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iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Wreaking Havoc On Apple Store
theappwhisperer was one of a surprisingly large number of people writing in this morning to report that the Apple store is having serious troubles taking pre-orders of the new iPhone 4. People are seeing the error page or just waiting an insanely long time to get pages back. Just imagine trying to do this from an iPhone in a major market!
In other related news, there is now an Apple Store App in the Apple App Store.
Yo dawg.
I got one, took me a long time to get through the servers being jammed. But why is this news? I know, every time we we post a Slashdot story about hammering a server we should post it again! Brilliant! I just doubled the amount of stories on Slashdot. Maybe infinitely if we keep on crashing them.
If everyone can just turn off your web browsers. I've got all day.
Everyone knows this "delay" is a feature not a negative. It was designed in the best interest of consumers, to give them extra time to think, "Do I really want to spend a couple hundred dollars, or should I pay my rent?" It's like a waiting period.
(I'm just joking of course - though I better say it, else someone might mark me "troll" - it's funny.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Latest hypometer reports say you have dropped to hypecon 3 since someone managed to place a pre-order. I think you need to throttle more bandwidth.
Apple could use Google's Could for that.
Reports are coming in of Slashdot being flooded with iPhone 4 stories, wreaking havoc with the front page, with people having to skip over an insane number of Apple stories to read something else. Just imagine trying to read this from an iPhone! The demand for the stories surpasses even that of three months of iPad stories, that were necessary before it finally shipped, and makes the traditional "daily iPhone story" seem infrequent in comparison.
You don't have to wait in line to breathe, either. You could wait in line for a whore, but then you will probably bring home more than you bargained for. What was your point again? Ah yes you were trying to make some allusion as to waiting in line was a "good thing", etc.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Evo looks sweet to me, and it's getting some good reviews.
Lots of people seem to be fed up with Jobs "walled garden" - crappy iTunes has to be used for everything, no SD card or USB ports, no flash.
AT&T network is getting slammed all over the place - slow, unreliable, and insecure.
The Brittish would. Though the correct term is "queueing".
I saw a lineup outside Future Shop (like Best Buy here in
Trolling is a art,
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Apple isn't the only one... With these two companies relying on each others servers, it's no wonder that both are having issues.
I don't know about Microsoft (who aren't the competition in the phone market - instead they're competing with Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, RIM etc), but taking pre-orders is commonplace for many companies, not just Apple. There's nothing about "waiting in line" here.
Talking of pre-orders - can we please remember that they've been taking pre-orders, before someone tries to falsely claim "XXX iPhones sold in 1 day!", as people falsely claimed for the Ipad?
Maybe people don't have to wait in line? I read the news about people waiting in line to get 3G on their phone, but I didn't have to wait, as I got it years earlier when it was standard on even cheap feature phones. I'm not going to have to wait in line to get multitasking or a higher resolution either, as my 2 year old 5800 does those fine.
When was the last time someone waited in line for a Microsoft product?
15 years ago? Yeah that's about right.
-- BMO
When was the last time Microsoft had a product worth waiting in line for? 15 years ago? Yeah that's about right. ;-)
Okay, Billy. Time for your meds.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
people will spend spend spend on selfish desires but are against spending the same on their own welfare all the while complaining the rich have too much money. I know people spend themselves into a ditch paying for new gadgets and monthly fees and then turn around and bitch about how much money other people have.
Consumerism at its worst, they "deserve" to have what they want regardless of ability.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
not like Android phones are any cheaper. the top of the line Droid and Evo's go for $199 with 8GB storage. iPhone comes in 16GB and 32GB. by the time you buy a SD card it's more than an iphone
On paper it does actually have pretty decent specs - Seems to be a tad better than my N900, though the environment is too closed for my liking. I prefer the Meego / Maemo stuff better myself.
And yet another time company has product understocked and has troubles to keep their online shop up, news at 11.
Apple, this way of creating hype is getting way old.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
No No NO! I said to host a web site for the iPhone4; not on an iPhone4!
</jobs_voice="off">
Question: What would Steve Jobs call a web site where you can negotiate the best price for an iPhone4?
Answer: iDeal!
I suppose Slashdot's run-on sentence filter is broken...
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Steve, the turtlenecked one: "Web minion! The weak fools we call 'customers' will endure any delay for our superior products, and the media interprets server slowness as a sign of overwhelming demand. Make it so!"
..."
Web minion: *starts iTunes on the Xserve handling orders, the beachball starts spinning*
Steve, the turtlenecked one: "No, you fool! I don't want a slight increase in ping times, I want interminable delays, I want pages that have to be refreshed a dozen times, I want those pitiful insects to beg for our order confirmation screen. Take any measures necessary."
Web minion: "Master, surely you don't mean?"
Steve, the turtlenecked one: "Yes. Load a Flash Applet
When was the last time someone waited in line for a Microsoft product?
15 years ago? Yeah that's about right.
-- BMO
I didn't know the XBox 360 was released 15 years ago.
"Just a fox, a whisper."
Halo/Xbox 360 most definetly.
Trying to make your product appear desired by throttling your bandwidth must be the lamest trick of them all.
HTTP/1.1 400
Brittish is the Ammerican spelling.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Would this story appear for Microsoft's Windows? Adobe Photoshop? Color me skeptic.
"Programming is life, the rest is mere details"
It's a good thing they have money to be parted with since the average iPhone user makes over 100k/year.
Really? I think that I want to be an average iPhone user :-)
Actually, no. A quick search on Pricewatch reveals that 32GB SD cards are going for about $85 on the street. That puts a 32GB Evo at just under the $299 Apple wants for a 32GB iPhone 4. However, since I get to keep the 8GB that comes with the Evo, that means I get an Evo with 40GB of storage for a little less than a iPhone 4 with 32GB.
My blog
Why does it have to be an either-or thing? Microsoft products definitely aren't worth waiting in line for, but that doesn't make you less of an idiot if you wait in line for an Apple product.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You're absolutely correct. I completely forgot about XBox 360 in my haste to take a cheap shot at Microsoft.
Yeah, seeing error messages or getting pages back at all is a lot better than what usually happens when you try to use an iPhone in Manhattan.
Why pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a phone (should I stop here?) that doesn't have any new functionalities, and the novelties are a front camera and ability to record video, something that competitors have had for years, and now offer at reasonable prices.
Well I guess is the same people that bought that stupid circular mouse just for it's looks.
I've been trying to pre-order for the last two hours. Flashback to three years ago with the original iPhone activation debacle. I'm dismayed that Apple and AT&T haven't gotten their collective shit together in all this time. :-(
-Peter
It's not a bug, it's a feature of our security.
I know that it's fashionable to make fun of AT&T. I don't like carrier-exclusive agreements either - I think that they're anti-consumer and shouldn't be allowed. However, AT&T's network is actually the best in most markets as shown in independent tests by Gizmodo, PC World, and PC Magazine.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364263,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/article/189592/atandt_roars_back_in_pcworlds_second_3g_wireless_performance_test.html
http://gizmodo.com/5428343/our-2009-12+city-3g-data-mega-test-att-won
The most recent test (PC Magazine) shows AT&T nearly 80% faster than the other 3G networks (June 2010). PC World's tests show AT&T to be 67% faster than the competition (Feb 2010). Gizmodo's tests show AT&T on top, but by a smaller margin (Dec 2009). PC World's tests do show that AT&T has improved markedly since their Feb 2009 tests (improving speeds by over 200% in some places). By the end of 2009, AT&T's network was the fastest and it's kept improving to widen the gap. Even in so-called trouble markets like New York and San Francisco AT&T is doing well. In San Francisco, their speeds are double the competition's average and over 75% faster than the second fastest. In New York, T-Mobile's HSPA+ network (recently rolled out) is 10% faster, but AT&T is still 94% faster than Verizon and 130% faster than Sprint.
It's fashionable to make fun of AT&T. If you live in a rural area, AT&T might not have 3G service to you. If you were using AT&T in 2007 and 2008, their service was likely slower than the competition. That is not the case anymore. Real data (rather than anecdotal evidence) shows AT&T to be quite ahead of the competition when it comes to 3G capacity in major markets.
I don't get this comment.
The App Store is a good hundreds times bigger then Ovi Store, and it's growing at a faster pace. There's a much better chance you will find an App you like on the Apple store than the Ovi store.
iPhones are also easily jail broken for even more apps.
All those people saw slashdot yesterday and want to not read Ulysses.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Agreed. Look I own apple products (including an MBP), but really, WHO CARES IF THE PRE-ORDER IS BROKEN FOR A BIT?! It's not like your going to get it any later if you don't get your pre-order in right now, because no one else is getting in the line either. This isn't news, and OP's run on sentence is really how slashdot reads some times. "Filter out apple stories" you say? But then there is a slim chance I'll miss some real news.
It is a good thing from the point of view of the company selling things, yes.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
16GB microSD only costs about $30 - where are your sources showing the Android phones as more expensive?
There's more than Android, anyway. E.g., the X6 comes with 16 or 32GB as standard; the N97 with 32GB as standard.
and the iphone 4 has a slightly higher resolution screen, a gyro for some reason or other and you're paying for iTunes indirectly. price is about the same. not like the old days when you would pay 50% more for an apple product.
Well, I hear a couple of guys lined up for the Zune.
But, seriously, why has Slashdot developed this irrational Microsoft Good/Apple Bad mentality? Nowadays it seems if you say anything pro Microsoft, you get modded up, and anything pro Apple, and you get modded down. The above is fairly insightful, but it's modded as troll.
All by a bunch of rabid zealots who have their knickers in a twist over Flash -- Flash for fuck sakes. Is the world worse off because someone didn't support Flash? I don't even know what that Badgers thing is that everyone keeps acting like it's the end of the world if it's not supported.
I remember a few years ago when people were lined up at Best Buy, Circuit City, and EB Games to get the XBox 360. Sony and Nintendo had similar results with their game consoles.
I don't think waiting in line to be the first to get one is limited to Apple products.
Here's a news flash. People wait in line to purchase a book (eg. Harry Potter, Twilight, etc) and to be the first to see a movie (eg. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings).
Waiting in line is not always a bad thing. I waiting in line with my daughter at every Harry Potter book release. It always came out near her birthday and it was fun to speak to other fans of the book. Now that she is grown, I look back fondly to the experience. Especially when she was waiting in line to read a book.
I've waiting in line for WoW Burning Crusades because I had nothing else to do and the EB Games was next door to where I was staying overnight on work travel. However, I usually wait until the next day or so because... well... its a game and there are plenty of copies.
Anyway, people will wait in line for anything these days and I don't see it as a bad thing - in fact we need more. Why? Anything that will get people out of their basements and socialize with other people in person can't be all bad.
Humans are funny.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Plus there are people like me who already have a 16gb microSD card, and 3x 8gb cards around from my current (soon previous) phone. I'm going to have 48gb of storage out of the box (8x4 + 16).
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
Now I know what all those people feel like who scream "SHILL!!!" at Microsoft posts (still way too many of you, by the way).
Or (looking at your last two posts here) is it actually possible to be a carrier fan[boy]? Or do you just work at AT&T and love your employer? Maybe I'm wrong. I'm genuinely curious.
This is obviously all AT&T's fault. Will they ever get anything right? Poor Apple!
See, a lot of the Slashdot crowd has chosen not to interact with real people due to a myriad of insecurities hidden by a superiority complex. This presents itself worst when they start to pant and whine about other people mentioning situations in which one is in forced proximity with other people with whom you may have to "socially interact". Mentioning any sort of situation like this causes bouts of anxiety fueled nerdrage in which the perceived aggressor is mocked and jeered through choked back tears of bitter, vitriol-fueled anguish on a playing field sympathetic to such unrealistic and unhealthy views (Slashdot).
Yeah I know right man? People buying things and other people selling them. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO
The handset uses repositories in the same way debian based stuff does - apt-get install whatever. Easy debian is also available so the handset can run pretty much everything you would find in your typical linux distro. Including stuff like open office, gimp, and on and on. Plus it's all free. For me this is better than the app store, but each to their own.
Rent boys are professionals: they take money. Apple fanboys are merely sluts :-)
I cringe at the thought of running open office or gimp on a smartphone.
NT 4 wasn't hyped to buggery.
I've lived in Seattle - delayed text messages, dropped calls and the second you get outside the big city - zero service while my friends on Sprint and Verizon have service.
Most used service on any smart phone is making phone calls - when you can't even do that its a big problem.
So yeah AT&T has invested jack into their infrastructure while pretty much every single Verizon tower supports EVO now.
People are seeing the error page or just waiting an insanely great long time to get pages back.
sorry, but those funny beings do not qualify as people .. they do share a large number of "features" with sheep, though
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anything that will get people out of their basements and socialize with other people in person can't be all bad.
I like your optimism. That works in certain cases, especially when stock and place in line aren't big issues, or when the store handles queuing properly.
Last time I did the Black Friday thing it was 2005 when I was one of maybe twenty-five people waiting outside a Staples in the bitter Massachusetts pre-dawn cold. The limited number of "adversaries" and shared misery created an environment of friendliness and chattiness. I don't go anymore not only are deals are getting less worthwhile, but mostly because people seem to be getting more greedy/desperate and anti-social. I no longer get the feeling I'm the "fellow fan" you mentioned, but rather "the competition" or even enemy. Good luck getting into a friendly conversation in those larger rowdier crowds. Humans are indeed funny.
Oh look, another hater who is too stupid to understand why people love Apple products and who misrepresents past Apple headlines. . .
I'm actually a Sprint customer (I refuse to pay AT&T's prices and have a really awesome deal with Sprint and am really happy with the service and don't understand why more people don't use them). However, I appreciate objective evidence rather than partisan anecdotes. Most people only have service from a single carrier and any experience they have with another carrier is years old. So, a Verizon customer who says AT&T is unreliable either has no evidence (they never were an AT&T customer) or they have evidence that doesn't reflect the current situation (they were a customer in the past). Their "opinions" are nothing more than stereotypes that are more likely shaped by advertisements than by actuality.
Frankly, if anyone is a shill or fan, it's you. I don't mean to attack you and if you're genuinely questioning, I apologize. But look at it from my perspective: I post a comment with a link to *three* independent studies proving my point. You start an ad hominem attack on my character calling me a shill and fan while providing no evidence in your post that contradicts my post. That is not an argument against my point. You've just decided that your subjective opinion of wireless companies is more accurate than data or you're a shill/fan of (Verizon|T-Mobile|Sprint) and the only way you can rebut evidence that your preferred carrier isn't #1 is to call someone else a shill/fan.
I don't like fighting on the internet or the obsession with winning so I hesitated to even write this comment. However, I thought it was important to tell you where I was coming from. I would love to see recent studies showing different results if you could link me to them. I like having more evidence from good sources. Those are the only tests that I've been able to find and it would be awesome if you knew of more. If you don't, please stop calling me a shill or fan.
We call can't get our phones at the same time.. You log off, and I'll let you know when I'm done.. :-)
-Steve Tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils?" Come talk about it on www.bothsidesarewrong.com
I would stand in line NOT to buy the iphone 4.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Right, because all those phones were better than the iPhone, which explains why they changed the mobile landscape so much. . . .
Pull your head out of your backside and realize your feature list fixation is a stupid way to judge a product. The reason the iPhone has people waiting in line is because of the whole package. Now go back to your shitty 2 year old 5800 and multitask on your high resolutions screen.
If you don't like the product then don't buy one, but kindly STFU because it gets old listening to stupid people like yourself who pass yourself off as superior but are too damn stupid to understand why this product is so popular.
I've gone through the process a few times unsuccessfully on the apple store website and it goes fine until it hits the point where you submit your info to check your AT&T contract status to see if you are eligible for an upgrade. This is most certainly calling a web service hosted by AT&T or a third party that is not Apple. I'm very surprised (not) that at this point AT&T still can't get their shit together for a major (pre)launch.
so I am not surprised. :) Also nice to blame the customers for the problem. Just like the blamed the reporters for the iPhone presentation not working. Blame AT&T for shitty deals. Blame Canada, for something. Blame everyone but themselves. I think I would be asking if they knew there would be demand, then why did they not do something about it. If they didn't, then why not.
Anyway I just bought an iPhone 3GS so I won't be getting a new one anytime soon. Considering I live in Canada it likely won't even been available in any quantity up here for some time anyway. On top of that there are enough hardware and software problems with the phones, that I think I would rather some Apple Zealot first adopter buy the crappy buggy version, and then secretly bitch about it until Apple finally does something about it, and fixes the problems... then I might get one.
As much as I hate Apple, I love my iPhone. I am a complicated person.
Oh, its great when you have a solid 3G signal, but even in downtown Chicago that can be a problem. Toss in all the dropped calls and its really not as great as those links suggest. Essentially, those tests, if memory serves, are just data speed tests. I don't think they were done in random spots, but where 3G worked and where they had a solid signal.
I'm in a similar boat now with Sprint's 4G service. Spotty reception, but crazy speeds. I just rooted my EVO, enabled wireless tethering, and with one bar of 4G I got 2.3mbps. With 2-3bars I get 3-4mbps.
Right now saying "We're the best 3G" is a little like saying "We're the best horse and buggy company." When is LTE coming out? 2012? If you aren't doing 4G upgrades now then you've already falled behind.
>not like Android phones are any cheaper. the top of the line Droid and Evo's go for $199 with 8GB storage.
Well, what do you get for you money?
iphone: Capped data. Evo: Unlimited 3g and 4g
iphone: costly tethering Evo: Free USB tethering, again unlimited
iphone: walled garden Evo: open market, install apk files from anywhere
iphone: at&t 3g Evo: 4G
iphone: no flash Evo: HTC mobile flash, Froyo full flash in a couple months
So, are you willing to take all those downside for slightly cheaper flash memory? Your call.
people
love
Apple
products
QEF.
I assume quite a lot of people here are feeling guilty about supporting Apple so much in the past, when it is now clear that they are even more closed than Microsoft.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Anyway, people will wait in line for anything these days and I don't see it as a bad thing - in fact we need more. Why? Anything that will get people out of their basements and socialize with other people in person can't be all bad
I waited in line to wait in line.
Maybe the next round of Net Neutrality will find Apple/AT&T at the front-of-the-line for all future Internet traffic -- assuming Apple can improve their storefronts, and that AT&T 3G infrastructure ever reaches the point of not being oversold.
Not that long ago. The Windows 7 preorder volume was rather crazy. Except that you had dozens over dozens of resellers to choose from. Sure, Amazon didn't run out of stock, but a lot of smaller resellers did.
There's no reason to line-up for software anymore. Hardware yes, and while Microsoft does make a few hardware things, its hardly their primary business line. Then again, people DID lineup for the 360.
Well, I am questioning, but there's no reason to apologize, since the questioning itself is pretty much an attack on you however you look at it. The reason your post was suspicious to me was that it was kind of tangential to the discussion at hand and the fact that nobody here ever seems to defend any mobile carrier (let alone AT&T). I'm young enough that I still let my parents buy me whatever phone and mobile plan they see fit, so I don't really care one way or another. I was just surprised to actually feel a post might have been written by one of these mythical "SHILL!!"s I often here about on Slashdot (and Slashdot alone).
On your point, though, I live in Boston and I think it is generally agreed (right or wrong) that AT&T is/was terrible for 3G or otherwise in a lot of parts of the city. If that has changed (as recently as one year ago, according to your post), I think it is really AT&T's job to let us know that or public perception is going to take a long time to shift.
Oh look, another hater who is too stupid to understand why people love Apple products and who misrepresents past Apple headlines. . .
Okay, please tell me exactly what is so much better about Apple products? I've used various technologies over the years and Apple's products are good but I can't really see this "massive" benefit everyone talks about.
As for shininess my new Toshiba looks just as sexy as any Mac (actually it gets more comments from people in the office over any Mac). Just about anything brand new these days if you spend the same amount of money as you would on an Apple product usually looks just as physically good. Feature wise Apple products have always had less features with the express philosophy that the features they bring to the table are more refined. Now, If you went back 10 years granted Apple was quite original but now the more technology grows Apple goes down the same vein as it's competitors and the more they become alike. The software, well okay it runs UNIX and to me this is always good but to say that Windows 7 is a poor operating system as much as it pains me to say it Microsoft has got it right for a change. My Toshiba laptop with touchscreen (pen also) works really well, my laptop has never been slow and it does everything the top of a line Apple does and just as seamlessly (in many cases much better).
It took me until the last 3 months to go out and get myself an iPhone. When I was first exposed to them I thought some of the things it brought to the table were good but it wasn't until I needed a new phone did I actually make the decision to get one. I think that's how a lot of people shop when it comes to phones because I don't see people regularly spending a marginal amount of money on something as "unimportant" to their daily lives as phone handset (it's really a luxury item). Unless the company you work for opts up to buy you a new phone the only real time the average person purchases a new phone is when their plan is up and the chance to grab a current handset is offered too them.
Their uniqueness put them this far ahead of their competitors but I don't think they are that unique anymore as the speed of which competing Tablet's are being created and released into the market is a fine example of this as we are expected to see nearly 50 brands of Tablets hit the market within the next 6 months. If anything its simply brand awareness now and I think that's why they keep at it with all this hype. They are sticking to what works well to sell their products and not really about the quality of the product because Apple knows how prominent they are and they know all too well which one they have to push. It's "product quality" vs "marketability" and I think marketability is now cheaper for them and easier.
Don't forget that you are on the hook for a just-in-time-for-the-iPhone-4 $350 early termination fee from AT&T.
When they increased from $175 to $350 for a smart phone, does that mean that you get $175 more discount on a new phone? Hardly. It just means more $$$ in their pocket if you try to get out of paying them $600 in data fee profit they expected over your contract, (that's for the $25 2gb a month plan, expect to pay more when you go over.) Do the math, you could buy a nice laptop for real price of your iPhone.
Let me help you with that!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Oh God, please make it stop, burn it with fire!
According to PC World, AT&T's 3G service improved in Boston by 184% (nearly doubling) between Feb 2009 and Feb 2010.
Public perception is one of those things that doesn't change quickly (no matter what the evidence). I know that a lot of people had billing issues after the Sprint-Nextel merger and that's been resolved and Sprint's service is as strong as I've seen it, but customers still have a bad impression of Sprint.
With wireless service, it's hard to really get good data. Verizon is trying to get people's opinions to be high of them based off of their map ads. However, what you really wants is strong coverage where you are rather than weak yet broad coverage in places you aren't. Coverage isn't a binary situation, but mapping broadness of coverage seems to be what people have latched on to. It would be great to see signal strength and speed measurements on a street level of all the different carriers. It would be great if Google could hook up 4 cell phones to their street view cars to measure that (if they aren't already) and then map the signal strength on Google Maps. I'm sure the carriers would object to such neutral data since they'd rather sling ads at each other, but consumers make better purchases when they have more objective data.
Speed is also harder to quantify since you likely don't notice it without the use of tools. It's easy to notice the binary condition of "AT&T doesn't have 3G in rural Maine", but harder to notice, "AT&T is 39% faster than Verizon in Boston". For what it's worth, Boston seems to be one of AT&T's weaker markets (with Sprint taking top honors in PC Mag's test; yay!) and only beating Verizon and T-Mobile in the 40-50% range.
The problem is that people want to believe that one option is better. There is one wireless carrier that if I always stay with them will give me the best service. There is one brand of car that will always have better engineering. There is one phone company that will always produce a superior product. A lot of the time, product lifecycles make a huge difference. People like being consistent - think how Kerry was labeled a flip-flopper. There's a huge social cost to saying that now you think something else is a better option and almost no acknowledgement that someone could be right *both times* even as they're recommending different things at different times. People don't accept that change happens.
Think of the iPhone 3GS. When it came out, it was faster, had a better display, etc. than the Palm Pre and later the Hero/Droid Eris. Then the Nexus One/Incredible/EVO came out and they had a higher-res display and a faster processor. Then Apple comes back with the iPhone 4 which has an even better display, better form factor, etc. Companies are often leapfrogging each other, but people want to believe that they're always using the best so they justify, ignore evidence, and even downright lie to make themselves feel like they're never on #2. I mean, Sprint has 4G right now, but I don't expect Sprint to always be in front of everyone just because they're the first to 4G - life is more complicated than that and companies change position in an industry a lot.
As a Sprint customer, I'm more than happy with the service I get and really can't get into the "my network is better than your's" that Verizon and AT&T customers spout. Verizon customers are especially bad and will usually recite ads more than evidence. It's why I find evidence so important. In this case, if someone has a less-good wireless carrier, who cares. I mean, really. However, evidence is what brought medicine to where it is today and non-evidence-based medicine is often dangerous. Yet, millions of people commit themselves to opinions and treatments with no basis in science and evidence. That's dangerous! Here, whatever: people like getting into silly arguments about things that don't matter. However, it's a bad habit to get into to rely more on anecdotes and feelings than evidence because there are places where it really does matter.
You seem to have lost a decimal point somewhere. The Droid is currently selling for $19.99 from Amazon: http://www.amazonwireless.com/?ref=wbh-20
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
We recently left AT&T for Verizon. AT&T's speed was fine, it was the number of dropped calls that finally made us switch. I'm speaking specifically about the Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin areas. In those areas, AT&T's data transfer rates were perfectly fine on 3G. So is Verizon. With AT&T we couldn't stay on a phone call for more than 10 minutes without getting dropped. When we disabled 3G, we never had a dropped call. The AT&T network is completely overloaded in those areas and has progressively gotten worse. The iPhone 4 will only bog things down more. The majority of my coworkers are experiencing the same issues, and it's been this way for a good 6-8 months.
This is the exact same experience I had with major cities in Texas. AT&T simply has put (enough) money into improving their network.
Sorry, typo. Has NOT put enough money into improving their network.
I just walked past an AT&T store on Lexington Ave in Manhattan and about 30 people where standing in line outside for what I can only believe was a chance to pre-order his or her iphone 4. PREORDER! People do crazy things for Apple products.
It doesn't matter how fast the AT&T network is if you can't maintain a reliable connection.
I'm a member of an AT&T family plan in the Washington DC area (one iPhone, three random voice-and-text phones), and whenever the network drops me, I remake the call and use the greeting "AT&T Sucks! Hello...". I do this routinely, a couple of times a day on average.
The only reason the network is tolerable for data is that we don't see how bursty and flaky it is underneath.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Data: The cap, if I switch plans, is still far higher than my 3g data useage.
Tethering: I'm rarely without wifi, so I don't care about it
Walled Garden: 99% of the stuff out there, in or out of the garden, is crap anyway.
3G vs 4G: I have decent 3G coverage with ATT. Sprint's coverage is dismal at best, and 4G is nonexistant in my market.
Flash: I hate flash. Always have. Always will. Having flash on my phone isn't something I want.
As a result, when I needed a phone 20 months ago, I bought an iphone. Your "disadvantages" aren't disadvantages to me, and I'll pick a well thought out and useable UI pretty much any day.
The only people with this much to say on the "Macs aren't so great!" soapbox are the ones that don't own them. Period.
So according to you capped data is an advantage? The option for flash is a disadvantage? Choice is a disadvantage? Lack of censorship in apps is a disadvantage? Only iphone UI is 'usable?'
I think we got us a real fanboy here.
obligatory
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
The irony is.. that's probably the fastest way to do it. If you use the new "Apple Store" app on the iPhone, you can reserve a new iPhone 4G (for pickup) without them checking your current ATT account. After hours of trying the Apple website, reentering my phone number, zip code, social security digits, etc. I was able to reserve a phone in seconds. And I'm here in New York where 1 out of 5 phone calls drop.
I was having trouble getting through on the Apple Store so I logged into the AT&T site and was able to pre-order the upgrade with minimal difficulty (one connection timed out.) And what's more, it appears that I can retain my unlimited data plan. Not too shabby.
"Don't let school interfere with your education." -Mark Twain
It's their address, I'm sure they can make an App for that!
And then, of course, they can put the App in the Apple App Store next to the Apple Store App.
I'm not the pheasant plucker...
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Those companies that offer mobile device insurance to subscribers on a multi-year contract, would all of a sudden be dealing with a rash of reports where iPhone 3 customers 'accidentally' 'lost' their devices.
If you make a big deal about pre order being available for a product on day X, and knowing full well there will be amazing demand, manage to fuck it up anyway, it's incredibly obnoxious. That's why people care, it's not a big deal, but it's stupid.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
>> Oh look, another hater who is too stupid to understand why people
>> love Apple products and who misrepresents past Apple headlines. . .
> Okay, please tell me exactly what is so much better about Apple
> products? I've used various technologies over the years and
> Apple's products are good but I can't really see this "massive"
> benefit everyone talks about.
As much as I love Apple gear* I think it's really just a matter of taste. What's so great about jazz? What's so great about sushi? As far as I'm concerned, not that much. Just like anything else (cars, religion, text editors, whatever) some people love a thing so much that they really just can't see why everyone else doesn't feel the same way. I'm sure the JWs that come to my door really don't get why everyone doesn't feel the same way they do about God.
And in some cases, there are people who just can't see certain things. I once was talking to a guy about the difference between the sayings "The squeaky wheel gets the grese" and "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" and he just didn't understand that those two phrases had different connotations. The original iPod, for example, was measurably, provably, demonstrably better than other MP3 players of the time because the scroll wheel (which could be spun infinitely) let you get through a large collections of songs orders of magnitude faster than buttons or a mouse-style scroll wheel but some people just didn't get it and they didn't think Apple was doing anything special. To each his own.
* in general - not all products are home runs. And like != perfect. As much as I like the iPhone, there are plenty of things I'd like to see changed.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I think this is the problem with these discussions. First is you ask me to point out what is so much better, and the answer is I can't tell you feature X or feature Y is head and shoulders better. This is a common theme amongst Apple fans, that it's the whole overall experience that is better than the sum of the parts. It's a well thought out product that is integrated head to toe and (sorry for repeating this) "just works". It's one of those things that you either understand or don't. If someone is focused on a feature list comparison then they probably don't get it. But this is the reason they are so popular with folks. Most people (the 98%+ who have never heard of Slashdot) do not want to tinker, they just want it to work, they want the technology to be invisible and they just want to use the tool.
It's easy to say it's slick marketing or a shiny toy for shallow people, but the reality is those arguments don't hold up. Apple has the highest customer service and customer satisfaction ratings for at least 3 years now I believe. iPhone has the highest customer satisfaction rating amongst mobile devices. Even assuming slick marketing and a shallow desire roped them in, Apple wouldn't be leading these categories if people did not love their devices and their service.
In the end each person can buy whatever they want, but it's frustrating to constantly see people who don't get it make comments about the people who do buy Apple products and love them. It's is simply not some smoke and mirrors trick that has gotten Apple to this point and that must anger many Apple haters into blindly trying to dismiss them as a fashion accessory for the uninformed when nothing could be further from the truth.
I've had this discussion before and I'm sure I'll have it many times again: you can't say that Dell has better customer service than Apple just because Dell's customers quote (say) a 70% satisfaction rate while Apple's customers quote (say) a 75% satisfaction rate.
Even ignoring the possible statistical insignificance, it makes no sense. You're assuming that Apple and Dell users have the same demands and the same affinity for their brand, whereas the point raised by everyone who is disturbed by Apple brand fanaticism is that the Apple community is full of easily pleased brand fanatics. Dell isn't a fashion statement and it isn't a schoolboy accessory; it's a tool to get the job done. What is more, the software you want is probably available for Windows, so if you don't like Apple then you don't remain a dissatisfied Apple user: you switch. But a dissatisfied Dell user is far less likely to be able to switch to Apple.
Just consider the small proportion of customers who need to be mindless fanboys / tied down to Windows in order for the approval rating to shoot up the few percentage points required for Apple to seem always on top. From figures I recall, you're talking about a difference of 1 in 20 customers for Apple vs next "best", and you're still talking about 1 in 5 customers not pleased with Apple.
It was evident to me looking at the figures that it would be entirely without reason to use Apple's "1st in consumer satisfaction" as part of any purchasing decision. This is a great example of how statistics can be used to mislead.
...Real Apple users like myself have already started camping out in the closest athletic equipment store so we can beat the stampade when the mall opens on release day! I'd continue commenting further but I have to yell at some more kids to get off my display tent's fake lawn!
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
Most places that rate these things don't go by simply using user surveys. They look at number of calls to call centers, how easy the call center is to navigate, how well the call centers diagnose problems, and several other factors. One thing that really helps Apple is the retail locations. I've been able to get same day service at an Apple store after running into an issue.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
People forget that most lines are fan-parties / nerd parties / whatever. It's (almost) an ad-hoc something-con. This became particularly obvious when they started distributing food and beverages to the lines.
Best line I've been in? The PS2 launch at the Metreon Sony Playstation store in 2000. The bathroom passes which held your place in line were good for 30 minutes. Wave after wave of gamenerds invading the bars in the Metreon displacing the norms 30 minutes at a time, all day and night long. Too funny.
I cringe at the thought of running open office or gimp.
FTFY
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
features that every other device has had for years
Who had a 325 DPI display before this?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Really,
Motorola Milestone, new and unlocked GBP 349
HTC Desire, new and unlocked GBP 399
Apple Iphone 3G, 16GB, refurbished and locked to O2 BP 459
A New 3GS is GBP 574 for the 16 GB model. Remember that those of us outside the EU do not pay VAT so take about 17% off the prices.
In Australia a class 6, 16 GB MircoSD card is A$45 (approx GBP 27-30). So here's your reminder, a new Desire with 16 GB is cheaper then an old Iphone 3G by A$220 and US$190.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
on OSX servers and apple hardware. Proof that Apple products really aren't suitable for commercial use.
Unless, of course, you want to out Steve for using non-Apple for his backend.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I order on-line because its 5% cheaper then going to the fucking store.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Capped plans -- I'm saying its a NON ISSUE. I'm not capped currently, and don't plan on changing data plans because I don't want to restart the clock on my contract, but even if I did, the only impact would be a savings of $5/month.
Option for flash -- personally, I don't give a shit whether the option is there or not, I won't use it. So having the option isn't an advantage to me.
Censorship in apps / choices for apps -- again, for me, the existing choices are more than enough for my needs. All the "censored" apps are garbage I don't want anyway, so in this case, I don't mind. I can also always roll my own.
As for a usable UI, again, I prefer it to other options.
You obviously have different opinions, but for me I don't see them as disadvantages. If you think that makes me a fanboy, well, that's your opinion too. I'm not a blind apple-hater, nor do I love everything that apple makes. I tolerate OSX. I think the ipad is completely useless. I think most of their hardware is overpriced. But hey, I like the iphone, so I must be a fanboy.
So you can go ahead and finish labeling me:
AT&T sucks. Verizon sucks a little less. Sprint sucks more than I thought was possible.
I haven't found a linux distro I like.
I like BSD.
I like Windows.
I absolutely HATE the GPL.
I like the BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses.
I cannot stand Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. Woz is wacky enough that I don't mind him.
The term "Open Source" is bullshit.
I can't stand the republican or democratic parties, or most of their supporters.
The RIAA and MPAA can go fark themselves, but I think copyright serves a purpose and should be kept around.
Lawyers are useful, politicians are useless.
Labels are nice. They usually don't work well with people.
I think I'll pass. I have an iPhone which I bought from another person, and have spent the last six months without a data plan. I have no need for a data plan, especially not at such exorbitant rates.
I agree with this a lot. What I find is its like someones preference of a football team. It doesn't really matter if their team has a good season or a bad season in their mind what they chosen is better and always will be.
I think the real zealot approach is to see them as nothing more than just brands, not really better or worse as each has their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Eventually comparisons against "Dell vs HP" will have the same sorts of comparisons made against "Apple vs HP" for example. The only real deciding factor will be the OS.
The day will come when OSX can run on all stock standard PC's. It will also be the day that Apple loses all uniqueness in the marketplace and will have to wholeheartedly have to rely on its brand to make its continued prominence BUT on the flip side, imagine the amount of distaste Microsoft would have knowing you can arrive at dell.com and purchase a brand new laptop with a factory installed version of OSX *ouch* :)
Who had a 325 DPI display before this?
If you read, oh, about a 20 words on from that then you'll see I noted the screen resolution exception. But consider the addendum addendum: it's irrelevant on such a small screen where
Let's pick a random example... the HTC Touch Pro, since this month is its two year birthday. 2.8" screen, 4:3 aspect ratio, 640x480. If my middle school mathematics serves me correctly, that's 2.24" x 1.68" at 285 square DPI. Your extra 40 DPI mean in otherwise identical conditions you may observe pixelation slightly earlier as you bring your phone in an ideal environment of visual concentration increasingly close to your face. In both cases, a normal human eye has better resolution than the hardware can provide when held in front of your face with an elbow joint making a right angle.
If you still want to play the irrelevant numbers game which Apple users have sometimes rightly chastised the PC clone world for, we can bring up another consumer 2008 device: the Sony X1. This, IIRC, has around 312 DPI. If you think a 4% DPI increase makes any noticeable difference or that a dozen DPI increase in 2 years is a tech breakthrough, you are bad, mad or Jobs.
When was the last time someone waited in line for a Microsoft product?
15 years ago? Yeah that's about right.
--
BMO
When was the last time Microsoft had a product worth waiting in line for? 15 years ago? Yeah that's about right. ;-)
When was the last time it was possible to stand in line for a Linux product?
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
You can order it, or not order it. Once you have ordered it... you've ordered it. "Pre-order" could be used to describe the time BEFORE ordering is possible. If people are ordering it that time has past. These are not "pre-orders", they are just orders.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Every high-end smartphone has had at least 800x480 for awhile now. Apple's playing catch-up here, so sure, they want to boost resolution. Also to allow integer scaling of existing applications, since, unlike Android, they didn't have support for multiple display resolutions all along.
Of course, they're still behind in display technology. The difference between a 980x640 and 800x480 display at these screen sizes is fairly unimportant. The difference between LCD (even good LCD, as in the Mot Droid and the new iPhone) and AM-OLED is profound. And most of the other high-end smartphone are AM-OLED these days. So Apple's still behind.
And sure, others may feel differently. But Apple's big problem is just that... they have a one-size-fits-all solution for a device that's subject to very personal requirements. I wouldn't buy a smartphone without physical keyboard, since I actually use mine for writing notes, and don't need a virtual keyboard covering much/most of the screen during this activity.
-Dave Haynie
I have anecdotal/objective evidence: I used an iPhone on a trial for a month, side-by-each with my Palm Treo on Verizon.
When I got service, the iPhone was blazingly fast fast fast. But go outside metro-Boston and I couldn't load Slashdot on it, or any of a number of smaller sites. AT&T was prioritizing traffic to bigger sites like Google, Youtube, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. Verizon would load it up just fine (maybe a mobile version, maybe not, depending on my mood), along with all of the bigger sites.
Just outside Nashua, NH (not the boonies by any stretch) - I couldn't get any AT&T 3G service, yet my Verizon was still humming away.
I did the best test anyone can do - I used multiple services side by side (I did a similar comparison with Sprint in June of 2009 when the Palm Pre came out). Call quality/dropped calls was about on par with Verizon, but the 3G coverage was WOEFULLY unbalanced to AT&T's detriment - in my particular area.
It's why I'm hating life right now with my MotoDroid(Doesn't), and not enjoying life with an iPhone - for the Northeast, Verizon is still King if you value availability over blazing speed.
But Apple's big problem is just that...
No, Apple's big problem is how to fill the enormous backlog of orders they've got. They just sold six hundred thousand units in a single day.
I wouldn't buy a smartphone without physical keyboard,
If I want to use a keyboard with my iPhone, I'll buy one of the spiffy fold-up bluetooth keyboards out there. That pretense of a keyboard that some of the android devices have is a joke.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."