blackberry. I would *love* to hear from somebody that has had an Android phone for a few months and can tell me things like "yes, it's reliable as an alarm."

 

Re:Great. :(

[Pojut]

Because I was, admittedly, rather inflammatory with my posts elsewhere in this thread.

Re:Great. :(

[rxan]

If I hear him say magical at this announcement then it damn well better be able to cast a level 5 ice bolt!

Re:Great. :(

[bnenning]

Yes, AT&T are being their usual pricks. But even on their crippled phones you can apparently install arbitrary apps using the Android developer tools.

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

It's baffling to me that Apple has convinced so many people that they have to keep an iron grip in order to provide usability, when half of their product line is a counterexample.

Where has Apple ever claimed "they have to keep an iron grip in order to provide usability"?

Re:Great. :(

[UnknowingFool]

The CPU and the GPU are only 2 components in a computer. While the other components may be similar but not exact.

Take for example, HDs. Even if Dell and Apple chose Hitachi to be their laptop HD supplier, they might order different models. Both of the models might have the same basic configuration like size, SATA interface, rpms, but there may differences which cause them to cost and perform differently. Apple might order the more expensive model with different internals and a 5 year warranty and Dell might order the less expensive model with a 3 year warranty. The more expensive model might have a higher profit margin for both Hitachi and Apple and this gets passed to the consumer.

Now apply this to every component from capacitors to MB material. The components may cost a little more, but Apple will also charge a little more.

One obvious difference you can notice is the laptop are uni-body aluminum on a MacBook Pro. That will cost more to make than Dell generic laptop. And MacBook Pros cost more than the generic Dell.

As the consumer if you don't carry about the material and want to spend less, you can choose the Dell; however, bear in mind, that the plastic Dell components may need to be replaced sooner than the aluminum Mac components.

One of reasons Apple chooses higher quality components is that they want to spend less on repairs, especially warranty repairs. This also helps their reputation and image as well.

Re:Great. :(

[rickb928]

"True, but with my WinMo or Android phone, I still have control over my own device...not the other way around."

When was the last time you tried to update the OS on your WinMo phone? Much open source software for it? If your phone doesn't support WinMo v whatever, you generally ain't gettin' it. When WinMo 7 comes out, you will hear the gnashing of teeth as everyone finds out their 6-month-old phone won't do it.

My Android phone (G1) is a different matter. If you're willing to root it, you can get a lot. Since Froyo is not coming to the G1 officially, I will have to root to get the goodies. No idea if Flash 10.1 will actually work on it, but the modders are very clever.

"I especially can't deal with a company restricting people more and more and laughing all the way to the bank while they do it."

The description "a company restricting people more and more and laughing all the way to the bank" covers a lot of ground. I hope you've managed to avoid all you can, utilities and employers excepted.

Re:Great. :(

[UnknowingFool]

I never said that. What I said is that they use the same CPU and GPUs that "windows" PCs use. CPUs and GPUs (obviously) aren't all that makes up the hardware of a computer, but they are a part of the major indicators for overall performance (the other three being motherboard, hard Drive, and RAM...none of which Apple manufactures, either.)

I guess my point would be you are looking at the wrong metric. You're looking at it from a performance basis of CPU cycles and fps. Others here are pointing out that higher quality parts mean more than pure performance. If two PSUs models perform about the same but one routinely lasts twice as long as the other, would that be a higher quality PSU? Most people would say yes. It is generally true that the higher quality one will cost more.

From that point of view, Apple hardware (as in, the internal hardware, not the shell it sits in) isn't much different from its competitors. Sit someone down in front of OSX running on non-Apple hardware, piped through an Apple monitor, and they would never know the difference. That's my main point here.

You are also looking it from pure function and not other metrics. Also unless you in fact know the details of all the components and manufacturing that went into an Apple and a competitor, you don't know if the difference is worth the extra price. Sure some components like the GPU and CPU can be compared easily, but comparing details like whether Apple used higher quality capacitors on the MB, the thickness of the solder joints, the material of the MB, etc is harder unless you happen to do it for a living.

Re:Great. :(

[aralin]

As for the "you are getting reamed" part. I find out I spend at average 2 hours a week doing maintanance stuff and being prevented from work by various windows activilties. The 10 minutes a day while my harddrive is locked out by the anti-virus, answering stupid dialogues, looking for stuff in obvious places just to not find it there, the day of reinstalling windows and all apps after a major breakdown divided by the number of weeks it actually worked. All these and more are things I don't have to deal with on Mac. To me this time is worth real money. Even if I cut it in half and say just one hour a week at $50 per hour is $7,500 over the 3 year lifespan of the computer. Microsoft would have to pay me approximately $5,000 a year before I would consider using their software. This is what I call the Microsoft tax on productivity. That is the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Microsoft was so adamant for us to look at when talking about LInux as alternative. So I took a hint and looked at it and switched to Mac the next day. (Away from both Windows and Linux)

Re:Great. :(

[Falconhell]

"I'm glad you like getting reamed and boasting about it."

Good job they round the corners eh?

Re:Great. :(

[gad_zuki!]

>I just want them to work, and stay the hell out of my way when they do so.

I just want flash to work. I just want apps that have been rejected for adult content. I just want tethering.

See how that works? Its not working for me. In fact, Apple is going of its way to make it not work for me. I'm so sick of the "it just works" marketing speak. Its simply not true.

Re:Great. :(

[tyrione]

It's going to end up being a locked-down piece of proprietary shit anyway.

Yes, but it will be a shiny locked-down piece of proprietary shit, so people will still buy it :p

Can we please keep our personal sex lives to ourselves?

Re:Great. :(

[swfranklin]

For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.

A 3% global market share is your idea of a "large majority"?

Try a 25%+ US market share of smartphones. Pedantically speaking this is a large minority, not a majority, but either way it's a lot of phones.

Re:Great. :(

[VisceralLogic]

Apple, the Kia of computer manufacturers. Best analogy ever.

I'd say Audi is a better analogue. Major components are shared with their VW brethren, but overall quality is nicer.

Disclosure: I own a Mac and and Audi.

Re:Great. :(

[dangitman]

When I buy Apple, I buy an experience.

That's weird. When I buy Apple products, I'm buying computers, software, music players, phones, etc. If you want an "experience" then maybe you should be spending that money on hookers instead?

Re:Great. :(

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

You mean like how Apple's market share is slowly, but surely increasing, and that they're one of the most profitable computer makers? I wish I could lose like that.

Re:Great. :(

[dangitman]

Yes, it would be rather difficult to run software that's no longer coupled to the hardware...

I compile and execute C code in my head, you insensitive clod!

Re:Great. :(

[nomadic]

Disclosure: I own a Mac and and Audi.

And a sufficient supply of black turtlenecks I'm sure.

Re:Great. :(

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Marketing helps, but it sure as hell isn't the main reason Apple are so successful.

Re:Great. :(

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

People don't spend as much time evaluating fast-food as they do buying a computer. You can't really compare them like you have.

Re:Great. :(

[yttrstein]

If your nixy stuff works better on a linux machine than on a POSIX compliant, certified UNIX (TM), then I'm pretty sure you're doing it wrong.

Re:Great. :(

[evanspw]

Apple are 7% of computers sold (by revenue), but they make 35% of the total profit made on computer sales. See

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-profit-share-of-top-pc-vendors-2010-3

Re:Great. :(

[Rob_Bryerton]

Protip: Use of "Protip" just makes you look like an arrogant, douchebag fuckwit who gets off on gloating over others about how smart you are ;)

Re:Great. :(

[Enderandrew]

Computers are cheaper than cars, and yet as many as 70% of people who purchase new vehicles say they purchased from the same brand as before.

Brand loyalty is pretty huge, and is established via marketing.

Re:Great. :(

[g00set]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars.

I don't think Apple believes this needs to be a "war" where victory is determined by market share. They have nice margins, continuous growth year over year and plenty cash the bank ($50 Billion USD) all with a relatively small market share.

IMO Apple eats their own dog food and is going to continue making devices it wants to make, which at the moment aligns nicely with a profitable set of established and satisfied customers.

Re:Great. :(

[gmhowell]

You need to understand that the computer is more than just the hardware. It is the hardware AND software together. From that perspective, to those who buy Apple's products, a MacBook Pro and a Lenovo are not substitute goods.

Slapping a rondel on a Yugo does not turn a Yugo into a BMW.

Seriously, your arguments are rightly referred to as trolling or flamebait until you cease willfully confusing 'computer hardware' with 'a computer system'.

Re:Great. :(

[mjwx]

Jobs is going to loose the smart phone wars just like he lost the PC wars. My phone is cheaper

TFTFY.

Most people will just buy the cheapest phone, or the best phone you can get on the cheapest contract they can get. Fully featured Android phones like the Desire and Nexus One are already cheaper then Iphones.

Re:Great. :(

[Drathus]

but just to be pedantic (since that's what the last 3-4 levels of this thread has been about), to have a "majority" you have to exceed 50%.

Incorrect. Unless you're talking a majority between two parties.

Otherwise you need > (100% / numberOfParties)

Re:Great. :(

[beakerMeep]

And who has the largest mobile app market?

Also, you know, discussing unfair trade practices is a complex concept, and there really isn't much value in ideas like "you guys can't call shotgun because I already called it"

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And who has the largest mobile app market? ... Also, you know, discussing unfair trade practices is a complex concept...

Hehe.

Re:Great. :(

[hawkeyeMI]

I understand what you're saying. DarwinPorts is great (and before that I used Fink). I used all the nixy stuff on OS X for a long time (since it came out, actually), but as Linux is (dare I say this here?) the dominant nixy platform at the moment, it's easier to do it on Linux. Stuff just compiles, without having to futz with all of the differences between Linux and Darwin. Furthermore, I'm preparing software for deployment on Linux systems, so why set up a virtual machine when I can just run the relevant environment?

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

If you think its a good idea to lose money on a product, fine by me - just don't expect a company that follows you to last long.

The funny thing is: you certainly didn't buy anything from Apple when they were losing money - and their marketshare was also much lower. Maybe you should save the money on a "Hackintosh" or any other PC and invest in a decent education.

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

You do realize that Apple themselves produces practically none of their internal hardware...right?

Neither does pretty much anyone else - and when Apple did, you sure were among those who complained about "proprietary parts".

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

Apple itself couldn't even survive without their draconian tying of hardware to their OS. When clones were licensed and they came with cheaper hardware even Apple's customers FLOCKED to the clone makers, nearly bankrupting Apple, because what most of them wanted was MacOS.

Not really, even at the hight of the clone era the clones only sold 15% of what Apple sold. http://lowendmac.com/musings/mm07/0830.html

1997, 2.8 million Macs from Apple - biggest year for clone sales, estimated at 400,000 units.

The problem was they sold 4 Million Macs as well as 275k clones in 1996. The clones simply didn't increase Mac OS marketshare - the fact that the cloners didn't even try to sell them to non-Mac users didn't help a bit.

Re:Great. :(

[kklein]

Yes.

I started out on the Mac in high school. Then, in college, when I got into computers themselves, I switched to building my own and tweaking. I used them for 10 years and had a lot of fun breaking and fixing things.

Then my career really started going, and I didn't really want to fiddle with crap anymore. I just wanted to hit spacebar, do work, put the thing to sleep, and have no problems.

And here I am, back on the Mac, and enjoying it. All the PCs are gone from the house. My wife still, out of habit, asks me if it's okay to agree to a software update, since I had trained her to be suspicious of them for so long. Just yesterday, I said, "You know, you don't really need to ask me. Apple basically never breaks your computer with an update, and they don't install weird crap. Just run it." It's nice to feel like a customer and not an enemy, even though I only bought one copy of Snow Leopard for our machines.

Also, I most certainly can tinker on my Macs. This Mac Pro is highly customized. One of the things I really like about MacOS is that, even without getting on the command line, you can tailor so many behaviors to your liking--without breaking anything. Keyboard shortcuts, man. They're done right here.

Lately, people are conflating Apple's approach to their information appliances (iPods, iPhones, iPads) with their approach to the Mac platform, but it's totally different. Apple stays out of your hair on the Mac. If you want to fiddle with things, there are many other MP3 players, smartphones, and upcoming slate devices that you can buy--and you can use them with your Mac. As the Steve said, "if you want porn, get an Android." However, I actually really enjoy the user experience of my iPods and iPhone. I don't want to tinker with either of those. I understand that some people might, but those people can buy something else. Or hell, they can jailbreak. It's really a non-issue.

I know that many of the people here are Linux folks, and I really like the idea of Linux. I keep Ubuntu on a VM just because I like playing with it. But I don't want to have to depend on it. I don't have the time, and I don't have the desire to do upkeep. I need to focus on my job, and that job--although it requires a lot of computer use--is not related to the upkeep of computers.

Re:Great. :(

[Lars T.]

BTW, Wal-Mart spend 2.3 billion on advertising in 2008. The largest in the world is GM at 3 billion for a comparison.

Wal-Mart (like McDonalds) focuses very heavily on advertising and consistency.

For what its worth: Apple's add budget 2008: $486 million

Re:Great. :(

[MBGMorden]

Wrong. What you're referencing is called a plurality. A *majority* has to have more than 50% of the total.

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, if you are willing to shell out 100$ for the developer license you *can* develop whatever you want

I very much doubt the license allows that.

and you can even install it on 100 iPhones.

Wow! 100 of them! </sarcasm>

You can even distribute the source code.

Nope. The license most explicitly forbids that. As I understand it, the only way you can distribute the app at all is either personally and directly to those 100 phones, or via the App Store.

I could be entirely wrong on that -- it's possible that this only applies to binaries -- but even among open source programs, being available only in source form is a significant annoyance, and I'm fairly sure even that is forbidden.

Yes, I Google'd it, couldn't find an answer in 5 minutes, so I'm giving up for now. You made the claim first that you can distribute the source, so maybe the burden is on you?

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

From the "support" I've gotten from Apple, I can say with confidence that it wouldn't be missed.

No, what I'd be afraid of is Apple deliberately breaking it with the next update. Yes, Steve Jobs hates DRM... except on software.

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

I find out I spend at average 2 hours a week doing maintanance stuff and being prevented from work by various windows activilties.

What makes you think Windows is the only alternative?

That is the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Microsoft was so adamant for us to look at when talking about LInux as alternative. So I took a hint and looked at it and switched to Mac the next day. (Away from both Windows and Linux)

You don't mention why you switched away from Linux. Did you actually believe Microsoft's TCO numbers?

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

the only thing I've seen from the big box manufacturers is...what...no taste.

If that's really what matters to you, I suppose Apple has the best, from a certain point of view -- though PCs do come in a lot more variety.

Besides, comparable systems from outside Apple are not all that much cheaper.

The first thing every Mac power user will tell you about buying a Mac is, "Don't get your RAM from Apple."

So no, I don't buy that, especially when you don't necessarily need a comparable system. As a trivial example, where's Apple's competitor to the mainstream PC? They have all sorts of odd compromises -- Mac Mini, iMac, etc -- but when you get right down to it, the closest thing to an actual desktop computer in terms of form factor, upgradability, and expandability is a Mac Pro. And while you can spec a Mac Pro that's only slightly more expensive than a comparable PC, you can also build a PC that's almost as fast and half the price.

Also, I've been on Macs since they came out.

That would suggest you haven't seriously looked at the alternatives. I had dismissed the Mac out of hand as a platform until I used one for about a year, mostly because I'd bought a Powerbook to run Linux on, but Linux wouldn't work and OS X ended up being not that bad. I also used Windows XP for about a year (after Vista and before 7), and found that while I have a list of annoyances even longer than the Mac, it's not as bad as I remembered from 98 or even 2K. While I'd never be happy with it, I could get used to it, and it handled keyboard navigation much better than the Mac.

Now, as you said, you're locked in, so this might be more difficult for you, but I don't think you can pretend it's either a particularly frugal decision or a particularly well-informed one.

Re:Great. :(

[Lemmy Caution]

My G1: it's not only reliable as an alarm, it can be damn cool as one. And there is an app that even optimizes it as an alarm by letting it drop into very low power mode when the battery is running low, yet still work as an alarm clock.

When I first got my G1, I was somewhat disappointed with some of its limitations. Most of those limitations have been overcome, and its openness (including the subtle yet real cooperation between Google and home-brew types like Cyanogen) have contributed to its improving. I started out treating it as a "poor man's iPhone" - I got it because I don't like AT&T more than I admired the iPhone UI. At this point, however, I have no interest in getting an iPhone - my next phone will be an HDSP+ capable Android-based one.

Re:Great. :(

[kersten78]

I'd rather be a bottom-feeder than someone who pays twice what I do for the same hardware and calls it an "experience".

If you had used Apple hardware for any length of time, you would understand "the experience" for which many users are willing to pay a premium.

If you tick off the individual components on a specifications sheet, you might see "the same hardware". Everyday use tells a different story. Take an Apple laptop as an example. As a long time ThinkPad user, I'm familiar with the feel of quality hardware, and the build quality of Apple's laptops make the ThinkPad feel creaky and rickety. I had long ago realized the value of paying a premium for a ThinkPad over a consumer Dell or Acer or Toshiba, etc. But now, after using Apple hardware (even to run Linux or Windows), a ThinkPad for roughly the same premium isn't even a consideration.

You may pay half as much for your hardware, but for me, it's worth paying a premium knowing I have something that will last. Not to mention the rather solid unix OS that comes bundled with it.

Re:Great. :(

[Lemmy Caution]

Of course. They have no competition (for systems which run MacOS.) PC makers compete with each other. When you have no competition, you can raise prices as high as the market will bear. The golden road to profit.

When they shut down PsyStar, they kept the cash cow mooing without missing a beat. If other hardware vendors were allowed to sell Mac OS X compatible systems, their profits would drop.

Re:Great. :(

[evanspw]

You are right about that, but if it's the golden road to profit, why isn't anyone else doing their own OS and hardware combo?

That's easy to answer. Because if Dell or HP or someone tried it, Microsoft would jack up the price they charge for Windows (a Dell or an HP wouldn't give up it's windows based product lines). This is the long-term outcome of Microsoft's infamous business practices, which turns out to be great for Apple, leaving the road clear for them to be the only major alternative in the desktop/laptop space.

Re:Great. :(

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Brand loyalty and marketing are different things.

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

They do boast marketshare if they can, though (with however narrow criteria). And sure, if their idea is to sell only to "premium" people...

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Thank you for sharing the info with me. :)

Would you entertain a few more questions?

1.) Have you had to deal with having your phone freeze or stop working (i.e. not receiving calls) to where you've had to reboot or pull the battery?

2.) Have you had consistent battery life? (Obviously it varies on how you use it, but my Treo was moody about that in ways my iPhone has not been. Even not being sure of what I mean by the question is a useful answer.)

3.) Have you found the process of finding and installing apps is done as nicely as the iPhone's? If not, at least better than say Windows Mobile? I ask because I bricked my first Treo installing an app and until the iPhone came along I had not found it to be very easy at all to find and install apps from mobile devices. Any insight you can share here would be most appreciated.

Thanks again for your time

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

Nokia alone sells more portable media players annually than the total number of iPods ever produced. Nokia Ovi Store (y'know, music) gained recently greatly in Europe, will overtook iTunes rather soon; and that's not an isolated case (heck, iTunes or for that matter iPods hardly existed in most of the world)

When looking more long-term and at broader spectrum of markets (I know, not promoted by stockholders, but...) things might still be stirred up a bit; what happened with outright domination from Apple II era? What happened with total domination of publishing market? "iPhone is popular to the average consumer" if by "average" you mean some small subset of "premium" people from "premium" places...and that's the case already. Apple doesn't even want to target "lesser" people.

Re:Great. :(

[Lemmy Caution]

Your premise is incorrect, though: Dell and HP both sell Linux-based systems. Making Microsoft the villain of the piece is misguided: if Microsoft made its own hardware and forbade anyone from running its software (including Office - and then using the dominance of office to seal the deal) on anything else, the analogy would apply.

Re:Great. :(

[dafing]

Yes, $100 USD extra for White (unless its a MacBook, and then its about $200 USD for Black) and another couple hundred for the Anti-glare option :)

I say this despite knowing I'm a day one buyer of the next iPhone, I'd even import it to NZ to jump the queue here (I imported my Original iPhone, and my iPad...meanwhile, NZ *STILL* doesnt sell the iPad)

Re:Great. :(

[Lemmy Caution]

1. Yes - after I installed an experimental build of Android. :-) Never with a stock build, nor with a "stable" build of Cyanogen.

2. Consistent, but mediocre. The G1 is sub-par for battery life. However, it isn't random, so that I can fairly safely predict how long it will last. Other HTC/Android models have better battery life.

3.Finding apps is easy. Installing them is pretty good, although if you are running an Apps2SD utility (that lets you install software onto external memory, instead of the internal memory store) there sometimes is a little lag in installation. To answer your question, very nearly as nice as the iPhone and much nicer than anyone else.

I do pay the price of a couple quirks to run home-brew versions of the OS. The reason I installed the CyanogenMod initially was to root the phone and use it as a WiFi access port - a bit of functionality that makes my iPhone-owning friends very, very envious, when I drop my phone on the ground in a public space and tell them that they can log into it with their laptops.

There are still some bits of polish which I think the iPhone has over my G1, and I think that's largely because of the relatively underpowered CPU. Apple is good at managing the split-second responsiveness of its UI better, and I don't see that changing too quickly. And to this date, I think that the iPhone still occupies a lot of mindshare, with some developers and vendors targeting it for niche products that aren't targeted on Android (though I feel that is changing quickly.) But app installs do not brick Android phones as far as I can tell. There is a kind of solidness "under the hood."

All that said, I wouldn't get the G1 today, and to be honest, if I were about to go on the market for a new smartphone and money wasn't an issue, I'd wait for one from either HTC or Motorola that supports HSDP+.

Re:Great. :(

[gaspyy]

It's because it's not "real" beer, that's why it tastes so atrocious.
Budweiser is not beer, it's a soda drink with beer flavor and some alcohol, so you shouldn't be that amazed that it tastes the same everywhere - you never wondered how Coca Cola pulls this off...

Americans, when you come to Europe, do yourself a favor and try some real beer (no, imported stuff doesn't count, it still sucks)

Re:Great. :(

[drinkypoo]

I'd say Audi is a better analogue. Major components are shared with their VW brethren, but overall quality is nicer.

You mean, cosmetic quality. VWs and Audis share the same platforms and engines, only the decor changes, which is a perfect description of current Apple hardware compared to the typical PC. It's all based on reference designs as much as possible, and it's all assembled by Foxconn (or similar, but in Apple's case, mostly Foxconn.) But VW has only used the latest and greatest engine perhaps once, with the W12, and the hot shit now is an Audi; Apple has seldom used the latest and greatest CPU, and IIRC has only done so once since they went PC.

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

The road is clear (well, partially) only in the segment of "premium" people, living in "premium" places, though. More and more of the world population gets in the game. Apple is not interested in such "lesser" people, though (just look at that disparity between 7% in reveniu and 35% in profits...)

Which might of course work, profit-wise, for some time; but after a while network effects could take over. Where is the huge domination from Apple II days? Desktop publishing?

Re:Great. :(

[dafing]

I know you guys in the US see the iPhone as not tethering...but cmon, its just that crappy network...nothing to do with the iPhone itself.

Re:Great. :(

[evanspw]

The PC business is a race to the bottom now, for everybody. High margins are never coming back on hardware, software is getting cheaper, and if it's not cheap, it's pirated. There are a few standout niches, but in overall terms, they are vanishing small.

Apple is betting the farm on pads and portable devices. Which is a bet worth taking. But it requires a way of thinking about computers as appliances, which is not the slashdot way.

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Thank you for your time and your up-frontedness. You have given me a lot to chew on when it comes time to get my next phone.

Thank you and have a good week.

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

Even if the "appliance" approach would prove valid...what makes you think it won't become "a race to the bottom"?

Plus with portable devices it largely already is (few selected "premium" markets excluded so far). However big iPods seem to be in the US and few other places, in most of the world...well, I think I could count the number of times I've seen an iPod on the fingers of one hand (that's excluding my iPod of course); "feature phones" are the standard (heck, for a few years already Nokia sells more digital media players annually than the total number of iPods ever produced up to that point) - and that's in a reasonably prosperous country in the EU. Guess the world at large. Similar deal (but even more pronounced) with mobile phones, Nokia sells an order of magnitude more of them, annually, than the total number of iPhones ever produced. Close to 2x more Symbian smartphones, also "annually vs. total" (even when being in the early stages of switching its users from S40 to Symbian). And the above figures are just from one manufacturer (the largest, sure...but Samsung, #2 with 21% so around 270 million devices shipped each year, bets big on their bada OS - don't be surprised if, in a year or two, over half of Samsung phones will be smartphones)
"Pads" will get soon WebOS, ChromeOS, etc. devices (plus those can actually have proper screens for such usage, from Pixel Qi)

Besides, the term "race to the bottom" doesn't really make justice to what is happening. At the end of 2008 there were 3 billion mobile users. At the end of 2009 - 4.6 billion; now probably around 5. Most of those people without easy means of communication previously, often getting their only way to access internet (Ovi Mail is the fastest growing email provider; Opera Mini is, worldwide, the #1 mobile browser by usage / webpages stats; despite the fact that many of its users tend to be cautious with the amount of browsing - data access is expensive, and when you add wages disparity...). "Race to the bottom" really seems like a poor choice of words when describing such monumental shift for humanity, with great potential for bringing much progress (but somehow "investors" don't value that; even though that will also improve "investments"...). Apple demonstrably doesn't care about the humanity undergoing that shift, they distance themselves from "lesser" people; possibly even freeriding on developments of essential technology making those things possible (depending on how the patents dispute will end).

The digital divide will become smaller, not larger; that's unavoidable.

Re:Great. :(

[evanspw]

"Race to the bottom" is specifically about the business of making and selling PCs. The profitability is getting slowly lower as more and more of the hardware is commodified and produced at near zero cost. Similarly, fixed location network services (cable, ADSL, etc) are also low margin in the rich world. PC manufacturers have a hard time convincing customers to upgrade anymore.

For mobile devices, the hardware was long ago commodified, but the way in which profit is extracted from the whole device ecosystem is different, and, as you point out, also works well in the poor world. That's the key, and why service provision hasn't become a race to the bottom yet. There's still scope for expansion and innovation to keep prices high. For how long, I have no idea. But I think at least a decade while touch interface mobile devices up to A4 size mature.

Why should Apple give a shit about anything except extracting profits from well off people? It's not as though they are going away any time soon.

Re:Great. :(

[phooka.de]

Ah... you don't get it. In fact, you don't get OS X.

The main benefit of OS X is that it just works. It can do so mainly bevause Apple controls the software and the hardware.

Without OS X, Apple hardware would lose a lot of customers, that's true. Mind you, it would still be some of the most beautifully designed hardware out there, but I doubt that people would be willing to pay the premium.

But likewise, without the hardware, OS X would be far less compelling. There's be driver issues, compatibility issues and (a point that's often forgotten) apple innovates by introducing siny new stuff that requires software and hardware components to "just work".

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

My point was that the term itself has some peculiar connotations. C'mon, "bottom" - what does that ring typically? Why not "race to more" (customers), etc.? That's what this also is, with profound implications for the future of humanity.

I don't think hardware has been commodified quite yet. Using the mentioned example of Nokia - people actually value them for sturdiness, great battery life and reception, easy operation (yes...you might not believe it, but that's their common reputation), etc.; those things mostly carry over also to their smartphones. And it does have value - Nokia actually rarely has the cheapest devices in a given class; most people can find something affordable, yes, but often not the least expensive device, for the class of it (Nokia smartphones being sort of the exception...but only because the cheaper ones are pushed more and more as a replacement for S40, not a "premium" device for "premium" people).
You're wrong about pricing (btw "extracting" profit is another nice term...), it also works differently throghout the world - US carriers are quite...specific (and US has fairly small mobile phones penetration). Plus in many areas the rule is to own your phone and rely on prepaid, no contract. Even on Slashdot it seems to be a common consensus that European or Japanese carriers give much better deals...

And sure, extracting profits from "premium" people is nice. It becomes a bit perverted when, among the "real" factors (which exclude expectations or impressions...), it's the only one which "investors"/markets seems to appreciate. What about, say, the societal benefits of the "lesser" 70% of our planet having those means of communication, giving great opportunity for global progress? (which benefits greatly people who are already "well off", too) Those who continuosly provide that, and who contributed greatly to development of underlying technology, often forgotten...
And in the meantime the "premium" people live way beyond their means anyway (X axis)

Re:Great. :(

[rhook]

That's what you call circle-talk, its meant to mislead you into agreeing with him.

Re:Great. :(

[dintech]

I've only had to bring up diagnostics once on my dishwasher.

Must... resist... wife joke.

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

Nonsense, I've used other systems and have generally been appalled at the way they work. We regularly must use the Defense Travel System on a Windows XP box. Yuck. There are many windows boxes here at the lab that similarly have the horrible stench of MS software no matter what they are running. The Linux boxes I've used weren't much better. I even bought yellow dog Linux for my Mac and dual booted for awhile. Eventually I realized I really, really disliked the way it worked.

You seem to make your decisions on the price of RAM and whether it runs Linux. How often do you upgrade RAM? I have bought RAM and not from Apple. I don't understand what that has to do with Apple equipment in general.

Re:Great. :(

[Karlt1]

I just want flash to work.

Well, it's been 3 years since the first iPhone came out and Flash still doesn't just work smoothly on amy phone even one with a 1Ghz processor. What hope did Adobe ever have of getting Flash to work on the first or second generation iPhone?

Re:Great. :(

[Karlt1]

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?

Do you really need someone else to post data about the profits and revenues of publicly traded companies?

Re:Great. :(

[Karlt1]

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.

Actually, HP is also making less money.

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:HPQ&fstype=ii

Wikipedia is wrong (shocking I know).

Re:Great. :(

[gander666]

I have been to Europe, and have tried several beers in many countries (I remember a particularly nice white bitter in Darlington, UK).

Regardless of what you say, American Budweiser is beer, it is brewed with barley, rice yeast, water and hops, just like beer on the continent, and it has its following of fans. It is not atrocious, it is a pale blond lager, lighter than most that you see on the continent.

Oh, and I have also had Czech Budweiser. Fabulous, and much better than its bastard cousin in the US.

Re:Great. :(

[English French Man]

I've never had any problems with my three succeeding Nokia phones used as alarm clock myself. In 9 years And I relied exclusively on that. Android does the trick now, with virtually no problems in sight, except when I erroneously set the volume of the alarm to 0 (that was my bad actually). It has not been long enough for me to "rely" on it, so my Nokia phone without a sim sits near my bed "just in case", I would be doing that too if I had an iPhone for just a few months.

Re:Great. :(

[sznupi]

If both those companies are operating mostly sustainably, that means the "more profitable" one is freeriding on the fixed costs of infrastructure and manufacturing of crucial parts, financed almost exlusively by "less profitable" ones. That is, strictly speaking, ripping off; one of unfortunate side effects of the ways in which our markets are set up (and just look at the mess of the last 2 years if you have any doubts they are less than optimal). The huge group driving technology towards commodity is what enabled the infrastructure, not some manufacturers targeting only "premium" people.

It's possibly even more blatant freeriding in the mobile phone market... (depending on the outcome of patent dispute)

Re:Great. :(

[PowerBook2k]

I just want flash to work

On what handheld platform does Flash just "work"? Even Android 2.2 doesn't have Flash out of the box.

I just want apps that have been rejected for adult content.

Fair point.

I just want tethering.

Apple wants you to have tethering- the software has supported it since 3.0. Carriers around the world do it- AT&T won't.

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

I've used other systems and have generally been appalled at the way they work. We regularly must use the Defense Travel System on a Windows XP box. Yuck.

I agree, but have you used it as your default system? I had to use it more or less exclusively for long enough to force me to learn to use it effectively. Once I did that, it wasn't that bad.

The Linux boxes I've used weren't much better. I even bought yellow dog Linux for my Mac...

Never tried Yellow Dog, and IIRC, it's dead now. (Also, I remember it being free -- you bought it?) How long ago was that?

You seem to make your decisions on the price of RAM and whether it runs Linux.

Nope, these days, I base it on whether it runs Linux, and the overall price and support for what I'm getting.

I have bought RAM and not from Apple. I don't understand what that has to do with Apple equipment in general.

RAM is a small part of it, but it's an example of the kind of ludicrous markup you can expect from Apple. You even admit this, by not buying it from Apple. Does Apple support third-party RAM?

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

no. I mostly does what Apple implies that ti's all any phone could possible due.
Shiny isn't a bonus. Shiny is exactly why the iPhone is popular.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

So what you are saying is that I can get an iphone and tether it out of the box, but it will be slow?

NMO? Tethering isn't allowed you say?

Dumb ass.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

I do remember people trying ti excuse away there over prices purchases.Using pretty much the same argument iPhone users are starting to use.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

Could that be because the PC market is segmented into many different manufactures?

Don't be an idiot.

That's like saying IBM has the largest revenues of IBM hardware, therefore there number one computer seller.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

"But please, spare us "you are getting reamed" as if we don't know better. We do know better, that's why we buy Apple.

at least yuo're admitting you're getting reamed.

Also, you are getting reamed.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

If Apple quality is so high, then why do they need good support?

Re:Great. :(

[rcuhljr]

Wiping out the 4 mods I was going to make to post this, but I can offer some information. I've had my droid for a bit over 4 months, never had the alarm fail to go off. The phone has locked up once since I got it but that was obvious and easily corrected. That was when it was on 2.01, my provider pushed out 2.1 and I haven't seen any hiccups since.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

Stupid comparison.

TO do a real comparison as a computer product, you need to look at PC/Windows market Vs. Apple Market.

I can find a buggy manufacturer that has a higher profit then some auto makers. That doesn't make buggies the number 1 vehicle, or even mean buggies are more reliable.

I also see MS missing from that list. How much money does Apple make for selling it's OS?

By your metric, Windows must be superior to OSX

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

Market experts disagree with you, but go on.

Like McDonalds is the only company to push cheap ass hamburgers.

But they are MORE expensive then the equivalent. In fact there basic burger is far less substantial the the dollar equivalence elsewhere.

In the 80s, there was a hamburger place called 29 cent hamburgers.
The same burger as McDonald most basic burger; which was 49 cents at the time.

If it wasn't through a multi-million dollar marketing campaign that has run year after year, they would have lost to other cheaper chains.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

Budweiser is a great beer under the right circumstances. IT you are on the river, and it's 120 out believe me, you don't want a dark think beer. You want something thats cold and you can drink lots of.

Of course, we are talking about something that's subjective here. For example Guinness is a nasty beer that only appeals to people who think beer is supposed to be oatmeal think bitter ass.

Re:Great. :(

[geekoid]

"Well considering that Apple basically owns the high end of the computer mark"

Define High end. If you mean 'expensive' then sure. If you mean performance computers then..no. IF you mean durable then....no.

Here isa list of the top500. Grouped by OS:
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/34/os

I see MS, but no Apples. Curious for a 'high end computer'

but maybe they have a different name, so lets look by vendor:
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/34/vendors

hmm. strange. Not there either.

Dell is there, so is IBM. odd. Of wait, there is Apple..no my bad, thats Appro.

Fine, you like pretty self contained boxes. I have no problem with that, but and performance arguments went out the window when they went with OTS intel.

You do know that the US is there most profitable piece, right? Do you also know that Apple cow tows to Chine and the iPhone doesn't have Wifi in China? Meaning it's not really th same product.

Funny, the new release of Android will let me store apps on my microSD card.

And I can get 32GB under 100 bucks.

Re:Great. :(

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Fantastic! Thank you for taking the time (and the mod-points) to reply.

You all have succeeded in elevating my interest in Android. I believe your time (and mod-points) were well spent.

Re:Great. :(

[Enderandrew]

There a variety of styles of beers. Let's compare apples to apples, because a Guiness is a completely different beast from a pilsner.

If you want a refreshing beer when it is hot outside, a Sams Summer or Blue Moon is light-years better.

If you insist on drinking a pilsner style beer you could go with a Moosehead, Sams Noble Pils, Pilsner Urquell, etc.

Budweiser is terrible, not only in that American pilsners aren't very good, but also in the fact that it is a terrible American pilsner.

Re:Great. :(

[yttrstein]

Then... erm... DO NOT BUY IT.

Where's the argument? Your needs are clearly met by a number of devices that are not made by Apple, and I never quite understood why this argument exists at all. Are you trying to say that Apple has an ethical obligation to make the exact device that YOU want?

Re:Great. :(

[Eponymous Coward]

The web browsers on those phones are normally pretty awful.

Anybody who has a non-rooted iPhone has a smartphone appliance. Are they all doing it wrong?

Re:Great. :(

[colmmcsky]

I have had my Nexus One for three months. Yes, it's reliable as an alarm.

Re:Great. :(

[dafing]

Drop the attitude, dont you have better things to be doing that posting snarky (and wrong) comments all day?

Check *this* out,

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/tethering.html

Whats that? Hmmm? "but but but....USA...."We Are The World...."? Theres more than one country on this planet, and the iPhone has tethering, USB or Bluetooth...Hmm, you know, if I didnt have work in a few minutes, I'd connect my iMac to my iPhone and post this just to show you.

Re:Great. :(

[Karlt1]

Define High end. If you mean 'expensive' then sure. If you mean performance computers then..no. IF you mean durable then....no.

High end as in, Apple doesn't sell cheap below $500 laptops with Pentium Dual Core (not Core 2 Duo) processors, with 800Mhz FSB, 802.11g, and 10/100 ethernet.

Fine, you like pretty self contained boxes. I have no problem with that, but and performance arguments went out the window when they went with OTS intel.

Yes they did go with off the shelf Intel processors. But Apple doesn't sell a single computer with a Pentium Dual Core Processor, Atom, with Intel integrated graphics, 802.11g, or the sub par battery life of the typical lowend Dell or HP.

You do know that the US is there most profitable piece, right? Do you also know that Apple cow tows to Chine and the iPhone doesn't have Wifi in China?

You mean like all manufacturers have to abide by the laws of the country they sell to?

And I can get 32GB under 100 bucks.

Where can you get a 32GB MicroSD card for $100?

Re:Great. :(

[Gilmoure]

Stepford; not just for the country club.

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

I used to be Asst. Dir. of a Lab at a Uni. I did regularly have to use a windows box. Puke City, I still have nightmares.

Well, it must have been about 4 years ago that I bought Yellow Dog, I still have the disks so I'm sure they didn't come for free.

Apple seems to have good support, they are even based here in the U.S. and seems to be at Apple's HQ. I've used them on a number of occasions to track down hardware glitches.

What's ludicrous to you might not be for me. I don't mind paying extra for the box + OS and bundled software. Those packages are not that different than comparable systems from other manufacturers. I think you think buying a computer means buying the hardware. That's fine. But that is not what I'm buying.

Does Apple support third party RAM...errr...this is a trick question, right? There's a whole industry built around supporting Apple products and that industry is not owned by Apple.

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

I still have the disks so I'm sure they didn't come for free.

RedHat once made a commercial desktop OS, but it was also available for download for free. Yellow Dog may have been the same, and I know there are several services which sell Linux CDs for those who can't (or don't want to) burn them themselves.

Apple seems to have good support, they are even based here in the U.S. and seems to be at Apple's HQ. I've used them on a number of occasions to track down hardware glitches.

I've had support refused on my laptop because it had a dent in it, from a year before the incident, and they wanted $1700 to replace the backlight in a used Powerbook, mainly because they wanted to replace the entire screen (and, because the screen is the most expensive item, everything else) rather than the backlight.

Meanwhile, Dell will insure my laptop against any damage, and Sharp replaced my hard drive at least once without complaining, maybe twice, can't recall.

I also discovered a bug in OS X related to keyboard configuration -- it forgot my keyboard settings on every reboot, probably because I had an unusual setting (I used command+semicolon for something, and I use Dvorak). I reported it to Apple, and as far as I know, they never fixed it, as long as I was using that Powerbook.

Had the same problem occurred on Linux, worst case, I'd have written a simple boot script to fix it. I've since been told that the same is possible on OS X, but I never found out how.

I don't mind paying extra for the box + OS and bundled software.

That, I get, so long as you acknowledge how much more you're paying. But you don't, you keep lying to yourself:

Those packages are not that different than comparable systems from other manufacturers.Those packages are not that different than comparable systems from other manufacturers.

Do you really need as much computer -- hardware or software -- as Apple is giving you?

At one point, I thought as you did, and I would price out similar Macbooks and Dells to show people. They came back with a slightly less powerful machine for half the price, and there was no comparable Mac. It works at the other end of the scale, too -- as you start pricing more and more powerful Macs (especially Mac Pros), the Apple markup gets worse and worse, until you're talking about anywhere from two to ten thousand dollars cheaper for a comparable PC.

(Yet I've seen university departments buy Macs to use as headless, ssh-only Unix machines. WTF?)

Now, you might decide that a Mac is worth twice the price of an almost-comparable PC. You might also decide that it's a small consideration compared to the price of various pieces of software you need. Whatever. But the fact that you keep repeating this lie of "comparable systems" tells me that you don't want to think you're spending twice as much.

I think you think buying a computer means buying the hardware.

No, there's also support. Dell will come to my house to fix my hardware issues, and I can fix my own software issues, few as they are. And I bought this laptop because it came with Linux, which meant that while I paid a little more and got a little less, I also got a guarantee that all my hardware would work on Linux without hacks.

By contrast, you were closer when you said I look at whether it will run Linux -- the Mac is going to cost more and give me OS X, which I like less. It'd have to be a lot better to justify that cost.

Does Apple support third party RAM...errr...this is a trick question, right? There's a whole industry built around supporting Apple products and that industry is not owned by Apple.

Nope, not a trick question, though maybe a dumb one. If I install RAM from that industry, will Apple still support my machine? Or, what's Apple's policy on third-party RAM?

Re:Great. :(

[gtall]

Whenever I've compared the machines I would need with similar Dell or HP, I don't see much of a difference. You've done your own, fine, I'm happy you are happy with them.

I admit Apple isn't going to come to my house, but then I don't want Apple coming to my house. They simply aren't as large company as Dell (stock market cap doesn't count).

I never had any problem with Apple supporting my machines with alien RAM. I don't think they care but I don't know their policy. If it important to you, I'm sure you can look it up.

You seem to be anti-Apple at all cost. I'm not anti-linux or anti-pc other than just for myself, I simply don't like the look and feel of either.

Re:Great. :(

[SanityInAnarchy]

Whenever I've compared the machines I would need with similar Dell or HP,

Still doing it wrong. Start with the Dell or HP and configure it how you need it. Then see if Apple has anything comparable.

I admit Apple isn't going to come to my house, but then I don't want Apple coming to my house.

Wait... what? Why not?

It certainly solves one main issue -- with my laptop as my main computer, and without another machine I could readily use as a workstation, any hardware issue is a potentially serious, fix it NOW issue -- but it's also bad when I'm without a computer for a week. When my last computer died, this is exactly what happened -- I ordered the new Dell almost immediately, but I still had to use a Mac for a week.

So if I just need something simple like the CD replaced, I'd much rather have the guy come to my house, take an hour or less to fix it, and then leave, rather than ship it off somewhere. Even overnight shipping isn't enough to make the turnaround less than an hour.

They simply aren't as large company as Dell...

So what? Dell doesn't do it themselves, they hire a local contractor.

I don't think they care but I don't know their policy. If it important to you, I'm sure you can look it up.

I probably will, at some point, especially if someone wants to pay me well to do Mac development. As it is, I don't really care.

You seem to be anti-Apple at all cost.

Actually, no, cost is what started this discussion. But with what they've done with the iPhone, and with Steve Jobs' personal hypocrisy about DRM, yes, I'm anti-Apple. However, I also try to be rational -- OS X is both pretty and powerful. I have serious issues with it, but I can see a personal preference towards it and away from Linux.

I'm not anti-linux or anti-pc other than just for myself, I simply don't like the look and feel of either.

That's fine, but it also lends a lot of credibility to the idea that you spent twice as much for shininess, glossiness, and translucency.

Re:Great. :(

[gad_zuki!]

>but cmon, its just that crappy network...nothing to do with the iPhone itself.

Pardon me, but when the handset maker REFUSES to sell to other carriers in my country, then yes, it is very much a problem with the handset itself. Stifling competition for a gain in profits while pissing on your customers should never be tolerated. That's what Apple is doing with its exclusive AT&T deal.

Re:Great. :(

[dafing]

...And do you think Apple enjoys being with AT&T? They felt they needed a "deal" with a carrier, they went to Verizon first, which I believe in the US is pretty much "the best"? And you know what, Verizon apparently slammed the door in Jobs' face, "yea, that iPhone thingy? Good luck with that!".

AT&T was willing to have a "deal" with Apple...but they were locked into the exclusive contract...and you blame Apple for AT&T's service?

Do you remember how phones were before Apple entered the market? I do. And if they decided they needed some kickback scheme from the carrier, so be it. Do you remember how the tech pundits thought Apple could never make it? http://gizmodo.com/5416765/top-5-assclowns-laughing-at-the-iphone-back-in-2007

Would I prefer it if I could run my iPhone on any network? Yes, and hey, I can, in New Zealand....just like you can in Europe...none of that CDMA vs GSM BS...

Can you not unlock an iPhone and use it on another network? Are the other carriers in your area not compatible? Because I have a US iPhone, I run it on Vodafone NZ, I have to jailbreak it (or else it keeps searching for AT&T with every update!), but it works fine...

Its fine to hate AT&T, I suppose some people will always hate Apple, but dont hate APPLE for the faults of AT&T!

Its up to you to keep hating the iPhone "pissing on your customers"....enjoy your Storm or Android device, whatever.

Re:Great. :(

[yttrstein]

It is true actually, but your problem is that you're spoiled. You want Apple to make precisely the device that YOU want, rather than go buy something else that more closely matches your needs.

It seems to me that really what the whiners and complainers want is for a company besides Apple to meet the same design and build standards that Apple does with their physical gear. You should ask yourselves why such a company doesn't exist.

+1 Troll for Summary

[CaseM]

I share a lot in common with the many who criticize Apple, but even I can admit that the summary was a massive piece of trolling.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Agreed.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[Rolaulten]

Personalty I cant stand apple products - but its sad when we dont even need to look in the responses anymore for the troll bait...

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[jo_ham]

It seems like Apple, while offering some things that may appeal to the slashdot crowd (OS X), and some things that don't (iPhone) but slashdot seems compelled to discuss them to death anyway.

I liken it to a Ford enthusiast's forum which continues to have articles about GM submitted to the feed by its members, only for those same members to talk about how they don't want to hear about GM any more.

Or a heavy metal forum that seems obsessed with talking about indie music, and moaning bitterly about how indie music doesn't appeal to them and is nothing like metal, but who won;t stop talking about it.

And I agree, you expect heavy trolling in the comments (when in the tech world are you going to find a universally liked company), but the editorial trolling is just lame.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[beelsebob]

It seems like Apple, while offering some things that may appeal to the slashdot crowd (OS X), and some things that don't (iPhone) but slashdot seems compelled to discuss them to death anyway.

Maybe not to you, but I can assure you, the iPhone appeals to many people on slashdot.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[MBGMorden]

Depends. I can respect that from a usability standpoint, it's an impressive device. I like the UI, and it works well. HOWEVER, from a simple political perspective, the iPhone is just WRONG. They way it's locked down is repulsive to many on a site that is heavily frequented by people involved in a movement (OSS) that stipulates that users should have absolute control over their systems.

It's akin to having almost everything you could want but living as a slave, versus living as a free man with much less. I'm willing to accept a slightly lower standard of living if it means maintaining my freedom to do and act as I wish. Most people here seem to have similar views.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[jo_ham]

I probably shouldn't have generalised - I own a 3G, and I know there are many slashdot folk who do like the iPhone, just as there are some who like Microsoft, but more and more it seems like liking Apple is going against the majority.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[beelsebob]

but more and more it seems like liking Apple is going against the majority.

So? Since when is the purpose of /. to please the majority... Last I checked it was to report tech news, not pander to the latest geek squad fashion.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[jo_ham]

Oh it's not a problem per se, the very nature of humanity is that we are not all totally homogenous.

It only becomes an issue when the majority attempt to squash and destroy the minority, or paint that minority as clueless/idiotic/retarded/fanboi/sheeple/etc.

This is not just an Apple condition - it is the case for several things on here, depending on context - Google, for example, seems to be loved for Android or hated like some giant big brother stealing your privacy, depending on what day it is.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[jjb3rd]

Depends. I can respect that from a usability standpoint, it's an impressive device. I like the UI, and it works well. HOWEVER, from a simple political perspective, the iPhone is just WRONG.

...and I'm buying a phone for political reasons, or because "it works well"? There's a reason every phone is compared to the iPhone...it's the best. Don't tell me how this phone has a company with politics you like better and that it has a higher megapixel camera and x, y and z, because it's still not "better" or the iPhone would be one of hundreds of other phones compared to the "best" phone out there. Raw specs and/or politics don't make a better user experience.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[StoatBringer]

You're quite correct. Slavery is just the same as brand preference in mobile phones.

Re:+1 Troll for Summary

[joh]

Depends. I can respect that from a usability standpoint, it's an impressive device. I like the UI, and it works well. HOWEVER, from a simple political perspective, the iPhone is just WRONG. They way it's locked down is repulsive to many on a site that is heavily frequented by people involved in a movement (OSS) that stipulates that users should have absolute control over their systems.

It's akin to having almost everything you could want but living as a slave, versus living as a free man with much less. I'm willing to accept a slightly lower standard of living if it means maintaining my freedom to do and act as I wish. Most people here seem to have similar views.

Yeah, but: Most people using an Android phone let Google have their email and their address book and their search history and their calendar data and the places they go... I mean, yes, this is different from "absolute control over the soft- and hardware" but is this really better? It is absolute control over all your digital life.

Google is whispering "We are not evil..." while inserting tentacles in every orifice of your life. And then people are shouting "Yes, Android is open, fuck Apple!" and let Google insert another tentacle into another orifice. Great.

As long as I can't avoid using Google for lots of things I prefer to use Apple for other things. Both are disliking the other more than enough to make sure that this is the best way for me to keep in control as far as possible.

I'm pretty sure that Android has still some major public recoil waiting for it. Google is begging for it.

Steve Jobs @WWDC

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Steve Jobs @WWDC

[noidentity]

That's because he's had something to announce every year since 1998, duh! Along the same lines, the sun doesn't rise unless there is something worth lighting the world for. And sure enough, there's been something every day for the past millions of years. Amazing, isn't it?

Article biased much?

[UnknowingFool]

In reality it is more often than not a self-congratualtory mutual back-slapping iPropaganda outing for Apple insiders and the company's tame press pack.

Normally Steve is there for the keynote address which lasts a few hours. The rest of the conference lasts 4 1/2 more days. And most of it is geared specifically for developers. The press really only shows up for the keynote and ignores the rest of it.

Re:Article biased much?

[Nerdfest]

They may hang around this year. There seem to be a great many irritated iPhone developers, mainly those interested in developing cross-platform. It might get entertaining.

Re:Article biased much?

[am 2k]

The press really only shows up for the keynote and ignores the rest of it.

Well, the rest is usually under NDA, so they just avoid breaking the contract by doing that (not that all of them care about the law).

Shiney

[confused one]

RDF All hail Jobs! Bow before him now! Behold the miraculous wonder he has created now! /RDF

Re:Shiney

[confused one]

I know I got mod'd Troll... but my post was in response to the tone of the op ed:

The thing is, 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'

They're decent products but they really do get over hyped.

Still

[G4Cube]

We buy because it is pretty, works, and there is nothing better when you add it all up. Except for $#%%^! AT&T.

Apple running out of hype fuel?

[erroneus]

I think even people who once said I was being harsh on Apple are now coming around to seeing what a ridiculous and often impractical and restrictive company Apple actually is. In time, I think everyone will tire of it -- even the lay people.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think even people who once said I was being harsh on Apple are now coming around to seeing what a ridiculous and often impractical and restrictive company Apple actually is. In time, I think everyone will tire of it -- even the lay people.

Yeah, I mean, after ten years or dismissing Apple, the Slashcrowd has got to be right sooner or later

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[osgeek]

I don't know. They're selling a gazillion iPads, Apple's stock continues to move upward, and I believe that a recent /. story highlighted the fact that Apple is gaining grounds on the higher ranked cell phone providers.

Maybe the FOSS crowd is increasing in animosity toward Apple, but "the lay people" are clamoring for more as far as I can tell.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[DJCouchyCouch]

Well, you know, Apple's been dying and going out of business for about 35 years now... I think it'll stick around for a little while longer.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

Apple TV?

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[jo_ham]

They were close with the Apple TV - it is underpowered. You can do some great things with it, the broadcom HD card and a copy of XBMC.

The machine just needs a little more beef to be a really good HTPC.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

They're selling a gazillion iPads, Apple's stock continues to move upward, and I believe that a recent /. story highlighted the fact that Apple is gaining grounds on the higher ranked cell phone providers.

And there you have, in a nutshell, what separates "informed user" from "fanboi"... namely that an informed user looks at what they just purchased, enjoys using it and feels he/she has got good value for money. But only a fanboi is so ardently rabid that he/she wants their manufacturer of choice to wipe every other competitor off the map, like it actually changes a damned thing with the actual product.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[jimicus]

And on /. we have reverse fanbois (hatebois?), who don't look at what people are purchasing, don't consider that using it may be enjoyable and don't think anybody is getting good value for money.

These hatebois are so ardently rabid that they want the manufacturer of this product to be wiped off the map, without considering that possibly - just possibly - having competition in the market is a good thing.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[osgeek]

Who in this thread wants Apple to wipe any competitors off the map?

It looks like you're attacking someone, but your post seems to be a bit of a non sequitor.

I guess since I mentioned true things* about Apple's success that makes me a fanboi?

* Okay, "gazillion" is a made up term, but it's some large number that I didn't look up before posting to the thread.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[gyrogeerloose]

Apple TV?

Funny thing is that the Apple TV is exactly what the FOSS crowd likes--open hardware architecture and eminently hackable--but it has not sold very well. Yet, the same people say that the iPhone will perish unless Apple opens it up.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

I see...so if a product does poorly on the market, you just call it a "hobby" and can boast an uninterrupted string of successes. I have to remember that...

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[rinoid]

Apple has been so "ridiculous and often impractical and restrictive company" that I have seen a near 1000% return on the 150 shares I bought a decade ago.

I honestly don't get the anti-hyperbole and vitriol ... point to something you have done better before sowing your entire life with such negativity and disdain.

This is truly a religion for some of you isn't it?

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[rinoid]

Just pick one of Google's many "we shall own the universe" rollouts at IO and get back to me in 5 years.

All your data belong to us! No thanks to Google turn by turn ... they don't need to know where I drive as well as where I surf, who I email, when I click, when I logon.

I'm quitting all Google.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

"Gaining grounds on the higher ranked cell phone providers" is a very generous way of saying what's happening. Nokia had 37% of a bit over 1.2 billion mobile phones sold in 2009, Samsung 21%, LG 11%, SE & Motorola both 5%; it won't change much in 2010 (Nokia, for one, actually gained a bit). And at this point a typical ranking ends. But by looking at numbers, Apple had...2%. Should have 3 this year, I guess.
Nokia itself sells annually an order of magnitude more mobile phones than the total number of iPhones ever sold.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

What do failures of others have to do with a reply to funny post pointing out that, while being funny, it isn't perhaps stictly accurate? Apple had a failure...and that's it.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

Judging something by share value has its limits - what were historically the share values of major companies responsible for every bubble / economic crash just before that? (and just in case...no, it's not an analogy; just an example) Heck, if some insurance company could find a legal way to..."dispose" its clients which are a bit too expensive to heal, while managing to retain the rest, that company share value would skyrocket (again, example...). Generally driven by impressions and expectations.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[qortra]

Some of what you say makes sense, but it is worthwhile to cut through some of the disinformation.

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.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[MBGMorden]

Huh? In it's default state the AppleTV is no more hackable than the iPhone. You have to do the equivalent of "jailbreaking" it to get it to do anything creative. The same option to jailbreak is available on the iPhone.

The difference is that the AppleTV, in it's DEFAULT state, simply appealed less to the masses than the iPhone. while it's POTENTIAL appealed a lot more to geeks than the iPhone. I mean, it's essentially a fully functional mini-computer with a USB port, HDMI output, hard drive, etc, for ~$200 (I got mine used for $100). I ended up adding in the Broadcom HD mini-PCIE card and now I can do full HD decoding on XBMC. I run XBMC on the hacked AppleTV on the HDTV and XBMC on my hacked Xbox on the old SDTV in the back room (works well since the Xbox can decode any SD video, and that TV can't do better than that anyways).

I think you're confusing hardware being more attractive to hacking with hardware being friendlier to hacking.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[qortra]

having competition in the market is a good thing

Quite the contrary, we like competition here. What we don't like is anti-competitive behaviors, like those perpetrated by Apple recently.

These hatebois are so ardently rabid that they want the manufacturer of this product to be wiped off the map

Personally, what I'd like is for Apple to stop being stupid and fix some of the things that we (its users and developers) have been complaining about for a while now. I always prefer reform. However, if that fails to happen, extinction will do quite nicely. That is the path that all software companies who flagrantly ignore its users and developers should take, no exceptions (not even shiny, pretty ones).

who don't look at what people are purchasing, don't consider that using it may be enjoyable and don't think anybody is getting good value for money

Are you talking about iPhones or cheap cocaine? People are purchasing cocaine, and many of those people enjoy it for a brief time. But the experience of cocaine grows bitter after a time, and then it destroys lives. Overly dramatic? Yes - it is merely an illustration of the fact that people buying a product and enjoying it does not legitimatize it, especially not in the eyes of the people here.
Personally, I try to encourage people to choose more open options that will give them greater flexibility for the future.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[medcalf]

Well, they've predicted seventeen of the last zero times Apple has collapsed. Soon they must be vindicated.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[rinoid]

Yah sure, go downt that path of inquiry if you want, but I am certain there is a correlation here, with AAPL and the value their products hold for customers -- period. They sell tangible goods only (well some are obviously software or digital downloads, ut tangible nonetheless) and customers pay Apple money for those goods.

Google sells and a line of bullshit a out freedom.
If you use Google services, google knows where you surf, drive, who you email, what times of the day you search, what you search, where you login, who your friends are, what words you click ... All to sell you ads.

Apple primarily designs computer products to provide customers the means to productivity, entertainment, and creativity. I suspect the upcoming foray into ads has much more to do with denying Google the sponge than anything else. But that is just a hunch.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

Sure, there is "the value their products hold for customers"; but not only that's not the exclusive thing determining stockprice (to lesser or greater degree), even itself it also doesn't take into account, say, long term societal effects.

This news story is about mobile phones, so an example with them - while at the end of 2008 we saw 3 billion mobile users, at the end of 2009 that was 4.6; perhaps by now 5 billion. That's a monumental thing for the future of humanity. The company greatly responsible for that was, for example, Nokia; with their huge contributions to development and shipping almost half a billion phones annually. But "investostors" don't reward that, apparently don't care about the real potential of world changing for the better (hence also improving "investments"...).
Apple not only hardly contributes (total number of iPhones is an order of magnitude less than what Nokia ships annually; and we'll see how patent dispute ends / if that is freeriding), they aren't even interested in contributing to that, demanding "premium" customers...heck, they hardly exist in any area except in few "premium" markets.

Similar effects with Google, I guess.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

Who in this thread wants Apple to wipe any competitors off the map?

Ahem.

They're selling a gazillion iPads, Apple's stock continues to move upward, and I believe that a recent /. story highlighted the fact that Apple is gaining grounds on the higher ranked cell phone providers.

Like I said, why does anyone who buys a device purely for their own satisfaction really care about what the vendor's stock price is doing or whether that vendor is destroying the competition or not? Unless of course they are buying the device purely to seek the acceptance of others...

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[Gilmoure]

Only 10 years of dismissing Apple? It's been going on longer than that.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[Gilmoure]

I think the word is 'Beleaguered'.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[osgeek]

The poster to whom I was responding was commenting that people were getting past Apple and its closed practices, reducing the company's hype power. I noted with several performance indicators that the company and its products are on the rise.

Then you added your own preconceptions to some simple facts to create a straw man "argument", singling me out for an attack because I pay attention to reality.

I guess if jumping to conclusions and attacking people for things they didn't say is your thing, go for it.

To set the record straight, you're precisely wrong with your assumption. I would like for there to be MORE competition in the smart phone space since that will foster better products for me to choose from.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[bennomatic]

Actually, I think the GP poster was talking about Android fanbois, and effectively supporting your reasoned statement.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

If truth be known, I think the majority of you Apple people are "lazy elitist posers".

I'm not overly keen on the Microsoft way of doing things which is why I set out to learn UNIX and Linux many years ago. It was a steep learning curve but now I enjoy the best of both worlds because I use Linux most of the time and Windows for the bits that Linux cannot do as well - but technically I know a lot about both OSes.

Apple users want to do the anti-Microsoft thing as well but generally cannot be bothered with the learning curve - and all credit to Steve Jobs here because he's made himself a very rich man capitalising on that by doing all the hard work for you and charging a premium for it, as well as ensuring once you're in his clutches, you can never leave. The other thing that gives you is the ability to sneer down your noses at the great unwashed because you know that most people either cannot afford or won't pay the ridiculous prices that Apple want. If anything, the *LAST* thing you want is the widespread usage of Apple products because then you lose being part of your elitist little club.

I don't hate Apple because the only Apple product I've ever owned is an iPod Touch that my missus gave me when she upgraded to an iPhone - it's a neat little device but I certainly wouldn't have paid over £200 for it. If anything, Apple have *NEVER* actually made anything that I ever wanted to buy...

But I do get annoyed by the fanbois who try to convince the rest of us how using Apple products is about technical excellence and reliability when, in reality, I doubt many of you would know what a disk partition or a command-line was if they hit you in the face.

Even a good friend of mine here in the UK, on the day he got his iPad from the US, the first thing he did was post on Facebook how he was posing with it in a local coffee bar...

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[osgeek]

No, he was talking about me. I don't understand it either. Ah well.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[bennomatic]

Well, I think the GP poster was referring to android fanbois, which you're calling reverse fanbois or apple hatebois. They're no different from apple fanbois, who are windows mobile and android hatebois. And of course, they'd all be the same as winmob fanbois, except I'm not sure there are any.

But my point is that the fanboi/hateboi set are a relatively small number, but they're vocal and annoying. There are probably more fanboi- and hateboi-haters than actual fanbois and hatebois out there. But it just takes one troll to get a lot of people spinning their wheels.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

No, I was talking about fanbois in general - but if the cap fits then by all means wear it yourself.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[jimicus]

Not really what I had in mind, though I perhaps could have worded it better.

IMV, there is a huge difference between saying "Android is superior to iPhone because of xxx" and "iPhone is lame because of xxx and because of this Apple should die horribly and Steve Jobs should be left in poverty, begging for spare change with a mangy dog on a piece of string".

Seriously, I have no problem with anyone saying that they prefer product X over product Y for reason Z. But when people start saying they want product X to die horribly for no reason other than they don't like it, that's when you descend into becoming a hateboi.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[StoatBringer]

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.

So he didn't check the features of a product he bought, and was then annoyed that it didn't have a feature he wanted?

When I bought my first-gen iPhone I knew it didn't have certain features, but they were features I didn't care about anyway and I've been happy with it ever since. If a particular phone doesn't do something you need, shop around and buy a different one instead.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[sznupi]

Yeah, it's great to target only "premium" people living in "premium" places; while relying on Chinese sweatshops (Nokia owns all 15 of their fabs; only 2 in China; 7 in the EU) and not developing (but possibly freeriding on it...we'll see how this case will end) the fundamental underlying tech. Not striving to give most of hummanity the means for communication.

"Crappy"? If anything, universally one of the more reliable, with great battery times and reception.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

Over a quarter of a century plus of using computers, I believe the job of an operating system is to just boot the machine up and to then leave you alone to do what the hell you want to do with it; I don't believe it's job is to dictate what other software you use or where you buy it from, so if you want to use free stuff you can, likewise if you want to use commercial software then you can also - even create it yourself if you want...

On small portable devices, Linux gives you that freedom and stability, Windows does to a degree also but it's not very good, Apple stuff locks you in completely.

Therefore I like Android because it happens to be the best compromise between freedom and functionality, but have absolutely no comprehension as to why anyone would pay a premium price to be locked into one vendor. If something more open than Android came out on portable devices, then I'd naturally gravitate towards that because freedom is the most important thing to me.

So, yes, I'm a "fanboi" of freedom and choice, commercial or open source, but it doesn't have to be Android that gives me that.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[pandrijeczko]

If you use Google services, google knows where you surf, drive, who you email, what times of the day you search, what you search, where you login, who your friends are, what words you click ... All to sell you ads.

But surely the opportunity to buy stuff from one of the many vendors who are advertised at you is still better than being fully locked into buying from just one vendor?

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[rinoid]

You aren't "locked" into anything are you? There are 100s of devices, all of them choices.

No, The beginning of the end of Internet advertising propping up evil bullshit starts here.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[qortra]

So he didn't check the features of a product he bought, and was then annoyed that it didn't have a feature he wanted?

Whoa there Captain Assumption:

• Who said he bought it? It was given to him as a Christmas present.
• He wasn't annoyed. He was simply startled that the iPhone, at a $500 unsubsidized starting price, didn't include such a basic feature as mass storage that even the most meek of smartphones have out of the box.
• USB mass storage is merely an example (as I explicitly said in my previous post). In this case, it was straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Yet there are a whole host of things that his phone can't do that annoy him, and that he knows must be possible because my mother and I can both do them with our modest phones.

When I bought my first-gen iPhone

It seems to me that you're being overly defensive because you own one of these things. In fact, I suspect that many people who post and mod here are in the same position that you are, and when somebody like me posts, they feel personally attacked. I don't think I'm doing that, but I am trying to advocate that we vote our dollar. USB mass storage is, in the end, a trivial matter. However, there are much more important and unsavory things that Apple has done, and continues to do - too many things to enumerate here, but I bet you know them anyway since you post here. So, I will vote with my dollar not purchase from them as long as they persist.

Re:Apple running out of hype fuel?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

"You Apple people"? Well, that says it all really. Talk about being disconnected from reality.

Really?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Steve Jobs will key-note an iPhone conference??? Shazam! What's next!

Steve Jobs scratches ass! Steve Jobs contemplates mechanical pencil verses yellow Ticonderoga! Steve Jobs sleeps on a bed!

Re:Really?

[Anonymusing]

Reminds me of the old joke about Bill Gates: all he has to do is fart and the I.T. media will announce the release of a hot new product from Microsoft.

Re:Really?

[BUL2294]

Consequently, all Steve Jobs has to do is fart and CNN will announce the release of hot new gas from Apple.

(Seriously CNN... The iPad coverage is overkill. Even CNN's own user comments complain about the company's coverage...)

Re:Really?

[DMiax]

Actually I kinda expected Steve Jobs to sleep hanging from the ceiling and wrapped in his black wings and even blacker turtleneck. But I read Slashdot comments regularly so I could be biased...

I have a 3gs, I'll probably want a 4g...

[Overzeetop]

And I don't really care that Steve will announce the phone on June 7th, except that I know that it will be out in time for me to get it subsidized by AT&T as soon as I'm eligible. I mean, if they're going to charge me every f'in month as if I'm using a subsidized phone, they may as well pony up with new hardware every 20 months.

What I really want is the successor to the Nexus One to play with side by side. The iPhone is far more useful than it was 2 years ago, but I'll go with whatever works the best*.

*Windows Mobile "7", version 1.0, need not apply. Get back to me when you've had a _working_ finger-based touch screen phone for 2 years and I'll take a look.

Re:I have a 3gs, I'll probably want a 4g...

[alta]

No, he won't have to sell his Nexus one because he's not saying that he has one. What he wants is the successor to the nexus one, which will still be a few months out, and by the time it IS out, google would have had a _working_ finger-based touch screen phone for 2 years.

 

Re:I have a 3gs, I'll probably want a 4g...

[Fourpole]

You should work on your reading comprehension skills.

Re:I have a 3gs, I'll probably want a 4g...

[geekoid]

" The iPhone is far more useful than it was 2 years ago,

and yet it still is lacking in feature when compared to the Nexus, or even the G1.

I have friends who have an iPhone.

*and it's true, the iPhione is more stylish.

Re:Whoop! Whoop! Holler! Holler!

[WrongSizeGlass]

There, I said it. Did I say it first?

Yes, but since he'll be revealing, um, announcing iPhone v4 you needed to be 4th in the thread to win. Better luck next time, and thanks for participating.

iPhone 4G isn't big

[Culture20]

No no no. It's real small. Ya ya ya.
Both in the literal and metaphorical sense. It would be neat if Apple were building up hype by pretending its yet another iPhone product while really presenting something completely different like Apple Solar Computing Caps with displays under the rim, or Apple iTunes for Linux. Or publicly announcing that Apple and Adobe have made up after a trip to the Bahamas and some intense couples counseling, and Flash will now be mandated in mobile Safari, not just an option.

BTW, if you want big. Go with Honeycomb.

Re:iPhone 4G isn't big

[noidentity]

I don't know, the iPhone looks pretty big to me, at least in some pictures.

Android already stole the thunder..

[Yahma]

I know I'll get modded down for this, but here goes...

Almost everything that Jobs will announce has already been revealed. Like the OP states, Apple fanboi's will likely hoop and hollar over anything Job's announces; however, its going to be hard for the average techie to get excited about some of the new "features" of the iphone, such as pseudo-multitasking, when the competitors such as Android and WebOS have had almost all of these features since day one.

Now with the recent release of Froyo (Android 2.2) at Google I/O, and the significant improvements brought with the upgrade, even pro-Apple sites such as Gizmodo feel that Android has Leapfrogged iPhone.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[pandrijeczko]

Don't get me wrong, I love Open and hate Closed...

I've never once bought an Apple product and have no intention of ever being Jobs' bitch...

I like Google and the stuff they do, even bought a HTC Hero phone that I'm chuffed to bits with...

But as usual, because I'm not in the USA, I've got to sit here and fucking wait with my fingers crossed in the hope that I'll see an Android 2.1 release for my phone this side of Armageddon...

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[Aqualung812]

its going to be hard for the average techie to get excited about some of the new "features" of the iphone, such as pseudo-multitasking, when the competitors such as Android and WebOS have had almost all of these features since day one.

I'm very excited about "pseudo-multitasking" since it only gives the software developers what they need to do MOST of what is needed for multitasking. I love having the ability to customize my PC in a million different ways, run whatever software I want, etc. However, on my phone, I want it to work & be stable. I don't mind Apple being draconian on my phone.

As an aside, before my iPhone I had several Windows Mobile phones that also did multitasking before WebOS and Android or iPhone even existed. From what I've seen, I'll take Apple's version.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[godawful]

Not to be a total skeptic, but are we sure Gizmodos attitude with Apple may have changed due to the whole 4g prototype deal?

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[tknd]

As an aside, before my iPhone I had several Windows Mobile phones that also did multitasking before WebOS and Android or iPhone even existed. From what I've seen, I'll take Apple's version.

I have an ipod touch and an android phone. From what I've seen, I'll take android's version.

However, on my phone, I want it to work & be stable.

I don't know how android gets a bad rap for being 'unstable' and 'not working'. Yes, the older phones on older hardware are slower but so was iphone 2g. If you want to do a fair comparison, you'd have to compare a Nexus 1 with 2.2 to a non-existent iphone 4 (but we can reasonably guess what iphone 4 is at this point). Android doesn't 'crash'. My phone doesn't need reboots. It isn't windows. 3rd party Apps sometimes do crash, but it doesn't bring your phone down.

The multitasking in android is correct and designed into the system at the developer level. Most users don't even know they're multitasking because it just works. For example you can have last.fm playing the the background while browser the web. And no, there are no popups or focus stealing apps.

I don't mind Apple being draconian on my phone.

I do mind. For example I wanted to upgrade some of the apps on my ipod touch, but the my ipod tells me i have to use itunes to get it updated. But the computer that I used to sync with itunes was in the closet so I can to install itunes on my current computer. Then when I connect to itunes, it tells me that that computer is not authorized to update my ipod or whatever non-sense. At this point I had already spent half an hour or so trying to get a stupid app on my ipod updated.

On my android phone non of that nonsense exists. The phone updates its own apps without any bother. You don't need a PC ever and based on Google's features in 2.2, they don't want you to need a PC ever. In 2.2, the new market let's you download apps to your phone remotely. There's no tethering or syncing nonsense. It just works.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[curunir]

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.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[nloop]

You love open and hate closed, so you bought a phone with Sense UI? A proprietary closed source UI slapped over an open product? Umm...

Anyway, since you're non US I'm assuming you have a GSM hero? Here's 2.1 for you.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[pandrijeczko]

You love open and hate closed, so you bought a phone with Sense UI? A proprietary closed source UI slapped over an open product? Umm...

Good point, I don't have an answer to that except that within Android itself I can install whatever apps I like from wherever I like.

But I should also say I'm not totally anti-closed source, I just prefer open. I run (and work with) Linux most of the time but I still run Windows XP (and quite like it) because I'm a gamer and have a few commercial closed-source apps I cannot do without.

Anyway, since you're non US I'm assuming you have a GSM hero? Here's 2.1 for you.

Thanks very much for the link, most appreciated. Yes, I'm in the UK and GSM should do fine.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[Overzeetop]

Most users don't even know they're multitasking because it just works.

Interesting. Having just gotten in iPhone (after 4 years of WM devices), I didn't realize I wasn't multi-tasking. When I switched to another program, and then, back I was right where I was. I listen to mostly my music and podcasts, and iTunes works with another program, while the calendar runs in the b/g. Clearly a shortcoming to not be able to listen to Pandora while doing something else (typing notes, maybe, or checking facebook - most other things require separate audio).

The phone updates its own apps without any bother.

So does my iPhone. I go to the app store on the phone, and it tells me how many apps have updates available. I click on the ones I want to update, and they do. No iTunes madness.

If the iPhone limits keep stupid things (like making my phone impossible to answer, like my WM6 Fuze) from happening, I'm good with that. My phone is both a business device and a personal device for me. I want it to work my way. Still, I'm not sure I really want enough rope laying around to make my own noose. The arbitrary limits in the iPhone are annoying, but very workable. In return, the "simple" things (phone, web, calendar*, utility apps) work very well.

*Okay, the calendar sucks, as does the awful kludge of remote alarms necessary for 3rd part calendar apps. They promise to fix that in 4.0. Until then, surprisingly, the kludge works well and I get my Pocket Informant I so dearly love for a real calendar app.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[twmcneil]

Exactly. The Android devs have covered a lot of ground very quickly to catch up with and maybe surpass Apples position. It's becoming very clear to me that while open projects have many advantages over closed, the speed at which they can react and respond greatly exceeds that of any of the established closed players. When I try to guess what the landscape may look like 2 years out, I see Android adding lots of features quickly because they are open, I see their app store(s) totally eclipsing anything from Apple because the Android store(s) are open. I see the closed proprietary shops falling further and further behind with each passing day. Then in what seems to be a blink of an eye, you find yourself telling a bunch of young kids about how you remember back in the day that Apple once made operating systems for phones too.

Granted, that may or may not happen. Maybe Google will drop a steaming pile of management on the devs and their work will slow to a snails pace, maybe fragmentation and forking will kill any real innovation with Android, but I'm thinking neither of those things will happen. I'm guessing that all the closed shops, not just Apple will fall so far behind that the best they will be able to muster is a half-hearted "Me Too" approach. At that point no amount of black turtleneck persona (as wonderful as it is) is going to save you.

Open is often free, open is often superior in quality but open is almost always very very quick to respond.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[Gilmoure]

Weird. All the apps on my iPhone have just updated on the phone. I haven't actually plugged it in to a computer system for a few months.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[DragonWriter]

Interesting. Having just gotten in iPhone (after 4 years of WM devices), I didn't realize I wasn't multi-tasking. When I switched to another program, and then, back I was right where I was.

Many well-designed iPhone apps do a good job of saving and restoring state when you switch away, which isn't anything like multitasking, its just, well, intelligently designed save and restore. Also, some of Apples bundled apps -- the iPod app notably -- can be run in the background (the iPhone multitasks just fine, its just one of many features that Apple doesn't allow third-party apps to use.)

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[dangitman]

Apple fanboi's will likely hoop and hollar

I thought we were talking about an Apple keynote, rather than a rodeo, barn dance, or monster truck rally. I thought Apple fanboys were supposed to be latte-sipping liberal elitists who drive Volkswagens. Hoopin' and hollerin'? Not so much.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[ergo98]

From what I've seen, I'll take Apple's version.

By that you mean that you'll take Android's version, right? Apple's version is an almost direct copy of Android's multitasking. The only real difference is that in Android you can spin off a service without getting the blessing of the king, but for general functionality and design they're 1:1.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[ergo98]

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.

Interesting take. You know that the iPhone's OS was derived from OSX, right? Do you have any logical justification for your ridiculous feeling?

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.

How could you possibly have gone to a Google I/O event yet remain so ignorant? I seriously find this deeply suspicious. Yes, the whole tech world knows the free phones they gave out, so it hardly gives your words authority.

There is a widespread lack of knowledge of how Android's multitasking works among the technically ignorant, however in practical essence the app *does* quit the second you leave the activity (it isn't doing anything in the background, and any resources it consume(d) are primed for the plucking). This is the case for the overwhelming majority of applications that aren't spinning off services (which themselves live in virtual isolation). The upcoming addition of multitasking in the iPhone OS is a virtual clone of Android's long-existing multitasking.

I appreciate that end users don't know this, because they don't need to. They never need to manage what is running. But someone who claims to have gone to Google I/O? I don't buy it.

But when I was at WWDC 2009, during Phil Schiller's keynote, boy do I remember when they said "iPhones stink and are for poo poo heads". Couldn't believe it. I was there, right?

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[mjwx]

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.

Wrong. Android is doing exactly what it was intended to do. Be an operating systems, my phone (Motorola Milestone) is more powerful then my Gaming PC I bought 10 years ago, not a common computer from dell, a A$3000 purpose built gaming PC so why cant I use it as a general purpose computing device. One reason, because the OS wont let me.

You are thinking about Android wrong, that is why Androids direction seems wrong to you. I've said for some time that Android is trying to, and now succeeding at doing to the mobile phone market what Windows did to the PC market. Android will enable many kinds of phones, from many OEM's to have a consistent platform for running applications. Android has achieved this.

If this is not to your liking, there are many fine models of Nokia that only have a phone function, such as the 6110. They are also a 10th the cost.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[nloop]

I'll admit, sense ui has its cool parts!

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[iinlane]

I do look forward to preview of next OS X.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[shutdown -p now]

If the iPhone limits keep stupid things (like making my phone impossible to answer, like my WM6 Fuze) from happening, I'm good with that. My phone is both a business device and a personal device for me. I want it to work my way. Still, I'm not sure I really want enough rope laying around to make my own noose. The arbitrary limits in the iPhone are annoying, but very workable. In return, the "simple" things (phone, web, calendar*, utility apps) work very well.

Your argument seems to be, "multitasking worked for me badly in WinMo, therefore, iPhone is good for not having it".

Meanwhile, multitasking has worked just fine for years on many S60 smartphones (I haven't ever heard of anyone complaining that they couldn't answer their phone, for example), and works great on Android today, not compromising the stability of the system as a whole.

So, perhaps, you're simply using a flawed comparison point?

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[shutdown -p now]

Android won't have leapfrogged the iPhone until it's at least as enjoyable to use as a phone.

Actual sales figures seem to disagree with that. Android growth is faster.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[geekoid]

First off: You make a false dichotomy. i.e. Having a phones that is customizable means it isn't stable and won't work.

So you will take Apples version of Win Mobile. What the FUCK does that have to do with Android or WebOS.

It's funny how iPhone fans say the phone is perfect and it doesn't need more feature, until a feature that comes out. Then it's all like it's the best feature ever! even when it's been on other phones. Sometimes for years.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[geekoid]

I ahve a G1, and my battery doesn't die 'after a cjuple of hours.'

However, I think the first gen G1's went out with bad batteries.
I replaced my battery with one of the same rating, and it holds a charge for 20+ hours. WHich I would like to see higher, but it's in the ball park of the iPhone.

I still don't see what you find easier to use in thr iPhone then on the Android.

I suspect that it you can't quantify it, then it is a result of Apple Marketing. OR you just want to be seen as socially cool.

There isn't anything wrong with those, it's just kind of how the brain works.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[Aqualung812]

You make a false dichotomy. i.e. Having a phones that is customizable means it isn't stable and won't work.

No, my point is that I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing the interface, I want a phone that already has that done for me "good enough". My point about stability has to do with apps, I don't want apps to be able to do whatever they want to the device, I want apps that are controlled so I don't have to troubleshoot my phone device when I have a buggy app.

It's funny how iPhone fans say the phone is perfect

I didn't say that, I just feel the list of positives vs negatives, for me, is better on the iPhone.

So you will take Apples version of Win Mobile. What the FUCK does that have to do with Android or WebOS.

My point was to counter the point that WebOS and Android had multitasking before iPhone, hence they were better. WinMoble had that before those two existed. No need to get all bent out of shape about it. Seriously, anger management.

Re:Android already stole the thunder..

[curunir]

But someone who claims to have gone to Google I/O? I don't buy it.

I can give you a synopsis of many of the GWT sessions, which was the primary reason I was there. The best one was the one on testing GWT given by one of the Wave developers. Another favorite that I attended was the one on Go programming where they gave away free T-Shirts and stickers...does the whole world know about that too? The only Android talk I went to was on the new JIT they introduced in FroYo (trace, not method), and that was only because I couldn't get into the "How to lose friends and alienate people" talk, as the room was full.

For lunch I opted for the Thai on day one and the taco bar on day 2, but my favorite food item was the veggie empenadas they served at the after-hours party, though the cupcake bar there was pretty damn good too. I've still got a bit of a bruise on my back from the contraption where two people used pedal power to move in a vertical circle (not sure how else to describe that thing.)

Yes...the whole world knows about the 2 free phones. Somewhat less known is the early registration gift...a cheap, plastic Android toy. After promising us a mystery free gift for registering early, we were quite disappointed by it. But I've got it sitting on my desk right now and can describe any part of it you'd like. I was there...if you want more details, I'll be happy to provide them. I've never been to a WWDC, so I can't comment on anything Phil Schiller may or may not have said.

As far as Android goes, you're right that I don't know much about it since I was sent to I/O by my company to learn about other things. All I know is what I've learned from using it. And I've learned that I get increased battery life when I shut down background apps, so I do. If it weren't an issue, perhaps there wouldn't be 20 or so different task management applications in the Marketplace. And even if I'm completely wrong about that, the Droid still ran out of juice long before my iPhone did, and my quitting background applications can't have had any effect on that. It's possible that the phones I got were duds, but it seems unlikely that I'd get two problematic phones this year and one last year.

something else to expect too

[postmortem]

There will be some made-up with no real world significance benchmark or statistics how iPhone OS is superior to Android.

Ex. Mac mini now 5x faster in graphic than previous generaiton with intel onboard graphics.

At least fans will believe it.

Re:something else to expect too

[jo_ham]

[citation needed]

Can you show me some examples of past "made up benchmarks" that make you expect them?

Lab benchmarks are pretty staple for the tech industry - they are not unique to Apple, and all are conducted with benching suites that often don't reflect real-world use. The same sort of people who take them as gospel are the same sorts of people who look at the benchmarks for the latest GPUs being tested at tomshardware.com.

Re:something else to expect too

[bnenning]

Ex. Mac mini now 5x faster in graphic than previous generaiton with intel onboard graphics.

Um, that's not wrong. I've had minis with both the Intel and NVidia GPUs. The GMA950 is really, really bad. And being able to play semi-modern games is not insignificant.

Re:something else to expect too

[postmortem]

Yep, GMA950 is bad, but not that bad that they put it in their system at first place. Although they claimed long time ago how PCs suffer with onboard graphics. I agree with you, they do. Should they claimed "current graphics is barely tolerable, but previous one sucked 5x time more"? Of course not, but that's the cold truth.

But the point is if you look hard anough you'll find something that has improved a bit, and rest is marketing, all these nice "2x, 5x faster" on Apple's site. Heh, even core 2 duos/quad 2 duos are now whatever-x faster than G5. And back then G5 was dominating intel's offerings at their every benchmark.

so, expect something how "we're better than android" from Jobs.

Re:something else to expect too

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

I consider the GMA950 to be shitty enough that we shouldn't have it in a Mac in the first place.

But thing is, no matter how you look at benchmarks, there's almost always a way to skew it.
So yeah, it's the truth that it's 5x faster when measured from this angle, but it's also the truth that when you compare budget (nvidia onboard) to scraping the barrel (Intel GMA) that pretty much anything is better.

This applies even to the G5. Remember the supercomputer cluster at Virginia Tech? Core 2 Quad might be pretty badass when compared to a Quad G5 for common tasks, but if you stick to anything that involves a lot of multiply/accumulate and anything that uses Altivec-supported vector math you're bound to find that SSE3 just doesn't cut it. Does it mean that the 2x to 5x isn't true. It just means it's true for that particular task.

Example?
Distributed.net RC72 at 2Ghz:
Intel Core 2 Duo normalized performance = 6,817,377.69
PowerPC 970 G5 normalized performance = 14,041,896.52
There's your 2x. What does it mean? It doesn't mean everything will be 2x faster on a G5, but if you just happen to be cracking keys or simply the right field, you might want to dig up a G5 on ebay and use your C2D to play some Supreme Commander. (and it seems the Cell then creams the G5 in this benchmark)

Whatever the case, use right tool for the right job, and a 5x performance difference isn't so hard to believe.

and I...

[Em Emalb]

Lock eyes on you from across the room
Wander on over while the rhythms boom
Take you in my hand and skip the clerk's name
There's need here for the silly game
Make my way through the hipster crowd
The Apple store is the sky and I'm on your cloud
My fingers touch your screen and the angels cry
Zoom in close as the pinches fly

Leave this place, go back to the mall
My lips first touch outside in the hall
Is the whole night what we've got in store?
Whisper in my ear that you want to update more
And I jizz in my pants

Re:and I...

[zary]

At least make each line have the right amount of syllables.....

No surprise at all ?

[Rastignac]

No surprise this year. Jobs himself: check. New iPhone model: check. New firmware version: check. All is "déjà vu" ! The only possible surprise would be "OS4 for iPhone2G" (they said "no !"; now they should say "yes !").

Re:No surprise at all ?

[vlm]

No surprise this year. Jobs himself: check. New iPhone model: check. New firmware version: check. All is "déjà vu" ! The only possible surprise would be "OS4 for iPhone2G" (they said "no !"; now they should say "yes !").

Oh, I'd be pleasantly surprised by a 64GB nano, I'd rush out and buy it as my 16 is too small. I'd be pleasantly surprised by a lowered ipad price. I hope its not just all "phone" news.

Iphone total price with contract has dropped from around $3000 to around $2500 or so. Still way too steep for me. I'm not asking too much for a modest $50 to $100 off the price of an ipad, I hope.

Re:No surprise at all ?

[joh]

No surprise this year. Jobs himself: check. New iPhone model: check. New firmware version: check. All is "déjà vu" ! The only possible surprise would be "OS4 for iPhone2G" (they said "no !"; now they should say "yes !").

Well, there may be the iPhone on Verizon and there still is something about that fucking large datacenter Apple has just finished to build. I have the suspicion that Apple will be announcing something about that. Like cloud storage and streaming and syncing for all of your music and data.

Oh, and one more thing...

[marcobat]

There is no going to be a iphone 4G, we had to let go all of the engineers involved in the project because of leaks... :-)

Post != RDF

[jackspenn]

Funny how Jobs is selective.

For example he won't use Flash, because it is inferior and crashes OS X (Before it was Flash, he blamed IE).

Stay with me Apple diehards, yet he uses AT&T's network (which gives him kickbacks using money from your monthly data plan that would be better spent on upgrading their network). AT&T is inferior and drops calls.

Interesting how he his arguement for avoiding inferior technology isn't absolute like he pretends, but I live outside his reality distortion field unlike so many Apple fanboys.

Re:Post != RDF

[gyrogeerloose]

For example he won't use Flash, because it is inferior and crashes OS X [...], yet he uses AT&T's network (which gives him kickbacks using money from your monthly data plan that would be better spent on upgrading their network). AT&T is inferior and drops calls.

He chose AT&T because it's the only GSM carrier in the US that uses the same 3G frequencies that the rest of the world uses. Simple as that. Now that the iPhone is well-established, it's possible that Apple may release a CDMA version for Verizon and Sprint. My guess is that they're going to wait until those carriers roll out their G4 EVO networks; I think Sprint has already done this so they may get the iPhone before Verizon.

Re:Post != RDF

[Dan Ost]

I was under the impression that the dropped calls were the fault of the iPhone itself and not AT&T's network.

I don't have an iPhone, but I do have AT&T as my provider. I do not experience a 30% dropped call rate (or whatever the rate people are claiming).

Re:Post != RDF

[medcalf]

Most iPhone users don't experience a high dropped call rate, either. It's only in the largest, most media-visible markets that this happens, and then only in the US. In other words, AT&T's network is saturated in a few cities, and mostly fine elsewhere, and the networks overseas are generally fine. And in those places, there aren't a lot of dropped iPhone calls.

Re:Post != RDF

[rxan]

Not to mention that if a program/plug-in/app crashes an OS then it's the OS's problem. The process shouldn't have had the critical error but that doesn't mean your OS is allowed to crash.

/.ers are able to ignore the distortion field most of the time but we all know the general public goes on believing whatever they hear. That worries me.

Re:Post != RDF

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Sprint probably won't get it since their 4G is WiMax not LTE like everybody else.

Re:Post != RDF

[gyrogeerloose]

Sprint probably won't get it since their 4G is WiMax not LTE like everybody else.

Well, coincidentally (and conveniently), a rumor about that very thing hit the wires today. Just a rumor, of course, but an interesting one.

Apples biggest problem with Android is

[hsmith]

Apple is on a yearly release cycle (For both the major SDK and hardware) - while Android has new devices released every month, hell even more than that - and a SDK that is constantly evolving (Good or bad)

The next year will be the "year of android" but Apple needs to tee up a home run next year (Unless there are unannounced features for the 4th generation iPhone).

Hopefully the iPhone will see some sort of "Services" architecture like Android's SDK - as a developer that is the real "Multitasking" that needs to take place.

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[jimicus]

Sounds about right.

The iPhone's development (and for that matter OS X) have settled into a reasonably predictable pattern:

1. Release major version. This major version may have a few obvious features missing, it may in principle not do anything particularly new but the overall feel (once you get over that) is so well polished that most of the competitors are now looking fairly silly. Note that Apple have never attempted to sell the cheapest product in the market, so you're probably well advised to put a fairly low weight on whether or not you perceive it offering value for money.

2. Competitors start playing catch up.

3. Release new version. It'll probably be hyped to buggery, but ATEOTD it's not a huge upgrade.

4. Competitors finally start to achieve parity.

5. Go to 1.

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[sootman]

> The next year will be the "year of android" but Apple needs to
> tee up a home run next year (Unless there are unannounced
> features for the 4th generation iPhone).

Wrong. Lots of other important updates have come out between the major point-0 releases each summer. Lots of substantial features were introduced in 1.1, 1.1.3, 2.1, and 2.2 in particular. As just one example, the iTunes Music Store was added in 1.1. It's entirely possible--nay, likely--that Apple will introduce, say, major "cloud" features this year, even if there's nothing shown at WWDC. I'm sure a lot depends on when this bad boy comes online.

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[UnknowingFool]

True but for the average consumer wouldn't it be a negative to have a new release every month? Apple tries to simplify things for the consumer. One new phone OS a year is about all the want to keep track of. After all, there are some people still on the original iPhone who haven't update their hardware much less software.

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Sure, but if the average consumer were to read SlashDot, they would understand how little regard the typical engineer has for them.

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[Reverberant]

Apple is on a yearly release cycle (For both the major SDK and hardware) - while Android has new devices released every month, hell even more than that - and a SDK that is constantly evolving (Good or bad)

I've heard commentary on Apple's recent iPhone yearly and Mac OS X yearly+ release cycle and I just find it amusing that not too long ago, people were screaming about Apple releasing updates to quickly that it was heard for customers and businesses to keep up. Now that the software had matured a bit and the release cycle has slowed down, people are seeing the lengthened cycle as a liability.

Damned if you do...

Re:Apples biggest problem with Android is

[DrXym]

Apple is on a yearly release cycle (For both the major SDK and hardware) - while Android has new devices released every month, hell even more than that - and a SDK that is constantly evolving (Good or bad)

To highlight the issue Apple faces, T-Mobile is selling an Android phone for £100. That's a pay as you go phone (i.e. no contract) and its just one Android handset of many on the market. It it might not be the greatest phone ever but its a smart phone for £100 ffs.

If someone's budget stretches further there are Android phones from different providers, from different manufacturers, sporting different form factors, and featuresets. What they all have in common is the same core OS and a high degree of compatibility. None of this would matter if Android wasn't an extremely capable OS but it is. Some manufactures do a better job of extending it than others, but at the end of the day you can find some excellent Android handsets and things are only going to get better.

Re:Whoop! Whoop! Holler! Holler!

[0100010001010011]

The million dollar 'best kept secret' is if there will be a Verizon version. AT&T just jacked up the prices for early termination. They think they bought themselves a lifeline with the 6 month extension with the iPad deal.

Back in the day the carrier held all the cards. AT&T wanted a multi-year agreement just to even carry the iPhone. Now Apple is in good enough of a position to say "Hey, so we want some kickass prices on iPad data plans, what will you offer." And all AT&T got out of it was a 6 month extension? Unless they signed some air tight confidentiality agreement all Apple has to say is "yeah, this is an LTE/WiMax phone" and it's more or less a given that it'll be available for Verizon and/or Sprint.

Troll mod? Come on mods.

[jo_ham]

How is the parent a troll post?

-1 Troll is not a synonym for "I disagree".

Re:Troll mod? Come on mods.

[Dishevel]

YMBNH. This is /. Of course -1 Troll is a synonym for "I disagree"

Re:Troll mod? Come on mods.

[shutdown -p now]

YMBNHY.

"Underrated" is a synonym for "I disagree".

"Troll" is a synonym for "I disagree, oh, and you're a moron".

"Flamebait" is a synonym for "I disagree, fucktard, and I've got a shitload of mod points, so go ahead, post something else, make my day!".

~

Re:Troll mod? Come on mods.

[geekoid]

That's what people who are trolling like you to believe.

All that negativity about the IPhone

[Petersko]

I really don't understand it. I caved and got one recently. I know I'm late to the party, but the company-negotiated data plan was just too good. I don't own a single piece of Apple equipment except for that phone, and I'm very happy with it. The only thing I find a bit annoying is the crappy video codec support.

I went from happy to thrilled at this announcement: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/teaser_20100506.php

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[korean.ian]

I went from happy to thrilled at this announcement: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/teaser_20100506.php

I'm just curious how a guitarist is supposed to control this when his hands are going to be busy playing the guitar? I like the iPod as a synth/MIDI controller, but it doesn't make any sense to emulate pedals with it. Unless you're going to be stepping on the thing during a show?

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[Ryvar]

It's a good phone, but it's not made for tinkering with, which is going to prompt a lot of hate on a site whose primary demographic is people who love to tinker with things.

As an iPhone developer I'm very happy with Apple's walled garden, but maybe this is because my 9-5 is game development, where all the biggest platforms are walled gardens. I get an industry standard cut of the profits, there's a minimum of casual piracy of my work, the development environment is first rate and extremely cheap ($100! Mind-bogglingly cheap to someone who comes from an industry where engine licenses run in the low millions, and the standard 3D modeling package is $3500), and the hardware platform is standardized enough to make it easy to work with.

I can't imagine trying to develop for Android, where the hardware is going to be all over the place. That's all well and good for beefy PCs, but for an embedded system? How could you possibly optimize sufficiently for a multi-target mobile platform and still turn software around quickly enough to be profitable?

Ultimately people's preferences are going to reflect how and why they use their phones, and for developers it will reflect their target demographic. Slashdot will never love the iPhone because it isn't *for* them, which suggests that they aren't the most important people out there - and that's a message nobody likes to receive.

--Ryvar

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[Petersko]

It's not meant to be stage-worthy. It's just handy for home, or for limiting what you have to carry around when you and your friends are jamming.

I can sit on the couch with headphones and play, rather than having to sit by my rack gear.

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[beakerMeep]

Why would it be any different than PCs? They pick a min config, and shoot for it. Why cant you do the same? How is this different from any platform? Do all iphones have the same processor speed and RAM?

All the high end Android phones coming out this year have the 1GHZ snapdragon processor. And there are about 3 different screen resolutions total if you dont include tablets. The biggest differentiator is going to be RAM. But if you're relying on a lot of RAM as a mobile game dev, you're probably in hot water anyways.

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[4minus0]

You should read this thread
It might help a non-Android developer understand a bit more about the perceived fragmentation situation.

cheers!

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[shutdown -p now]

I can't imagine trying to develop for Android, where the hardware is going to be all over the place. That's all well and good for beefy PCs, but for an embedded system? How could you possibly optimize sufficiently for a multi-target mobile platform and still turn software around quickly enough to be profitable?

I'd imagine the same way as you do on PCs - by targeting some baseline which is beefy enough to provide for level of graphics that you don't wish to go below?

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[Xest]

What? You're a game developer and you don't understand how to develop for multiple platform configurations? That's pretty damn disturbing, no wonder there's a lot of bad games out there nowadays if this is a sign of how far the industry has dropped. Perhaps it explains why there have been so many horrendous PC ports of console games in recent years though.

The PC market was more fragmented, and had lower specs 10 years ago than Android phones today, and yet it did not prevent production of many great games. What's more, it's actually easier with Android, because at least with Android a lot of stuff is abstracted away for you from the off, and you don't have to do it all yourself. Besides, your post doesn't make an awful lot of sense even because the iPhone itself has different processor and memory configurations, but also with the iPad/4G, also has different screen resolutions and so forth too so it's a problem on that platform anyway.

I have to question whether you really are a game developer if grasping the concept of dealing with abstraction layers to cope with different hardware platforms is beyond you because it's been fundamental to engine development for a long, long time now- even on consoles because you're never sure if you're going to port from say, your DirectX based XBox title to a GL based PS3 title, and perhaps even then on to the lower specced Wii with a completely different control set to boot. Very few companies are developing exclusives now with the idea that they'll never ever be ported off that single platform. The situation with Android is absolutely no different, it's just that as mobile devices have lower specifications in general, you have to scale your ambitions down somewhat, all the remaining theory is still the same though.

The only way you can avoid fragmentation is by simply never improving your hardware platform, and, well, that'd be stupid because you'd get left in the past. Android does as good a job, if not better than nearly any other platform out there right now of handling inevitable obsolescence and changing hardware platforms.

Re:All that negativity about the IPhone

[geekoid]

Itt's a mediocre phone.

There are plenty phones you don't need to tinker with that has Superior technology, features, and sound.

Apple gave the final big push to get Americans as a whole to want smart phone features. There initial iPhone was fantastic.
No longer.
While you could fiddle with my phone, you don't have to get superiour features.

Publicity Stunts

[Ukab the Great]

Apple seems to lose their next generation iPhones in a manner similar to washed up celebrities who lose their sex tapes (that happen to be shot in high-quality HD video with the celebrity doing a remarkable job of staying in-frame).

Just sayin'...

Re:Publicity Stunts

[geekoid]

Not a publicity dtunt.

Some indicators:
A) Apple gets all it's hype from making people wait. The longer it hold you the steak, the louder the dogs bark.
B) The use of law enforcement
C) Lack of control on the results.
D) In no way Apple s style.

None of the evidence supports your obsession with sex tapes.

Jobs is there quite often...

[jordandeamattson]

You said,
The thing is, 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'."

Actually, Jobs turns up at WWDC quite often.

For the Apple suggestion box...

[rilister]

I have an idea that I'm offering up as a way of making a huge splash and demonstrating a sense of perspective and humor apparently lacking at Apple these days:

Steve Jobs, live on stage at WWDC 2010: "And now, with a very special announcement about a new product we're all very excited about here Apple, may I introduce...
GRAY POWELL!"

Epic Non-News Item of the Year!

[Bradicus]

Really guys? This is a post about an announcement stating who will do the announcement of something we all already know about. Just because it's Apple related doesn't mean it's news. If it weren't from Apple, this wouldn't make headlines anywhere on the planet. Surely theres something else to talk about today??

Whaaaaaat?!?

[zary]

Steve Jobs is going to be announcing the iPhone 4g???? That's AMAZING!!!

Apple is, iPhone isn't

[SuperKendall]

HOWEVER, from a simple political perspective, the iPhone is just WRONG. They way it's locked down is repulsive to many on a site that is heavily frequented by people involved in a movement (OSS) that stipulates that users should have absolute control over their systems.

THEN FUCKING JAILBREAK IT.

Welcome to the future. Or actually the past, since we have already been down this road (HA!) with cars. Average users have a locked down device that basically works pretty well and they don't really maintain. Technical users can, and will enhance and expand the system to do WHATEVER they want since they have the ability and the understanding to do so. It doesn't matter what the COMPANY supports, it matters what you can do with a device after. And with an iPhone, you can do anything. In fact for "lazy" technical users there is a very good third option where you don't jailbreak the phone, but you get a developer account - that lets you run almost anything you like, for instance tethering apps, on your own phone.

In short, your beef is with Apple and the policies they set - not the iPhone.

However, it should not be. Let the users have SOME option that is locked down so well they cannot easily screw it up. Stop trying to make every technical device on the planet so flexible out of the box that every person not only has enough rope to hang themselves, it's a guarantee.

Re:Apple is, iPhone isn't

[bnenning]

THEN FUCKING JAILBREAK IT.

That's a federal crime, and there's no guarantee that will be possible in the future.

Average users have a locked down device that basically works pretty well and they don't really maintain. Technical users can, and will enhance and expand the system to do WHATEVER they want

Yes, just like Android.

However, it should not be. Let the users have SOME option that is locked down so well they cannot easily screw it up.

Which Android does. You can use it like an iPhone and it will work fine; you never need to be aware of the options to run non-market apps or install custom ROMs.

Man, who needs a 4G?

[Arancaytar]

I found this weird little gadget in a bar a while ago; I'll never need to buy another phone. :P

Re:And now...

[thestudio_bob]

Yes but did she ever look in the mirror and say she could be a shark?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

I sincerely hope you're not a CEO

[jamrock]

I don't know about revenues and profits

Why am I not shocked?

You and many others believe that because Apple has such a small market share they must somehow be unsuccessful, and that they "lost" the PC war. Microsoft's almost complete dominance of the desktop has changed the definition of "success" in the eyes of the public at large, especially in the tech industry. Their monopoly turned the focus on market share, and most people have come to accept it is the critical metric for a company's success or failure. I'm constantly surprised how the mainstream media and many otherwise intelligent people subscribe to the misconception that if a company hasn't achieved total market domination they've "lost", never mind the fact they're profitable.

And Apple has proven to be astonishingly profitable. Revenue and profits (yes, the things that people who run companies do know about) are setting new records every quarter, and in terms of market capitalization, they recently leapfrogged Wal-Mart as the third most valuable company in the US, behind only Microsoft and Exxon Mobil. Based on Microsoft's flat share price and the anticipated leap in Apple's following the release of the 4th generation iPhone, as well as continued strong demand for iPhones and iPads, many analysts expect Apple to overtake Microsoft as the second most valuable American company sometime this summer, and Morgan Stanley today raised their target price for Apple stock to $310 USD, based on their expectation that Apple will sell 61.5 million iPhones in 2011.

Looks like the "PC war" was only a battle after all, and the true war, the war for mobile Internet, is only just beginning. Apple is again one of the giants jostling for position in this one, but the other contender is Google, and this time Microsoft is watching from the sidelines. Microsoft saw this coming and couldn't do anything about it; they don't have a dog in the mobile fight and they're watching the next great business frontier passing them by and receding in the distance. The vast majority of the world's users will not connect to the Web with a desktop or a laptop computer, but via a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet, and the market will be vastly larger than the PC market. That translates to hundreds of millions, or billions, of eyeballs for ads, credit card numbers, customer profiles etc., and Google is terrified that Apple's dramatically growing influence in mobile, including the App Store model and the iAd platform will pose a critical threat to their core business. People have commented that the rivalry between Apple and Google is rapidly turning into open war, and they're right. Make no mistake, Google sees themselves in a fight for survival, and Microsoft seems so irrelevant now.

I believe that if Apple continues to fire on all cylinders and their plans come to fruition, then Apple has a damned good shot at becoming the most valuable and profitable company on the planet within the next 2 years. Not bad for the loser of the PC war.

Re:I sincerely hope you're not a CEO

[sznupi]

Looking at it like that misses one important thing (not directly applicable to "succesful" by the standards of stock market, of which "impressions" and "expectations" that you mention are major part, but...) - Apple didn't give people access to all this technology; PCs and (also) MS did. And that's not a secondary issue...

Sure, it's easy to be profitable if one targets only "premium" people and relies on Chinese sweatshops...which exist also thanks to overall volume of other products - essentially, Apple relies on the success of PC to be able to have such low manufacturing costs / high margins. But the way markets are set up doesn't catch that...

Likewise with new battle, mobiles. You seem to suggest that Apple doesn't willingly ignore and won't ignore vast majority of people, the "lesser" ones - you know, vast majority of almost 5 billion mobile subscribers; in the meantime, Apple sold around 50 million iPhones in total. 1%. Think about it for a second.
Those 5 billions made possible by entites investing huge resources in underlying tech, infrastructure, providing mobile phones which, for hundreds millions of people, already are their first forage into networked world. All this of monumental value in regards to the future of humanity, its progress. Heck, it will also greatly benefit this "1%" and "investors". But the latter for some reason don't care about that. They, and you, seem to value more a company which is possibly even freeriding (depending how the patent dispute will end), and doesn't have the will to significantly contribute to that shift for humanity - but it still uses for its benefit the resources built by everybody in the process.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Apple's worst kept secret will be revealed on June 7th.

Which one? There's so many to choose from.

Gimme a break. Steve Jobs and fanbois?

[Chas]

Seriously, he could come up and announce that he was auctioning engagement for him to poop in someones' mouth and the Jobs-fiends would applaud and whoop and holler (and plunk down real money).

There is no 4G

[catmistake]

A press release from Apple HQ has made it almost certain that the company will announce the new iPhone 4G on June 7th, in our opinion, at least.

And... your opinion, it turns out, is incorrect. Apple will not release an iPhone 4G when there is no 4G network to speak of in the United States. And before you say you are for some reason using the capital 'G' to talk about internal Apple hardware generations, even though no one has ever used that nomenclature for Apple hardware before, all the while ignoring that everyone else is using the capital 'G' to only refer to cell technology generations, let me point out that the new iPhone is only the THIRD major revision of the iPhone. The confusion usually is in separating the original iPhone from the iPhone 3G. These two phones are the same hardware generation, indicated by Apple's internal nomenclature for them (iPhone1,1 & iPhone1,2, respectively), and also by they fact that they are nearly identical but for a different baseband radio and a gps chip. The original iPhone is, in fact, a 3G phone (EDGE is technically 3G, 2.5G is a made up marketing term). The iPhone 3GS is distinct enough in platform from the iPhone & iPhone 3G to be a generation bump, and it's indicated by Apple's internal identifier, iPhone2,1. The next iPhone, because we now know it has an A4 chip, is likewise distinctive enough from the iPhone3GS to be a generation bump. My bet is Apple will internally label it as iPhone3,1. But make no mistake, it will also be a 3G phone.

So... can we call it the "iPhone HD" or even maybe the "iPhone 4?" Continually naming it something it can't possibly be can't be good for anyone.

Re:There is no 4G

[AsmCoder8088]

I agree.

How about the iPhone G3?

Re:What does that chump have for developers?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Or, another shiny plastic turd for elitist consumers?

Yeah because Apple fanbois are the only ones being elitist on this topic.

Doesn't matter.

[crhylove]

They already lost to the Android. Just like they lost to Windows back in the day. And for the same reason: Draconian closed platform attempted vendor and consumer lock in.

Learn, Jobs, LEARN.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[bennomatic]

One might say he has learned. All the way to the bank. Whether someone has won or lost really depends on your definitions for those terms.

It seems to me that the only major cell phone hardware/software vendor that's "lost" is Palm, and even their contributions may find a new post-fire-sale life in the loving arms of HP.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[aristotle-dude]

They already lost to the Android. Just like they lost to Windows back in the day. And for the same reason: Draconian closed platform attempted vendor and consumer lock in.

Learn, Jobs, LEARN.

Cool story bro. Seriously. Nerds care about those sorts of things while consumers care about "software" that works well. Have you actually taken a serious look at the Android app store? I have and I can honestly say that is sucks not only in the usability department but the lack of commercial games and apps. Then there is the whole thing with media like digital copies that come with Blu-rays and the easy syncing of iTunes music.

You just don't get it. Learn, nerds, learn. Usability and software availability matter. Open source does not matter to anyone other than nerds and people who are cheap and looking for free (gratis) software.

New Android phones available on two CDMA carriers in the US are outselling iPhone models which are about to get refreshed in a month. Colour me shocked *sarcasm*. People locked into contracts on Verizon and Sprint have no other choice and people on AT&T are waiting for the iPhone 4G. Also consider that Verizon is giving away Android phones in a "buy one get one free" promotion.

Outside of the USA, Android is where on the marketshare map? Is it even visible?

Iron grip or soothing tentacles in every orifice?

[joh]

I replaced my Ubuntu desktop and laptop with a Mac Mini 2 years ago

Mac OS X is a great OS because it both "just works" and lets you tinker when you want to. It's baffling to me that Apple has convinced so many people that they have to keep an iron grip in order to provide usability, when half of their product line is a counterexample.

Well, for me the difference is that a fucking smartphone is something I do not want to invest even minutes in to tinker with. I surely wouldn't tolerate that kind of iron grip on a computer. But a phone is something that goes into my pocket and goes out again only to use it.

I have to say that a while ago I realized that I just can't handhold every bit on every digital device I'm using. So I opted to source parts of this out, so to say. Let others take care of that. Iron grip? Yeah, maybe. Better than me having to keep an iron grip on dozens of rather unimportant devices all the time.

And while I'm still not really sure where all of this will be going, I'm somewhat happy that Apple is trying it this way. Someone has to try it. Either it works or it does not work but we need to know if such an iron grip can help to manage such devices good enough to have a safe and secure environment without the users having to nurse the things along (which they wouldn't do anyway, not if we're talking about the mass-market).

And with Google and Apple you're between a rock and a hard place anyway. Android is much more open, yes. But then you (or at least the majority of users) will have Google inhaling all of your data day and night. Google will see what you search for and what you mail to whom and which maps you look at and what your calendar contains...

Apple may try to keep an iron grip on the soft- and hardware you're using, but Google inserts dozens of soothing tentacles into every orifice of your digital life.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[pandrijeczko]

Just to correct you...

OS X is built on a BSD core but it is *NOT* UNIX as the parts of a UNIX system you would normally adapt to suit what you need to do are hidden away from you.

The entire philosophy of UNIX is that you embrace its power because you're able to use one or more of a myriad of simple tools to do what you need to, yet the marketing philosophy behind OS X is that it's simple to use, even simpler than Windows.

Re:Whoop! Whoop! Holler! Holler!

[krakelohm]

Yea I hear ya how about those gas prices too... GM should be getting on Chevron about that, oh yea don't forget about the toaster I just bought, damn electricity bill is OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!

Re:Whoop! Whoop! Holler! Holler!

[JaredOfEuropa]

I think you would be complaining about gas prices if you'd go abroad (*) and found out you had to pay $8 a gallon, just because you were "roaming". And if you compare charges for data roaming to gas prices, it'd be more like $400 a gallon.

*) By "abroad" I exclude certain countries in Europe like mine, where gas will be $8 a gallon regardless of the nationality of the motorist...

Re:Iron grip or soothing tentacles in every orific

[bnenning]

Well, for me the difference is that a fucking smartphone is something I do not want to invest even minutes in to tinker with.

And Apple's control isn't required to achieve that. You can use an Android phone as if it were an iPhone and have a very similar experience. It's true that the UI isn't quite as polished, but that's orthogonal to being open.

Android is much more open, yes. But then you (or at least the majority of users) will have Google inhaling all of your data day and night. Google will see what you search for and what you mail to whom and which maps you look at and what your calendar contains...

If you're using Google's services, they see that regardless of what OS you're running. And there's no requirement to use their services with Android. Granted, they do make it easy to do so.

Re:Iron grip or soothing tentacles in every orific

[joh]

Well, for me the difference is that a fucking smartphone is something I do not want to invest even minutes in to tinker with.

And Apple's control isn't required to achieve that. You can use an Android phone as if it were an iPhone and have a very similar experience. It's true that the UI isn't quite as polished, but that's orthogonal to being open.

Android is much more open, yes. But then you (or at least the majority of users) will have Google inhaling all of your data day and night. Google will see what you search for and what you mail to whom and which maps you look at and what your calendar contains...

If you're using Google's services, they see that regardless of what OS you're running. And there's no requirement to use their services with Android. Granted, they do make it easy to do so.

Rest assured that most Android users *will* use all Google services they offer and pre-load. Say, 95% of them.

Tentacles, orifices. They don't need to get everyone, most are enough. "Open" has more than one meaning, I guess.

loaded crowd?

[DeadJesusRodeo]

Speaking of "a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'" - I've heard a few of these keynotes (downloaded on iTunes) while driving in the car, and not one but at least 2 times - on different keynotes - I seem to hear the exact same voices "hooting". I thought nothing of it until Andy Ihnatko blogged something similar during his notes on the iPad rollout about Apple employees loaded into the seats. Is Apple staging more than just what's in front of the audience - and is now staging the audience itself?

Not a big-deal - but if we're going to talk about "a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'" - I thought I might as well ask.

Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[SuperKendall]

That's a federal crime, and there's no guarantee that will be possible in the future.

Really? What crime exactly? Name the statute. Oh wait, you can't - because at WORST it's a warranty violation, not even covered by any law federal or otherwise!

And if for some reason you do care about your warranty after you make modifications, you simply un-jailbreak it when you send it for repair.

Yes, just like Android.

Finally you "get" it. There is no difference between what a technical user can do between an iPhone or an Android. Thank you for being (however accidentally) honest.

Which Android does. You can use it like an iPhone and it will work fine; you never need to be aware of the options to run non-market apps or install custom ROMs.

Just like the iPhone (only you don't have to go so far as doing custom ROM's, you just jailbreak the OS so it's actually in some ways simpler).

Re:Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[bnenning]

at WORST it's a warranty violation, not even covered by any law federal or otherwise!

Apple disagrees.

Just like the iPhone (only you don't have to go so far as doing custom ROM's, you just jailbreak the OS so it's actually in some ways simpler).

That depends on the state of jailbreaking at any specific time. Right now it's easy; it's been difficult or impossible in the past and will likely be so again when Apple "fixes" the current "exploit". And there are lots of things Android does out of the box without rooting that you'd need to jailbreak an iPhone for.

If you're a hacker, you can enter into a perpetual cat and mouse game with a company that considers you to be a criminal, or you can choose a platform that welcomes you. Not a hard decision for me.

Re:Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[SuperKendall]

From your own link:

"If this sounds like FUD, that's because it is. One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity."

Existing automotive laws cover this easily. It hardly matters what Apple says. And realistically, how would Apple going to sue you exactly?

That depends on the state of jailbreaking at any specific time. Right now it's easy; it's been difficult or impossible in the past and will likely be so again when Apple "fixes" the current "exploit".

You are describing a potential problem with NEW phones and iPod touches, and furthermore are betting against hackers being able to jailbreak the device despite a 100% record through history of being able to crack any device with motivation. Really?

If you're a hacker, you can enter into a perpetual cat and mouse game with a company

No, you jailbreak ONCE and then you are jailbroken forever. Updating to a later OS version from Apple is a choice, not a necessity. And again, even if you insisted it was necessary it's always been possible after some brief delay, and will always be in the future do to the fact that technically there is no way to stop someone from doing whatever they wish with a device they physically control. That is reality.

Re:Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[drinkypoo]

Really? What crime exactly? Name the statute. Oh wait, you can't - because at WORST it's a warranty violation, not even covered by any law federal or otherwise!

The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection device.

And if for some reason you do care about your warranty after you make modifications, you simply un-jailbreak it when you send it for repair.

Most of the reasons you'd care about warranty service prevent you from doing that.

Re:Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[SuperKendall]

The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection device.

With exceptions under which the iPhone obviously applies. And as I said before, it's pretty stupid to claim it's a crime for something they cannot know you are doing, and in fact millions of people are doing, obviously without harm. It's almost like you'd prefer to ignore reality because it doesn't match your preconceptions.

Most of the reasons you'd care about warranty service prevent you from doing that.

And here we are back to the car thing again, where it doesn't matter to a technical user.

In fact iPhone jailbreakers are better off than people who mod cars, because you can simply restore to the default OS if you need to turn a device in for warranty work.

Again, you prefer to ignore practical reality in a vain attempt to claim something that simply is not so.

All my points stand, you are just trying to dance around the fact that I am correct.

Re:Warranty is not the same as Federal Law

[Vectormatic]

Really? What crime exactly? Name the statute. Oh wait, you can't - because at WORST it's a warranty violation, not even covered by any law federal or otherwise!

IANAA (not an american), but i was under the impression that breaking/disabling copy-protecting (which jailbreaking does, you can install otherwise paid-for apps for free) was a violation of the DMCA.

Not sure if this only applies to the original hack which made jailbreaking possible, or to any jailbreak done by joe public, but considering how far up the asses of big media your politicians now are, i consider the second option very likely

corrections are off course, welcome

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Say what? Everything that makes me think UNIX is totally moddable on a my Mac's OSX install if I so choose.
I just click Terminal.app, run sudo -s, and off I go.

Here's some source code too : http://www.puredarwin.org/

As for the GUI, yeah, that's closed source. But then again GUIs aren't the Unix way so that doesn't matter.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[jazuki]

Have you actually used Mac OS X? The reason so many developers use it (even at Apple competitors) is because it is a full-blown UNIX with user-friendly apps and a pretty shell.

Anyway, as of Snow Leopard, Mac OS X is fully UNIX 03 compliant.

Re:Whoop! Whoop! Holler! Holler!

[rhook]

I seriously doubt we'll be seeing the iPhone on Verizon or Sprint in the near future, Verizon has the Incredible which just came out and Sprint is releasing the EVO/4G. Both of which are Android based phones and superior to iPhone in every way.

Re:Iron grip or soothing tentacles in every orific

[geekoid]

You just got it because it's pretty.

There are many devices that do more the the iPhone, and they do it better.

All the convenience, none of the iron grip.