Well, usually you would, but if you're a hardcore UNIX hacker on a Mac you can bring up a Terminal, type "umount/Volumes/SIM_Card" and then try to extract it with a pair of needle-nose pliers.;)
Me personally I'll gladly pay for this service. If you want something for free, then you can't expect it to always be free. If you want service, then be willing to pay for it even if you don't currently. There are exceptions, but generally this philosophy has served me well and stopped me getting up tight about things.
Bear in mind also that the money that this service brings in is going to be used to continue to improve MythTV. It's also going to allow commercial MythTV boxes; something that was absolutely disallowed by the terms of service for Zap2it Labs listing services and was probably the reason that the listings got yanked!
Sure, it may not work and this endeavour may be flawed and doomed to failure; but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I like what they're trying to do, and I think the rate is reasonable. I'm willing to pay for things I find valuable.
If this idea fails, then I'll switch to the PVR box from my cable provider and trash my Myth box. It'll be a shame, but I'm willing to pay for a service I use (namely the PVR functionality). I'd rather pay it to OSS advocates and support a product I've been using for years and found to be a really usable product (MythTV), but if I have to support commercial ventures in order to get what I want then I will (the cable PVR).
I bought my wife an Acer laptop about a year ago. A month out of its warranty, and the motherboard failed. A search on Google turned up multitudes of people with the exact same problem (no video, so the system doesn't even complete POST). To say I was very disappointed would be an understatement.
OK, I'll concede you're probably correct in some instances. However, I don't know if you're dealing with virtualizing Windows servers or something else. Typically, Windows servers without a good systems management infrastructure will tend to increase the workload (patching, maintenance, troubleshooting bluescreens and so forth)... so the server propagation in our environment has caused an increase in administrators as well. I'm spearheading a project to improve our management infrastructure at the moment, so I'm hoping that will resolve this transitory problem that for some reason my management didn't seem to factor into the virtualization strategy. Hmm... I wonder if they'd maybe LISTENED to me and done the management infrastructure first, things might be better?:D
I think if you've got good server management, then you're right; more servers might not need more administrators (though I'd say a 15% increase in servers in the virtual space might need roughly the same number of ops staff), but not having that server management in place first then going "gung ho" into VM's is just a recipe for pain. I know... I'm there through no fault of my own:)
However, I do see your point. VM's remove the necessity for hardware admins. Hardware guys then need to be VM host guys... which creates a different kind of Administrator that's usually a hybrid of a UNIX and Windows admin to deal with both platforms. Your Windows admins... well since they no longer have to deal with hardware they can be more focused on improving and administering the OS and software. It's just a matter of re-targeting:)
As I keep telling people when I work with virtualization, it does not necessarily lead to server consolidation in the logical sense (as in instances of servers), rather it tends to lead to server propogation. This is probably expected; generally I/O will be lower for a virtual machine than for a physical machine, thus requiring the addition of another node for load balancing in certain circumstances. However, this is not always the case.
Virtualization DOES help lead to BOX consolidation; as in it helps reduce the physical server footprint in a datacenter.
Let me give you my viewpoint on this; generally virtualization is leveraged as a tool to consolidate old servers to bigger physical boxes. Generally, these old servers (out of warranty, breaking/dying and so on) have lower I/O requirements anyway so often see a speed boost going to the new hardware... or at the very least performance remains consistent. However, where new applications are being put on virtual platforms, quite often the requirements of the application cause propogation of servers because of the I/O constraints. This is generally a good thing as it does encourage the developers to write "enterprise ready" applications that can be load balanced instead of focusing on stand-alone boxes with loads of I/O or CPU requirements. This is good for people like me as it provides a layer of redundancy and scalability that otherwise wouldn't be there.
However, the inevitable cost of this is management. While you reduce physical footprint, there are more server instances to manage, thus you need a larger staff to manage your server infrastructure... not to mention the specialized staff managing the virtual environment itself. This is not in itself a bad thing, and generally might lead to better management tools, too... but this is something that needs to be considered in any virtualization strategy.
Generally in a Wintel shop, more newer applications get implemented in most companies these days. This is particularly true since most older applications have been or need to be upgraded to support newer operating systems (2003 and the upcoming 2008). This means that the net effect of all I've mentioned is an increase in server instances even while the footprint decreases.
"Containerization" (yuck!) is not new by the way. This is just someone's way of trying to "own" application isolation and sandboxing. People have done that for years, but I definitely see more of it now that throwing up a new virtual machine is seen as a much lower "cost" than throwing up a new physical box. The reality of this is that virtualization is VERY good for companies like Microsoft who sell based on the instances of servers. It doesn't matter if it's VMWare or some other solution; licensing becomes a cash cow rapidly in a virtualized environment.
Where I work we've seen about a 15% net server propogation in the process of migrating systems so far. Generally, low-load stuff like web servers virtualize very well, while I/O intensive stuff like SQL does not. However, a load-balanced cluster pair of virtual machines on different hardware running SQL can outperform SQL running on the same host hardware as a single intstance... this means that architecture changes are required, and more software licenses are needed, but the side effect is a more redundant, reliable and scalable infrastructure... and this is definitely a good thing.
I am a big believer in virtualization; it's somewhat harking back to the mainframe days, but this isn't a bad thing either. The hardware vendors are starting to pump out some truly kick-ass "iron" that can support the massive I/O that VM's need to be truly "enterprise ready". I am happy to say that I've been on the leading edge of this for several years, and I plan to stay on it.
And I wonder how many gamers upgraded their 3.3Ghz CPU's to 3.6Ghz... and still only got less of an upgrade than that. 12% can be significant... actually the efficiencies allowed by the architecture in the ST meant that the 12% CPU speed increase actually translated to code that was significantly faster (depending on the type of code).
We had Devpac. We didn't believe in abstracted languages:) You're talking to the wrong person about compiled languages; I wrote everything on the Amiga and ST in straight 68000. We also had CP/M for the die-hards.
UNIX wasn't that useful to the average joe back then. Even today, the Mac is a UNIX system that the average user doesn't use. Besides, in 1988 the Amiga arrived on UK shores... by 1991 I was running an early Linux kernel on a 386... who needed ported UNIX commands on an Amiga by then?
The STFM wasn't really much better than the Amiga... except that it (a) came first, (b) was cheaper, (c) had MIDI ports, (d) had a faster CPU and (e) had an high-res mono mode which made desktop publishing a reality without having to spend money on a Macintosh. From a productivity perspective it WAS better. And though few complained about it at the time, the Amiga 500's keyboard sucked just as bad as the Atari's. OK, maybe not quite that much... but they both sucked.
The Amiga 1200... well understand this was a much later model. In order to be fair you'd have to put it up against the STe. The gap between these two is pretty narrow, and the advantages to be honest were about the same. The sound chip in the Atari still sucked, but the graphics were comparable at that point, though the 1200 did raise the bar. Bear in mind though that the 1200 came after the STe as well; it improved upon things in the same way the 500 had improved on the 1000, but at least had the market opportunity to leapfrog the competition.
Actually, TOS was a damned nice OS for its time. It competed primarily with Mac OS, not with Amiga OS. Amiga OS was better for different reasons, but it still remained that just like the ST most applications that really used the hardware (games) tended to throw the OS out the window.
From a programming perspective, I have to say I preferred programming on the ST. The unified memory model was a thing of beauty; the MMU made accessing the hardware an absolute cinch that reduced in-code latency. Programming for the Amiga was similar, but didn't quite have the simplicity of structure allowed by a dedicated chip for memory management that was easily accessible. The Amiga with its custom chips actually ended up adding a layer of complexity that just didn't exist on the ST... though you could get much nicer results with the Amiga, most "simple" programming tasks were more complex. In the end, the ST did lose out in "coolness" to the Amiga because it just couldn't compete when the hardware was being pushed... but yes, the Amiga did suffer from the fact that many of the games were ST ports with soundtracker music tacked on.
Better? Like anything it depends. Both had their strengths and weaknesses as a platform, but neither could compete with the PC when the chips were down. Neither had the upgradeability that the PC had, and neither was really "state of the art" any more. To be honest, had the Falcon been better marketed and had better expansion capabilities, it would have really been a force to be reckoned with. However, it was still hobbled with ST legacy hardware and that 16 bit external bus... that at a time when 32-bit platforms were beginning to become affordable (386DX and 486 platforms appeared around that time).
Hope that helps clarify... I was an Amiga owner as well as an ST owner. I loved them both for different reasons, but maintain that if I worked on one of these two commercially it would have been the ST simply because I admired its engineering.
Well, for all those slamming this article as a bunch of crap, bear in mind that this IS from a UK perspective where the 80's and 90's technological marketplaces were quite different from the US. These days, pretty much a wash except that the UK is still far ahead of the US in terms of cellphone tech.
Anyway, as an ex-pat myself I can say the following;
Laserdisc Yes, it WAS a good format. Yes, it was a good technology. Yes, it was way too expensive. I think I knew one person with an LD player, and while the quality was really nice it was really not worth the incredible price premium for most users. There was also the fact that at the time, there was a certain "leeriness" about the scratch resistance of the discs themselves; remember this was a time when LP's and cassettes were the formats for music, way before CD's.
8 Track Well, this is a subjective thing but the sound WAS better from 8-track than from a regular cassette. Well, dolby noise reduction reduced that advantage. Plus, the non-linear format of the tapes was both its saving grace and a factor in its downfall. How many 8-track tapes cut in the middle of a song to flip to the next track and continue playing?
HD Audio I've got three letters for you; DRM. Yup, a great idea hobbled by DRM that rendered discs almost unusable. The record companies still haven't learned the lesson from that format failure. Personally, I loved it... and the quality was incredible.
Mini Disc See HD Audio:) The iPod would've killed it if it weren't already dead:D
BeOS Good and powerful OS, hobbled by lack of developer support, lousy negotiation skills of the marketing folks and a general feeling from the company that "... we'll succeed because we're better, we don't need to sell it..." A bad attitude to have when your competition is Windows and Mac OS, or the increasingly (at the time) nimble Linux. I'd say Linux had a much bigger hand in BeOS' downfall than the article gives credit for; by the time BeOS was commercially viable, Linux already had many of its advantages with the EXTRA advantage that it was free. Plus, computer power accelerated quickly during the same period which reduced the advantages in media with a new paradigm; let's throw more power and money at the problem. Ironically, this actually worked. Oh, and the fact that initially it was only available for PowerPC was a problem; by the time the Intel version appeared the advantages had all but vanished.
Atari ST It WAS a better computer, but it wasn't a better game machine. It was also more successful in the UK due to the fact it was significantly cheaper than the Amiga. Hell, an affordable Amiga didn't really appear on that side of the pond until late 1988, by which time the low end ST was already in its second iteration (the 520STFM) and incredibly successful. The Amiga 500 was still 100 pounds more expensive at best (and you could get package deals on the ST). Plus, since most of the games developed for the platforms seemed to be coming out of Europe (at least from my perspective), the fact that the ST was more successful meant that most of the games got released on that platform first.
Bear in mind; the CPU was faster, the operating system and desktop were in ROM and the addition of MIDI ports was an inspired move on Atari's part that got the interest of the music crowd. Plus, add in the beautiful high-res mono screen for desktop publishing and you had a winner.
Now, that's not saying the Atari was perfect. The keyboard sucked, and the early ST's being hobbled with single-sided drive was a stigma the Atari had throughout its life because everything was written with single-sided disks in mind. Now, there were some fancy formats that meant that single-sided users could use the disk but it contained extra stuff for double-sided users (as I recall Starglider did this) but it remains that everyone always tried to write to the lowest common denominator... and that hurt
1. Cost. OK, maybe in a raw numbers comparison this might be accurate. However, most consumers don't know and don't care about raw numbers comparisons any more. Most consumers I deal with are at least smart enough to realize that for the majority of what they do, every new PC on the market today will do the job sufficiently well. It then comes down to a matter of personal taste.
If, however you look at "enough of a machine for a particular task", then the cost differential vanishes. Hell, I saw a NEW notebook at Best Buy (not the cheapest place in the world) for $349 the other day without rebates. The specs weren't that impressive, but for the average Joe who wants to use their computer instead of play games on it, that machine was more than capable enough and added the benefit of portability.
Oh, and in your cost argument, are you also including the cost of the monitor? Not everyone has a stock of flat panels lying around at home waiting to be used.
2. Upgrades So what changes? I see more usable PC's that are 2-3 years old on trash day in my neighborhood than at any other time. This is because they're sitting out by the trash cans waiting to be hauled away. Most people don't upgrade a thing... the "power user" might upgrade memory once... but for a $300-$500 investment, most people consider the PC to be a disposable tool.
3. Vendor Lock In Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to upgrade most Dell/HP/Toshiba desktops recently!:)
4. Heat See my comment about cost and upgrades. The average consumer doesn't care, only the die-hard desktop users (and gamers, who are de-factor die-hard desktop users) really care. Every laptop or desktop out there is more powerful than the average user needs... it's been that way for years. If it does the job, few people care if it will do it in 1 second or 1.5 seconds. As a result, the average consumer doesn't want or care about the latest and greatest, typically they just want to email mum, or watch YouTube videos, or balance a checkbook. They don't care about the latest FPS title and aren't going to be re-encoding their DVD collection into AVI's.
5. Displays Ah, but you sit closer to a laptop display by default. As a result, it doesn't need to be huge. The only people who really need huge displays are graphic artists and their ilk... who can use a laptop with an external display.
In my job I deal with graphic artists all the time. They do their actual work in very specific environments; relatively closed off rooms with darkened lighting and huge high-quality displays. This is so they can be less distracted by stuff around them and get on with the job at hand. However, more often than not these days they use high-end notebooks (Macbook Pros are becoming extremely common) with an external display for their work, then have it open with email open on the smaller laptop screen.
More often than not, when these people leave the office with their laptop, they're not interested in doing their work because they don't have their environment. They want to be able to answer email, surf the web, maybe do some of the "paperwork" involved in their jobs... but rarely do they try to do graphic stuff on a laptop screen... but they also have no desire to because they're not in "their zone" with the correct environment to work in. Oh, and more often than not their huge files they work on are either on external non-portable hard drives, or on a server... thus these huge graphic files are left at the office.
5(a) Space. Yeah, I know this was supposed to be 6:P. Let me introduce you to Firewire and USB... they're very handy for this sort of thing. I myself have my Macbook Pro with a 100Gb drive... and my 50Gb iTunes Library isn't on it. My library is on my external hard drive I have at home, and I consolidate periodically when I add stuff to my Macbook. The only time I really use it is when I accidentally or deliberately wipe out my iPod and need to re-sync it. I keep the stuff on my laptop I need
Yes, you're a die-hard desktop user. By definition... in fact the reasons you cite make you one.
The average computer user is not a gamer. The average computer user does not give a monkeys about being able to upgrade anything. The average computer user buys a new PC instead of upgrading anything, usually on a 2 year (Windows) or 4 year (Mac) cycle. This is in my own personal experience dealing with desktop PC's all the time.
The point of TFA was that we're at a point where the functional and cost differential between a desktop and laptop PC is marginal. Most people would pay an extra $50-$100 for portability even if their laptop never leaves the house. At least with a laptop you can work in the family room, dining room table, study, bedroom... hell you can read Slashdot in the crapper. *Ahem*, yeah.... never done that before...
Ah, but if you're "Joe/Jane Average User", then (a) you're not going to know the difference between a CPU and a GPU, and (b) you're going to actually add one "value point" to your buying decision when you realize you have the OPTION to move it around.
I have recently started moving my family to laptops instead of desktops. Of course, I went portable first because it was much more useful for my own business than a desktop. Plus, I was tired of using a work-supplied laptop for my own side-business and at least partly intended to go into business for myself. That didn't end up happening, but I still cart my Macbook Pro around covering many thousands of miles per year with that laptop in tow.
My wife followed. Her laptop rarely leaves the house, and in fact didn't leave the house at all for the first six months she owned it. I think it took a while for it to dawn on her that she could take her laptop to a coffee shop and work, or take it with her when she's doing photography to download pictures and empty the card. More recently, said laptop travels around a lot more.
My kids also now have a laptop which never leaves the house. However, it's nice to be able to sit them where we can keep an eye on them while they work on a school project or homework that's simplified by the laptop. My wife and I can be relaxing in the family room while my daughter sits at the dining room table with the laptop... or if she want to do her personal email she can carry it into her room.
Then my father-in-law bought a laptop...... I think you're getting the picture. I used to be a firm believer that I would never give up my desktop PC because of the loss of flexibility. However, the reality is that as I got older and had a family, I found that my needs and desires with a computer changed. I was no longer building kick-ass state of the art rigs to play the latest games; I was much more interested in getting specific tasks done like email, documents, invoicing for my business and so forth. Games became a far secondary experience for me, and in fact the games I keep on my laptop these days are generally of the "pick up, play for 15 minutes and put down" variety; remakes of arcade games, simple puzzles. I rarely have time to get deep into a real-time strategy.
If you start using laptops, you'll find that there are uses you wouldn't consider if you're a desktop-only user today. You'll find flexibility and portability. If you're a gamer, then no, few laptops will meet your needs or flexibility... but remember that "Joe/Jane Average User" is not a gamer.
And before the fanbois jump all over me, when I say they probably never will note that I'm referring to rumors posted on Fanboi sites. I could be wrong, and I hope I am... but to be honest I wouldn't WANT to tether my laptop through EDGE even if I could. I've done it with my TyTN and it was truly a painful experience. ISDN speed with Satellite latency.
But AT&T *does* go for that. I'm posting this on my Macbook Pro, tethered through my HTC TyTN on AT&T/Cingular's network (3G is cool!) through Bluetooth (cables are for losers!:) ). It's Apple who doesn't want to go for that... they don't allow that with the iPhone, and it seems unlikely they ever will.
As much as I want to say that AT&T suck in many respects, they're not the only bad guy in this partnership.
I upgraded my phone to an HTC TyTN about 8 months ago. Now, for the record I owned an old iPaq 3855 which I'd put Linux on five years ago so I at least had some practice with WinMo... but I was at least 5 years "rusty" or more. I received the phone during a day when I was going out to dinner with my family that night. My wife bought the phone down to me as we met at the restaurant. No sooner had I got my paws on it than I had opened the box, flipped the SIM from my existing phone and played with it while we waited for a table.
By the time we sat down for dinner (about a 30 minute wait or thereabouts; it was a Friday at a seafood restaurant in a Catholic town... go figure) I had already become comfortable with the advertised features, sent at least two text messages, set up my IMAP account to receive my mail and made a phone call. 30 minutes... OK... I played with it for a further hour or so after I got out of the restaurant, but I already had the basic functions down. I just played with it because it was a new toy.
The key thing is that afterward, I installed applications to *augment the functionality*, something you really can't do with the iPhone. No, the web apps don't count; I can use web apps on my HTC TyTN and do so often (gmail, yahoo mail, google calendar etc.), and it's a much more pleasurable experience on 3G than it would be on EDGE. Plus, I use Opera... I have a choice in browsers.
I admit, I went by my local Apple store yesterday and played with the iPhone. While I admit that the interface is slick, it's just not that impressive. I like it, I really do... but in the 15 minutes I played with it before I had to get moving (I had a party to go to last night) I navigated around, surfed some web sites on WiFi, played some tunes... all OK... but this is all stuff I can do with my TyTN... even the WiFi thing. The interface is "shiny", but lacks flexibility. I can't change the interface to fit my work flow; something I can easily do with third party apps on my TyTN. The core functions of my TyTN remain the same, but the interface is more consistent with the iGTD type workflow model; something I use to be efficient with my tools. Maybe it's not for everyone, and yes my friends who've played with it often find themselves wondering how I have it set up... but it fits my workflow and does exactly what I need it to do. And the core functions despite iPhone fans screams are never more than a single button push away because I have real physical buttons on the device. There's an email button, an Internet button and a call/hang up button. These are the core functions and they are quicker for me with the TyTN because I don't have to power on, press the menu button then tap the mail icon on the screen. Doesn't matter where I am in the TyTN's interface, if I want mail I hit the mail button. OK... I have to hit the power button as well, but that's 2/3 of the steps the iPhone requires. How's that an improvement?
I've said for some time the iPhone's not targeted at me. After playing with one, I have to say it just reinforced that idea for me. My wife might like one (she has a Motorola SLVR that she likes, but it frustrates her sometimes)... but the iPhone costs 5 times what her SLVR cost me, and at least with her SLVR she can switch out cards for theoretically unlimited MP3 storage (though recently I gave her an iPod Nano for music... better interface)
I'm not an EE guru, but it seems to me the reason for discreet chips in a lot of these devices actually serves several purposes.
Firstly, data speeds between chips might not match; something that's a lot easier to engineer into discreet chips than a single chip with everything on board.
Secondly, it gives the manufacturer the freedom to switch out components at will. If you dismantle anything from a large embedded device manufacturer, you might find that a single "generation" of a product might go through several iterations of chips simply because the manufacturer was able to source chips from different chip manufacturers for better prices.
Hell, I know I've seen a number of devices of supposedly the same generation that have had four or five iterations of motherboard and probably more of the chips themselves. Don't kid yourself; manufacturers of these devices are all about maximizing profits, and they do that by keeping their product lines "nimble"
Third, and as an aside to the second point; fabbing a custom chip is expensive, in time, resources and cost. Most manufacturers will use off the shelf components where possible so that they can keep the costs down. Custom chips tend to be fabbed only where off the shelf solutions don't exist or fail to meet some other engineering goal. The custom chips shown in the iPhone are a prime example of this. Although we don't know for sure what's inside that ARM package (the part numbers seem incongruous), we can guess that they did combine multiple discreet components into that chip package. In the case of the iPhone this was probably done to meet the packaging requirements of the entire device; i.e. Apple wanted a slim and compact device and discreet chips may have taken more space than the engineering team wanted.
However, the fact that there are several off the shelf chips on the board as well tells me that they were balancing cost and engineering requirements... this almost certainly took a lot of time and it's a nicely engineered solution. I look forward to version 2... which is when I might consider buying one (sorry, tethering and 3G are a big deal for me as I use them daily).
Re:Biased, iPhone not ready for enterprise use
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The Perfect Phone Storm?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Good to see you again, Daniel:) We've communicated by email a few times, and I'm still a reader of your site.
I think the reason the iPhone elicits such varied opinions is because it *is* so divisive. There are those who look at the cellphone market today, and the devices that are available and really think the iPhone will save them from the doldrums of the currently available solutions. To a certain extent, this is really true. However, there are many people for whom the iPhone will not be an option. Generally these are the people who use the phone as a tool rather than as a phone / Internet device. There is also a subset of this second group who see the iPhone as a really missed opportunity. They are generally Apple users currently (or plan to be in the future), and see the iPhone for what it's really capable of on a technical level. They love everything about the iPhone but just see all the things they want to do with the hardware/OS and are frustrated with the limitations being imposed upon them. I have to admit that I'm sort of in this last group.
My personal feeling is that yes, the iPhone is incredibly better than any other phone out there. Note, I said phone. When it comes to devices like the SLVR, RAZR, the Verizon and Sprint phones... the iPhone will beat the crap out of any of those. I know, I've used a lot of them and I think that the iPhone will be a perfect opportunity to really change the game in that market. The price point *looks* high, but given the rumors of the $175 early contract termination standard with the iPhone, this is the price without being subsidized (as Steve Jobs alluded to many times). This makes it a perfectly reasonable price in my opinion because that's what these things cost. To buy a phone unsubsidized will START at $300 for the crappiest phone on the market. They can top the iPhone price in a hurry. I am more accustomed to this because I've bought my phones retail for years. I like my phones unlocked so I can slip in a "pay as you go" SIM card while I'm out of the country.
However, in the smartphone market the iPhone will have a tougher time. Generally those who use smartphones are either geeks (who like to develop and/or install third party apps to their devices), or executives who have a particular need (push email from Exchange for example). For these people, the iPhone will not work. Unless Yahoo! / Apple opens up their push IMAP spec and people get on the job of developing conduits for Exchange and Sendmail (or other UNIX email) systems then they're not going to look at the iPhone. Now, granted that's not who the iPhone is targeted at, either. At least, not yet.
For me, the iPhone is becoming a wait and see game. I'm glad to see it; I think it's going to shake things up in the low end and "standard phone" market quite a bit, and it's going to change people's opinions about what a phone can be. For Smartphones, though I think that's going to take more time, several software (and maybe hardware) updates before it becomes a contender... but become a contender it will. I personally will wait. I have a WinMo device today that suits my needs perfectly. Most of the apps I run on it are third party, and I don't know if I could survive on an EDGE network any more after having a taste of 3G (which is how I'm posting this, by the way). Also, the lack of real, physical tactile keys are a problem to me since I've become accustomed also to typing lengthy emails and postings to Slashdot on an HTC TyTN. It's not perfect... and there are things the iPhone does that I look at and think I'd really like. However, the limits imposed upon me with an iPhone would be untenable to me and I don't think I'm alone.
Note I also don't believe that the limits imposed on this first-gen iPhone will last forever, either. Apple has always been an extremely developer-friendly company and I don't see why that will change. Sooner or later I do believe they'll open up the iPhone to devs, and they'll open up the "networks" to be more flexible (though that may come down to contracts with AT&T). Until they do, the iPhone's not for me... but I do see how it can be for others. Perhaps my wife will like one...
Not being a supporter of Cingular/AT&T (even though I'm a customer), but it could've been the phone rather than the towers. You mentioned a fashionable phone; if this was the RAZR (the last real "Halo" phone I can recall in recent memory) then it's renowned for having one of the crappiest antennae ever installed in a cellphone. Especially with the version 1 you were really lucky if you got a signal at all most of the time.
I had a RAZR for a while. It also had no signal at home or at work for me... I got rid of it and bought an MPx220 which got great signal at both locations. Now I have an HTC TyTN which blows both of them out of the water in terms of coverage.
Point is, its not ALWAYS the network, sometimes it's the phone.
Sorry, not true. The Blackberry actually has a number of third party applications (Java based) that can be installed. Also, it comes with several pre-installed (at least, mine did).
The thing that made the Blackberry king for a while was the fact that it had *one killer application* that for a while no-one replicated. However, better tools are available, and the Blackberry is becoming passe. Even where I work we're in the process of switching out the Blackberries our management uses for Motorola Q's (and similar devices). Quite simply, the killer functionality of Blackberry is now available in Windows Mobile and has been for a while.
I will agree there is a dearth of third party apps for the Blackberry, but there IS a published API and there are third party apps available. Ever notice that most people who carry Blackberries usually carry one or more other devices? That's because the functionality sucks on the Blackberry, but that one killer app (push email) propped them up for a long time.
The only problem (and I stress ONLY problem) with the Neo1973 from my perspective, is that it's HUGE! I mean, it's larger than my TyTN, and to-date that's the largest phone I've ever owned. My TyTN also has a REAL keyboard built in, and although it doesn't run Linux yet there are people working on that:)
Seriously though, I love the OpenMoko conceptually... I am a firm believer that this sort of project is how the future of smart phones is going to go and I really want to be able to justify one. However, if I can't keep it on my belt when I'm driving (I can wear my TyTN but not my work mandated Blackberry in the car) then it becomes less useful to me. I usually have my sound system cranked in my car when I'm driving... my sound system is probably worth about half what my car's worth (and I listen mostly to classical... go figure) so hearing a ringer from my center console is impossible. I want to be able to feel when I'm getting a call so I can mute my sound system and click the button on my Bluetooth headset.
The Neo1973 is not a thick phone; the TyTN's definitely a little thicker, but in terms of height and breadth the Neo1973 is more like iPaq 3855 size. I carried one of them for years as well, so that's the closest size analog I can come up with and I never could wear that and a seatbelt comfortably.
Which is precisely why I'm not buying one... plus that whole third party application thing.
I have an HTC TyTN... which while not perfect is HSDPA and UMTS compatible. Hell, I use my HSDPA connection almost daily to connect my personal laptop up to the Internet while I'm at work (at lunch, thank you very much) instead of lugging my laptop to Panera. It works, and works well. Plus, having the ability to connect up and look up anything I like *even on a graphics heavy page* without waiting for an EDGE connection is worth its weight in gold to me... particularly since I spent the last two years or so with an EDGE device that was great, but SLOW!
Wake me when the iPhone 2 comes out with TRUE third party app support (not the web application crap) and HSDPA support. Until then, I think I'll stick with devices I know work and do what I want, today.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, usually you would, but if you're a hardcore UNIX hacker on a Mac you can bring up a Terminal, type "umount /Volumes/SIM_Card" and then try to extract it with a pair of needle-nose pliers. ;)
It's called ejecting the SIM. It's got a simpler interface than even OSX; an eject button.
Me personally I'll gladly pay for this service. If you want something for free, then you can't expect it to always be free. If you want service, then be willing to pay for it even if you don't currently. There are exceptions, but generally this philosophy has served me well and stopped me getting up tight about things.
Bear in mind also that the money that this service brings in is going to be used to continue to improve MythTV. It's also going to allow commercial MythTV boxes; something that was absolutely disallowed by the terms of service for Zap2it Labs listing services and was probably the reason that the listings got yanked!
Sure, it may not work and this endeavour may be flawed and doomed to failure; but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I like what they're trying to do, and I think the rate is reasonable. I'm willing to pay for things I find valuable.
If this idea fails, then I'll switch to the PVR box from my cable provider and trash my Myth box. It'll be a shame, but I'm willing to pay for a service I use (namely the PVR functionality). I'd rather pay it to OSS advocates and support a product I've been using for years and found to be a really usable product (MythTV), but if I have to support commercial ventures in order to get what I want then I will (the cable PVR).
Yeah, this is America. What rights we used to have the government is busy taking away.
I bought my wife an Acer laptop about a year ago. A month out of its warranty, and the motherboard failed. A search on Google turned up multitudes of people with the exact same problem (no video, so the system doesn't even complete POST). To say I was very disappointed would be an understatement.
I guess you get what you pay for with them...
I will never buy Acer again.
That title sounds like an Elvish porno... or at least the sequel...
It's them weird, funky windows that gets people.
:D
Spoken like someone who drives one daily, and has "svx" in his nick
OK, I'll concede you're probably correct in some instances. However, I don't know if you're dealing with virtualizing Windows servers or something else. Typically, Windows servers without a good systems management infrastructure will tend to increase the workload (patching, maintenance, troubleshooting bluescreens and so forth)... so the server propagation in our environment has caused an increase in administrators as well. I'm spearheading a project to improve our management infrastructure at the moment, so I'm hoping that will resolve this transitory problem that for some reason my management didn't seem to factor into the virtualization strategy. Hmm... I wonder if they'd maybe LISTENED to me and done the management infrastructure first, things might be better? :D
:)
:)
I think if you've got good server management, then you're right; more servers might not need more administrators (though I'd say a 15% increase in servers in the virtual space might need roughly the same number of ops staff), but not having that server management in place first then going "gung ho" into VM's is just a recipe for pain. I know... I'm there through no fault of my own
However, I do see your point. VM's remove the necessity for hardware admins. Hardware guys then need to be VM host guys... which creates a different kind of Administrator that's usually a hybrid of a UNIX and Windows admin to deal with both platforms. Your Windows admins... well since they no longer have to deal with hardware they can be more focused on improving and administering the OS and software. It's just a matter of re-targeting
Well, yes and no.
As I keep telling people when I work with virtualization, it does not necessarily lead to server consolidation in the logical sense (as in instances of servers), rather it tends to lead to server propogation. This is probably expected; generally I/O will be lower for a virtual machine than for a physical machine, thus requiring the addition of another node for load balancing in certain circumstances. However, this is not always the case.
Virtualization DOES help lead to BOX consolidation; as in it helps reduce the physical server footprint in a datacenter.
Let me give you my viewpoint on this; generally virtualization is leveraged as a tool to consolidate old servers to bigger physical boxes. Generally, these old servers (out of warranty, breaking/dying and so on) have lower I/O requirements anyway so often see a speed boost going to the new hardware... or at the very least performance remains consistent. However, where new applications are being put on virtual platforms, quite often the requirements of the application cause propogation of servers because of the I/O constraints. This is generally a good thing as it does encourage the developers to write "enterprise ready" applications that can be load balanced instead of focusing on stand-alone boxes with loads of I/O or CPU requirements. This is good for people like me as it provides a layer of redundancy and scalability that otherwise wouldn't be there.
However, the inevitable cost of this is management. While you reduce physical footprint, there are more server instances to manage, thus you need a larger staff to manage your server infrastructure... not to mention the specialized staff managing the virtual environment itself. This is not in itself a bad thing, and generally might lead to better management tools, too... but this is something that needs to be considered in any virtualization strategy.
Generally in a Wintel shop, more newer applications get implemented in most companies these days. This is particularly true since most older applications have been or need to be upgraded to support newer operating systems (2003 and the upcoming 2008). This means that the net effect of all I've mentioned is an increase in server instances even while the footprint decreases.
"Containerization" (yuck!) is not new by the way. This is just someone's way of trying to "own" application isolation and sandboxing. People have done that for years, but I definitely see more of it now that throwing up a new virtual machine is seen as a much lower "cost" than throwing up a new physical box. The reality of this is that virtualization is VERY good for companies like Microsoft who sell based on the instances of servers. It doesn't matter if it's VMWare or some other solution; licensing becomes a cash cow rapidly in a virtualized environment.
Where I work we've seen about a 15% net server propogation in the process of migrating systems so far. Generally, low-load stuff like web servers virtualize very well, while I/O intensive stuff like SQL does not. However, a load-balanced cluster pair of virtual machines on different hardware running SQL can outperform SQL running on the same host hardware as a single intstance... this means that architecture changes are required, and more software licenses are needed, but the side effect is a more redundant, reliable and scalable infrastructure... and this is definitely a good thing.
I am a big believer in virtualization; it's somewhat harking back to the mainframe days, but this isn't a bad thing either. The hardware vendors are starting to pump out some truly kick-ass "iron" that can support the massive I/O that VM's need to be truly "enterprise ready". I am happy to say that I've been on the leading edge of this for several years, and I plan to stay on it.
And I wonder how many gamers upgraded their 3.3Ghz CPU's to 3.6Ghz... and still only got less of an upgrade than that. 12% can be significant... actually the efficiencies allowed by the architecture in the ST meant that the 12% CPU speed increase actually translated to code that was significantly faster (depending on the type of code).
:) You're talking to the wrong person about compiled languages; I wrote everything on the Amiga and ST in straight 68000. We also had CP/M for the die-hards.
We had Devpac. We didn't believe in abstracted languages
UNIX wasn't that useful to the average joe back then. Even today, the Mac is a UNIX system that the average user doesn't use. Besides, in 1988 the Amiga arrived on UK shores... by 1991 I was running an early Linux kernel on a 386... who needed ported UNIX commands on an Amiga by then?
The STFM wasn't really much better than the Amiga... except that it (a) came first, (b) was cheaper, (c) had MIDI ports, (d) had a faster CPU and (e) had an high-res mono mode which made desktop publishing a reality without having to spend money on a Macintosh. From a productivity perspective it WAS better. And though few complained about it at the time, the Amiga 500's keyboard sucked just as bad as the Atari's. OK, maybe not quite that much... but they both sucked.
The Amiga 1200... well understand this was a much later model. In order to be fair you'd have to put it up against the STe. The gap between these two is pretty narrow, and the advantages to be honest were about the same. The sound chip in the Atari still sucked, but the graphics were comparable at that point, though the 1200 did raise the bar. Bear in mind though that the 1200 came after the STe as well; it improved upon things in the same way the 500 had improved on the 1000, but at least had the market opportunity to leapfrog the competition.
Actually, TOS was a damned nice OS for its time. It competed primarily with Mac OS, not with Amiga OS. Amiga OS was better for different reasons, but it still remained that just like the ST most applications that really used the hardware (games) tended to throw the OS out the window.
From a programming perspective, I have to say I preferred programming on the ST. The unified memory model was a thing of beauty; the MMU made accessing the hardware an absolute cinch that reduced in-code latency. Programming for the Amiga was similar, but didn't quite have the simplicity of structure allowed by a dedicated chip for memory management that was easily accessible. The Amiga with its custom chips actually ended up adding a layer of complexity that just didn't exist on the ST... though you could get much nicer results with the Amiga, most "simple" programming tasks were more complex. In the end, the ST did lose out in "coolness" to the Amiga because it just couldn't compete when the hardware was being pushed... but yes, the Amiga did suffer from the fact that many of the games were ST ports with soundtracker music tacked on.
Better? Like anything it depends. Both had their strengths and weaknesses as a platform, but neither could compete with the PC when the chips were down. Neither had the upgradeability that the PC had, and neither was really "state of the art" any more. To be honest, had the Falcon been better marketed and had better expansion capabilities, it would have really been a force to be reckoned with. However, it was still hobbled with ST legacy hardware and that 16 bit external bus... that at a time when 32-bit platforms were beginning to become affordable (386DX and 486 platforms appeared around that time).
Hope that helps clarify... I was an Amiga owner as well as an ST owner. I loved them both for different reasons, but maintain that if I worked on one of these two commercially it would have been the ST simply because I admired its engineering.
Well, for all those slamming this article as a bunch of crap, bear in mind that this IS from a UK perspective where the 80's and 90's technological marketplaces were quite different from the US. These days, pretty much a wash except that the UK is still far ahead of the US in terms of cellphone tech.
:) The iPod would've killed it if it weren't already dead :D
Anyway, as an ex-pat myself I can say the following;
Laserdisc
Yes, it WAS a good format. Yes, it was a good technology. Yes, it was way too expensive. I think I knew one person with an LD player, and while the quality was really nice it was really not worth the incredible price premium for most users. There was also the fact that at the time, there was a certain "leeriness" about the scratch resistance of the discs themselves; remember this was a time when LP's and cassettes were the formats for music, way before CD's.
8 Track
Well, this is a subjective thing but the sound WAS better from 8-track than from a regular cassette. Well, dolby noise reduction reduced that advantage. Plus, the non-linear format of the tapes was both its saving grace and a factor in its downfall. How many 8-track tapes cut in the middle of a song to flip to the next track and continue playing?
HD Audio
I've got three letters for you; DRM. Yup, a great idea hobbled by DRM that rendered discs almost unusable. The record companies still haven't learned the lesson from that format failure. Personally, I loved it... and the quality was incredible.
Mini Disc
See HD Audio
BeOS
Good and powerful OS, hobbled by lack of developer support, lousy negotiation skills of the marketing folks and a general feeling from the company that "... we'll succeed because we're better, we don't need to sell it..." A bad attitude to have when your competition is Windows and Mac OS, or the increasingly (at the time) nimble Linux. I'd say Linux had a much bigger hand in BeOS' downfall than the article gives credit for; by the time BeOS was commercially viable, Linux already had many of its advantages with the EXTRA advantage that it was free. Plus, computer power accelerated quickly during the same period which reduced the advantages in media with a new paradigm; let's throw more power and money at the problem. Ironically, this actually worked. Oh, and the fact that initially it was only available for PowerPC was a problem; by the time the Intel version appeared the advantages had all but vanished.
Atari ST
It WAS a better computer, but it wasn't a better game machine. It was also more successful in the UK due to the fact it was significantly cheaper than the Amiga. Hell, an affordable Amiga didn't really appear on that side of the pond until late 1988, by which time the low end ST was already in its second iteration (the 520STFM) and incredibly successful. The Amiga 500 was still 100 pounds more expensive at best (and you could get package deals on the ST). Plus, since most of the games developed for the platforms seemed to be coming out of Europe (at least from my perspective), the fact that the ST was more successful meant that most of the games got released on that platform first.
Bear in mind; the CPU was faster, the operating system and desktop were in ROM and the addition of MIDI ports was an inspired move on Atari's part that got the interest of the music crowd. Plus, add in the beautiful high-res mono screen for desktop publishing and you had a winner.
Now, that's not saying the Atari was perfect. The keyboard sucked, and the early ST's being hobbled with single-sided drive was a stigma the Atari had throughout its life because everything was written with single-sided disks in mind. Now, there were some fancy formats that meant that single-sided users could use the disk but it contained extra stuff for double-sided users (as I recall Starglider did this) but it remains that everyone always tried to write to the lowest common denominator... and that hurt
1. Cost.
:)
:P. Let me introduce you to Firewire and USB... they're very handy for this sort of thing. I myself have my Macbook Pro with a 100Gb drive... and my 50Gb iTunes Library isn't on it. My library is on my external hard drive I have at home, and I consolidate periodically when I add stuff to my Macbook. The only time I really use it is when I accidentally or deliberately wipe out my iPod and need to re-sync it. I keep the stuff on my laptop I need
OK, maybe in a raw numbers comparison this might be accurate. However, most consumers don't know and don't care about raw numbers comparisons any more. Most consumers I deal with are at least smart enough to realize that for the majority of what they do, every new PC on the market today will do the job sufficiently well. It then comes down to a matter of personal taste.
If, however you look at "enough of a machine for a particular task", then the cost differential vanishes. Hell, I saw a NEW notebook at Best Buy (not the cheapest place in the world) for $349 the other day without rebates. The specs weren't that impressive, but for the average Joe who wants to use their computer instead of play games on it, that machine was more than capable enough and added the benefit of portability.
Oh, and in your cost argument, are you also including the cost of the monitor? Not everyone has a stock of flat panels lying around at home waiting to be used.
2. Upgrades
So what changes? I see more usable PC's that are 2-3 years old on trash day in my neighborhood than at any other time. This is because they're sitting out by the trash cans waiting to be hauled away. Most people don't upgrade a thing... the "power user" might upgrade memory once... but for a $300-$500 investment, most people consider the PC to be a disposable tool.
3. Vendor Lock In
Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to upgrade most Dell/HP/Toshiba desktops recently!
4. Heat
See my comment about cost and upgrades. The average consumer doesn't care, only the die-hard desktop users (and gamers, who are de-factor die-hard desktop users) really care. Every laptop or desktop out there is more powerful than the average user needs... it's been that way for years. If it does the job, few people care if it will do it in 1 second or 1.5 seconds. As a result, the average consumer doesn't want or care about the latest and greatest, typically they just want to email mum, or watch YouTube videos, or balance a checkbook. They don't care about the latest FPS title and aren't going to be re-encoding their DVD collection into AVI's.
5. Displays
Ah, but you sit closer to a laptop display by default. As a result, it doesn't need to be huge. The only people who really need huge displays are graphic artists and their ilk... who can use a laptop with an external display.
In my job I deal with graphic artists all the time. They do their actual work in very specific environments; relatively closed off rooms with darkened lighting and huge high-quality displays. This is so they can be less distracted by stuff around them and get on with the job at hand. However, more often than not these days they use high-end notebooks (Macbook Pros are becoming extremely common) with an external display for their work, then have it open with email open on the smaller laptop screen.
More often than not, when these people leave the office with their laptop, they're not interested in doing their work because they don't have their environment. They want to be able to answer email, surf the web, maybe do some of the "paperwork" involved in their jobs... but rarely do they try to do graphic stuff on a laptop screen... but they also have no desire to because they're not in "their zone" with the correct environment to work in. Oh, and more often than not their huge files they work on are either on external non-portable hard drives, or on a server... thus these huge graphic files are left at the office.
5(a) Space.
Yeah, I know this was supposed to be 6
Yes, you're a die-hard desktop user. By definition... in fact the reasons you cite make you one.
The average computer user is not a gamer. The average computer user does not give a monkeys about being able to upgrade anything. The average computer user buys a new PC instead of upgrading anything, usually on a 2 year (Windows) or 4 year (Mac) cycle. This is in my own personal experience dealing with desktop PC's all the time.
The point of TFA was that we're at a point where the functional and cost differential between a desktop and laptop PC is marginal. Most people would pay an extra $50-$100 for portability even if their laptop never leaves the house. At least with a laptop you can work in the family room, dining room table, study, bedroom... hell you can read Slashdot in the crapper. *Ahem*, yeah.... never done that before...
Ah, but if you're "Joe/Jane Average User", then (a) you're not going to know the difference between a CPU and a GPU, and (b) you're going to actually add one "value point" to your buying decision when you realize you have the OPTION to move it around.
... I think you're getting the picture. I used to be a firm believer that I would never give up my desktop PC because of the loss of flexibility. However, the reality is that as I got older and had a family, I found that my needs and desires with a computer changed. I was no longer building kick-ass state of the art rigs to play the latest games; I was much more interested in getting specific tasks done like email, documents, invoicing for my business and so forth. Games became a far secondary experience for me, and in fact the games I keep on my laptop these days are generally of the "pick up, play for 15 minutes and put down" variety; remakes of arcade games, simple puzzles. I rarely have time to get deep into a real-time strategy.
I have recently started moving my family to laptops instead of desktops. Of course, I went portable first because it was much more useful for my own business than a desktop. Plus, I was tired of using a work-supplied laptop for my own side-business and at least partly intended to go into business for myself. That didn't end up happening, but I still cart my Macbook Pro around covering many thousands of miles per year with that laptop in tow.
My wife followed. Her laptop rarely leaves the house, and in fact didn't leave the house at all for the first six months she owned it. I think it took a while for it to dawn on her that she could take her laptop to a coffee shop and work, or take it with her when she's doing photography to download pictures and empty the card. More recently, said laptop travels around a lot more.
My kids also now have a laptop which never leaves the house. However, it's nice to be able to sit them where we can keep an eye on them while they work on a school project or homework that's simplified by the laptop. My wife and I can be relaxing in the family room while my daughter sits at the dining room table with the laptop... or if she want to do her personal email she can carry it into her room.
Then my father-in-law bought a laptop...
If you start using laptops, you'll find that there are uses you wouldn't consider if you're a desktop-only user today. You'll find flexibility and portability. If you're a gamer, then no, few laptops will meet your needs or flexibility... but remember that "Joe/Jane Average User" is not a gamer.
And before the fanbois jump all over me, when I say they probably never will note that I'm referring to rumors posted on Fanboi sites. I could be wrong, and I hope I am... but to be honest I wouldn't WANT to tether my laptop through EDGE even if I could. I've done it with my TyTN and it was truly a painful experience. ISDN speed with Satellite latency.
But AT&T *does* go for that. I'm posting this on my Macbook Pro, tethered through my HTC TyTN on AT&T/Cingular's network (3G is cool!) through Bluetooth (cables are for losers! :) ). It's Apple who doesn't want to go for that... they don't allow that with the iPhone, and it seems unlikely they ever will.
As much as I want to say that AT&T suck in many respects, they're not the only bad guy in this partnership.
You should've said YMMV.
I upgraded my phone to an HTC TyTN about 8 months ago. Now, for the record I owned an old iPaq 3855 which I'd put Linux on five years ago so I at least had some practice with WinMo... but I was at least 5 years "rusty" or more. I received the phone during a day when I was going out to dinner with my family that night. My wife bought the phone down to me as we met at the restaurant. No sooner had I got my paws on it than I had opened the box, flipped the SIM from my existing phone and played with it while we waited for a table.
By the time we sat down for dinner (about a 30 minute wait or thereabouts; it was a Friday at a seafood restaurant in a Catholic town... go figure) I had already become comfortable with the advertised features, sent at least two text messages, set up my IMAP account to receive my mail and made a phone call. 30 minutes... OK... I played with it for a further hour or so after I got out of the restaurant, but I already had the basic functions down. I just played with it because it was a new toy.
The key thing is that afterward, I installed applications to *augment the functionality*, something you really can't do with the iPhone. No, the web apps don't count; I can use web apps on my HTC TyTN and do so often (gmail, yahoo mail, google calendar etc.), and it's a much more pleasurable experience on 3G than it would be on EDGE. Plus, I use Opera... I have a choice in browsers.
I admit, I went by my local Apple store yesterday and played with the iPhone. While I admit that the interface is slick, it's just not that impressive. I like it, I really do... but in the 15 minutes I played with it before I had to get moving (I had a party to go to last night) I navigated around, surfed some web sites on WiFi, played some tunes... all OK... but this is all stuff I can do with my TyTN... even the WiFi thing. The interface is "shiny", but lacks flexibility. I can't change the interface to fit my work flow; something I can easily do with third party apps on my TyTN. The core functions of my TyTN remain the same, but the interface is more consistent with the iGTD type workflow model; something I use to be efficient with my tools. Maybe it's not for everyone, and yes my friends who've played with it often find themselves wondering how I have it set up... but it fits my workflow and does exactly what I need it to do. And the core functions despite iPhone fans screams are never more than a single button push away because I have real physical buttons on the device. There's an email button, an Internet button and a call/hang up button. These are the core functions and they are quicker for me with the TyTN because I don't have to power on, press the menu button then tap the mail icon on the screen. Doesn't matter where I am in the TyTN's interface, if I want mail I hit the mail button. OK... I have to hit the power button as well, but that's 2/3 of the steps the iPhone requires. How's that an improvement?
I've said for some time the iPhone's not targeted at me. After playing with one, I have to say it just reinforced that idea for me. My wife might like one (she has a Motorola SLVR that she likes, but it frustrates her sometimes)... but the iPhone costs 5 times what her SLVR cost me, and at least with her SLVR she can switch out cards for theoretically unlimited MP3 storage (though recently I gave her an iPod Nano for music... better interface)
LOL... yeah, I noticed it after I hit submit :) I was just typing faster than my brain was keeping up this morning.
Must drink more coffee before posting...
I'm not an EE guru, but it seems to me the reason for discreet chips in a lot of these devices actually serves several purposes.
Firstly, data speeds between chips might not match; something that's a lot easier to engineer into discreet chips than a single chip with everything on board.
Secondly, it gives the manufacturer the freedom to switch out components at will. If you dismantle anything from a large embedded device manufacturer, you might find that a single "generation" of a product might go through several iterations of chips simply because the manufacturer was able to source chips from different chip manufacturers for better prices.
Hell, I know I've seen a number of devices of supposedly the same generation that have had four or five iterations of motherboard and probably more of the chips themselves. Don't kid yourself; manufacturers of these devices are all about maximizing profits, and they do that by keeping their product lines "nimble"
Third, and as an aside to the second point; fabbing a custom chip is expensive, in time, resources and cost. Most manufacturers will use off the shelf components where possible so that they can keep the costs down. Custom chips tend to be fabbed only where off the shelf solutions don't exist or fail to meet some other engineering goal. The custom chips shown in the iPhone are a prime example of this. Although we don't know for sure what's inside that ARM package (the part numbers seem incongruous), we can guess that they did combine multiple discreet components into that chip package. In the case of the iPhone this was probably done to meet the packaging requirements of the entire device; i.e. Apple wanted a slim and compact device and discreet chips may have taken more space than the engineering team wanted.
However, the fact that there are several off the shelf chips on the board as well tells me that they were balancing cost and engineering requirements... this almost certainly took a lot of time and it's a nicely engineered solution. I look forward to version 2... which is when I might consider buying one (sorry, tethering and 3G are a big deal for me as I use them daily).
Good to see you again, Daniel :) We've communicated by email a few times, and I'm still a reader of your site.
I think the reason the iPhone elicits such varied opinions is because it *is* so divisive. There are those who look at the cellphone market today, and the devices that are available and really think the iPhone will save them from the doldrums of the currently available solutions. To a certain extent, this is really true. However, there are many people for whom the iPhone will not be an option. Generally these are the people who use the phone as a tool rather than as a phone / Internet device. There is also a subset of this second group who see the iPhone as a really missed opportunity. They are generally Apple users currently (or plan to be in the future), and see the iPhone for what it's really capable of on a technical level. They love everything about the iPhone but just see all the things they want to do with the hardware/OS and are frustrated with the limitations being imposed upon them. I have to admit that I'm sort of in this last group.
My personal feeling is that yes, the iPhone is incredibly better than any other phone out there. Note, I said phone. When it comes to devices like the SLVR, RAZR, the Verizon and Sprint phones... the iPhone will beat the crap out of any of those. I know, I've used a lot of them and I think that the iPhone will be a perfect opportunity to really change the game in that market. The price point *looks* high, but given the rumors of the $175 early contract termination standard with the iPhone, this is the price without being subsidized (as Steve Jobs alluded to many times). This makes it a perfectly reasonable price in my opinion because that's what these things cost. To buy a phone unsubsidized will START at $300 for the crappiest phone on the market. They can top the iPhone price in a hurry. I am more accustomed to this because I've bought my phones retail for years. I like my phones unlocked so I can slip in a "pay as you go" SIM card while I'm out of the country.
However, in the smartphone market the iPhone will have a tougher time. Generally those who use smartphones are either geeks (who like to develop and/or install third party apps to their devices), or executives who have a particular need (push email from Exchange for example). For these people, the iPhone will not work. Unless Yahoo! / Apple opens up their push IMAP spec and people get on the job of developing conduits for Exchange and Sendmail (or other UNIX email) systems then they're not going to look at the iPhone. Now, granted that's not who the iPhone is targeted at, either. At least, not yet.
For me, the iPhone is becoming a wait and see game. I'm glad to see it; I think it's going to shake things up in the low end and "standard phone" market quite a bit, and it's going to change people's opinions about what a phone can be. For Smartphones, though I think that's going to take more time, several software (and maybe hardware) updates before it becomes a contender... but become a contender it will. I personally will wait. I have a WinMo device today that suits my needs perfectly. Most of the apps I run on it are third party, and I don't know if I could survive on an EDGE network any more after having a taste of 3G (which is how I'm posting this, by the way). Also, the lack of real, physical tactile keys are a problem to me since I've become accustomed also to typing lengthy emails and postings to Slashdot on an HTC TyTN. It's not perfect... and there are things the iPhone does that I look at and think I'd really like. However, the limits imposed upon me with an iPhone would be untenable to me and I don't think I'm alone.
Note I also don't believe that the limits imposed on this first-gen iPhone will last forever, either. Apple has always been an extremely developer-friendly company and I don't see why that will change. Sooner or later I do believe they'll open up the iPhone to devs, and they'll open up the "networks" to be more flexible (though that may come down to contracts with AT&T). Until they do, the iPhone's not for me... but I do see how it can be for others. Perhaps my wife will like one...
Not being a supporter of Cingular/AT&T (even though I'm a customer), but it could've been the phone rather than the towers. You mentioned a fashionable phone; if this was the RAZR (the last real "Halo" phone I can recall in recent memory) then it's renowned for having one of the crappiest antennae ever installed in a cellphone. Especially with the version 1 you were really lucky if you got a signal at all most of the time.
I had a RAZR for a while. It also had no signal at home or at work for me... I got rid of it and bought an MPx220 which got great signal at both locations. Now I have an HTC TyTN which blows both of them out of the water in terms of coverage.
Point is, its not ALWAYS the network, sometimes it's the phone.
Sorry, not true. The Blackberry actually has a number of third party applications (Java based) that can be installed. Also, it comes with several pre-installed (at least, mine did).
The thing that made the Blackberry king for a while was the fact that it had *one killer application* that for a while no-one replicated. However, better tools are available, and the Blackberry is becoming passe. Even where I work we're in the process of switching out the Blackberries our management uses for Motorola Q's (and similar devices). Quite simply, the killer functionality of Blackberry is now available in Windows Mobile and has been for a while.
I will agree there is a dearth of third party apps for the Blackberry, but there IS a published API and there are third party apps available. Ever notice that most people who carry Blackberries usually carry one or more other devices? That's because the functionality sucks on the Blackberry, but that one killer app (push email) propped them up for a long time.
The only problem (and I stress ONLY problem) with the Neo1973 from my perspective, is that it's HUGE! I mean, it's larger than my TyTN, and to-date that's the largest phone I've ever owned. My TyTN also has a REAL keyboard built in, and although it doesn't run Linux yet there are people working on that :)
Seriously though, I love the OpenMoko conceptually... I am a firm believer that this sort of project is how the future of smart phones is going to go and I really want to be able to justify one. However, if I can't keep it on my belt when I'm driving (I can wear my TyTN but not my work mandated Blackberry in the car) then it becomes less useful to me. I usually have my sound system cranked in my car when I'm driving... my sound system is probably worth about half what my car's worth (and I listen mostly to classical... go figure) so hearing a ringer from my center console is impossible. I want to be able to feel when I'm getting a call so I can mute my sound system and click the button on my Bluetooth headset.
The Neo1973 is not a thick phone; the TyTN's definitely a little thicker, but in terms of height and breadth the Neo1973 is more like iPaq 3855 size. I carried one of them for years as well, so that's the closest size analog I can come up with and I never could wear that and a seatbelt comfortably.
Which is precisely why I'm not buying one... plus that whole third party application thing.
I have an HTC TyTN... which while not perfect is HSDPA and UMTS compatible. Hell, I use my HSDPA connection almost daily to connect my personal laptop up to the Internet while I'm at work (at lunch, thank you very much) instead of lugging my laptop to Panera. It works, and works well. Plus, having the ability to connect up and look up anything I like *even on a graphics heavy page* without waiting for an EDGE connection is worth its weight in gold to me... particularly since I spent the last two years or so with an EDGE device that was great, but SLOW!
Wake me when the iPhone 2 comes out with TRUE third party app support (not the web application crap) and HSDPA support. Until then, I think I'll stick with devices I know work and do what I want, today.