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Steve Jobs To Keynote WWDC iPhone Announcement
Stoobalou writes "Apple's worst-kept secret will be revealed on June 7. A press release from Apple HQ has made it almost certain that the company will announce the new iPhone 4G on June 7, in our opinion, at least. The missive from Cupertino simply states that Steve Jobs will kick off the Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 with a keynote address. The thing is, Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce that will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'."
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.
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.
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!
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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
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.
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.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
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.
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
Sent from your iPad.
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 !").
-- Rastignac was here.
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... :-)
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.
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.
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
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.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
YMBNH. This is /. Of course -1 Troll is a synonym for "I disagree"
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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.
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...
One that hath name thou can not otter
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??
"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.
One that hath name thou can not otter
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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.
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.
The Admin and the Engineer
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.
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.
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!!!!!!
You are all a bunch of idots.
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.
One that hath name thou can not otter