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Former Apple CEO Creates an iPhone Competitor
An anonymous reader links to Fast Company's profile of Obi Worldphone, one-time Apple CEO John Sculley's venture into smartphones. The company's first two products (both reasonably spec'd, moderately priced Android phones) are expected to launch in October. And though the phones are obviously running a different operating system than Apple's, Sculley says that Obi is a similarly design-obsessed company:
"The hardest part of the design was not coming up with cool-looking designs," Sculley says. "It was sweating the details over in the Chinese factories, who just were not accustomed to having this quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design. We had teams over in China, working for months on the floor every day. We intend to continue that process and have budgeted accordingly."
Obi is also trying to set itself apart from the low-price pack by cutting deals for premium parts. "Instead of going directly to the Chinese factories, we went to the key component vendors, because we know that ecosystem and have the relationships," Sculley says. "We went to Sony. It’s struggling and losing money on its smartphone business, but they make the best camera modules in the world."
Sony makes the best camera modules? I didn't know that. I'm not sure I do yet.
Newton OS + smart phone = dumb phone
Only two rounded edges, maybe he hopes Apple will only half-sue him.
" quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design"
Yeah, that's nice and all, but what we really want is usability. Freedom from the advertising deluge. Control. Everybody and their brother can make a svelte 3D mockup that looks beautiful. But in the end it's going to come down to software. It's why Apple ruled the roost early on. A beautiful piece of garbage is still a piece of garbage. And, tbh, we have enough of that out here at the moment.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It looks like the SJ1.5 is 3g? Which frankly is plenty fast for any data I need to access on a 5" device, but the carries are not standing up the towers so.. I want my 4g.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Yeah, you might want to think about how you word that.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"Quality of finish" includes things like whether the seam between face and sides is smooth, if edges are nicely beveled, etc. Almost everyone cares about such things in the sense that you (at minimum subconsciously) evaluate those things when you see an object for the first time. Can you tell at a glance which swag t-shirt costs $5 versus $0.50? Guess what: quality of finish makes a difference to you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I can see you do not own an iPhone either.
That being said, I think the Nexus 5 really was the best looking phone on the market when I bought one. Mostly because it did not have that goofy curved back that some Samsung phones have, nor that absurdly large bezel that Motorola has. I hope the Nexus 5mkII looks the same.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
clauses? You know, the same kind that Apple and, like, every other tech company in Silicon Valley feel obliged to lob at at new-hire programmers and such. Or do they not do that anymore?
Yes!
So you have to spend a bunch of effort to make a reasonable quality smartphone in China.. and buying the components from a supplier directly is better than asking the middle man to do it for you... um wow!! I'm shocked!!
Thanks but no thanks. Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. John Sculley. There are something that you should avoid at all costs.
After Tim Cook launches another failed product, to go with the Apple Watch and @FON (iPhone rebrand) and the leaked Jony Ives designs of the Apple Dildo and Apple stock tanks at $2.01 a share, Apple will out Cook and Ives, Bring in Sculley as an advisor to the Board and CFO (interim CEO) for a year, then buys Obi Worldphone and appoints Sculley as new CEO.
Ha ha
Apple has nothing to worry about.
Have they tried some other country's factories? Like, to pick at random, the US? Just a thought...
How much more expensive would it make each unit, if they were made in a better place?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't see how Obi is an iPhone competitor, there are completely different types of products.
- iPhone: expensive luxury product for developed relatively wealthy people.
- Obi: low cost, no frills phone for developing markets.
There really just competing with the Chinese ODM's, not Apple !
The article says they're not aiming at Apple. Instead they're actually jumping, feet first, into the commodity smartphone market. Which might seen suicidal, but, again as the article points out, that's where Scully actually excels (and probably why he didn't get as far with Apple, which was never commodity based, when he was at the helm.)
Essentially he's going to be selling nice, but not spectacular, Android phones, and using branding to differentiate the phones in the market. And he'll probably make a success of it because instead of having the overhead of a giant electronics company to contend with, unlike say Samsung, he's just having a third party put together a design, then outsourcing the manufacture of the thing, concentrating largely on quality (which affects brand) rather than features (which doesn't.)
It's not actually that exciting to nerds. The news is probably orgasm-worthy though if you work in marketing.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A real iPhone competitor would be interesting, but this just runs Android.
Can you tell at a glance which swag t-shirt costs $5 versus $0.50?
Trick question. They're all about 50 cents cost when you outsource overseas.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
The only thing matters on smartphones is whos app store you put it on.
Not to mention, I ruined Apple and Steve Jobs as well.
I have seen plenty of scrutiny about camera's on smartphones. But I have yet to see results from having a great camera. Most people do so much more with a smartphone and taking pictures is probably not on many lists as being important enough to forgo all other features. In fact most people who use camera's on phones are not professional and not real concerned about detail quality. But Scully's biggest hurdle is selling any kind of smartphone against a very popular Android market and the rest running IOS. Even Windows makes up barely 3% of marketshare and they have been digging for a user base for a while. We have seen the Firefox phone fail and plenty of others who once were very good died off. RIM, Palm, Nokia. Its not a market where you have multi players. You have two controlling systems Android and IOS. Everything else is bottom feeders not looking for a premium phone.
Absolutely. I wouldn't buy anything that makes me feel itchy, looks ugly/tacky or feels wrong. Stuff that me visually ill. Why should I? Good looking and nice to touch stuff is pleasant and a joy every day. You don't buy a tank, you buy stuff you use/touch/look at every day. It's very worth it to invest into that.
People prefer beautiful cars, clothes and even fruits (ugly fruits are not sold at a supermarket). The same applies to phones, computers, etc. Design matters. It's not just a pretty case. It encompases everything about a gadget. Weight, thinness, edges, colours, curvatures, etc.
Yes, I do. I don't use a case, so I want the phone to be nice and hold up well in my pocket.
However, I also want it to be cheap and sometimes this wins out over nice.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I call BS. The people running Chinese factories understand quality far better than most of the world. They are constantly concerned with it and have a mandate to move up the quality and technology chain, else lose their shirts when Vietnam or Bangladesh or some other poor Asian country hits the power curve part of the contract manufacturing business.
This guy must have picked the cheapest of cheap desperate Chinese manufacturers and then decided to ride them like hell on details. Apple, LG, Samsung and so many others build the top-quality devices in China. Anyone credible over there knows what they're doing.
Sure, the guy ran Pepsico for a while.
But his business management was so damn pedestrian that he took Apple from a growing company with a complete lock on the education and AV markets to an also-ran that became so afraid of innovation (mostly because Jobs had gone wild, running after any and everything, before that) that the company stagnated nearly to death.
He was okay as a brand manager. But absolute shit at actually LEADING the company and bringing forth new products.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why does the interface look like an ipod? Oh right...
...is what I thought when I saw the name.
Yes, cool looking is good, cost effective high-quality production helps, but if the underlying functioning of the device is bad or mediocre, no cool looks will help! Under his CEO-ship Apple was run down to just barely surviving by his strategy & decisions.
I can see you do not own an iPhone either.
That being said, I think the Nexus 5 really was the best looking phone on the market when I bought one. Mostly because it did not have that goofy curved back that some Samsung phones have, nor that absurdly large bezel that Motorola has. I hope the Nexus 5mkII looks the same.
When I showed my Nexus 5 to my car detailer, he was shocked at how good it was simply to hold compared to his Iphone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S 5.
This is a car detailer, so he really didn't know much, nor care about the technical details. He was just impressed by how easy it is to hold for such a large phone (IMHO, its due to the type of plastic used for the backing). These are the kinds of things that non-phone people find important. His first question was about how good the camera is, which is pretty damn good on the Nexus 5. The problem is, the Nexus 5 is no longer for sale.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
But wasn't Jobs the one who gave Sculley the job? So the pre-iMac Jobs was just as guilty as Sculley of nearly running Apple to the ground?
Scully increased Apple's revenue ten fold during his tenure as CEO. It was the idiots who followed him that tanked the company.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2469542,00.asp
Sculley was the guy who wanted to be a cultural superstar. In the process, he saw Steve Jobs getting in the way (turns out Jobs really wanted to run the company, although he was perfectly happy to leave the CEO title to Sculley) so Sculley pushed him aside.
Sure, Apple's revenues were high because Sculley milked the Mac as a cash cow even while Windows was taking off. By the time Sculley was thrown out, the game was lost. Microsoft and Windows had won, Mac OS and OS/2 had lost.
Oh, BTW Sculley stole the idea of Newton in a classic fashion. Jerry Kaplan, founder of Go Corp, hired Steve Sakoman from Apple for his pen-computing tablet startup. Turns out Sakoman had some second thoughts, though, and Sculley convinced him to stay by giving him leadership of a brand new project, that Sculley just thought of, that happened to involve a pen computing tablet. Suffice to say, Sculley is a serial Weasel. The details (and a similar story involving Bill Gates) are in Kaplan's book, "Startup".
I believe one of the things John Sculley was best known for is the "Pepsi Challenger" where people were given unmarked cups of Pepsi and Coke to drink and decide which tastes better. So it seems only natural to expect John Sculley's new company will eventually run advertisements where people have to stick an iPhone and an Obi Worldphone in their mouth and then state which was better.
I thought large bezels were absurd until I actually started using an assortment of portable devices. Now I realize that having a place for my fingers to wrap around to on a phone, or just a place to hold the thing between thumb and forefinger for a tablet, is actually a feature and not a problem. Having the screen right out to the edge means accidental touches on the side of the display, at least, for my fat fingers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Scully increased Apple's revenue ten fold during his tenure as CEO. It was the idiots who followed him that tanked the company.
No, Scully allowed Apple to become unmanageable, Spindler nearly died trying to get a lid on it, and then Amelio made the decision that saved the company from oblivion, by picking NeXT over Be.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Apple had no shortage of new products during Sculley's time. What the company lacked was any focus.
When SJ returned, the company drastically streamlined the product offerings into pro and consumer desktops and portables.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Gotta love revisionist history. Apple soared under Sculley when it would have crashed under Jobs during that era. While the eventual fall could probably be attributed to Sculley, it is very likely that the same would have happened to anyone else in that role. Keep in mind: these were challenging times for computer companies, and many giants collapsed as quickly as they rose.
While the recovery of Apple can be attributed to Jobs, it was a different Jobs and a different Apple. Jobs was more mature and had more experience. Apple was humbled and more willing to be under the reigns of someone who could offer it a future. Also keep in mind that there was a fair bit of luck involved. Apple tried to grab the attention of consumers with its radical designs for the first few years. While it succeeded at that, the Mac didn't take off. OS X was supposed to be Apple's salvation through modernizing the OS, yet there were difficulties in both implementation and marketing. (Some Mac users loved it. Some hated it. It probably managed to convert more Linux users than Windows users, simply because there was very little reason for Windows users to switch.) Things didn't take off until the iPod was released, yet that was originally developed for Mac users. Somehow it captured the interest of a wider audience. That's where luck kicked in. For all of the hard decisions and hard work behind their hardware and OS, it was a side project that transformed Apple.
Yes http://science.slashdot.org/co...
Only thing that got wrapped around was your anus on apk's cock here http://science.slashdot.org/co... he made you look like a total stooge with your own words telling him he's right on hosts.
Doh! Design is important, when they will ever learn (Scully&gang) that ppl whant stable and responsive OS on their smart phone! Android os is none of that. Design is just dot on "i". Obi should be working on ObiOS (maybe aquiring BeOS ;)
There is a new version of the Nexus 5 coming out this fall. I plan on getting one.
You can also get a brand new Nexus 5 on ebay for about 200 bucks. The new version will probably be 350 or so.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I have never had problems with it on the N5. As Steve Jobs would say... maybe you are holding the phone wrong. :)
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I have never had problems with it on the N5. As Steve Jobs would say... maybe you are holding the phone wrong. :)
Sadly, there's nothing to be done about it, I'm a gigantic mutant living in a world controlled by tiny people. I have phablet fingers and PDA pockets.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, china, which has created designs for everything we have for the past 20 years, has just 'never' seen anything with this level of detail - in fact, this phone is the last greatest bestest phone you will ever need in all of eternity. Right, go blow yourself.
"Quality of finish" includes things like whether the seam between face and sides is smooth, if edges are nicely beveled, etc. Almost everyone cares about such things
I can't see any of those details after I put the device in an Otterbox case.
Honestly, I'd rather see someone make a semi-ruggedized phone that has a bigger battery and an Otterbox-like case built in (not an add-on). They'd have a better-performing product and save space by not needing the regular case which just gets covered up by the rubberized one.
There are a lot of IP68 rated phones out there.
They're not going to survive getting dropped onto a pile of rocks without getting scratched up at the very least. IIRC, IP68 is just about weatherproofing. That's great, it won't get ruined if it gets a little wet, or maybe even dropped in the pool. But getting dropped onto concrete is a different matter. An Otterbox case handles that stuff.
Also, IP68 doesn't help you with battery life. There's been way too much of a trend lately towards super-slim phones. Everyone except the Apple cultists is screaming for bigger batteries, not a slimmer phone. I don't give a shit if my phone weighs 1 gram more, I want more battery life.
Many of the IP68 models have rugged housings and extremely large batteries.
Strange, I've never seen one of these in a store anywhere. If it's some special model that costs $5000, that really isn't a fair comparison. Even worse if it's some shitty thing with a slow CPU and a 0.5MP camera.
They are often not the absolute latest and greatest, but they tend to be close, and they do often cost a bit more than a non-ruggedized phone, but they are sub-$1000 and run fairly current versions of Android. Google for IP67 or IP68 Android. Some of them also include things like programmable 2-way radios and so forth. https://www.google.com/search?...
sculley was full of shit in 87 and he is STILL full of shit.. Bank of America was extremely interested in the MAC line and that screwup incompetant ruined the deal
former apple person