Slashdot Mirror
Apple Announces iPhone 4
In a keynote presentation today at WWDC, Steve Jobs officially unveiled the iPhone 4. It's powered by an A4 chip, has a glass front and back, and has stainless steel around the edges, which turns out to be part of the antenna system. The new iPhone uses what Jobs called a "Retina display," running at 960x640, or 326 ppi. The battery is also bigger, with a corresponding increase in battery life. The iPhone 4 supports 802.11n, has two mics for noise cancellation, and a three-axis gyroscope, which allows rotation and precision that accelerometers can't match. The iPhone 4's camera is using a 5-megapixel backside illuminated sensor, which Jobs said does better at low-light photography. It also records 720p video at 30 frames per second, with tap-to-focus. In addition to this, they've created an iMovie app, which allows users to easily edit videos on their phone. Several live blogs of the event, with pictures, are available. The device ships in the US on June 24. Apple's product page has been updated with specs and a video. Read on for more details.
Update: 06/07 18:34 GMT by S : Steve's "One More Thing" this time around: FaceTime, live video chat from one iPhone 4 to another. It is Wi-Fi only at the moment, but they're working with carriers to expand that in the future. Jobs says the iPhone 4 OS is being renamed "iOS4," since it isn't just focused on phones anymore. The release candidate will be made available to developers today. He demonstrated multitasking, a unified email inbox, and folders for apps. In the App Store, you can expect to see an iPhone version of Netflix soon, as well as Guitar Hero and FarmVille. Jobs also announced that iBooks, the ebook application for the iPad, would be getting a few upgrades. Users will soon be able to make notes, and a bookmark button is on the way. It will put bookmarked pages into the book's table of contents. iBooks is also gaining support for viewing PDF files. On top of that, it won't be just for the iPad anymore; it's coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch as well, and it will sync between devices.
Update: 06/07 18:34 GMT by S : Steve's "One More Thing" this time around: FaceTime, live video chat from one iPhone 4 to another. It is Wi-Fi only at the moment, but they're working with carriers to expand that in the future. Jobs says the iPhone 4 OS is being renamed "iOS4," since it isn't just focused on phones anymore. The release candidate will be made available to developers today. He demonstrated multitasking, a unified email inbox, and folders for apps. In the App Store, you can expect to see an iPhone version of Netflix soon, as well as Guitar Hero and FarmVille. Jobs also announced that iBooks, the ebook application for the iPad, would be getting a few upgrades. Users will soon be able to make notes, and a bookmark button is on the way. It will put bookmarked pages into the book's table of contents. iBooks is also gaining support for viewing PDF files. On top of that, it won't be just for the iPad anymore; it's coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch as well, and it will sync between devices.
Anything about this being the same as the Gizmodo prototype?
None of which would have happened had Android not shown up.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Never before have I wanted a product so much but will not buy do to Apple's draconian policies.
What would be interesting is Adblock Plus for the iPhone.
What would be interesting is Adblock Plus for the iPhone.
Heh! Odds of that being approved for the App Store are approximately 3,720 to 1.
Corporatism != Free Market
...when you can announce that your document viewer will support PDFs and everyone is in the awe :)
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
This is going to revolutionize the way we use iphones! Apple has done it again. All Hail Steve!
Kind of like how Cisco owned the trademark for iPhone as well?
So wait, you mean its impossible to post an article and then have people post continuing updates in the thread? The mind reels.
I'm at Cisco right now, and from my cubicle I can hear people talking about it. They've already worked something out, apparently.
Wow, those are conservative odds as well. I would have put it somewhere around G to 1...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Oh sweet! Another innovation from Apple already available from others!
If they had any intention of trying to sue over something like that, Nintendo would've been in court already.
For those playing at home, IOS4 is a really old version of the Cisco router operating system and a version of the Wii kernel used to load the initial contents of a Wii console's flash chip. But then what abbreviation isn't taken nowadays?
I'm glad to see the iPhone getting a serious upgrade in the hardware department, but the walled garden is still enough to keep me from ever owning one. Android is teh place to be, at least for me.
Living With a Nerd
It's an optional thing for a developer to include in his app. I can imagine that there will be free apps that use iAdd and pay versions that don't have ads. Just use the version without ads and you are good. If there's no version without ads then don't use the app!
That's basically how it works now except Apple is providing developers with an easy and good-looking way to include ads in their app without having to cut deals on the side. Pretty much win-win for Apple, app developers and iOS users.
Sapere aude!
Now you can switch your default search provider to Bing!
So Apple is out, as well as Sony.
I agree with your sentiment, I really do want some of these products, but I'm fed up with the companies that present them.
I'm in the market for several new products:
1. Smartphone
I want to ditch AT&T and would like something that is as flexible as my older generation jailbroken iPhone. (VNC, Strong developer base, etc)
2. eReader
Though eInk displays are pretty much all the same, anyone have any luck with an eReader that isn't Sony but lets you have flexibility with the device?
3. A non-rented media recorder
ie: Non-Tivo and non-TV company owned. Is MythTV really the only option right now?
4. Unicorns.
I mean, as long as I'm asking I might as well get it all out there.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
"Quad Band" means it supports 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies, and all of those are GSM (voice) frequencies, not 3G (HSDPA/USM) frequencies. Unless it says 1700/2100 MHz for data access, T-Mo won't work. It's probably 850/2100MHz USM/CDMA which is what AT&T uses.
(Says the guy who owns a factory Nokia phone which only gets EDGE because of the above issue).
... And so it comes to this.
No teleportation. Less space than the Library of Congress. Lame.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The maximum storage capacity of the iphone maxes out at 32G, while the ipod touch goes up to 64G. I suppose that's comparable to the HTC's incredible maximum capacity of 40G (via 8 GB internal and 32 GB microsd card), but it's unfortunate that there isn't a larger option. The iphone really seems capable of replacing many mp3 players for reasonably sized collections, but with apps and music it's not hard to hit 32G.
And, of course, it would really kill Apple's profit margins to actually offer an SD slot...Oh well.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Indeed adverts are. Adblock Plus is a browser plugin so that adds are an optional thing a user can choose to accept. I'm unclear as to what way graphics heavy adverts will be 'win-win for ... iOS users' given that as of today it is no longer possible to start an unlimited data contract.
Will a user be winning when an ad for an ap that would have cost $1.99 for the ad-free version sends them over their monthly cap and results in a $10 bill from AT&T?
All ads have done is resulted in a proliferation of free apps with limited functionality and lots of adverts. It's cluttered the marketplace and made it difficult to distinguish between applications and value. It's not immediately obvious how much paid or versions of similar apps cost, making price comparisons more difficult for the user. Where's the 'win' in that?
Apple have distinct carrier contracts. What would have been innovative would have been to negotiate with carriers, make bandwidth to Apple's Ad servers not count as part of a user's allowance and have the advertiser pick up the cost of serving their Ad.
Would you watch network television if you were billed for each ad you see?
I've been a proponent for 300+ DPI screens for quite a while. I never got to see the Neo Freerunner (282 DPI), but the Droid (265 DPI) looks good. Jobs is correct, from about about 10-12 inches viewing, this is what is needed to have the device seem like paper. My preference though is to take that high DPI to a bigger screen - say something like 1280x720 with 4.8" diagonal (308 DPI). New Snapdragons are supporting 1280x800 (not sure I like 16/10 better than 16/9 for phones - it is the standard for laptops these days), so hopefully we'll see some Android phones with these high DPI numbers soon.
Never tell me the odds!
6 to 1 that someone will.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Well that's the thing, isn't it?
It's not necessarily that Apple truly innovates, or even that it simply does things better (i.e. the iPhone).
It's the fact that Apple is one of those brands that a lot of industries follow.
So once -Apple- starts doing videoconferencing, even just the two-way that's been shown in TV commercials since the day phones with two cameras (or just the 'front' camera) were launched, you'll suddenly see a lot of (renewed) interest in supporting it; including carriers.
Personally, I yawn at these announcements in terms of what they announce. But I applaud the announcements themselves, as it'll light some fire under companies' behinds to kick back into gear.
The one announcement bit that has the opposite effect, is the FarmVille-as-an-app. Not that I care for FarmVille, but one major problem FarmVille players supposedly had was the lack of Flash support on the iPhone (and iPod touch, and iPad) - Flash being what FarmVille needed to run. But Apple made it clear that they would definitely not be supporting Flash, and instead were 'promoting' HTML5.
So will there be an HTML5 FarmVille? Perhaps - but it's clear that at least as far as the announcement goes, it will be an iPhone/Pod Touch/Pad-only app instead.
I believe this is far more the future that Apple envisions, than that developers use HTML5.
But their platform, their store, their firstborns and FarmVille folks' freedom to decide to make it a native app and all that; such are things :)
Apple - copy everyone else, claim it's revolutionary.
It's revolutionary when someone else fails to start a revolution with their idea and it just languishes until you take it up and start a revolution in the industry with it.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Wifi only because AT&T will never allow it. They say they are working with carriers which means outside the US it should be available in no time but inside, you can forget about it.
It is iPhone only, but it sounds like Apple is opening up the protocol for others to use. It would be nice if there was a standard for video calls on phones.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
"a 5-megapixel backside illuminated sensor"
Does that mean the sun shines out its backside?
Yeah, I'm not so sure about this whole mobile video conferencing. Now instead of the assholes with the earpieces, we're going to see people holding out their arms not paying attention to where they are walking and being even bigger douches. And this goes for Driod users with this features too.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
This is a very impressive evolution. Thinner, better display, more processing power, better battery life, better camera, new sensors, and more capabilities across the board, both hardware and software.
I'd love to develop for it.
I just wish there was some way I could know that if I spent thousands of hours creating software for it, that such software would continually be available for purchase via the App Store. I'd be okay with explaining in detail to Apple how the software was going to work before developing it. But it would be necessary to obtain an authoritative answer to inform as to whether the software would be accepted (if implemented to a proposed specification) and for what minimum duration the software would be allowed on the store.
There is a fundamental risk in developing new software: "Will customers buy this?" This risk can be calculated to a certain extent. My concern with developing for iOS is that an additional incalculable risk exists, and it is simply too much to bear.
They licensed the name iOS to Apple. mentioned in the cnet live feed http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20006866-260.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1
And used by who?
I have a workmate who makes Skype calls with N900. But definitely not often...
I don't see myself using video calls in everyday situations for now no matter what phone. But perhaps they do get more common if Apple manages to push them through.
It is what it is.
The Wii "wiimote" Controller has three MEMS linear accelerometers. The Wii "Motion Plus" adapters plug into the wiimote, and add three MEMS angular accelerometers, which are also very commonly referred as gyroscopic sensors. If the phone has the gyro sensors, it can sense relative tilt motions, but can't sense its own position relative to gravity when held still or sitting on a dock. The linear accelerometers work best at slow gestures, like those found in marble games or augmented reality windows. If it has all six sensors, which I expect it does, then there are a lot of quick and slow motion gestures you can do very accurately.
[
You do realize that there's a difference between having a webcam sitting on top of your monitor and sending live video from your phone, right? Not to mention that Apple's version of it will probably be about as simple as making a phone call.
Like they said in the keynote, this isn't some new idea, this is a "vision of the future" that predates Apple, but finally starting to become a reality. It's about damn time, too.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Actually, it has something like this 4x4x0.9mm ITG-3200 Triple-Axis Digital-Output Gyroscope. Not one, but three real MEMS gyroscopes in a single surface-mount IC package.
Yes, they actually can make them that small these days. Amazing, isn't it?
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
The Wii MotionPlus controllers use something similar.
From Wikipedia:
The physical principle is very simple: a vibrating object tends to keep vibrating in the same plane as its support is rotated. It is therefore much simpler and cheaper than is a conventional rotating gyroscope of similar accuracy.
In other words, it doesn't count until Apple does it.
That does sound familiar.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Speaking for myself as an iPhone developer, I will not be adding this to any of my apps. Since I freaking hate them as a consumer I'm not going to then turn right back around and add them when I'm trying to make money.
On their specification Page.
UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
sonofabitch.
What would be interesting is Adblock Plus for the iPhone.
GlimmerBlocker (uses ABP's blacklist) does the trick (or your favorite ad-block daemon). More effective than browser plugins since it works across multiple apps (browser, email, feed reader, etc). Even more effective if you have your own web server w/ said daemon. I do this with all the wired/wireless clients at home. Setup up the iPhone to use your own server via proxy and you'll have all the ad blocking you want.
On their specification Page.
UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
sonofabitch.
Geeks the word over experience a simultaneous nerdgasm
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Marketing - the screen is higher than 300ppi, which is a resolution greater than the human eye can resolve.
The reality is,(with a few exceptions I'm sure)that for any reasonably complex application, a native app can almost certainly be superior than a web app. If the SDK and API's are even halfway decent, you're going to have way more options programming directly to the OS than you will going through a web browser. Not to mention that native apps can gain easy access to UI elements that are consistent within that OS. These benefits hold true on a desktop computer as well as a phone/tablet/whatever.
Now that doesn't mean that farmville is going to take full advantage of all of that, but at least they have that opportunity. Honestly, if I was in Farmville's position, I'd have released a native iPhone App and also would be working on an HTML5 version. If you've got the resources, you should put your best foot forward on any platform that you think will make you money.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
From http://www.macrumorslive.com/
10:39 am Doing a live demo now.
10:39 am Firing up both phones.
10:40 am Zoomed in difference looking at home screen is remarkable. Apple had to get special projectors to show just how good this screen is.
10:40 am Loading up NY Times next.
10:41 am Loading slowly, "networks in here always unpredictable."
10:41 am Steve asks everyone to get off WiFi to help him out, audience laughs.
10:41 am NY Times still not loading on iPhone 4.
10:41 am Switching to backups.
10:42 am iPhone 4 now on AT&T, all kinds of error messages about not being connected to the internet popping up on iPhone 4.
10:42 am Steve goes back to showing photos.
10:43 am Difference is fairly amazing.
10:43 am iPhone 4 slowly barely loads NY Times.
10:43 am Steve apologizing again.
10:43 am Asks Scott for any suggestions.
10:44 am Someone shouts, "Try Verizon."
10:44 am Steve concludes demo.
I think Bill Hicks summed advertising up quite accurately:
"There's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself."
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Thank-you Mr. Jobs, now we won't just have to put up with people talking loudly into their cell phones, but we'll have to put up with iPhone users screaming into their speakerphones using "FaceTime" while mooching off a coffee shop's free wi-fi.
Wifi only because AT&T will never allow it. They say they are working with carriers which means outside the US it should be available in no time but inside, you can forget about it.
It is iPhone only, but it sounds like Apple is opening up the protocol for others to use. It would be nice if there was a standard for video calls on phones.
I've got over 14,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to choose from to chat and discuss in video conferencing. The last thing I need is a bunch of morons driving on I-5 trying to chat and look at who they are chatting with, simultaneously. It's bad enough already with just voice.
This is exactly what Apple wants to have happen: every developer now publishes a native iOS version of their app. The lack of Flash support on iOS is merely the tip of the iceberg. If Apple's strategy comes to fruition, iOS becomes the dominant app platform so developers are basically forced to support it - just as Windows was for the past 20 years. And Apple both gets to control what is available for iOS (read: keep out competition), and gets a cut of everything that sells. Read this (this is not my blog, it's mostly about finance and banking and that whole mess, but there are a handful of posts on other topics):
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/05/30/personal-computing-apple-google-2/
It's a pretty scary future indeed, but sadly with iOS's dominance I can't see how to stop the freight train. With PCs, maybe there was enough market pressure for an "open" system where we can run whatever we want. But with smartphones, it's enough of an "appliance" that I don't think anyone will care. And we'll be stuck with Apple's draconian policies for the next 20 years.
I'm surprised that more cell phones haven't implemented it. Maybe they have. Does anyone know if others are experimenting with it too?
Noise cancellation with dual microphones is about 60 years old, as a technology. My 18 month old HTC Touch Pro 2 has dual mics (for noise canceling), and my 3 year old Plantronics Bluetooth earpiece has dual mics for noise canceling. The difference is that the iPhone is finally catching up to what most other phones and communication devices have offered for the last few years, so rather than admit they were way behind the times they hype the crap out of it to make it seem like its iRevolutionary and thus Apple is seen as an innovator.
Reality is, Apple with dual mics is where Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, HTC, and most others were back in 2006. Apple's just really good at getting people to accept whatever they say at face value, even if it's just fluff and marketing glitz.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The reason to choose 960x640 resolution is purely technical: to overcome their bad 3-year old decision to stick to a single resolution for application development. Quadrupling pixels is the only working solution for all the legacy apps out there.
However once they are at it, why not use this solution for PR? They now have the highest resolution on a cellphone ever, and 99% of potential buyers aren't aware of the real reason. The higher - the better, it's just like the megapixel wars in cameras.
I just hope the megapixel story won't be repeated with cellphone resolution, and we are not going to see stuff like 400-dpi 3" screens.
Yeah, I mean, who wants the world's largest selection of quality apps, all vetted to be reasonably sure of being malware-free and of at least a minimum level of quality and stability!
Yeah, because fart apps are considered quality. Quantity != quality. Plenty of quality apps have been denied, while plenty of crap is available in the app store.
Even though, at present, the "walled garden" provides a superior all-around app experience for most people
New Kids on the Block had a number 1 hit. "Superior" is very subjective.
there are some for whom ideology trumps reality. And I'm the one that gets called "fanboy"?
You are defending the fact that your device is artificially limited. That, to me, is the very definition of a fanboy.
Nothing I can do or say will change the fact that Apple retains control over what you can and can't do with your device. The only thing I can do is vote with my wallet, so that's what I do. Forgive me for being a consumer who pays attention.
Living With a Nerd
Does anyone know what the "Retina display" means?
The resolution exceeds that of the retina.
Is it just a marketing term (a la "Powerglide transmission") or does it actually describe some innovation in the display?
Yes, it's a marketing term.
And can we please pitch in and buy Steve Jobs a sandwich? Even Kate Moss says he's too skinny.
Dude just recovered from cancer. Not just cancer, but a type of cancer that is to cancer what most cancers are to not having cancer at all, which fucked up his liver and he had to get that replaced after getting past the cancer. I usually don't comment on personal attacks, but this one is exceptional in its lack of class, and not even at least being funny enough to make up for it.
At 10-12 inches. As Jobs said in the speech.
Towards the Singularity.
That, or learn to read. I made it clear I don't give two shits if you make fun of Steve Jobs. There's plenty about him to ridicule. But to ridicule a cancer surviver for being skinny after losing his fucking liver? I don't care who the target of such a comment is, it's out of line.
Like they said in the keynote, this isn't some new idea, this is a "vision of the future" that predates Apple
Gosh, you mean like this people have already been able to use on their Nokia phones for quite a while? The latest software to support it is Skype/Fring (but it's been available for others before):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GjfMO9lziE
Not to mention that Apple's version of it will probably be about as simple as making a phone call.
Yeah, and it will probably only let you talk to other iPhone users. But, hey, that way you can maintain your illusion that this is something new or unique to Apple. Wouldn't want to have your preconceptions challenged, would you now.
And no mention of bluetooth drivers to support a bluetooth keyboard.
how hard did you look?
http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/
Like anyone can even know that
There are a whole bunch of websites that I've been browsing almost every single day for years, and have never personally given them even a dime of my money. If it wasn't for advertisers paying some bills, then I wouldn't get to do that.
Accept the reality. Content isn't free to produce. Someone has to pay for it. You can mumble whatever you want about subscriptions or micropayments or whatever, but the reality is that all of that stuff implemented on a large scale would be just annoying as your average web ad, and you'd rather not pay anyways.
That's not to say that some ads are more tasteful while others are purposefully aggravating and quite annoying. But to pretend that everything would be puppies and roses if web ads went away is to ignore how the world works.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Come on Apple, how do you expect others to respect your trademarks if you don't respect other?
Ever think of checking your facts before commenting? From the FaceTime IM company web site:
"Our agreement with Apple to transfer the FaceTime trademark to them comes as we are rebranding our company to better reflect our capabilities. We will be announcing a new name in the coming months."
Quantity != quality
You know, nobody bought that argument when mac users were saying the same thing about PC applications.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I'd love to write a best-selling novel, but until Bedford St. Martin's gives me 100% assurance that they will publish and advertise my novel before I start writing it, I'm not going to write a word of it.
There is a fundamental risk in writing new books: "Will customers read this?" This risk can be calculated to a certain extent. My concern with writing a novel for Bedford St. Martin's is that an additional incalculable risk exists, and it is simply too much to bear.
It wasn't a bad decision. Having a fixed resolution means that apps can be designed to a pixel perfect degree. And given that 3 years later, they have been able to up the resolution in a way that means all those apps remain pixel perfect means that fixing the resolution in the first place wasn't a technological dead end.
For a desktop windowing OS, variable resolution combined with resolution independence is a good thing. Apps run in windows that can be of any size, and the generous screen space allows plenty of flexibility for apps to rearrange themselves to suit. For a screen as small as a smartphone that just doesn't work. Designers have to design very carefully to fit the app UI on the screen in a good way.
You do realize that UMTS videocalling is available for better part of the last decade, right? With hundreds millions of devices already out there by this point.
Oh, and it's as simple as making a phone call...because it is just a phonecall (you call somebody, and if videocall can be established, the option of switching to it during the call will be there)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Setting aside your disregard for the Star Wars reference (turn in your geek card as you leave)
Let's get this straight: referencing the solution to:
Consider an n-dimensional hypercube, and connect each pair of vertices to obtain a complete graph on 2n vertices. Then colour each of the edges of this graph using only the colours red and black. What is the smallest value of n for which every possible such colouring must necessarily contain a single-coloured complete sub-graph with 4 vertices which lie in a plane?
is not geeky, but awareness of a mainstream hollywood kids action movie is?
Someone must have changed the definition of geekiness while I wasn't looking.
You are limited to the app store. ... ... ...
Again, you are still limited to the store.
It does, but once again, Android users aren't limited to the Marketplace.
However, I don't like being restricted to a single location as a means for finding applications for my phone, regardless of what that single location offers.
Exactly. You don't care about the reality of what's offered, but instead by your ideological aversion to having only one app store.
Bullshit. Apple doesn't control what I can do, they merely control what apps I can get from the App Store, nothing more. I can buy a key and compile and run any app I want. I don't even have to buy a key, someone else can and distribute an app to hundreds of people for free. I can jailbreak. I can use HTML5 apps, which are extremely capable (Google's Voice webapp is fantastic).
See bold section. Having to hack your phone to leap over the walled garden isn't necessarily something to use in an attempt to sway my opinion, when I can already download anything I want from wherever I want for my unmodified device.
No, you read the bold section. You don't have to hack the iPhone to run apps from outside the app store. You don't even have to pay to do so.
Once again, Android devices aren't limited to the Appstore. ...
I don't have an iPhone primarily because I don't want to be stuck with a single location for applications. I'm sorry that seems stupid to you
Not wanting to be stuck with a single app store is not stupid, but choosing an inferior product for the primary reason that it has the option for additional sources of apps tends towards the irrational. I.e., fanboyism.
Now, if you truly think that Android will end up with more apps because of this, or at the very least, more high quality apps, then your decision to avoid the iPhone is rational, but the basis behind it is still based on ideology. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that third party Android app stores is going to result in more apps than the iPhone. What will result in more apps is more users and a higher-quality user experience. Android lags significantly behind iPhone in both categories.
Or put differently, if there was a third-party app store for iOS, how many more quality apps would there be? There'd be a native Google Voice (like I already said, though, the existing web app is excellent), there'd be that Squeak interpreter app. There'd be a bunch of porn apps. And...? Flash?
Oh, what a long list of things I can't have!
You repeat the "there's only one app store" thing over and over, but you completely fail to demonstrate how that's a problem. It's just ideology. It's fanboyism.
Sadly, even those who try to escape Steve's clutches ...
"Steve's clutches"? What is he some cartoon villain now? I'm sure he's cackling in his lair right now plotting the next way he can make your life worse by forcing yet another industry to make better and more useful products.
...are affected by the iPhone, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every mobile platform is copying the App Store model, some of them with exactly the same kind of draconian lock-in policies.
Draconian? Let's take the WABAC machine back to the 1960s when AT&T was the only telecom company in town - LITERALLY. Back then you didn't even own the large and primitive phone in your house. It was leased to you by the phone company which was a government sanctioned monopoly and wired directly into the wall. If you didn't pay they came and took the phone from your house. Oh and you paid handsomely for the privilege of having this level of "service". The phone was robust but not remotely innovative and if you think Apple is being "draconian" you really have no idea what draconian is. You have more options now than you ever have had.
Really the enemy here isn't the phone manufacturers. The enemy is the telecom companies. The handset manufacturers main customers aren't you and me. Their customers are the telecom companies (AT&T etc) and the interests of the telecoms differ significantly from yours and mine. That's why most of them historically have paid little attention to the user experience. They didn't have to to sell products to their customers. Apple, despite their flaws, has forced the telecoms and handset manufacturers to pay more attention to the end users. Yes they are being restrictive but most of the worst restrictions come from the telecoms, not the handset makers.
I've met and spoken with Ed Whitacre when he was CEO of AT&T. I've never met a CEO who so bluntly held his customers in lower regard than he did and I've met quite a few Fortune 500 CEOs. My father and grandfather worked for AT&T and its successor companies for a combined 50 years between them. I know these companies well and they are not your friend.
So this is not something we can just sit by and watch, it is an industry wide phenomenon that we must fight on every front that opens up, or one day we will get out of bed and there will be no platforms left where we have the legal right to run our own software any more.
Excellent. Fight the good fight. I support you fighting for open platforms completely. But let's keep the hyperbole out of it shall we? Steve Jobs by all accounts can be a real ass but the phones we have today are better products because of his efforts. There are at least 3 other major phone platforms (Blackberry, Android and Nokia/Symbian) competing with Apple and the more they compete the better off you and I will be.
What's sad is, the most open OS on a smartphone you can buy from a carrier today (nobody buys unlocked GSM phones in the US, so the N900 is out,) from the user perspective, anyway, is WINDOWS FREAKING MOBILE 6.5.3.
Out of the box, you have root.
Here in Japan the majority of phones on sale have had the ability to 'video call' over 3G using a front camera for several years. My wife's crappy old sharp which is ready to be thrown in the bin included.
My current iPhone was a step back in that regard, and it'll be pretty amusing once Softbank starts selling the iPhone alongside phones which can video-call over 3G and has to tell customers that the iPhone is 'wifi only' for some goddamned reason.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
You'd better stop buying almost every single product in every single store then since nearly all of it is made in China or some other country with similarly low wages. I don't know how anyone can be shocked about Chinese workers getting paid a low wage, it's very common knowledge & the reason everything is made there in the first place.
Are you swearing off all Chinese made products? If not you are a hypocrite. Foxconn also makes non-Apple devices & products. Are you going to swear off buying these too?
"Foxconn produces the Mac mini, the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone for Apple Inc.; Intel-branded motherboards for Intel Corp.; various orders for American computer manufacturers Dell and Hewlett-Packard; motherboards for UK computer manufacturer Zoostorm; the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for Sony; the Wii for Nintendo; the Xbox 360 for Microsoft, cell phones for Motorola, the Amazon Kindle, and Cisco equipment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn